The soldier was a rising high school senior in Forest City, Pennsylvania – Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
A 17-year-old Pennsylvania National Guard soldier died this week after collapsing in the middle of physical training at the Fort Jackson military base in South Carolina.
Fort Jackson officials said young Alyssa Cahoon was transported by Army emergency medical services on Aug. 20 to a hospital after she collapsed during training.
Despite attempts to revive her, Cahoon was pronounced dead while hospitalized, according to a social media post from the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment out of Fort Jackson, and reported by The Post and Courier.
The recruit completed basic combat training at the South Carolina military base this summer. She was also enrolled in the same training battalion as her twin sister.
The basketball and volleyball rosters pinpointed Cahoon as a rising high school senior in Forest City, a city in northeastern Pennsylvania near Scranton.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the family and teammates of the deceased soldier,” said Brigadier General Patrick Michaelis, commander of Fort Jackson, adding, “We provide all comfort and assistance to everyone involved.”
The teenager’s cause of death has not yet been revealed, while the Army is still investigating.
Fort Jackson is the Army’s largest training facility. The base in Columbia aims to attract more than 48,000 combat basic trainees annually, noted Military.com, accounting for more than half of all Army recruits annually and more than 60% of female soldiers.
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- They identify a candidate for the SEAL command of the United States Navy who died after a demanding test
- British soldiers were filmed having an orgy in the barracks and were excluded from NATO deployment
- A person with a knife in his hand was killed at the entrance of a military installation in San Diego
From 2015 to 2019, the US military branches have trained more than 1 million recruits, including nearly 500,000 from the Army alone, according to a 2020 report from the U.S. Department of Defense inspector general tasked with examining recruit deaths.
The report detailed that 18 recruits died during basic training over five years, of which a dozen were Army recruits.