A remembrance service is slated Wednesday evening in Norco to honor the 11 U.S. Marines and several other U.S. Armed Services members killed in a suicide bombing that occurred during the chaotic evacuation of American military personnel and civilians from Afghanistan five years ago.
The ceremony to mark the fifth anniversary of the attack is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Memorial for the Fallen 13 in the Norco Country Center, 960 Sixth St.
A frequent speaker at the annual services is Shana Chappell of Norco, who lost her son, 20-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, in the Aug. 26, 2021, bombing at the Abbey Gate fronting Kabul Airport.
Along with the Marines, a U.S. Navy corpsman and a U.S. Army soldier perished, while nearly 100 Afghan civilians were killed or injured in the blast.
Chappell, who was sharply critical of the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, lost another son, 28-year-old Dakota Halverson, to suicide in August 2022 at Pikes Peak Park, near his fallen brother’s memorial.
She said that Halverson had been overwhelmed with grief, to the point he was sleeping nights adjacent to Nikoui’s grave.
Nikoui was one of two Riverside County natives killed in the bombing. The other was 22-year-old Marine Cpl. Hunter Lopez of Indio.
The remembrance service will feature a candlelight vigil, with relatives of those lost, their friends, community supporters and members of the Southern California Patriot Guard Riders, a veterans motorcycle group that regularly participates in tributes, on hand.
The memorial features a plaque saluting Nikoui as “Our Home Town Hero.”
More information is available at Fallen13Memorial.com.