The Sniper

KABUL – Helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans on Monday — 11 troops and three drug agents — in the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years. The deaths came as President Barack Obama prepared to meet his national security team for a sixth full-scale conference on the future of the troubled war.

In the deadliest crash, a helicopter went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing 10 Americans — seven troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Eleven American troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.

In a separate incident, two U.S. Marine helicopters — one UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra — collided in flight before sunrise over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.

It was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 16 U.S. troops on a special forces helicopter died when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by insurgents. The casualties also mark the first DEA deaths in Afghanistan since it began operations there in 2005.

There was another Chinook crash that took out a bunch of soldiers previous to special ops bird shoot-down. That Chinook crash in 04 or 05 (I cna’t remember for sure) took place close to our FOB just outside of Ghazni. Our guys had to go out, secure the site, recover the remains (there really wasn’t enough left to call them “bodies” anymore), and clean up the mess. They had to use e-tools to scoop the parts into body bags. Since there was no morgue on FOB Ghazni the body bags had to be stored in the mess hall freezer. A couple months later I had to ride down from Bagram to the Pakistani border on a Chinook with a buddy of mine who had been there cleaning it up. When the crew told him to put on his K-pot, he told them it wouldn’t make any difference and refused. I explained to the crew chief what had happened and the chief let it slide. He was the only one not wearing a helmet on the way down and nobody questioned him about it… which was a really smart move on their parts. He still isn’t the same guy and probably never will be… but then again, who is?