Chris
03-06-2002, 04:28 AM
By Sue Anne Pressley
The seven Americans killed in Afghanistan Monday included a career mathematics teacher who became an expert machine-gunner; a father of two young boys who loved to spend his off hours fixing things; and a 22-year-old Army Ranger who knelt and prayed with his dad before leaving to fight for his country.
Four of the seven were from the Army, including three Rangers; two were from the Air Force; and one was a Navy SEAL. As described by their families, they were in the best condition of their lives, exhaustively trained in their duties, and convinced that their participation in this conflict, and even their deaths, if necessary, were justified.
They died Monday when al Qaeda fighters fired on their two helicopters in separate incidents, bringing with a jolt the flesh-and-blood reality of this remote conflict to Americans back home. The casualties came during the toughest ground combat the U.S. military has seen since the famous "Black Hawk Down" firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993.
Yesterday their bodies were flown from the war zone to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where Army chaplains read psalms over the flag-draped caskets. They were transferred to a C-5 transport jet that was waiting to take them to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last night.
Back home, friends and relatives waited, sorting through their memories. Many said they had felt uneasy all day Monday, or even experienced premonitions that their loved ones were in grave danger.
"My wife Judy said she had a funny feeling Monday. She said, 'I don't know why, but I feel something has happened,' " said David Anderson, 63, of Jacksonville, Fla., a former Army Ranger and Vietnam veteran.
At 10:30 p.m. that night, military officials arrived at their home to inform them that their youngest son, Spc. Marc A. Anderson, 30, a Ranger, had died in the fighting.
The other dead were Army Sgt. Bradley Crose, 22, of Orange Park, Fla., who was based with Anderson at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia; a fellow Ranger, Army Pfc. Matthew Commons, 21, of Boulder City, Nev.; Army Sgt. Philip Svitak, 31, of Joplin, Mo., also based at Hunter with a Special Operations helicopter unit; Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, 36, of Waco, Tex., a combat controller based at Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, N.C.; Air Force Senior Airman Jason Cunningham, 26, of Camarillo, Calif.; and Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts, 32, of Woodland, Calif.
When the deaths were first reported, they were described as occurring during a mission to retrieve a serviceman's body. Defense officials revised that account yesterday.
According to the new information, mishaps began occurring shortly before dawn Monday in Afghanistan, when two MH-47 Chinook helicopters landed on the battlefield in eastern Afghanistan to insert Special Operations teams. One of the twin-rotor aircraft was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, then both helicopters lifted off and flew to a location more than a mile away, where they landed to check the damage.
While on the ground, the crew realized that Roberts, a Navy SEAL, had fallen off the Chinook that had been hit as it took off. The crew of the second helicopter returned to the original landing zone to rescue Roberts – but the Special Operations team instead recovered his body.
He hadn't died from the fall, defense officials said yesterday, but from a bullet wound. A camera on an overhead U.S. drone photographed him being dragged away by three al Qaeda fighters. It was unclear whether he was dead or alive at that time, or how his body was recovered.
A few hours later, two other MH-47s landed less than a mile from where the first two Chinooks had touched down. One left its Special Operations team and departed, but the other came under heavy enemy fire and could not take off.
During the intense firefight that ensued, six Americans were killed and 11 others wounded.
"The two landing zones were separated by some distance," Air Force Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa Jr., deputy director for current operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters yesterday. "And there's no way, even with perfect intelligence, that you can always know whether there is going to be ground fire."
Devin Roberts of Woodland, Calif., a Sacramento suburb of 50,000, declined to comment yesterday on his brother's death. "We would just like to mourn in peace," he said.
Although most of the men had made careers in the military, several were looking forward to their release from active duty in a few months.
Marc Anderson was one of them, nearing the completion of his four years in the Army and anticipating a return to the classroom as a mathematics teacher. Although he had joined the Army to pay for student loans, he approached his life as a soldier with the same energy and perfectionism he had exhibited teaching for three years at Fort Myers (Fla.) Middle School Academy, and earlier, as an All-American track star at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, his father said.
"When the first sergeant from Bravo Company was here last night, he told me that Marc was the number one machine gunner in the whole regiment, and when they needed training, A Company sent over Marc," David Anderson said. "He was very happy, very outgoing, but he was big enough you didn't want to cross him – 6 foot 3, 240 pounds, 11 percent body fat, a 35-inch waist. He worked out all the time."
