Cotter served as operations officer for the 17th Field Artillery Thunderbolt Brigade in the army’s I Corps, said a statement issued from where the unit is normally stationed, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. It said he was found unresponsive in the central Thai city of Lopburi, one of the sites for the exercise, and confirmed dead on Tuesday.
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A U.S. Army artillery officer died during an assignment in Thailand. (Fox News)
Police Col. Raksak Mekchinda, superintendent of the Lopburi police station, said Cotter’s body was discovered in a bathroom at around 2 a.m. Tuesday.
"He fainted in the bathroom, it was locked, his soldier friends were searching and couldn’t find him, so they kicked the door down and then found him," he said. "He probably had a medical condition."
Cotter's body was transferred to the Police General Hospital in Bangkok for an autopsy, and U.S. Army officials requested that they also be allowed to carry out their own autopsy, said Raksak, who added that the U.S. Embassy would handle arrangements for the body's repatriation.