10 Special Forces Soldiers, 10 Silver Stars

[darrels joy]

10 Special Forces Soldiers, 10 Silver Stars


On December 12, 10 Special Forces soldiers will be receiving Silver Star medals at a ceremony at Ft Bragg, NC. All of the medals are being awarded for action during a raid in Afghanistan.

There is video of the raid available although I don't have it, and it is how I actually came to hear about this event. I came across the article advertising the fact that the Pentagon has an unclassified version of the raid available for distribution.

per Griffin and Fishel@Pentagon

If anyone is interested in video of the battle in Afghanistan for which 10 US Special Forces will receive Silver Stars for bravery tomorrow at Fort Bragg - we have the declassified video of the assault - it is Tape 90 in DC from yesterday.

Background - this was a raid in April in Afghanistan to go after the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin network (warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was thought to be at the site - turns out he wasn't).

The video shows the raid from the air and includes sound of pilots in one fo the support helicopters as they were hit. it's good video. The ceremony awarding 10 Silver Stars - unprecedented in Special Forces history since 9-11 is taking place at 2 pm at Fort Bragg tomorrow.

We learned long ago not to count on the mass market media for news of our heroes and I wish I had the video. If I find it I will post it. Even the notice sent out by the Pentagon shows you don't think anybody will request it since it starts with the phrase "If anyone is interested."

http://lighthouseontheright.blogspot...10-silver.html

[darrels joy]

Ten Green Berets to Receive Silver Star for Afghan Battle


There are four ‘SOF truths’:
• Humans are more important than hardware.
• Quality is better than quantity.
• SOF cannot be mass-produced.
• SOF cannot be created after a crisis occurs.
These men have proven the “truths” to be accurate and shown themselves to be worthy of wearing the Green Beret. Our SOF warriors have lived with a grueling training and deployment schedule for years now. Their stories are rarely known outside of the community and their heroics mostly go unnoticed, I am glad we can highlight a few of them.

By Ann Scott Tyson, 12 December 2008, Washington Post

After jumping out of helicopters at daybreak onto jagged, ice-covered rocks and into water from an altitude of 10,000 feet, the 12-man Special Forces team scrambled up the steep mountainside toward its target — an insurgent stronghold in northeast Afghanistan.

“Our plan,” Capt. Kyle M. Walton recalled in an interview, “was to fight downhill.”

But as the soldiers maneuvered toward a cluster of thick-walled mud buildings constructed layer upon layer about 1,000 feet farther up the mountain, insurgents quickly manned fighting positions, readying a barrage of fire for the exposed Green Berets.

A harrowing, nearly seven-hour battle unfolded on that mountainside in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province on April 6, as Walton, his team and a few dozen Afghan commandos they had trained took fire from all directions.

Outnumbered, the Green Berets fought on even after half of them were wounded — four critically — and managed to subdue an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents, according to interviews with several team members and official citations.

Today, Walton and nine of his teammates from Operational Detachment Alpha 3336 of the 3rd Special Forces Group will receive the Silver Star for their heroism in that battle — the highest number of such awards given to the elite troops for a single engagement since the Vietnam War.

-This is even more amazing when you consider how many anti military types are running around attempting to discredit the bravery of such men.

That chilly morning, Walton’s mind was on his team’s mission: to capture or kill several members of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) militant group in their stronghold, a village perched in Nuristan’s Shok Valley that was accessible only by pack mule and so remote that Walton said he believed that no U.S. troops, or Soviet ones before them, had ever been there.

But as the soldiers, each carrying 60 to 80 pounds of gear, scaled the mountain, they could already spot insurgents running to and fro, they said. As the soldiers drew closer, they saw that many of the mud buildings had holes in the foot-thick walls for snipers. The U.S. troops had maintained an element of surprise until their helicopters turned into the valley, but by now the insurgent leaders entrenched above knew they were the targets, and had alerted their fighters to rally.

Staff Sgt. Luis Morales of Fredericksburg was the first to see an armed insurgent and opened fire, killing him. But at that moment, the insurgents began blasting away at the American and Afghan troops with machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled-grenades — shooting down on each of the U.S. positions from virtually all sides.

“All elements were pinned down from extremely heavy fire from the get-go,” Walton said. “It was a coordinated attack.” The insurgent Afghan fighters knew there was only one route up the valley and “were able to wait until we were in the most vulnerable position to initiate the ambush,” said Staff Sgt. Seth E. Howard, the team weapons sergeant.

Almost immediately, exposed U.S. and Afghan troops were hit. An Afghan interpreter was killed, and Sgt. Dillon Behr was shot in the hip.

