Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Achorage is home to Alaskan Command, U.S. Army Alaska, 11th Air Force, the Alaska National Guard and other commands. (Haley Stevens/U.S. Air Force)
The soldier who died in a two-vehicle collision Sunday on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, was a wheeled-vehicle mechanic who had enlisted less than a year ago, the Army said.
Pfc. Arath Esau Martinez-Arguelles, 20, of Sherman Oaks, Calif., was a passenger thrown out of the vehicle upon impact, the service announced in a news release Wednesday.
Martinez-Arguelles was dead on arrival at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, the Army said.
He joined the Army in June 2022 and since March was with the 6th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne).
“Pfc. Martinez was a self-starter, who was always working as hard as he could and motivating those around him,” Lt. Col. Elizabeth Knox, commander of the 6th Battalion, said in the release. “He was always the first mechanic in his coveralls, ready to fix vehicles and forever had a smile on his face.’
“He was a motivated paratrooper who inspired the paratroopers around him,” she said.
Martinez-Arguelles was riding with four other soldiers on Arctic Valley Road near Cottonwood Park late Sunday night when their car collided with a second car carrying a sixth soldier and his wife and child.
Two soldiers with Martinez-Arguelles in the first car were in stable condition Wednesday at Alaska Native Medical Center, the Army said. The two remaining soldiers were treated and released from Providence Alaska Medical Center.
The family members in the second vehicle are in stable condition at Alaska Regional Hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening, the Army said.
The Army Criminal Investigation Command is investigating the crash, according to the release.
A four-car collision a year earlier just outside Anchorage claimed the lives of two 11th Airborne soldiers, Spc. Wyne Lyndon Jacob Abonita, 22, of Yokosuka, Japan, and Pvt. Valsin David Tate Jr., 23, of New Orleans.
