re: The Desperate Fight of MSgt John Chapman on Takur Ghar (Video)

It weird. There is so much hate for the war in Iraq, that it's overflowed to Afghanistan. People "knew" it was UBL on Sept 11th. I thought Dubya showed great restraint in not firing a bunch of cruise missiles as Clinton did after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The first CIA "Jawbreaker" team arrived in the Panjshir Valley in early Oct. ODA-555 arrived in mid-Oct. They had rolled across the plain to Kabul by Thanksgiving. It was a successful campaign waged by a couple of hundred CIA Paramiltary forces and US SpecOps, combined with indigenous miltias and a whole shitload of cash.

18 years later, it's a different story.

What's the scenario you believe is happening now? Are US Corporations exploiting rare Earth minerals? Cornering the poppy market for fun and profit?

There's a reason Afghanistan is known as The Graveyard of Empires. England got run out three times in the 1800s. They sent Russia home with their tail between their legs. We'll eventually leave as well.

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It's hard to know say but I would imagine those seals have tremendous regret for not checking his status before leaving him.

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I hold no ill will towards them. It was in the midst of an intense firefight in complete darkness. Mistakes happen and this was one of them. I take issue with the (apparent) continued attempt to block his MoH submission afterwards. That is unconscionable.

There seem to be a number of uninformed individuals making asinine statements in this thread, and I have bitten my tongue, but this

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in the first 10 deaths of a war

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may be the most ridiculous!

That was tough to watch. I can't imagine being in his family and watching that.

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We'd been there less than five months. According to Wikipedia, 27 Americans died in Afghanistan through the end of March, 2002. This figure includes all fatalities, not just combat deaths. I don't recall if there were a rash of helicopter crashes, vehicle accidents, suicides or deaths from illness. But maybe there weren't.

So his friend, who was a Ranger in the QRF, was probably among the first 25 to die in combat, not the first ten. Do you feel better now?

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Yeah, the first death was an airman in an accident in Qatar. Then 2 Rangers died in a helicopter crash in Pakistan a few days later.
The fourth death was a black sailor who fell overboard in the Arabian Sea. And I'm probably going to Hell for laughing about that.

God bless him!

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Imagine being this dude's family. 

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Shortly after WWII my small hometown newspaper published a book with a thumbnail bio of everyone from the town who served, their branch, where they were stationed, etc. If they were a casualty, that was included. There were a few hundred names. There were about as many noncombat fatalities as combat. Road accidents were a major cause, as were deaths in training, especially of the aviation variety. A few succumbed to illness.

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To the best of my recollection, Gray Fox (Intelligence Support Activity) was a highly classified electronic intelligence gathering unit based at Ft Myers, VA. They weren't just techno-geeks, but highly trained special operators - which how one ended up on a 10,000' peak with a couple of Delta/AFO characters and a SEAL.

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Fixed it for you.

Thanks. As I said, I was going off of what I read ~15 years ago. Thanks for the correction.