Green Berets Recount Deadly Taliban Ambush

Special Forces Troops Tell 60 Minutes Taliban Fighters Better Organized Than They Expected

(CBS)  "Seeing Hernandez propped up at that ridiculous angle was absolutely inspiring," says O'Connor. "You could see the tracer rounds actually flail the wall in front of him. And he'd duck down and then pop back up and tracer rounds were coming, they were whizzing right by our heads."

"Were you amazed by Hernandez, what was he was doing?" Logan asks.

"I was. I was," O'Connor says, tearing up.

"Brendan says he's never seen anything more inspiring or motivating than that moment when he laid eyes on you," Logan tells Hernandez.

"And I’d say the same thing about him," Hernandez replies.

While Hernandez was firing from the ladder, O'Connor started to crawl under fire across an open field to rescue the two wounded Americans. With no cover, his thick body armor made him an easy target.

"I actually pulled back to cover, to a covered position and removed my body armor," O'Connor remembers.

O'Connor says he couldn't get low enough, and was still under fire. "There was exchanges of fire going on at all times," he remembers.

Maj. Ford said everyone watching O'Connor crawl 90 yards across the open field without his bullet-proof vest couldn't believe what he was doing.

"They described to me watching the machine gun fire go right over his body, seein' it hit grass that he was crawlin' through and seein' it mow some of that down, the fires were so heavy it was literally cutting some of the grass in different spots," Ford explains.

It took an hour and a half for O'Connor to reach Fuerst and Binney. From a rooftop, Master Sergeant Thom Maholic was single-handedly holding down a group of advancing Taliban who were threatening the rescue operation.

"They were coming to take that compound that Thom was holding. And he would stop them by killing them or wounding them. And eventually they gave up their assault," Ford explains.

"Did Thom make it possible for you to get out?" Logan asks O'Connor.

"Absolutely," he replies.

Asked if he couldn't have done it without him, O'Connor says, "Absolutely not."

Then Maholic took a bullet in the head. Abram Hernandez rushed to his aide but there was little he could do. Maholic died in his arms.

Joe Fuerst also died as Sgt. O'Connor tried to carry him to safety. At this point, other members of the team, including Staff Sergeant Brandon Pechette, began to think no one would make it out alive.

Asked if he was afraid, Pechette tells Logan, "I was, at a point. There was a lull. When I heard that Thom Maholic and Joe had passed it was kind of a point where we're like, 'Well, we're still surrounded, you know? What are we gonna do? Well, we’ll keep fighting.' So, I pull out a notebook. Wrote a little quick note to my wife. Said goodbye and said, 'Well, if I'm goin', I'm takin' as many as I can with me. And we're gonna fight as bravely as we can.'"

After nearly two days of fighting, two men lost and one seriously wounded, the Green Berets were almost out of ammunition.

[reply60min]

See pbs''s "EXTREME OIL" for another recently completed Baku-Ceyhan-Tablisi-Mediterranean Sea pipeline that "liberated" caspian oil.


from the bbc:
"The construction of the 850-kilometre pipeline had been previously discussed between Afghanistan''s former Taliban regime, US oil company Unocal and Bridas of Argentina.

The project was abandoned after the US launched missile attacks on Afghanistan in 1999.
Afghanistan plans to build a road linking Turkmenistan with Pakistan parallel to the pipeline, to supply nearby villages with gas, and also to pump Afghan gas for export, Mr Razim said.
The pipeline is expected to be built with funds from donor countries for the reconstruction of Afghanistan as well as ADB loans, he said."

[reply60min]

Everyone (military and civilian) has the right and duty to investigate and question. The information is there for anyone who wants to seek it out. As we know "I was just following orders" did not hold in war trials. Just because one country''s leadership "legalized" an action (waterboarding torture), that too did not hold in Nazi or Japanese world war criminal trials.

Every family will "support the troops" with their $21,000 of the 3T bill as it is silently taken from their back pockets. Try to get that type of subsidy for alternative energy expansion and energy independence! It''s just like the crooks of enron, dynergy, el paso etc. who decimate pension funds or saddle rate payers with 30 years to pay off the exorbitant electricity rates for the shortages they schemed. The west as "nation builders" assures they will get the same types of crooks as the medical drug industry that deny the free market principles and force U.S. buyers to pay more than Canadians.

