The O’l Socials

Battle Scarred Motorsports

5 hours ago

"Those Crazy Brave Rats!"

"I recall on more than one occasion we came upon VC tunnels, most likely in Cu Chi province or the “D” Zone jungle; this was in early ’66 before the specialty of being a Tunnel Rat became the norm in many combat units. Once an entrance was discovered, we’d invariably stand around it until someone dropped smoke and grenades into the hole.

Then one day we learned of a new tactic.Milling around the entrance to one of these caverns one afternoon were a handful of us,smoking, talking, looking at the hole in the ground, happy to have a respite from the days’ hump, when a Captain walked up. He randomly pointed at one of the smaller troopers in the crowd and gave him orders to enter the tunnel.

The fellow removed his jungle fatigue shirt and was given a flashlight and a .45 before going underground(just as in the web photo below). It was an amazing sight to see, but the very thought of doing it was more scary than amazing. I don’t recall hearing any protest from the selected one that afternoon.

I did learn something that day which was put to good use on future operations where tunnels were involved:When it came time for the inevitable ‘selection’, I’d slowly move myself behind the nearest largest guy, hoping the PRC25 on my back would disqualify me from consideration, while making it a point not to make eye contact with the officer doing said selection.

It took an unusual breed of man to enter those dark, dank and dangerous places, and I was not one of them.To our173d Tunnel Rats out there....you were some brave and crazy sonsabitches!And ATFW!

Viet Cong Mines in Chu Chi The DH-5s and DH-10s were made out of crude steel, shaped like a saucer and containing five or ten pounds of high explosives.

The mines stood on bipods or tripods pointing directionally, or they would be buried a few inches underground. They inflicted dreadful injuries. One American medical officer’s report explained:“[They were] packed with hundreds of steel pellets and a few pounds of explosives....the terrific force and the pellets propelled by it made the explosion of a command-detonated mine equivalent to the simultaneous firing of seventy twelve-gaugeshotguns loaded with double-O buckshot.

Naturally, anyone hit by such a weapon was likely to suffer traumatic amputation of something –an arm, a leg, his head. And many did." - Lew "Smitty" Smith ... See MoreSee Less

Battle Scarred Motorsports

1 day ago

May 2011: — Gunnery Sgt. Brian M. Blonder shot and killed an insurgent who was aiming a rocket-propelled grenade at his Marines. After that, Blonder and his Marines averaged killing one insurgent about every 10 minutes.

At the end of an all-day fight, more than 50 Taliban were dead, scores were retreating, and the Marines took control of a key supply route through the village of Shewan, Afghanistan.
Blonder said it was what he came to do, and it’s what Marines do best – kill the enemy. And his unit did that exceptionally well that even though the Taliban outnumbered the Marines roughly eight to one.

For thriving in the face of danger, Blonder, a native of Deer Beach, Fla., was awarded the Navy Cross during a ceremony at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va., May 10. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus presented the award and said Blonder is “one of the most selfless and disciplined Marines” he’s ever met.
“He’ll be remembered for this for generations,” Mabus said. “His attack was relentless. The insurgents grew afraid.”

Blonder deployed to Afghanistan in the summer of 2008 with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. As a reconnaissance Marine by trade, he was serving as platoon sergeant for Force Reconnaissance Platoon, a group of 30 Marines, who were attached to the battalion’s Company G.

The firefight began when Marines and Afghan National Police were patrolling in Shewan, Afghanistan, a desert village in southern Afghanistan closer to the Iranian border, late morning Aug. 8, 2008. Blonder and Force Recon Platoon, along with an equal-sized element from Company G, were patrolling the village streets, anticipating enemy activity. Blonder and his Marines entered the village from its eastern border, while the Company G Marines entered from the North.

Taliban insurgents had control of the village and were known to man fighting positions along Route 517, a major roadway in southern Afghanistan.

Blonder said Afghan National Police had previously reported heavy resistance from insurgents in the village, to include many roadside bombs on Route 517. The Marines’ mission was to gain control of the roadway, rid the village of Taliban, and help the Afghan police establish a presence in the village.

