Marine Corps Sergeant Johanny Pichardo

Marine Corps Sergeant Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, was a supply chief assigned to the Naval Amphibious Force, Task Force 51/5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Naval Support Activity Bahrain. She was killed on August 26, 2021, when an ISIS-K suicide bomber attacked Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. A member of her unit’s Female Engagement Team, she was assisting two Afghan women who were being trampled by the pack of people outside the airport gates, when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt.

Sgt Pichardo graduated from Lawrence High School in 2014, where she participated in Junior ROTC. She studied criminal justice for one semester at Bridgewater State University before enlisting in the Marine Corps. She was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Congressional Gold Medal.

Her brother remembered her as the family’s backbone - someone who always found a way to help—and said that she wanted her siblings to succeed. Cardinal Seán O’Malley said, “She died doing something out of love.”

Sgt Pichardo was survived by her mother, sister and brother.