2 Langley Air Force officers killed in Afghanistan

NEWPORT NEWS

Two Air Force officers stationed at Joint Base Langley-Eustis are among those killed Wednesday when an Afghan pilot turned his gun on NATO troops at the Afghan Air Force compound in Kabul, the Defense Department announced Friday.

Maj. Raymond G. Estelle II, 40, of New Haven, Conn., was assigned to Air Combat Command headquarters. Capt. Charles A. Ransom, 31, of Midlothian, Va., was assigned to the 83rd Network Operations Squadron.

Ransom was a 2001 graduate of Virginia Military Institute. A computer science major, he served as class vice president and was also a cadet corporal, platoon sergeant and Rat Challenge corporal, according to the college. He had been selected for promotion to the rank of major at the time of his death.

Ransom's program at VMI was a tough one, said George Piegari, professor emeritus, who taught him two upper-level classes. "He entered it, he stuck with it and he graduated. He was a very good student. You knew he was the guy who would get his assignments done."

Ransom's classmates, who called him Charlie, liked and respected him, the professor said. "When they elect him as their vice president, that tells you the admiration of his classmates."

Piegari remembers how they'd tease Ransom about his height. "Even when he was teased by his shortness of stature he would go right along," he said.

The college released this statement:

"During a speech to the class after Breakout in 1998, Charles promised he would be a fighter for all of us. That he was. Charles continued that fight for his country as an officer in the U.S. Air Force and died serving in harm’s way on our behalf.”

Estelle bade farewell to his family just before Easter and arrived in Afghanistan the day before he was killed, according to the Air Force Times.

He was a 20-year veteran of the service and the father of a daughter and a newborn son, NBC Connecticut reported.

In his home state, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy ordered that flags be flown at half staff in Estelle's memory.

The attack happened Wednesday morning during a meeting on the first floor of the Air Force building – on the military side of Kabul’s airport, The Washington Post reported. The American advisers had gathered there as they do daily, according to Afghan officers present, when a pilot who had served for about two decades in the Afghan air force suddenly opened fire.

The attack killed eight U.S. service members, an American civilian contractor and an Afghan soldier. NATO forces killed the attacker in a gunfight, Afghan officials told The Post.