The Marines planned weeks in advance for a sure fight when they stepped foot into Shewan. Blonder wasn’t surprised when he saw the inhabitants had either left or stayed inside their homes.
“It’s standard when Marines or coalition forces enter towns with insurgents that the local populace don’t come out,” Blonder said.
Force Recon Platoon patrolled for three hours before the first shot was fired. Taliban fighters, who were hidden in a drainage trench, fired an RPG at Blonder and his crew. Chief Petty Officer Joe Martin, the platoon’s Navy corpsman, spotted the enemy through the smoke trail of the RPG.

Blonder and Martin dropped into the trench, which the three-man enemy RPG team used as a getaway path, and pursued the attackers.

“At one point, one of them kind of popped up and silhouetted himself. So, I shot that guy and killed him. The other two continued on down the trench line,” Blonder said.
A four-man team of Marines, lead by Gunnery Sgt. Garrett Dean, supported the pursuit by flanking the enemy’s escape.
The pursuit ended in minutes when the two insurgents where killed by Dean’s team.

When intense small arms fire and explosions erupted nearby, Blonder and his men moved to the sound of the fight. Taliban had ambushed the Company G Marines and were in multiple fortified fighting positions firing a barrage of RPGs. Blonder’s team rescued a destroyed humvee’s occupants and withdrew to a safe area away from Taliban gunfire.

Blonder repositioned his outnumbered Marines, and in direct, close combat, maneuvered against the enemy.
Through Blonder’s order, the aggressiveness of the Marines, and their leaders’ selfless actions and initiative, a unit of approximately 30 Marines ousted a force of an estimated 250 Taliban combatants – some intelligence reports claimed there were as many as 500 insurgents. Blonder’s planned flanking attacks slowly but surely gained more and more territory that was once occupied by Taliban insurgents earlier in the day.

The Marines’ assault was also bolstered by mortar and air support. Several 500 to 1,000-pound bombs were dropped on enemy positions.

“Our goal was to push the enemy out of their trenches,” said Blonder. “We kept pressing the attack until we did just that.”
More than 50 insurgents were confirmed dead and numerous more were wounded, while the Marines suffered no losses. Blonder was personally responsible for killing at least three that day.

Fighting ceased by sunset when the enemy had either fled or were killed.

Blonder said he was happy to be victorious. “When it was all over with, and I was standing on the battlefield and the enemy was gone, I had a great sense of pride and accomplishment,” Blonder said. “When you’re not standing on the ground of the enemy at the end of the day, the enemy won. Instead, we took the stand, we drove the enemy out of their homes, and then we left on our own terms when we were ready to.”

Many Marines who participated in the battle were awarded with medals for valor.
“When you inflict that number of casualties on the enemy and none of us were killed, that’s a pretty successful fight,” said Martin. “The more chaotic things got, the more calm and on point [Blonder] was. I don’t think I’ll ever have another platoon sergeant like Gunny Blonder.”

Their mission of seizing control of Shewan’s portion of Route 517 and ridding insurgents from the village was accomplished. In fact, Blonder said he hadn’t heard of Marines or coalition forces receiving any more casualties in that area from insurgents during the rest of the deployment. The victory disrupted several Taliban unit networks, which Blonder said crippled Taliban spirits in southern Afghanistan.

“Our number one job is to locate, close with and kill the enemy,” said Dean. “What we did that day is what we trained for, and that’s what we’ll always do.”

Blonder remembers the triumphant and tiring day vividly. From the rifle fire Sgt. Frank Simmons bestowed upon the enemy, killing “countless” insurgents with single shots to the head or chest, to the accurate sniper fire of Staff Sgt. Richard Powell, Blonder said he’ll wear the Navy Cross as a representation of the Marines he fought alongside that day.

“It was a busy day,” Blonder said. “Every Marine out there was a huge part of that fight. From the NCO (noncommissioned officer) leadership all the way up to the officer leadership – everyone contributed all they had to that fight.” ... See MoreSee Less

Battle Scarred Motorsports

2 days ago

For actions during Operation Red Wings on Jun. 28, 2005.

On June 28, 2005, deep behind enemy lines east of Asadabad in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan, a very committed four-man Navy SEAL team was conducting a reconnaissance mission at the unforgiving altitude of approximately 10,000 feet. The SEALs, Lt. Michael Murphy, Danny Dietz, Matthew Axelson and Marcus Luttrell had a vital task. The four SEALs were scouting Ahmad Shah – a terrorist in his mid-30s who grew up in the adjacent mountains just to the south.