So remember, every country deserves an Independence Day. And as having done nothing since the ''70''s it remains: America is addicted to oil. And, addicts commit crimes to feed their habits.

[reply60min]

Now the administration had the oil lawyers draft a 400 page PSA agreement giving them 50% of the oil they extract. Washington pressures them at every opportunity, while the Iraqi oil workers say "just be sell us the equipment". The administration wants the old days of aramco where ignorant saudis just sat back and cashed a royalty check and outsiders ran the whole operation. It doesn''t do much for the foundation of the country, especially when it peters out in 40 years. The old "give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" applies directly to rebuilding of iraq. Theft, greed, jealously, coveting another''s property etc, all find the claim "hijacked religion" reflexively appropriate to the "christians" in office.

So with 81% of americans saying the country is on the wrong course, the world consensus the west is wrong, a low 30% house/senate approval, 28% presidential approval etc, the question is how did this occur? Could another super power claim to be doing a similar "good" (say, to protect the world''s poor from global flooding, or to fix the corporate control over a decades old failed health system) and invade and displace the leadership and then likewise claim of an expensive occupation that "they have resources we can sell off to fund it"?

[reply60min]

The book "100 YEARS OF OVERTHROW" shows how the democratically elected mossadegh, hamas, arbenz, allende etc, were decimated for resource control and conquest. The bad governments of saudi arabia or egypt are ignored as long as they play the west''s game with oil or regional control. Those that seek more for their people (mossadegh 16-50% royalty, chavez etc) are targeted oddly as if having giving too much "interest" in their citizens.


"THE GRAND CHESSBOARD", irretractably written before the invasions, speaks of of these countries that make the headlines today - iraq, afganistan, turkmenistan, ukraine, georgia, iran, syria, jordan, pakistan, israel, india, etc. Just color in the squares and recognize where the U.S.''s 700 foreign bases are, and recognize just who became the disposable pawns in iraq and afganistan. Realize that we still occupy a part of cuba and embargo them for the equivalent for what is going on today with Poland and Czechoslovakia. The U.S.''s 5% uses 25% of the world''s resources and 45% of the world''s gasoline while other countries demand their share. How far we have strayed. Imagine if the biblical story of 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish miraculously could feed 5000 but instead 45% were kept for few disciples. Days before bremmer left he tried to sneak in the laws that absolves the west from war prosecution, a mandate that "minerals" become privatized and allows all companies to take all profits out of iraq. Iraqis objected.

[reply60min]

The Taliban did not attack America. The "mujihadeen/AQ", nurtured by the U.S. to "kick out foreign armies" did. Rumsfeld threatened to remove the taliban from power after their rebuff of the Unocal/Rumsfeld Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Indian Ocean Pipeline from the oil rich caspian sea region. That, explains the a lot about how this administration treats pakistan and occupies afganistan in their 6 year "hunt". This love-hate relationship is required for the pipeline to materialize. Evidence appeared last year as the first agenda in afganistan was to build the main N-S road and bridge.
The same oil agenda was exposed in iraq, where the opening invasion sent special forces to guard the in-operative trans-jordan pipeline while the museums were looted. Recall, how the administration even floated the idea of "laying a pipeline as they advanced north to resupply the troops". of course that would have later made a dandy drainage source to export oil for some multinational oil company. A similar thing occurred before, as taxpayer funded project turned privatized windfall bonanza - the "big inch, little inch" pipelines (likewise, and the texas rangers stadium).

Regarding AQ and "no distinction between them and those that harbor them", the U.S. does the same with terrorist killer Posada. "bringing democracy" is just an excuse for the public and the unquestioning military.

[libsrweak]

Unfortunately times are a lot worse now than they were during nam.

Posted by ranger1948 at 10:11 PM : Apr 22, 2008
+ report abuse

*****
now they are fighting a more vicious enemy and a more vicious group of liberals..

[hbevis]

To warftr

Are you in the United States or some other country??

You wrote a pretty moving piece. And it would seem to me that anyone with much sense would want all war''s to end.

[warftr]

Ms. Logan,

Thanks for your report. I found myself weeping uncontrollably throughout the story. There are no words for one that lays his life down before his brothers, without hesitation. That%u2019s why we serve. My civilian friends ask me why I don%u2019t separate from the military and find other work, this after three different trips to IRAQ and one to AFGN. I serve not for me, but for my brothers and sisters in arms.

