Lord Jesus Bless America and OUR TROOPS!
Posted on 10/29/2004 9:07:32 PM PDT by TexKat
Edited on 10/29/2004 10:04:00 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Our heroes...Jesus Protect every one of them.
This family is eternally grateful for your service.
BTTT!
Some video!...may our US heroes always have more of what they need.
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer
TAJI, Iraq - An Army helicopter gunship pilot is being recommended for a bravery medal for the rescue of a pair of wounded American fliers whose helicopter crashed in hostile territory south of Baghdad this month.
Capt. Ryan Welch, 29, who co-pilots an AH-64 Apache helicopter with the 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Brigade, led a risky night mission that saw him strap himself and a wounded flier to the exterior of the two-seat gunship that flew them to safety, said 4th Brigade commander Col. Jim McConville.
Two Army pilots were killed in the Oct. 16 crash, which happened when two Army OH-58 D Kiowa helicopters collided and plummeted to a farm field just south of Baghdad's airport.
Welch, of Lebanon, N.H., said he helped rescue the wounded pair by hoisting one semiconscious man into the front seat of the Apache, and strapping the second pilot, also wounded and in shock, to the outside of the helicopter's body.
Welch said he then strapped himself to the helicopter's exterior, and the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Justin Taylor, flew the Apache about 15 miles to an Army combat support hospital.
McConville, 45, of Quincy, Mass., said another pair of Taji-based Army fliers also are being considered for medals for their role in the Aug. 8 rescue of two other Kiowa pilots whose craft was downed during pitched fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City.
Those fliers, CW3 Steve Wells, 38, of Lampasas, Texas, and CW2 Jamie Stepan, 31, of Killeen, Texas, fired rockets that fended off a hostile crowd and killed Shiite fighters converging on the upturned helicopter, after it was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.
"It took an RPG to the tail boom, spun around and landed upside down," McConville said of the downed Kiowa.
The rescuing pilots landed their Kiowa chopper on a street adjacent to the crash site — taking fire as they did — in an attempt to rescue the downed fliers. The two men ended up running off being rescued by nearby U.S. ground troops, also with the 1st Cavalry Division, McConville said.
None of the medals has been awarded yet.
The Army is still investigating whether hostile fire was involved in the Oct. 16 collision that killed pilots Capt. Chris Johnson, 29, of Excelsior Springs, Mo., and CW3 William Brennan, 37, of Bethlehem, Conn.
Those injured were CW2 Chad Beck of Killeen, Texas, and CW2 Greg Crowe of Florence, Ky. Beck and Crowe are currently on leave, McConville said.
Welch, interviewed in a repair hangar on this base 12 miles north of Baghdad, said he and Taylor picked up a distress call as they flew over south Baghdad in search of insurgents teams that fire nightly mortar and rocket barrages at U.S. bases.
"We heard a distressed voice on the air, it said 'I've got two helicopters down. Two KIA,'" Welch said.
The voice belonged to Beck, who made the call from his emergency radio and had triggered the rescue beacon on his flight vest, after he and Crowe walked away from the burning wreckage of their Kiowa. The surrounding farmland is a frequent launch site for insurgents' mortar attacks on Baghdad International Airport.
Welch and Taylor, 28, of Lodi, Calif., found the burning helicopter and circled the wreckage.
The emergency radio crackled again: "Hey you just overflew me. Can you see my strobe?"
It was Beck again, and Welch said he looked out the window and saw a blinking light about 100 yards from the burning helicopter.
Welch and Taylor landed in an adjacent field and radioed to Beck to meet them at the landing zone. Beck radioed back that Crowe was too hurt to walk. So Welch dashed to the crash site and found the two crash victims. The dead pilots lay nearby, in their crashed Kiowa.
Crowe was sitting in a daze, waving a pistol, not talking. Beck was standing quietly, staring off into the distance.
"They were both in the early stages of shock," Welch said. "Their eyes were glazed over. Their faces were bleeding profusely."
Welch said he and Beck were able to help Crowe to the Apache and hoist him into the front pilot's seat. But as a two-seater, the only way to carry passengers on an Apache is to seat them on an exterior fender-like protuberance and strap them to a handhold.
