Posted on 10/24/2016 9:39:23 AM PDT by Lorianne
A Navy sailor who became the first American killed in the military offensive to reclaim the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State died while serving alongside Navy SEALs, defense officials said Sunday.
Chief Petty Officer Jason Finan, 34, was attached to an elite SEAL team that was advising the Iraqi Counterterrorism Service, one defense official in Iraq said. The Iraqi troops were attacked by Islamic State fighters Thursday, and the SEAL team decided to pull back along with the troops they were advising, said Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq. Finan was in a vehicle and was telling other members of his team that he had spotted a roadside bomb when he was killed, the general told reporters in the city of Irbil on Sunday.
Finan is survived by his wife, Chariss, and their 7-year-old son, of Imperial Beach, Calif., the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Finan, a native of Anaheim, Calif., was assigned to the Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 3, based just 100 miles to the south in Coronado, Calif. He enlisted in the Navy in August of 2003 and had earned several commendations throughout his lengthy military career, a Navy spokeswoman said Saturday.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
What is up with this? What are they going to do with Irbil avert they capture it? More boots on the ground to hold it for God knows how many years.
Are we really there "advising"?
I am saddened by his loss.
However, SEALs aren’t intended to be ‘advisors’ IMO. To use any of them in this capacity is Obama madness in my opinion.
Story doesn’t really support the headline. If he had been killed carrying out his EOD duties, the headline would fit. But the way the story is written, it sounds like he was just sitting in a vehicle when he was killed (without really saying how he was killed.)
This administration lies about everything so who knows what the hell is going on. I wish I could read a WaPo headline saying I had died in combat, I would by a bottle to celebrate my 100th birthday. There is just no integrity in any part of the Rat Media Complex.
So sad. Prayers for his family.
Hey lefties - its a good thing Obama “got us out of Iraq, eh?”
RIP.
Paying for the same real estate multiple times is not an American virtue. Instead, it’s a signature failure of the eight years of the Obama Kakocracy and its most arrogant, incompetent, and corrupt chief foreign officer, Hillary Clinton.
RIP brave sailor.
What a way to wage ‘war’.
Obammy should be on the front line.. not campaigning.. or on a golf course.
So we are fighting (”advising”) in Iraq again. Where is Code Pink? Where are all the war protesters?
Hypocrites.
Our US Special Forces are openly rebelling their being forced to train ISIS sympathizing Syrian / Iraqi “rebels”.
It is a disgrace what we are doing to our soldiers and people of that region.
All for creative destruction disruption.
US Special Forces sabotage White House policy gone disastrously wrong with covert ops in Syria
Jack Murphy | 09.14.2016
“Nobody believes in it. You’re like, ‘F*** this,’” a former Green Beret says of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian militias. “Everyone on the ground knows they are jihadis. No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know they are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘F*** it, who cares?’”
“I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. A second Special Forces soldier commented that one Syrian militia they had trained recently crossed the border from Jordan on what had been pitched as a large-scale shaping operation that would change the course of the war. Watching the battle on a monitor while a drone flew overhead, “We literally watched them, with 30 guys in their force, run away from three or four ISIS guys.”
Rest in peace hero. God be with your family.
Thanks,
I wonder how they are sabotaging the mission?
I would not want to be in the military at this time. The things we are asking our people to do are criminal.
For the record, the Chief wasn’t a SEAL, he was an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician assigned to a special forces unit.
EOD techs have participated in every major engagement of the War on Terror; they go along on most SF raids because of the likelihood of IEDs. I worked with them during my Air Force days, long before 9-11. They are among the elite, and yes, many of them are just a little crazy. You have to be, knowing your next assignment could be your last.
More than 130 EOD techs have been killed in the War on Terror. Given the relatively small size of that career field, across the services, that is a tremendous sacrifice.
If you’re ever at Eglin AFB, visit the EOD Memorial and please consider a donation to their scholarship fund:
http://www.eodwarriorfoundation.org/eod-memorial
http://www.eodwarriorfoundation.org/education
Article mentioned SEAL...that was the basis of my comment. If that was wrong, it isn’t really my bad is it?
I agree and so do out Special forces.
They stall / dilute training jihadis as much as possible.
We have not faught a war to win since WWII (let alone actually declared war). As you stated: American blood shed on the same battlefields multiple times is absolute madness! Obama, Clinton and Kerry have blood on their hands. What do they care? They live the life of the 1% and we are serfs. What I really wish to say would get me banned. The misuse of our military is outright criminal. To further expand this insanity with a pResident Klinton would pretty much do away with the republic and continue America’s demise.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would put on a military uniform and put his life in the hands of a government as corrupt and mismanaged as ours.
These headlines about "retaking Mosul" have gotten tiresome. Isn't this the fifth or sixth time it's been "taken" in the last decade?
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