Rick Crose, a retired Navy chief petty officer, said he had never wanted his son, Bradley, to join the military.
"Bradley grew up in a military home, in a very structured and close environment, but he made a decision on his own to go into the armed forces," Crose said. "If you were to ask me if I wanted him and his brother [Aaron, 24, a Marine] to do it, I would've said no."
Crose said he last saw his son when he visited Hunter Army Airfield on Christmas Day. He knew Bradley was about to be deployed, and they knelt and prayed together.
"He was a very strong Christian, and he lived his life in that manner, but Bradley was also a warrior," Rick Crose said. "We had many conversations around the dinner table and out walking about: How are these two compatible? How can you be both? And he had figured out that yes, you can be both."
Svitak was remembered yesterday as a loving husband and father of two boys, ages 5 and 2, who enjoyed outdoor sports and working with his hands.
"He loved shop class, loved to fix things, loved to hunt outdoors, loved camouflage, loved skateboarding, which is what he did," said a statement issued by his parents. "He's the finest man on earth. I couldn't have asked for a better son."
In a suburb of Hartford, Conn., yesterday, Lori McQueeney recalled how much her brother, Chapman, loved his wife Valerie and his daughters, ages 3 and 5. She, too, last saw him Christmas, and although they tried to keep the mood light, everyone knew he might end up in a terribly dangerous situation.
"We talked about everything," McQueeney said. "I'm sure we must have talked about the war. As a father, he didn't want to go. But as a soldier who was trained over 10 years to do his job, he wanted to, as he would say, basically go over there and kick some [expletive]."
Cunningham also had two daughters: Hannah, 2, and Kyla, 4. "He was a wonderful person and he was a wonderful father," said his wife of five years, Theresa Cunningham, from their home in Valdosta, Ga., near the Moody Air Force Base.
Said his father-in-law, Lito DeCastro, "He loved what he was doing."
The attraction to the military life also proved great for the youngest of the soldiers, Commons. He graduated in 1999 from the local high school in Boulder City, a town of 15,000 near the Hoover Dam, but dropped out of the University of Nevada at Reno after a year to re- alize his dream of becoming a Ranger.
"He wanted to do one of the elite arms of the military," said his former stepfather, Robert Craig. "It was something he had wanted to do as long as he could remember."
Chris.
The seven Americans killed in Afghanistan Monday included a career mathematics teacher who became an expert machine-gunner; a father of two young boys who loved to spend his off hours fixing things; and a 22-year-old Army Ranger who knelt and prayed with his dad before leaving to fight for his country.
Four of the seven were from the Army, including three Rangers; two were from the Air Force; and one was a Navy SEAL. As described by their families, they were in the best condition of their lives, exhaustively trained in their duties, and convinced that their participation in this conflict, and even their deaths, if necessary, were justified.
They died Monday when al Qaeda fighters fired on their two helicopters in separate incidents, bringing with a jolt the flesh-and-blood reality of this remote conflict to Americans back home. The casualties came during the toughest ground combat the U.S. military has seen since the famous "Black Hawk Down" firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993.
Yesterday their bodies were flown from the war zone to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where Army chaplains read psalms over the flag-draped caskets. They were transferred to a C-5 transport jet that was waiting to take them to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last night.
Back home, friends and relatives waited, sorting through their memories. Many said they had felt uneasy all day Monday, or even experienced premonitions that their loved ones were in grave danger.
"My wife Judy said she had a funny feeling Monday. She said, 'I don't know why, but I feel something has happened,' " said David Anderson, 63, of Jacksonville, Fla., a former Army Ranger and Vietnam veteran.
At 10:30 p.m. that night, military officials arrived at their home to inform them that their youngest son, Spc. Marc A. Anderson, 30, a Ranger, had died in the fighting.
The other dead were Army Sgt. Bradley Crose, 22, of Orange Park, Fla., who was based with Anderson at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia; a fellow Ranger, Army Pfc. Matthew Commons, 21, of Boulder City, Nev.; Army Sgt. Philip Svitak, 31, of Joplin, Mo., also based at Hunter with a Special Operations helicopter unit; Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, 36, of Waco, Tex., a combat controller based at Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, N.C.; Air Force Senior Airman Jason Cunningham, 26, of Camarillo, Calif.; and Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts, 32, of Woodland, Calif.
When the deaths were first reported, they were described as occurring during a mission to retrieve a serviceman's body. Defense officials revised that account yesterday.