Welch strapped Beck to one side and himself to the other, Taylor lifted off and the two Apaches flew to Camp Ferrin-Huggins, seeing the headlights of U.S. ground troops that collected the dead pilots and the wrecked helicopters.
Welch described the ride as "like driving a motorcycle 90 mph without a helmet."
"It felt like my nostrils were going to tear," he said.
Padre Captain Mark Grant-Jones (bottom L) gives a service to B Company of Britain's First Queen Dragoon Guards at the Shaibah Base in Basra southern Iraq, October 30, 2004. The Company were on Saturday preparing to move out to give support to Britain's Black Watch regiment at Camp Dogwood, a military industrial complex 20 miles (32Km) west of the town of Mahmudiya, which lies 50Km south of Baghdad. REUTERS/Maurice McDonald/Pool
A British re-supply convoy moves out of the Shaibah base in Basra, southern Iraq, October 30, 2004. A British soldier died in a road accident on Friday as the Black Watch regiment re-based to 'the triangle of death' southwest of Baghdad to free up U.S. units preparing for a major assault to capture the rebel towns of Ramadi and Falluja. REUTERS/Maurice McDonald/Pool
There is only one word to sum all this up....Guts!
God Bless these brave young men. This could be the defining moment of this war-even more than capturing Sadam and waisting his vile spawn.
British Royal Marines operating near Baghdad. A battle group of British soldiers will start patrolling a restive region south of Baghdad after a mortar exploded in their new camp overnight, without causing any casualties, a spokesman said.(AFP/Maurice McDonald)
British troops set up camp in new hostile region of Iraq
BAGHDAD (AFP) - A battle group of British soldiers settled into a restive region south of Baghdad after a mortar exploded in their new camp overnight, with their first patrols expected in the coming days, a spokesman said.
The Black Watch regiment, however, suffered its first victims of the US requested mission to move in to Babil province from the relative calm of southern Iraq, with the death of a soldier in a vehicle accident on Friday that left three others wounded.
The last of some 850 Black Watch troops and support personnel arrived in Camp Dogwood on Friday afternoon, freeing up US soldiers, who had been based there, to tackle other insurgent hotspots.
"Today they did not go out on patrol as they spent their time setting up camp, sorting out force protection, laying out supplies, food rations, things like that," said British military spokesman Major Charles Mayo.
Earlier, he had said the troops would start conducting vehicle and foot patrols in the coming days to learn about their new environment, which is far more hostile than down south where Britain's 8,500-strong contingent is based.
Mayo, however, said later in the day that this would take place once they had organized themselves.
"It is part of the settling in process they have got to get to know the local area, get a feel for it," explained Mayo, talking by telephone from Iraq's second city of Basra, where the British army is headquartered.
Camp Dogwood -- a vast area with a perimeter of some 40 kilometres (26 miles) -- lies to the west of rebel town of Mahmudiyah which is part of a so-called "triangle of death" along with Latifiyah and Iskandariyah in Babil province.
In a rude awakening on their first full-night together in Babil, a mortar round crashed into the base without causing any casualties or damage, said Mayo, noting that the sheer size of the camp and the small area the British troops occupied in it meant they had not been in any real danger.
The touring British troops also struck a roadside bomb during their long journey from Basra the previous day, which again caused no serious harm, but slowed the progress of the convoy.
US soldiers helped to secure the route for the British tanks, Land Rovers and other army vehicles, which departed Basra on Wednesday.
They found and unarmed three other bombs left by the roadside, said Mayo.
The Black Watch will fill a gap left by US troops departing to fight insurgents around the restive Sunni bastion of Fallujah west of Baghdad.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair promised that the regiment would be home by Christmas, but left open the possibility that other British troops may have to replace them.
The redeployment came amid uncertainties over the fate of a British-Iraqi aid worker, Margaret Hassan, who was kidnapped in Baghdad on October 19.
Hassan, 59, has twice pleaded with Britons to urge London not to redeploy its soldiers on videotape broadcast Arabic television.
