Green Berets

This is coolbert:

Here from the Chicago Tribune yesterday:

“Silver Stars for 10 Green Berets”

“WASHINGTON - - After jumping out of helicopters at daybreak onto jagged, ice-covered rocks and into water at an altitude of 10,000 feet, the 12-man Special Forces team scrambled up the steep mountainside toward its target”

[a twelve-man SF team augmented by Afghan commandos!!]

“‘Our plan’, ‘was to fight downhill’” - - Walton, the unit commander.

A plan that did not go according to plan!!

"A harrowing nearly seven-hour battle unfolded on that mountainside in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province [as the SF team] and a few dozen Afghan commandos they had trained took fire from all directions. "

This combined American/Afghan unit, penetrating into a mountain stronghold so remote “that Walton [the unit commander] said he believed that no U.S. troops, or Soviet ones before them, had ever been there.”

Half of the combined American/Afghan unit were casualties, “an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents were dead, according to an official Army account.”

And, TEN OF THOSE SF MEN HAVE BEEN AWARDED THE SILVER STAR FOR DISPLAYING HEROISM DURING THIS ENGAGEMENT!! “THE MOST SUCH AWARDS GIVEN TO THE ELITE TROOPS FOR A SINGLE ENGAGEMENT SINCE THE VIETNAM WAR.”
Some comments:

“Jumping out of helicopters”. At such a high altitude, special parachute techniques had to be followed? This was a mountain fastness where the NOISE MADE BY THE PROPS OF AN APPROACHING HELICOPTER COULD BE HEARD FROM A DISTANCE? The villains in their abode could hear the SF team approaching from afar? Forewarned is forearmed!

Nuristan is an Afghan province originally known as Kafiristan [land of the unbelievers]. A remote location, even for Afghan, POPULATED BY PERSONS DESCENDED FROM SOLDIERS THAT BELONGED TO THE ARMY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT!!! Only became Islamic one hundred years ago when subjected to a jihad waged by a Muslim fanatic!! [Nuristan means Land of the Enlightened! The locals becoming enlightened at sword point!!]

From the Rudyard Kipling book, and as mentioned in the movie, “The Man Who Would Be King", the setting for the adventures of Peachey and Danny were in Kafiristan. It is as if the story-line, to some extent has been fulfilled. NOT exactly, but who before 9/11 ever thought that American soldiers would distinguish themselves in battle, fighting the tribesmen of a place called Nuristan/Kafiristan??!!

coolbert.