Under the assumed name Muhammad Ismail, Shah led a guerrilla group known to locals as the "Mountain Tigers" that had aligned with the Taliban and other militant groups close to the Pakistani border. The SEAL mission was compromised when the team was spotted by local nationals, who presumably reported its presence and location to the Taliban.

A fierce firefight erupted between the four SEALs and a much larger enemy force of more than 50 anti-coalition militia. The enemy had the SEALs outnumbered. They also had terrain advantage. They launched a well-organized, three-sided attack on the SEALs. The firefight continued relentlessly as the overwhelming militia forced the team deeper into a ravine.

Trying to reach safety, the four men, now each wounded, began bounding down the mountain's steep sides, making leaps of 20 to 30 feet. Approximately 45 minutes into the fight, pinned down by overwhelming forces, Dietz, the communications petty officer, sought open air to place a distress call back to the base. But before he could, he was shot in the hand, the blast shattering his thumb.

Despite the intensity of the firefight and suffering grave gunshot wounds himself, Murphy is credited with risking his own life to save the lives of his teammates. Murphy, intent on making contact with headquarters, but realizing this would be impossible in the extreme terrain where they were fighting, unhesitatingly and with complete disregard for his own life moved into the open, where he could gain a better position to transmit a call to get help for his men.

Moving away from the protective mountain rocks, he knowingly exposed himself to increased enemy gunfire. This deliberate and heroic act deprived him of cover and made him a target for the enemy. While continuing to be fired upon, Murphy made contact with the SOF Quick Reaction Force at Bagram Air Base and requested assistance. He calmly provided his unit’s location and the size of the enemy force while requesting immediate support for his team. At one point he was shot in the back causing him to drop the transmitter. Murphy picked it back up, completed the call and continued firing at the enemy who was closing in. Severely wounded, Lt. Murphy returned to his cover position with his men and continued the battle.

An MH-47 Chinook helicopter, with eight additional SEALs and eight Army Night Stalkers aboard, was sent is as part of an extraction mission to pull out the four embattled SEALs. The MH-47 was escorted by heavily-armored, Army attack helicopters. Entering a hot combat zone, attack helicopters are used initially to neutralize the enemy and make it safer for the lightly-armored, personnel-transport helicopter to insert.

The heavy weight of the attack helicopters slowed the formation’s advance prompting the MH-47 to outrun their armored escort. They knew the tremendous risk going into an active enemy area in daylight, without their attack support, and without the cover of night. Risk would, of course, be minimized if they put the helicopter down in a safe zone. But knowing that their warrior brothers were shot, surrounded and severely wounded, the rescue team opted to directly enter the oncoming battle in hopes of landing on brutally hazardous terrain.

As the Chinook raced to the battle, a rocket-propelled grenade struck the helicopter, killing all 16 men aboard.

On the ground and nearly out of ammunition, the four SEALs, Murphy, Luttrell, Dietz and Axelson, continued the fight. By the end of the two-hour gunfight that careened through the hills and over cliffs, Murphy, Axelson and Dietz had been killed. An estimated 35 Taliban were also dead.

The fourth SEAL, Luttrell, was blasted over a ridge by a rocket propelled grenade and was knocked unconscious. Regaining consciousness some time later, Luttrell managed to escape – badly injured – and slowly crawl away down the side of a cliff. Dehydrated, with a bullet wound to one leg, shrapnel embedded in both legs, three vertebrae cracked; the situation for Luttrell was grim. Rescue helicopters were sent in, but he was too weak and injured to make contact.

Traveling seven miles on foot he evaded the enemy for nearly a day. Gratefully, local nationals came to his aid, carrying him to a nearby village where they kept him for three days. The Taliban came to the village several times demanding that Luttrell be turned over to them. The villagers refused. One of the villagers made his way to a Marine outpost with a note from Luttrell, and U.S. forces launched a massive operation that rescued him from enemy territory on July 2.

By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit and inspirational devotion to his men in the face of certain death, Lt. Murphy was able to relay the position of his unit, an act that ultimately led to the rescue of Luttrell and the recovery of the remains of the three who were killed in the battle.

This was the worst single-day U.S. Forces death toll since Operation Enduring Freedom began nearly six years ago. It was the single largest loss of life for Naval Special Warfare since World War II.

#navyseals #giantkiller #army #LoneSurvivor #specialforces #richardflaherty #TheGiantKiller ... See MoreSee Less