Neighbors look into the crater in front of a house in Fallujah, Iraq Saturday, Oct. 30, 2004, which was destroyed the night before by a U.S. airstrike. American forces launched airstrikes against suspected militant bases in Fallujah, Iraq and carried out probing attacks on the city's outskirts, as they prepared for a major operation in the insurgent bastion that has become the symbol of Iraqi resistance.(AP Photo/Mohammed Khodor)
A US Marine of the 1st Division gestures during a patrol outside Fallujah, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. American forces are preparing for a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to restore control to a swathe of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of crucial national elections due by Jan. 31. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
A US Marine of the 1st Division shaves after moving in into a new base outside Fallujah, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. American forces are preparing for a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to restore control to a swath of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of crucial national elections due by Jan. 31. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
US Marines of the 1st Division play chess after returning back from their outpost outside Fallujah, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. American forces are preparing for a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to restore control to a swath of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of crucial national elections due by Jan. 31. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
A US Marine of the 1st Division rests after an overnight mission outside Fallujah, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. American forces are preparing for a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to restore control to a swath of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of crucial national elections due by Jan. 31. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
U.S. Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment patrol in Ramadi, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. One Marine was killed and three others injured by a roadside bomb Sunday in Ramadi, and hospital officials said seven more people were killed and 11 injured in clashes between insurgents and U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)
U.S. Marine snipers from the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment setup for a rooftop operation in Ramadi, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. One Marine was killed and three others injured by a roadside bomb Sunday in Ramadi, and hospital officials said seven more people were killed and 11 injured in clashes between insurgents and U.S. forces. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)
U.S. Marine Infantrymen from 3rd battalion, Fifth Marines, patrol during training near Falluja in western Iraq, October 31, 2004. U.S. Marines in a tank battalion, backed by infantry, are training for an offensive on Falluja in an unfamiliar urban battleground after sweeping through open spaces in the 2003 Iraq war. REUTERS/Eliana Aponte
US marines from 2/5 Marine transport an injured comrade into a Chinook helicopter in Ramadi, 100kms west of Baghdad. Deadly fighting erupted in a restive Iraqi province where nine marines were killed a day earlier, as Japan vowed to stand firm with its troops in Iraq despite the beheading of a Japanese tourist.(AFP/Patrick Baz)
US Army soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division patrol the restive Iraqi city of Ramadi. Nine US marines were killed and nine others injured in Iraq's rebel heartlands while conducting "increased security operations", according to a new toll issued by the US army. AFP PHOTO/Patrick BAZ(AFP/Patrick Baz)
A US marine (L) and a US Army soldier man their position on the rooftop of a hotel in Ramadi, 100 kms west of Baghdad. Eight US marines were killed conducting security operations in the Iraqi province that is home to rebel strongholds.(AFP/Patrick
Fallujah, Ramadi ping
Thank you be strong America good country!!!!
"And tell Michael that the enemy in America are Communists" that is good what you write I do not know America person know comunist I do know comunist it is evil not good!!Thank you
http://tv.reuters.co.uk/ifr_main.jsp?st=1099242097204&rf=bm&mp=WMP&wmp=1&rm=1&cpf=true&fr=103104_011308_17d5d2axffeac92f6ex3196&rdm=117249.10655503829
Fallujah, Ramadi ping
The terrorists just don't get have we have the capability to turn Iraq into an ocean of green glass within the span of a few minutes. Oh, well!!
A handout photograph shows Britain's Major Robin Lindsay (L) and the Commanding Officer of Britain's Black Watch Lieutenant Colonel James Cowan (2nd L) inspecting the remains of a vehicle bomb near the village of Abd Al Karim Farah, south of Baghdad, October 31, 2004. Military sources said there were no casualties in the vehicle bombing on Sunday. British troops took up new positions in an area near Baghdad dubbed the triangle of death on Thursday, freeing up U.S. units for an offensive expected soon against the rebel-held Iraqi city of Falluja. REUTERS/Giles Penfound/MoD/Handout
US Marines of the 1st Division prepare for a patrol outside Fallujah, Iraq, Sunday, Oct. 31, 2004. American forces are preparing for a major assault on Fallujah in an effort to restore control to a swath of Sunni Muslim towns north and west of the capital ahead of crucial national elections due by Jan. 31. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
Thank you that is good good America strong atack devil lucifer evil persons!!!!
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