The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), abbreviated as 160th SOAR (A), is a special operations force of the United States Army that provides helicopter aviation support for special operations forces. Its missions have included attack, assault, and reconnaissance, and these missions are usually conducted at night, at high speeds, low altitudes, and on short notice.
The Air Force of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also referred to as the Islamic Emirate Air Force and the Afghan Air Force, is the air force branch of the Afghan Armed Forces.
Operation Red Wings, informally referred to as the Battle of Abbas Ghar, was a joint military operation conducted by the United States in the Pech District of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. It was carried out from late-June to mid-July 2005 on the slopes of a mountain named Sawtalo Sar, situated approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of the provincial capital of Asadabad. The operation was intended to disrupt the activities of local Taliban-aligned anti-coalition militias (ACM), thus contributing to regional stability and thereby facilitating the September 2005 parliamentary election for the National Assembly of Afghanistan. At the time, Taliban ACM activity in the region was carried out predominantly by a small group led by a local man from Nangarhar Province known as Ahmad Shah, who had aspirations of achieving regional prominence among Muslim fundamentalists. Consequently, Shah and his group were one of the primary targets of the American military operation.
The Battle of Takur Ghar was a short but intense military engagement between United States special operations forces and al-Qaeda insurgents fought in March 2002, atop Takur Ghar mountain in Afghanistan. For the U.S. side, the battle proved the deadliest entanglement of Operation Anaconda, an effort early in the War in Afghanistan to rout al-Qaeda forces from the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains. The battle saw three helicopter landings by the U.S. on the mountain top, each met with direct assault from al-Qaeda forces. Although Takur Ghar was eventually taken, seven U.S. service members were killed and 12 others were wounded. The battle is also known as the Battle of Roberts Ridge, after the first casualty of the battle, Navy SEAL Neil C. Roberts.
Marcus Luttrell is a retired United States Navy SEAL who received the Navy Cross and Purple Heart for his actions in June 2005 against Taliban fighters during Operation Red Wings in which he was the lone survivor. Luttrell became an SO1 by the end of his eight-year career in the United States Navy.
Ahmad Shah was an Afghan from the Kunar Province of Afghanistan who commanded a group of fighters operating in eastern Afghanistan and was linked to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
There were 2,402 United States military deaths in the War in Afghanistan, which lasted from October 2001 to August 2021. 1,921 of these deaths were the result of hostile action. 20,713 American servicemembers were also wounded in action during the war. In addition, 18 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives also died in Afghanistan. Further, there were 1,822 civilian contractor fatalities.
Donald Mitchell Brown, Jr. is an American author, attorney, and former United States Navy JAG Officer. He has published fifteen books on the United States military, including eleven military-genre novels, the best known of which is Treason (2005) in which radical Islamic clerics infiltrate the United States Navy Chaplain Corps. He has published four works of military nonfiction, including his national bestseller, The Last Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Final Combat Mission of World War II (2017). Brown may be best known for his work as legal counsel to Army Lieutenant Clint Lorance, who had been convicted of murder by a military court-martial at Fort Bragg when his platoon became involved in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2011, and his authorship of the 2019 book Travesty of Justice: The Shocking Prosecution of Lt. Clint Lorance. On November 15, 2019, President Donald Trump pardoned Lorance, and the book is considered to be a major factor in leading to that pardon. Between the release of Travesty of Justice on March 31, 2019, and Lorance's pardon on November 15, 2019, Brown made numerous national television appearances and penned a number of national Op-eds arguing that President Trump should free and exonerate Lieutenant Lorance. On the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, November 27, 2019, Brown and Lorance appeared on Hannity, the nightly national broadcast on the Fox News Channel to discuss the presidential pardon and release.
On 6 August 2011, a U.S. CH-47D Chinook military helicopter operating with the call sign Extortion 17 was shot down while transporting a Quick Reaction Force attempting to reinforce a Joint Special Operations Command unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan.
Operation Whalers was a United States Marine Corps military operation that took place in Afghanistan's Kunar Province, between August 13 and August 18, 2005, just weeks after the disastrous Operation Red Wings. Like Operation Red Wings, the objective of Operation Whalers was the disruption of Anti-Coalition Militia (ACM) activity in the region in support of further stabilizing the region for unencumbered voter turnout for the September 18, 2005 Afghan national parliamentary elections.
Victory Point: Operations Red Wings and Whalers - The Marine Corps' Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan is a nonfiction book by author Ed Darack published in hardcover in 2009 and in paperback in 2010 by The Berkley Publishing Group, an imprint of The Penguin Publishing Group. Victory Point comprehensively documents Operation Red Wings and Operation Whalers, two historically significant military operations that took place in the summer of 2005 in the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar Province.
Tom Young is an American novelist. He is known primarily as the author of the military thrillers The Mullah's Storm, Silent Enemy, The Renegades, The Warriors, and Sand and Fire. Young served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with the West Virginia Air National Guard. Young's military experience inspired his debut novel, The Mullah's Storm, which garnered positive reviews. The Mullah's Storm, Silent Enemy, and The Renegades received Gold Medal awards from the Military Writers Society of America. Silent Enemy, The Renegades, and The Warriors received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly.
Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (2007) is a non-fiction book written by Marcus Luttrell with assistance from novelist and ghostwriter Patrick Robinson and published by Little, Brown and Company. The narrative takes place in Afghanistan, following Luttrell and a group of U.S. Navy SEALs. It has since seen a 2013 film adaptation of the same name, with Mark Wahlberg starring as Luttrell.
Ed Darack is an American author and photographer. He is the author of The Final Mission of Extortion 17, about the August 6, 2011 downing of Extortion 17, Victory Point: Operations Red Wings and Whalers – The Marine Corps' Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan, about Operation Red Wings and Operation Whalers, two American military operations that took place in 2005 in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar Province. He is the author of three other books in addition to Victory Point, including 6194: Denali Solo and Wind - Water - Sun: A Solo Kayak Journey Along Baja California's Desert Coastline. Darack is also an author of magazine articles about a range of subjects, a photographer published in media throughout the world, and a cartographer.
Nicholas Irving is an American author and former soldier. He was a special operations sniper in the 3rd Ranger Battalion for the U.S. Army.
Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six is a 2015 non-fiction expose, written by best-selling author and former U.S. Navy JAG Officer Don Brown, about the 2011 Chinook shootdown in Afghanistan of a United States Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter. It is published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, through its Imprint, Lyons Press. In the shoot-down, 31 Americans lost their lives, including 17 U.S. Navy SEALs, 15 of whom were from 2 troop, Gold Squadron at SEAL Team Six, officially the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
John Allan Chapman was a combat controller in the United States Air Force who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on August 22, 2018, for his actions in the Battle of Takur Ghar during the War in Afghanistan. He is the first airman to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. He was inducted into the Hall of Heroes on August 23, 2018, and posthumously promoted to Master Sergeant on the following day.
The Chinook Display Team is an aerobatics display team in the Royal Air Force based at RAF Odiham. The team flies the UK variant Boeing CH-47 Chinook, and is composed of volunteers from front-line aircrew who train and execute air show performances between day-to-day primary military operations. Their regular performances are popular due to public support for the Chinook's military role, its recognizability, and the variation in display and maneuvers it provides to an air show.
