MARION — An Army sergeant from Indiana injured in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan that killed two other soldiers died Friday at a Texas military hospital, relatives said.
Staff Sgt. Collin J. Bowen, 38, a Marion native, was critically injured Jan. 2 in Afghanistan’s Khowst province, a troubled region on the Pakistani border. The Army reservist had been hospitalized at Brook Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, since Jan. 6.
Bowen graduated in 1988 from Marion High School. He had lived in Maryland with his wife, Ursula, their daughter and his two stepdaughters.
Bowen’s uncle, Dean Neal, said he received a call about his nephew’s death about 2 a.m. Friday. He told the Chronicle-Tribune that he was grateful he was able to visit Bowen at the Texas hospital about two weeks ago.
“Collin passed away peacefully ... with his family holding his hands at his bedside,” Bowen’s brother Justin wrote in an online journal. “May he rest in peace.”
The online journal had reported during the past two weeks that Bowen’s condition had deteriorated. He had his final of many emergency surgeries Tuesday to repair damage to abdominal tissue that had become infected.
Relatives said Bowen, who earned a Purple Heart after being wounded, had volunteered to go to Afghanistan.
His other survivors include his parents, who live in Marion, and two brothers who live in the Indianapolis area. Funeral services were pending Friday afternoon.
Two other soldiers — Lt. Col. Richard Berrettini, 52, of Wilcox, Pa., and Sgt. Shawn Hill, 37, of Wellford, S.C. — died in the Jan. 2 bombing along with an Afghani interpreter.
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On the Net:
Collin J. Bowen online journal: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/collinjbowen
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