An Orwigsburg soldier, a Green Beret serving in Afghanistan, was killed June 2, the victim of small-arms fire.

Capt. Jason Benjamin Jones, 29, had been assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina.His deployment was part of Operation Enduring Freedom, serving as commander of the 12-man Special Forces A-team known as an Operational Detachment-Alpha.The news stunned and saddened local residents, thousands of whom turned out for his return home and subsequent memorial service and funeral procession.Jones was described by those who knew him as the typical shy hero.Always with a boyish smile and impish humor, Jones graduated a lofty sixth in his 2007 class at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.In fact, his parents found out about his accomplishment only as they watched him receive his diploma.Little more than two years later, the Jones family was stunned to learn their son had been awarded a Bronze Star, a medal denoting heroic or meritorious achievement. Jones received the honor for service in Iraq.But Jones never mentioned the honor; he never pinned the medal, the fourth highest the military awards, to his dress uniform.A memorial service in Pottsville saw friends and family remember Jones as humble. Hundreds of mourners listened as eulogy after eulogy praised his ethics and humility, and lamented the loss of the hero who died in a small-arms fight near Jalalabad.Jones was a 2003 Blue Mountain Area High School honors graduate and the son of Jay Jones of Pottsville and Suzy Jones of Orwigsburg.He was interred at West Point on June 17.