“We were pretty much in the open, there were no trees to hide behind,” said Morales, who with Walton pulled Behr back to their position. Morales cut open Behr’s fatigues and applied pressure to his bleeding hip, even though Morales himself had been shot in the right thigh. A minute later,

Morales was hit again, in the ankle, leaving him struggling to treat himself and his comrade, he said. Absent any cover, Walton moved the body of the dead Afghan interpreter to shield the wounded.

Farther down the hill in the streambed, Master Sgt. Scott Ford, the team sergeant, was firing an M203 grenade launcher at the fighting positions, he recalled. An Afghan commando fired rocket-propelled grenades at the windows from which they were taking fire, while Howard shot rounds from a rocket launcher and recoilless rifle.

Ford, of Athens, Ohio, then moved up the mountain amid withering fire to aid Walton at his command position. The ferocity of the attack surprised him, as rounds ricocheted nearby every time he stuck his head out from behind a rock. “Typically they run out of ammo or start to manage their ammo, but . . . they held a sustained rate of fire for about six hours,” he said.

-One minute of sustained fire feels like hours; a six-hour firefight is unheard of especially when re-supply is impossible. Our SOF carry extra ammo but they had to be running low.

As Ford and Staff Sgt. John Wayne Walding returned fire, Walding was hit below his right knee. Ford turned and saw that the bullet “basically amputated his right leg right there on the battlefield.”

-One detail missing from this report; his lower leg was barely attached and he bent it back and tied it to his upper thigh using his bootlace. This allowed him some movement, which he used to reposition himself so he could return fire on the enemy.

Unbelievable courage.

Walding, of Groesbeck, Tex., recalled: “I literally grabbed my boot and put it in my crotch, then got the boot laces and tied it to my thigh, so it would not flop around. There was about two inches of meat holding my leg on.” He put on a tourniquet, watching the blood flow out the stump to see when it was tight enough.

Then Walding tried to inject himself with morphine but accidentally used the wrong tip of the syringe and put the needle in this thumb, he later recalled. “My thumb felt great,” he said wryly, noting that throughout the incident he never lost consciousness. “My name is John Wayne,” he said.

Soon afterward, a round hit Ford in the chest, knocking him back but not penetrating his body armor. A minute later, another bullet went through his left arm and shoulder, hitting the helmet of the medic, Staff Sgt. Ronald J. Shurer, who was behind him treating Behr. An insurgent sniper was zeroing in on them.

Bleeding heavily from the arm, Ford put together a plan to begin removing the wounded, knowing they could hold out only for so long without being overrun. By this time, Air Force jets had begun dropping dozens of munitions on enemy positions precariously close to the Green Berets, including 2,000-pound bombs that fell within 350 yards.

“I was completely covered in a cloud of black smoke from the explosion,” said Howard, and Behr was wounded in the intestine by a piece of shrapnel.

The evacuation plan, Ford said, was that “every time they dropped another bomb, we would move down another terrace until we basically leapfrogged down the mountain.” Ford was able to move to lower ground after one bomb hit, but insurgent fire rained down again, pinning the soldiers left behind.

“If we went that way, we would have all died,” said Howard, who was hiding behind 12-inch-high rocks with bullets bouncing off about every 10 seconds. Insurgents again nearly overran the U.S. position, firing down from 25 yards away — so near that the Americans said they could hear their voices. Another 2,000-pound bomb dropped “danger close,” he said, allowing the soldiers to get away.

-When you call in munitions “danger close,” you are basically letting the pilot know this is it; you survive or you take as many with you as possible. A few pilots have refused to drop munitions that close but it can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Thankfully, these pilots were professional and responded when called upon.

Finally, after hours of fighting, the troops made their way down to the streambed, with those who could still walk carrying the wounded. A first medical evacuation helicopter flew in, but the rotors were immediately hit by bullets, so the pilot hovered just long enough to allow the in-flight medic to jump off, then flew away.

A second helicopter came in but had to land in the middle of the icy, fast-moving stream. “It took two to three guys to carry each casualty through the river,” Ford said. “It was a mad dash to the Medevac.” As they sat on the helicopter, it sustained several rounds of fire, and the pilot was grazed by a bullet.

By the time the battle ended, the Green Berets and the commandos had suffered 15 wounded and two killed, both Afghans, while an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents were dead, according to an official Army account of the battle. The Special Forces soldiers had nearly run out of ammunition, with each having one to two magazines left, Ford said.

“We should not have lived,” said Walding, reflecting on the battle in a phone interview from Fort Bragg, N.C., where he and the nine others are to receive the Silver Stars today. Nine more Green Berets from the 3rd Special Forces Group will also receive Silver Stars for other battles. About 200 U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have received the Silver Star, the U.S. military’s third-highest combat award.

