12/28/2004
Staff Sergeant Jason A. Lehto, 31, of Warren, Michigan, died December 28, 2004, in a non-hostile incident in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Lehto was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve’s Marine Wing Support Group 47, 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Mt. Clemens, Michigan.
Staff Sgt. Jason A. Lehto, 31, of Warren died Tuesday in what the Defense Department described as a non-hostile incident.
“We are very sad that he is gone,” Lehto’s sister, Angela Krug of Clinton Township, told The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens.
Lehto was assigned to the Marine Forces Reserve’s Marine Wing Support Group 47, 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, based in Macomb County’s Harrison Township. The military originally identified Lehto as being from Mount Clemens.
Lehto enlisted in the Marines after graduating from Clintondale High School in Clinton Township in 1992. He served on active duty until 1996, when he joined the reserves.
Before leaving for Iraq in August, Lehto worked as a service technician for SBC Communications in Trenton, his family said.
He was trained by the military to defuse anything from a pipe bomb to an atom bomb, said his stepfather, Chuck Walsh.
“He was an outstanding young man who loved his family,” Walsh told The Detroit News for a Thursday story. “He was gung-ho military and gung-ho American.”
The family preferred to keep the details of his death private, but Walsh called it a “total accident” during a routine mission. “Unfortunately something just went off,” he said.
Left behind are Lehto’s wife, Michele Lehto, and sons Nathan, 11, Joseph, 3, and Joshua, 2.