[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 13770]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


  HONORING RIVERBANK NAVAL PETTY OFFICER THIRD CLASS JAMES RAY LAYTON

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                            HON. JEFF DENHAM

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 15, 2011

  Mr. DENHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge and honor fallen 
Riverbank Naval Petty Officer Third Class James Ray Layton.
  HM3 James Ray Layton was born in Livermore, California on January 29, 
1987 and died September 8, 2009 in Kunar Province, Afghanistan serving 
during Operation Enduring Freedom. Artist, healer and music lover James 
Ray Layton brought joy and love into the lives of his family, friends 
and Comrades in Arms.
  At the time of his death Layton was assigned to Combined Security 
Transition Command in Afghanistan, which is responsible for training 
and equipping Afghan security forces. Lt. Cmdr. John Daniels, a Navy 
spokesman at the Pentagon, said Layton deployed to Afghanistan with an 
element of the Okinawa-based 3rd Marine Division. Layton enlisted Dec. 
20, 2007.
  Layton's death was described by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent 
Jonathan Landay, who was embedded with a group of Marines and pinned 
down by heavy fire in a rugged section of Kunar Province on Tuesday. 
``The Marines were cut down as they sought cover in a trench at the 
base of the village's first layer cake-style stone house. Much of their 
ammunition was gone. One Marine (later determined to be Layton) was 
bending over a second, tending his wounds, when both were killed, said 
Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 21, of Greensburg, Ky., who retrieved their 
bodies.''
  Layton is the 28th soldier or Marine from the Northern San Joaquin 
Valley and foothills killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 
the first from Riverbank.
  He is survived by his father Brent Layton, mother Nikki Freitas, 
step-father Gilbert Freitas, brothers Jonathon, Jesse, Brandon and 
Sage, and sister Jordan, grandmothers Kathy Anderson and Shirley 
Hughes, grandfather Winn Layton, stepsister Andrea Freitas, stepbrother 
Jason Freitas, and loving aunts, uncles and cousins and friends. He was 
preceded in death by his Papa, Ray Hughes.

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