According to the new information, mishaps began occurring shortly before dawn Monday in Afghanistan, when two MH-47 Chinook helicopters landed on the battlefield in eastern Afghanistan to insert Special Operations teams. One of the twin-rotor aircraft was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, then both helicopters lifted off and flew to a location more than a mile away, where they landed to check the damage.
While on the ground, the crew realized that Roberts, a Navy SEAL, had fallen off the Chinook that had been hit as it took off. The crew of the second helicopter returned to the original landing zone to rescue Roberts – but the Special Operations team instead recovered his body.
He hadn't died from the fall, defense officials said yesterday, but from a bullet wound. A camera on an overhead U.S. drone photographed him being dragged away by three al Qaeda fighters. It was unclear whether he was dead or alive at that time, or how his body was recovered.
A few hours later, two other MH-47s landed less than a mile from where the first two Chinooks had touched down. One left its Special Operations team and departed, but the other came under heavy enemy fire and could not take off.
During the intense firefight that ensued, six Americans were killed and 11 others wounded.
"The two landing zones were separated by some distance," Air Force Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa Jr., deputy director for current operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters yesterday. "And there's no way, even with perfect intelligence, that you can always know whether there is going to be ground fire."
Devin Roberts of Woodland, Calif., a Sacramento suburb of 50,000, declined to comment yesterday on his brother's death. "We would just like to mourn in peace," he said.
Although most of the men had made careers in the military, several were looking forward to their release from active duty in a few months.
Marc Anderson was one of them, nearing the completion of his four years in the Army and anticipating a return to the classroom as a mathematics teacher. Although he had joined the Army to pay for student loans, he approached his life as a soldier with the same energy and perfectionism he had exhibited teaching for three years at Fort Myers (Fla.) Middle School Academy, and earlier, as an All-American track star at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, his father said.
"When the first sergeant from Bravo Company was here last night, he told me that Marc was the number one machine gunner in the whole regiment, and when they needed training, A Company sent over Marc," David Anderson said. "He was very happy, very outgoing, but he was big enough you didn't want to cross him – 6 foot 3, 240 pounds, 11 percent body fat, a 35-inch waist. He worked out all the time."
Rick Crose, a retired Navy chief petty officer, said he had never wanted his son, Bradley, to join the military.
"Bradley grew up in a military home, in a very structured and close environment, but he made a decision on his own to go into the armed forces," Crose said. "If you were to ask me if I wanted him and his brother [Aaron, 24, a Marine] to do it, I would've said no."
Crose said he last saw his son when he visited Hunter Army Airfield on Christmas Day. He knew Bradley was about to be deployed, and they knelt and prayed together.
"He was a very strong Christian, and he lived his life in that manner, but Bradley was also a warrior," Rick Crose said. "We had many conversations around the dinner table and out walking about: How are these two compatible? How can you be both? And he had figured out that yes, you can be both."
Svitak was remembered yesterday as a loving husband and father of two boys, ages 5 and 2, who enjoyed outdoor sports and working with his hands.
"He loved shop class, loved to fix things, loved to hunt outdoors, loved camouflage, loved skateboarding, which is what he did," said a statement issued by his parents. "He's the finest man on earth. I couldn't have asked for a better son."
In a suburb of Hartford, Conn., yesterday, Lori McQueeney recalled how much her brother, Chapman, loved his wife Valerie and his daughters, ages 3 and 5. She, too, last saw him Christmas, and although they tried to keep the mood light, everyone knew he might end up in a terribly dangerous situation.
"We talked about everything," McQueeney said. "I'm sure we must have talked about the war. As a father, he didn't want to go. But as a soldier who was trained over 10 years to do his job, he wanted to, as he would say, basically go over there and kick some [expletive]."
Cunningham also had two daughters: Hannah, 2, and Kyla, 4. "He was a wonderful person and he was a wonderful father," said his wife of five years, Theresa Cunningham, from their home in Valdosta, Ga., near the Moody Air Force Base.
Said his father-in-law, Lito DeCastro, "He loved what he was doing."
The attraction to the military life also proved great for the youngest of the soldiers, Commons. He graduated in 1999 from the local high school in Boulder City, a town of 15,000 near the Hoover Dam, but dropped out of the University of Nevada at Reno after a year to re- alize his dream of becoming a Ranger.
"He wanted to do one of the elite arms of the military," said his former stepfather, Robert Craig. "It was something he had wanted to do as long as he could remember."
Chris.