|
It was a pace that would continue throughout the unit's time insouthern Afghanistan. For the next 80 days, it would be on alert 24hours a day. During that time, crews flew a total of 550 combatmissions, saving more than 300 lives, by the estimates of Col.Christopher Barnett, then the commander of the 34th WeaponsSquadron. For most of his crew, that meant they were flying anywhere fromfive to 10 combat missions a day. But in April 2009 came a call that was particularly dire: A US Army Green Beret unit in Helmand Province was pinned down under heavy attack from Taliban forces. These guys, Colonel Barnett recalls, could not get into theirvehicles could not, you know, move further down the road andwere taking fire from really different directions. So they reallycouldn t do a whole lot about it. A US military quick reaction force, QRF, had come in to try to relieve the GreenBerets, but were soon pinned down with them. Apache attack helicopters had also already tried to help these US forces, but because of heavy machine gun fire coming from nearbyTaliban compounds, they could not get close enough to where theycould confirm where they enemy was, recalls Maj. Brian Creel, whowas flying the combat mission that day. The B-1 bombers in the area could not help stave off the attack,either: Though they had dropped bombs, they could not attack theTaliban compound, because they couldn t confirm which compoundit was and also the possibility of civilian casualties, MajorCreel explains. US troops may have been in jeopardy, too: TheTaliban forces were danger close in military parlance meaning in the course of dropping bombs, the pilots might kill notonly enemy forces, but US soldiers as well. The first job of the pararescuers on the scene, then, was to flywithin 200 feet of the suspected Taliban compound in their Blackhawk helicopters . We had to get low enough to where we could, no kidding, confirmthat that s where they were, Creel says. Once we did that, we turned back around and set ourselves up in a in an L-attack pattern that we used to fix our guns forward andshoot forward, he adds, and focus all four of our machine gunsinto that one compound at the same time. This then gave the Green Berets and the QRF pinned down with themthe chance to attack. If you saw them jump up and storm thatcompound I mean, they were still getting some fire, Creelrecalls. They went in because they had to do it. The Green Berets were ultimately successful in taking the compound,thanks to help from Barnett, Creel, and the other CSARs. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as China GPS Automobile Tracker , Slate 8 Inch Android Touch Tablet, and more. For more , please visit 9.7 Inch Android 2.2 Tablet today!
Related Articles -
China GPS Automobile Tracker, Slate 8 Inch Android Touch Tablet,
|
