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Today I watched a program on the military channel depicting the battle of takur ghar, a mountain top in afghanistan which was an outpost for al qaeida forces. a navy seal team was hit here and retreated but they lost one man. they didnt know fi he was dead yet so command mounted a rescue misson consisting of army rangers and paratroopers. they were in two teams. when the first team came upon the mountain, since they didnt know whats going on because they were a fast reaction team, they werent expecting enemy fire. the first chopper was downed but the occupants survived the crash, but they were still under heavy machinegun and RPG fire. two rangers were cut down disembarking the helicopter. and two others were wounded. they had no communications yet. the wounded were dangerously close to morter fire. the second team was inbound but were not aware of the situation on the ground. the enemy was basically neutralized except the heavy mahcinegunner in a bunker not effected by small arms. they finally get com adn sooner or later a CIA UAV destroys the bunker. they take the mountain and ask for medivac but it is still denyed, apparently because small teams of al qaeida were were spotted by US ground forces moving in on their position. they couldnt get evac till after dark. by the time the evac chopper got the go ahead, the wounded were deceased. the army ranger team never encountered the al qaeida teams. after watching this I felt a mixture of sadness and anger. Why didnt they send medivac immediatly? why didnt the US ground forces that spotted the al qaida teams attack them? surely they could defend the LZ while the wounded were evacuated? What happened to never letting someone die if you can help it? isnt the life of these men who put their lives on the line for their country worth the risk?
BTW I DO NOT want to hear anything about the iraq war because that has nothing to do with this.
It is sad they died, but how many RPGs does it take to bring down a heli, how many people does it take to fire a RPG, how many people on the heli?
If there was a strong chance of hostile movment sending in a heli would be asking the pilot and crew to die, a heli picking up wounded is a very easy target.
like I said before they never encounterred the insurgent forces. but they wouldnt have had to worry if the US forces that spotted them in the first place had taken them out now would they? I am not bashing our armed forces but I believe that a lot of bad decisions were made on this operation.
true... never leave a soldier behind...unless it places the mission or others in danger. Watch the documentary on 'black hawk down'...talk about the military screwing up a mission...
Wow. They should have sent medivac. I agree, there were a lot of bad choices made.
My boyfriend is a Marine and will be going to Afghanistan in a few years.
I forgot to mention in my question that they had air support but high command ordered their air support back to base.
b1ff, just because there is a threat doesnt mean you leave a man who risked his life for his country to die!
Heard of hindsight?
I've seen it
