Soldier with local ties killed in Afghanistan

By Christina Rohn News-Review Staff Writer She describes her nephew as a “hero.” Kendra Griffin, a Petoskey resident and Wal-Mart optician, said she always knew her 24-year-old nephew, Sgt. Christopher T. Griffin, would join the Army. “He was a Civil War buff — he liked to watch the History Channel,” she said. “He always wanted to be a soldier.” But Kendra, and her sister, Kerri Causley, a Petoskey resident, department manager of cosmetics at Wal-Mart and Christopher’s mother, were not prepared for what would come next. On Oct. 3, Christopher, a Kincheloe resident and 2004 graduate of Rudyard High School, died in combat in Afghanistan, along with seven other U.S. soldiers, when hundreds of insurgents, armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, attacked their remote outpost near the Pakistan border, in what military officials are calling the deadliest assault against U.S. forces in more than one year. (MORE)