Posted on 03/10/2020 10:17:38 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Gunnery Sgt. Diego D. Pongo died Sunday along with Capt. Moises A. Navas from Maryland, also 34, died in a joint Iraqi-U.S. helicopter assault on a suspected ISIS-occupied cave complex in the Makhmur Mountains of northern Iraq.
They were assigned to the Second Marine Raider Battalion.
The mission began with several dozen Iraqi counterterrorism forces, along with approximately a dozen special forces Marines, traveling by helicopter to the area where intelligence showed 15 to 20 ISIS fighters had hidden.
As they got close to the target, they encountered stiff resistance from ISIS fighters largely equipped with small arms. The firefight that ensued was at “close range,” according to Caggins. The two Marines were killed and three other Americans and one coalition member were wounded, essentially taking out the fighting capability of half the team led by the Marines.
After the initial firefight, a team of Army Delta Force special operations troops were sent to recover the bodies of the two Americans, according to a U.S. official.
Their effort became a six-hour mission in which the Delta troops encountered more opposition, killing four ISIS fighters.
Pongo served eight years as a Marine Raider, completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tortorici said. In 2013, he earned a Bronze Star Medal for “heroic actions against the enemy” during Operation Enduring Freedom.
He also earned a Purple Heart and two Navy and Marine Corps commendation medals, among many other awards, according to the U.S. Marines.
Navas, who was born in Panama before moving to Maryland, also enlisted in 2004. He earned many awards as well, including the Purple Heart. He left behind a wife, daughter, three sons, a brother and his parents.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
I was just going to say that. #€££
Get Our People OUT OF THE Sandbox !!! Load up a few medium Nukes and turn it to GLASS !!!
Go back in 100 years or so and crush the glass back to Sand and Open up a Big Ol’ Margarita & Pina Colada with a Fajita and Nacho Distribution Center and teach People how to RELAX.
How many examples does a country need about fighting in Afghanistan? England, Russia, and now the US? Food for thought, a good read but long. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War
Pull the troops home—if they set up an anti-American state so what! There are many others all around the world. Let them kill each other for a while. I understand, they hate being occupied by people so different from them—with all sorts of strange new ideas—like women should vote and be equal. They are just Not ready for the 21st Century or even the 18th.
Pull the troops home—if they set up an anti-American state so what! There are many others all around the world. Let them kill each other for a while. I understand, they hate being occupied by people so different from them—with all sorts of strange new ideas—like women should vote and be equal. They are just Not ready for the 21st Century or even the 18th.
Pull the troops home—if they set up an anti-American state so what! There are many others all around the world. Let them kill each other for a while. I understand, they hate being occupied by people so different from them—with all sorts of strange new ideas—like women should vote and be equal. They are just Not ready for the 21st Century or even the 18th.
They’d be happier in the 7th.
...good point.... for what it is worth, I lived through
the Vietnam era - I am a Vietnam-era vet, but NOT a combat
vet...one reason we stayed there so long was that Pres.
Johnson, who inherited that miserable war from JFK and
wasn’t quite sure what to do about it, wanted at all costs
to avoid being seen as “soft on communism,” which was
just about a kiss of death for any politician....
Bring our troops home from Afghanistan now....no more
useless, needless losses of life....!!!
Truman was the one who blew off Ho Chi Minh and let France recover Vietnam after Japan’s defeat; the rest is history.
PS: Thank you for your service regardless. My dad and uncle served in VN, dad a Marine pilot off a carrier and my uncle a chopper pilot there.
...excellent point....!!! your comment brings back
some memories of all that phony blather about “If we
don’t stop them in Saigon, we’ll be fighting them in
Peoria...” and foolish statements such as that....
All Ho wanted was to unify Vietman and kick the
foreigners out...I doubt that he had any dreams of
him and his troops marching down New York’s Fith
Avenue at some point in the distant future.....!!
It sounds like our guys walked into a trap.
And, apparently the “several dozen Iraqi counterterrorism forces” had essentially zero fighting capability...
Yeah, some thing sounds off here. USMC takes near 50% casualties including two KIA and the “partner” force has one wounded? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Home schooling by your military family is great. I’ve learned so much more than my friends who when to public school. I loved history and still read it. Think of all the men and women who died in that stupid war all because of politics.
Wasted. Completely wasted by our government. We could have pounded that cave complex with ten or twenty 2000 pound bombs and napalm.
A tragic waste that our crappy leaders refuse to stop.
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