I want the wars to end, and the killing to cease. But I will inflict my will as I am ordered to. After seeing much of the world through iron sites at the end of a weapon, I know that being different isn%u2019t necessarily wrong.

I completely lost it when I saw the son standing proudly in his place for his father that had been fatally wounded. I see my own son standing there and I pray to God that he spares my life for my children%u2019s sake. But I will not hesitate, not for a minute, to put myself in danger or sacrifice my life so that I won%u2019t have to see someone else%u2019s child standing in their place.

This thought process might seem foreign to you and your viewers, but it%u2019s a way of life for some. I don%u2019t see myself doing anything else, and I don%u2019t much want to either.

Again, thank you for your report.

[ranger1948]

jc1844
Unfortunately times are a lot worse now than they were during nam.

[jc1844]

What a degressing mess we''re in. Correuption in the "Billions"...Missmanagement from the top down....No End In Sight....Thousands of deaths(ours & civilians)......A *** of a President lacking any sense of leadership....Reminds me of NAM yrs ago. My how history repeats itself.

[hbevis]

To dixiecharms: Good post...

And to everyone else...We Will WIN this was at some point. Its going to take a long time yet. But from the input that I have heard things are getting better. No matter what we may hear on the liberal news..



Once again, I sing "I''''m proud to be an American" -- when I read a story like this one -- it is an awesome debt we owe these brave American soldiers. Their love of each other trumps anything I''''ve seen in this world. God Bless America - Land that I love.

Posted by dixiecharms at 01:24 PM : Apr 22, 2008

[dixiecharms]

Once again, I sing "I''m proud to be an American" -- when I read a story like this one -- it is an awesome debt we owe these brave American soldiers. Their love of each other trumps anything I''ve seen in this world. God Bless America - Land that I love.

[vapelloni]

Hey joyous88, I notice you are on these blogs 24/7. It must be you are for Democrats because you are unemployed and living off the government handouts the democrats love to give out. Get a Life Get A Job!!!

[ranger1948]

Calling for gate''s head will do no good. Look at what bush has done and got away with. A lot more than gates has done. If we are going to do something we need to impeacyh bush and his regime just to start.

[ranger1948]

His foot wouldn''t heal properly so he opted for surgery to amputate so he could receive an artificial foot so he could return to his unit with his buddies. I met many soldiers who were 18 or 19 years old and had received many serious burns, lost legs and arms. Not once did i hear one complain. These were soldiers who represent our finest. The treatment at Ft Sma Houston Army hospital is second to n one in the country. They do a tremendous job. They take care of our troops and also retirees and dependents. I salute them as well as all o9f our fine soldiers.

[ranger1948]

I met many fine soldiers at Ft Hood Army Hospital. San Antonio, Texas whpo were receiving treatment for various wouunds. One soldier i met had been wounded and had had surgery.

[danodci68]

I should say I respect these soldiers with great admiration, but it sounded like 60 minutess and that British reporter were trying to make a statement that the Taliban is better than our SF. No matter how many green berets were on hand, they were definitely out numbered and even our best perfom heroicly when they are outmanned and outgunned. 60 minutes needs to get it facts straight and stop sensationalizing about who the taliban were up against even though I''d still take a national guardsman over any taliban wimp! Their all heroes in to me and deserve our respect.

[danodci68]

Army Staff Sgt. Joseph F. Fuerst III

26, of Tampa, Fla.; assigned to 53rd Infantry Brigade, Florida Army National Guard, Pinellas Park, Fla.; killed June 24 when his Humvee came in contact with enemy forces using rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire during combat operations in Panjway, Afghanistan.

I Never new the National Guard was part of the Special Forces. I thought you had to be Airborne Qualified

[hbevis]

I agree with you. Why is Bush not doing something about this??

If gates thinks the Air Force isn''''t doing enough then he should get off his *** and out of his airconditioned office and go there and correct th situation.

Posted by ranger1948 at 11:20 PM : Apr 21, 2008

[ranger1948]

If gates thinks the Air Force isn''t doing enough then he should get off his *** and out of his airconditioned office and go there and correct th situation.