Shumaker, Kevin Roger

Kevin Roger Shumaker was born in Livermore, California, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area. He joined the United States Army and was trained as a signal support systems specialist, a role critical to battlefield communications. He was assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, part of the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team at Fort Drum, New York.

His unit, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in early 2011. The brigade was responsible for security operations in several provinces in eastern Afghanistan. Specialist Shumaker's service included this combat deployment.

According to official records, Shumaker died on August 31, 2011, not in Afghanistan, but in Syracuse, New York. The circumstances of his death in the United States, while serving on active duty during the war, were not detailed in widespread public reporting at the time. His death is recorded by the Department of Defense as a casualty of Operation Enduring Freedom.

He was 24 years old. Specialist Shumaker was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart. He is memorialized on the Afghanistan War Memorial at the Veterans Memorial Building in his hometown of Livermore, California.

His death occurred more than a decade after Operation Enduring Freedom began in October 2001. The conflict, which spanned multiple countries, formally concluded in December 2014, though U.S. military operations in Afghanistan continued under different names.

Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, began in 2001 and concluded in December 2014. See the full roster of those killed in this conflict.

Among those documented in the same conflict: Andrews, Evander Earl, Edmunds, Jonn Joseph, Stonesifer, Kristofor Tif, Davis, Bryant Leroy.

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