US Army Captain Charles Ridgley

US Army Captain Charles E. Ridgley Jr., aged 40, from Baltimore, Maryland, died on 16th April 2011 at Forward Operating Base Gamberi, in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, along with four colleagues. An Afghan National Army soldier threw grenades at the group in a suicide attack.

Capt. Ridgley was assigned to the 17th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska.

He had two weeks left to serve in Afghanistan.

He enlisted in the army in November 1990. He served for several years and then left, but re-enlisted.

He was commissioned a quartermaster officer in January 2007 and was assigned to Fort Richardson. While there, he earned his bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in global logistics from the University of Alaska at Anchorage. Relatives said he was working on his master's degree when he was deployed to Afghanistan about a year ago.