KABUL, AFGHANISTAN. (THECOUNT) — Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, of Wentzville, Missouri, has been identified as one of over a dozen soldiers killed in a Thursday suicide airport bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Mark Schmitz, the father of 20-year-old Jared Schmitz, told a radio station the marines notified his family about 2:40 a.m. about his son’s death.

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Schmitz was deployed to Afghanistan from Jordan. This was his first deployment.

Schmitz father told KMOX his son always wanted to be a soldier.

“His life meant so much more. I’m so incredibly devastated that I won’t be able to see the man that he was very quickly growing into becoming,” Mark Schmitz told the radio station.

Maxton William Soviak, of Berlin Heights, Ohio, Maxton William Soviak, of Berlin Heights, Ohio, was identified as another soldier killed in the bombing.

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Geo quick facts: Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in South-Central Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and in the far northeast, China – Wikipedia.