Posted on 10/25/2017 4:28:48 PM PDT by markomalley
On a moonless night, an Army Chinook helicopter swept low over the Tangi Valley, a strip of forbidding terrain in eastern Afghanistan teeming with Taliban and located just 35 miles south of Kabul.
Among the 38 occupants inside the Chinook were some of the most highly trained and battle-seasoned fighters in the U.S. military, including 15 commandos from the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, the unit that three months earlier had killed Osama bin Laden. Their target was a Taliban commander responsible for ambushes and other attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces.
Missions like this one to insert or remove an assault force are the military equivalent of a perfect 10 in the Olympics -- equal parts skill, experience and daring.
Flying low, the pilots have to maneuver a machine weighing up to 50,000 pounds over mountains, under cover of darkness, in swirling wind and dust, wearing night vision goggles. Then they have to stick the landing. At any moment, they could come under rocket attack.
Despite the risk, operations like these were taking place with such frequency in Afghanistan they only made news when they produced a spectacular success, like the bin Laden mission. Or when something went terribly wrong.
On this night, Aug. 6, 2011, something went terribly wrong. And to this day, people are still debating what really happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
Im sorry i bought into all that free them bs. All that happened was we lost brave patriotic American’s and for what??? No damn good reason..no more...
Good catch
Joe Biden fingered them
My view is that this is the agreed upon payment to Al Qaeda for the Bin Laden raid, and Obama agreed to it.
These men were a blood sacrifice, plain and simple.
Landing in the sand at night is a bad idea in places where the sand contains quartz.
There is a halo produced by the piezoelectric effect, but I blame Biden and the Obama administration for identifying these operatives.
Yup. obama didn’t like it when his fellow muzzies were killed. He sold them out.
Its an example of the ***utter incompetence*** of our higher military leaders these days.
The ground force was too small, and it was forbidden from using supporting arms, artillery and air support. There was no reserve force. And the solution when this tiny force gets pinned down, is to pack a Chinook full of Seals and send them into the fight, at night. Despite todays hit movies, SEALs and SF are really not at their best as a platoon sized infantry element in an open battle.
Its a misuse of SF and SEAL units. Its crappy use of the rangers that got into trouble.
They aren’t as sexy, but regular army or marine formations, with proper supporting arms is the answer to a fight like that. Not a SF or SEAL platoon.
Its the recent disease of everything needing to be spec ops, and done on the cheap.
If OPSEC is blown at the highest levels, there s NO OPSEC
Nobody in the White House let the enemy know.... It’s much worse than that. It was the White House that had an idiotic strategy and tactics, executed by moronic incompetent generals, under stupid and losing ROE.
That’s the true crime of Extortion 17.
And what’s with all these SF guys writing books?
Sorry that stuff is verboten for a reason
Bided IDed Seal team 6 before they were whacked.
That is undeniable fact
ping
and for the record, stars and stripe/voa et al do not always reflect reality
Well stated. A heavy infantry platoon has much more firepower and sustainment capability than the sexy spec ops folks.
Sometimes you do need a bigger hammer- and an anvil
Nothing sexy about any of it
I knew guys with bronze stars and stuff who would never say what they did, Usually something stupid (adrenaline kicks in) That they aren’t particularly proud of.
I know another guy that has done more submarine spec ops than any man in American history.
He has no dolphins LoL
He was too busy on missions for all that hoo haw
We all pull our weight
Bookmark
Thanks for the ping....I lost a friend that night...sigh.
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