US Chooper Crashes In Afghanistan

[Honeykiss1974]

Rescuers try to reach downed helicopter
Aircraft carried about 16 troops over Afghanistan, officials say

Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Posted: 5:58 p.m. EDT (21:58 GMT)


The MH-47 is the special operations version of the U.S. Army's Chinook transport helicopter.

The area west of Asadabad, near the Pakistan border, is known for having snow-covered peaks rising as high as 7,000 feet.

The doomed MH-47, a variant of the Army's twin-rotor Chinook transport used by special operations troops, was carrying about 16 military personnel onboard, U.S. military officials said.

Military sources tell CNN an emergency beacon went off when the aircraft went down.

The mission was to bring in reinforcements "in support of U.S. forces currently conducting counter-terrorism operations," the Coalition Press Information Center of the Combined Forces Command in Kabul said in a written statement.

More of the article here

It will be interesting to see how this affects the President's speech tonite (and the country's reaction).

[mmcat]

takes things to a new level, doesn't it?

[Honeykiss1974]

Team of U.S. GIs missing in Afghanistan

DANIEL COONEY

Associated Press


KABUL, Afghanistan - A small team of U.S. soldiers was missing Friday in the same mountains in eastern Afghanistan where a special forces helicopter was shot down earlier this week, and U.S. forces are using "every available asset" to find them, a U.S. military spokesman said.

The MH-47 Chinook helicopter - with 16 people on board who all died in the crash - had gone into the mountains Tuesday to extract the soldiers who are now missing. The team on the ground has been unaccounted for since the chopper was downed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, meanwhile, claimed the rebels had captured a U.S. soldier in the area, near the town of Asadabad, close to the Pakistani border.

"One high-ranking American has been captured in fighting in the same area as the helicopter went down," he told The Associated Press. "I won't give you any more details now."

Read the rest here

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takes things to a new level, doesn't it?

It most certainly does.

Pearl Harbor based Navy SEALS among dead

I live in the Pearl Harbor area right next to the NEX and I saw people literally weeping in the streets. The pain is felt throughout the neighborhood, regardless of whether or not you're military.

It's heartbreaking.