Stockton Record -- A graduate of an Escalon high school was killed Tuesday while trying to tend the wounds of a Marine in Afghanistan, according to reports from a reporter embedded with the unit.

Petty Officer 3rd Class James R. Layton, 22, of Riverbank, who graduated in 2005 from Sierra View Independent Study High School of the Escalon Unified School District, was one of four U.S. servicemen killed in a firefight i eastern Afghanistan that day, the U.S. Department of Defense reported Thursday.

Layton, a Navy medical corpsman, reportedly was killed while attempting to provide medical aid to a wounded Marine during an ambush in Kunar province while part of a Combined Security Transition Command team of U.S. and Afghan soldiers, the Defense Department said.

Sierra View teacher Shane Bua said Layton was a quiet but insightful teen who didn't quite fit in at the Escalon comprehensive high school but excelled in independent study during his junior and senior years.

Bua said he and Layton were able to bond over discussions about music and the teacher's teasing the teen about his preference for the heavy metal genre. Layton liked to joke and was quick to laugh at his teacher's gibes, Bua said.

"James was a kid that was very smart, and you knew he was going to go on and do something after high school," Bua said. "I didn't think he was going into the military, but when he did, I thought it was good for him. When I heard he was becoming a Navy medic, I was thrilled for him."

A McClatchy News Service reporter who is embedded with the Marine unit that was under attack Tuesday reported that Layton was attempting to save the life of a Marine when he and his patient were struck and killed by insurgent gunfire.

"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 Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class James R. Layton, 22, of Riverbank, Calif. - 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," the reporter wrote in his story published in the Modesto Bee.

Layton is the 27th service member with ties to the San Joaquin County area to die in Afghanistan or Iraq since 2003.