1st Lt. Trevor J. Yurista

1st Lt. Trevor J. Yurista, 32, of Pleasant Valley, N.Y., died Oct. 27 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

First Lt. Trevor J. Yurista, 31, of Pleasant Valley, N.Y., died when an improvised explosive device exploded near him while he was on duty in a remote region of Helmand province, his father, Ronald Yurista, said. He was assigned to 5th Marines out of Camp Pendleton, Calif. Trevor Yurista, a graduate of Arlington High School, attended Dutchess Community College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He graduated from Officer Candidate School in 2005, and had been based in San Diego since then. Trevor Yurista worked as a ground intelligence officer in Afghanistan and in Iraq, where he served two previous tours. His father said this tour was optional, and that Trevor went to support the intel officers he was training. “He didn’t have to go with them. … He could have said no,” Ronald Yurista said. “That’s who he was.” He called his son “wild,” and recalled a time Trevor, with the help of eight friends, rode a motorcycle through the halls of Arlington High School as a senior prank. He also recalled Trevor using hundreds of donated soccer balls to teach Iraqi children how to play. Curtis Moore, a former Arlington School District principal who knew Trevor Yurista through middle and high schools, described him as someone who was loyal and respectful. Moore and Yurista kept in touch through e-mail up to the time of Yurista’s death. “He never gave anybody trouble in school,” Moore said. “He was always quietly respectful of authority, but he never feared authority and was never hesitant to question authority. He was always loyal to his friends and family, to a fault.”