AFGHANISTAN: Navy lieutenant mourned at San Diego hospital

The staff at Naval Medical Center San Diego is shaken today by the death of one of their colleagues, Lt. Florence Bacong Choe, in Afghanistan.

Chaplains are offering grief counseling. A memorial service is being planned.

Choe, 35, was serving as a medical administration and logistics mentor to the Afghan National Army at a base in Mazar-i-Sharif. She and another Navy officer were killed last week by an insurgent posing as an Afghan soldier. The insurgent then killed himself, officials said.

Choe's survivors include her husband, Lt. Cmdr. Chong "Jay" Choe, a urology resident at the Naval Medical Center, and their daughter, Kristin, now 3.

Choe, whose permanent assignment was at the medical center, was a voluntary individual augmentee to the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, officials said.

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: Florence and Chong Choe and daughter Kristin, now 3. Credit: Choe and Bacong families.