-Hooah!

http://doctorbulldog.wordpress.com/2...afghan-battle/

[darrels joy]

In Afghanistan, a Deadly Ambush Leads to a Medal for Heroism

A soldier helped save his Special Forces team by guiding in key airstrikes after being shot in the leg

By Anna Mulrine
Posted March 13, 2009
POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C.—The mountains around the U.S. Special Operations team were nearly vertical as troops made their way up towards an Afghan village.

They had jumped from helicopters into a frigid and fast-moving river, waded through waist-high water studded with jagged rocks, and pulled themselves out up a 5-foot bank and out of the current. The plan was to make their way up to a steep trail to a mountaintop village and capture a wanted insurgent.


But as they climbed with 60-pound packs, the elite unit ran into a well-coordinated and deadly ambush by 200 insurgents. The barrage left them stuck on the steep low ground as machine gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades, and sniper bullets rained down from above.

The actions of the team in the six-and-a-half-hour firefight that followed earned one of them, Staff Sgt. Zachary Rhyner, the Air Force Cross—the service's second-highest award for heroism, after the Medal of Honor.

Troops in A-Team 3336 from Fort Bragg's 3rd Special Forces group earned 10 Silver Stars, the military's third-highest award for valor, for the operation that day as well. On the ground in Afghanistan, the team worked desperately for hours trying to shoot its way out of its position. At one point, intelligence officials determined that insurgents were 40 feet from team. The Americans were nearly overrun twice. "Some of our smaller weapons weren't effective," recalls Rhyner. The insurgents had surrounded them and the fire kept coming.

As the team's combat controller with the Air Force Special Operations Command's 21st Special Tactics Squadron, it was Rhyner's job to coordinate and call in airstrikes.

Trapped on a 60-foot cliff, Rhyner was shot in the leg within the first 15 minutes of the ambush. While the Special Forces team leader, Capt. Kyle Walton, treated him, Rhyner called in Apache attack helicopters. He also kept firing his M-4 rifle, according to the Air Force citation, and helped move the wounded down a cliff in the hopes of airlifting them out.

Capt. Jeremy Duffey, the pilot of a F-15 that had been monitoring the fight overhead, recalls watching as the troops suddenly came under fire. "It went from quiet to 100 miles per hour in 30 seconds," he says. "They were taking heavy casualties in an instant." The insurgents were "pretty hard to see," he adds. "They were tucked in windows," taking skillful shots. "You see fire being exchanged, and you take a deep breath."

"The toughest part," as Rhyner recalls it, "was receiving fire and not knowing where it's coming from."

Rhyner was in constant radio contact with Capt. Richard Keely, the F-15's weapons system officer flying with Duffey. Ultimately, Rhyner called in 4,570 rounds of cannon fire, nine Hellfire missiles, and 192 rockets. "I was in contact with him all the way through. He kept a cool head," says Keely.
Staff Sgt. Rob Gutierrez, a combat controller with a team that was just across the river, recalled in an interview last week that trying to wade the river to reach Rhyner's team was like being a "fish in a barrel." He was shot in the head twice, sustaining concussions, but he was saved by his helmet.

It was five-plus hours into the firefight that the team received intelligence that enemy reinforcements carrying more rockets were roughly 6 miles away.

The Americans made the decision to call in a 2,000 pound bomb to destroy a building in the village. "We'd been working 'danger close,' " says Rhyner, using the Air Force term for calling in bombs so close to U.S. positions that friendly fire casualties are a distinct possibility. "We shot everything we were capable of shooting," adds Duffey.

The decision to drop the bomb was a "serious gut check," he says. "The kill radius is large. I was pretty sure we'd take a couple of friendly casualties."

After the bomb hit, "you couldn't see 2 inches in front of your face," recalls Rhyner. "There were boulders falling down on us."

It was also the "show-stopper," says Keely. The fire from insurgent forces let up, and the team was flown out. The Air Force estimates that 40 insurgents were killed and 100 wounded in the fight. Half of the 40 U.S. troops in Rhyner's team were wounded, and two Afghan commandos were killed.

This week, Rhyner was awarded the Air Force Cross for "extraordinary heroism in military operations against an armed enemy of the United States." Two others have been awarded the Air Force Cross for operations during Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, both posthumously; 192 have been given throughout the Air Force medal's history.

The events that took place "are almost impossible to imagine," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said in remarks at the Pope Air Force Base ceremony honoring Rhyner. "You can't imagine the stress they endured for hours on end," he told the crowd gathered in an open hanger.

The "unimaginable burdens" borne by Rhyner and his team that day "and perhaps in the days to come will be met with unspeakable gratitude," Schwartz said, "for a debt that can never be repaid."

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/...?s_cid=et-0313