Army Sgt. 1st Class Sean K. Mitchell

Remember Our Heroes

Army Sgt. 1st Class Sean K. Mitchell, 35, of Monterey, Calif.

Sgt. Mitchell was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, Stuttgart, Germany; died July 7, 2007 in Kidal, Mali, of injuries sustained from a non-combat-related incident.

Local soldier dies in accident overseas
Killed in Mali when windstorm blows over tent where he was working
By KEVIN HOWE
Herald Staff Writer

Joan Mitchell holds a photograph of her son, Sgt. 1st Class Sean K. Mitchell, taken at his wedding in September. (DAVID ROYAL/The Herald)A soldier from the Monterey Peninsula was killed when high winds in northeastern Mali blew over a tent in which he was working, military officials said Tuesday.
The Pentagon said Sgt. 1st Class Sean K. Mitchell, 35, died Saturday in "a non-combat-related incident" in Kidal, Mali, and his death is under investigation.

Four other soldiers were hurt in the incident and were sent from the northwestern African nation to Germany, where they were being treated at a U.S. military hospital, said Maj. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command.

Mitchell's mother, Joan Mitchell, said her son was a 1991 graduate of Monterey High School and had been in the Army for 10 years. Joan Mitchell lives in Seaside.

She said her son was married 18 months ago and that his wife, Sonja, gave birth to a son, Cameron James Mitchell, two and a half months ago. The family lives in Stuttgart, Germany.

Kidal is a remote trading post 150 miles north of Gao, not far from where a group of 32 European hikers were seized and held for ransom by guerrillas in 2003.

The Army has special-forces teams in Mali to train the Mali army in counterterrorist operations.

Mitchell was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group based in Stuttgart. He was also part of the Special Operations Command Europe's Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership, a joint program between the departments of State and Defense.

Mitchell arrived in Kidal in June.

He was a student of Russian at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey, graduating in 2001, Army authorities said. His father, Steven Mitchell, also graduated from DLI as a Vietnamese language student.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Sean K. Mitchell died on 7/7/07.