In 2007, Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle. To the west of the Sawtalo Sar ridgeline is the Korangal Valley. Some survivors from the rescue mission, Operation Red Wings II, have reported suffering from PTSD. That's how movies work. More like 8-12 fighters according to multiple sources, including video shot by those Talis during the fight, Gulab and the other villagers who rescued Luttrell, and the Marine rescue team who were there a day later. If someone says something that is not true, that person is a liar. Commander Erik S. Kristensen, was sent as part of an extraction mission to pull out the four embattled Navy SEALs. This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 20:11. [68] It was dedicated by Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter in November 2007. [2][7] 2/3 continued the use of hockey team names for large operations. "Lone Survivor," the story of SEAL heroism in the mountains of Afghanistan, resurfaced in May 2016 after an article in which Mohammed Gulab, the man who saved lone SEAL survivor Marcus Luttrell, disputed some of the most important aspects of Luttrell's story.Lone Survivor was eventually made into a major motion picture, but that . [1][2] A key milestone in this campaign was the September 18, 2005, Afghan national parliamentary elections. Actual location of Operation Red Wings Axelson was shot not once but twice in the head and kept on fighting. Same with the villagers who rescued Luttrell and all the videos those insurgents made themselves. I thought he was a hero for a long time. Type your new password and hit button below to confirm it. Darack lists these on p. 167-168, Learn how and when to remove this template message, 160th Airborne Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, September 18, 2005, Afghan national parliamentary elections, Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Red wings and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, "Operation Red Wings: What Really Happened? Shamus O. Goare, 29, of Danville, Ohio. The film shows Murphy deciding to expose himself to enemy fire to get a message to a waiting Quick Reaction Force and hopefully save as many of his men as possible. The 29-year-old Luttrell, a sniper and team medic, concealed himself under a felled tree when he suddenly heard soft footsteps. -- When Ed and Suzanne Kristensen first heard about a Chinook helicopter being shot down in eastern Afghanistan on June 28, 2005, at first they feared for their Navy SEAL son Erik, who was deployed there at the time, but were reassured by a Navy friend that he likely wouldn't have been aboard. To rid themselves of Taliban forces in the area, led by a warlord named Ahmed Shah, the Marines put together Operation Red Wings, then called on the Navy SEALs based near Kabul. I did not see that in Marcuss book. Operation Red Wings Autopsy Report. The MH-47 was escorted by heavily-armored, Army attack helicopters. Based on Luttrell's descriptions of the area, Appel and Piercecchi returned to the site of the battle two days later and retrieved the remains of Dietz, Murphy, and Axelson. The villagers refused. Danny Dietz was shot at least fives times and continued to fight. For days, Gulab and his village sheltered the wounded Luttrell. The Joint Combat Assessment Team report identified, through detailed metallurgical analysis, the type of projectile. Hand-Picked Daily GUN DEALS, and Exclusive Coupons Codes >>>. His story falls apart under scrutiny. Insurgent activity in Kunar Province during this time came from 22 identified groups,[2][7] some of which had tenuous ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda while the majority were little more than local criminals. He moves quickly, silently, and effectively I watched him go from stalking and moving mode to proned out and on target before I could blink, and of course he dropped the running antelope with a single, precise shot in the same heartbeat. His book says they fought, what, 100 insugents, killing 35? There's no way such a remote area in the Korengal could support a third that many fighters. If you want to hear more in his own words, Luttrell has a podcast through his foundation Team Never Quit. It utilized special operations forces (SOF) units and assets, including members of the U.S. Navy SEALs and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) 160th Airborne Special Operations Aviation Regiment (160th SOAR), for the opening phase of the operation. It was the single largest loss of life for Naval Special Warfare since World War II. They were not members of SEAL Team 6. That's not the point. As a result, Ahmad Shah and his men left the region and regrouped in Pakistan. And with regards to voting whether or not to execute unarmed civilians, he admitted, "This is the first time I've ever heard of anything put to a vote like that. I spent 3 years with a support team of Operation Enduring Freedom mostly at Bagram. Personalize your experience. The enemy took heavy losses according to Luttrell, due to the superb marksmanship of our Spec Ops guys. The Navy's Official Account of Operation Red Wings | USAMM It is one of the first sculptured memorials to those who served in the War in Afghanistan. Operation Red Wings should never have gotten approved. The operators of the 4-man SEAL team were: Under the assumed name Muhammad Ismail, Shah led a guerrilla group known to locals as the Mountain Tigers, aligned with the Taliban and other militant groups close to the Pakistani border. guns & Lt. (SEAL) Michael P. Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y. No way. The 3/3, which deployed to Regional Command East (which included Kunar Province) in late 2004 to conduct stability and counterinsurgency operations in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, identified a number of operational barriers because of Special Operations Command doctrine for the battalion's counterinsurgency work in the area. Red Wings was planned as a five-phase operation: While the Marines planned the overall operation, the SEALs planned the specifics of their roles of Red Wings. Just another Texas blowhard like Chris "I shot looters from the roof of the Superdome and knocked out Jesse Ventura" Kyle, who's made a post service career getting paid to tell anyone who will listen, books films, interviews, podcasts, you name it, about his time as a "silent" professional. In the end it doesnt really matter, Marcus knows the truth and he is the only one who has to live with himself and what he did or didnt do. Whatever. It's a journey of innocence lost and the scars of war etched into the minds of service members. Purple Heart. We reverence the ultimate sacrifice they made while engaged in that fierce firefight on the global war's front lines on terrorism (GWOT). Luttrell wrote about realizing there was no possible way to help his best friend because the enemy would surely kill him long before he reached Murphy. So what if its not exactly true? Are you serious? [2] Similar operations that followed included Operation Mavericks (named after the Dallas Mavericks basketball team) in April 2005,[29] and Operation Celtics (named after the Boston Celtics basketball team) in May 2005. 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. All of these soldiers, are far better than me. (SEAL) Erik S. Kristensen, 33, of San Diego, Calif. Electronics Technician 1st Class (SEAL) Jeffery A. Lucas, 33, of Corbett, Ore. Lt. (SEAL) Michael M. McGreevy Jr., 30, of Portville, N.Y. Hospital Corpsman 1st Class (SEAL) Jeffrey S. Taylor, 30, of Midway, W.Va. Staff Sgt. The SEAL mission was compromised when the local nationals spotted the team, who presumably reported its presence and location to the Taliban. I, like many other people who saw the movie and heard the story, had a LOT more support for not just the SEALs but the military in general. Phase 1 - Shaping: A U.S. Navy SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team is tasked to insert in the region of the suspected safe buildings of Ahmad Shah, observe and identify Shah and his men and specific locations, and guide a direct action team of phase two to structures in which Shah and his men are observed to be staying. Then I got shot again the next day. Being struck by the bullet caused him to drop both the phone and his rifle. [2] A team of four Navy SEALs, tasked with surveillance and reconnaissance of a group of structures known to be used by Shah and his men, were ambushed by Shah and his group just hours after inserting into the area by fast-roping from an MH-47 Chinook helicopter. It is what we do, when we must fight only when we must! Basic Details: A four-person recon element comprised of LT Michael P Murphy, HM1 Marcus A Luttrell, STG2 Mathew G Axelson, and GM2 Danny P Dietz was Inserted (MGRS: 42S XD 78186 58123) via Fast-Rope at approximately 27170ZJUN05 to conduct a sensitive recon (SR) mission. [39][failed verification], Further intelligence, including human intelligence and signals intelligence, indicated that Shah based his operations out of some small structures outside of the village of Chichal, high on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar mountain in the upper Korangal Valley, approximately 20 miles (32km) to the west of Kunar's provincial capital Asadabad. Severely wounded, Lt. Michael Murphy returned to his cover position with his men and continued the battle. Fact is, those soldiers died, and I'm sure if you could ask each of them, they'd want that movie made, 100% true or not. Between 2010 and 2018 the Lone Survivor Foundation provided more than 25,200 hours of therapeutic services in a military-friendly environment to vets and their families, all at no cost to those receiving it. No AARs from missions before and after Red Wings, no HUMINT, SIGINT, or any other kind of INT corroborates the number of hostiles in Luttrell's story. According to the Navy's summary of action, the four SEALs were "deep behind enemy lines," in difficult and rugged terrain in Afghanistan, on a reconnaissance mission scouting Ahmad Shah a. Operation Red Wings Autopsy Report ON the same day, a Quick Reaction Force of 8 Navy SEALs and 8 Army Night Stalkers were also killed when the MH-47 helicopter that they were aboard was shot down by enemy fire in the vicinity of Asadabad, Afghanistan, in Kumar Province. The SEALs had . I feel he also was responsible for 20 additional deaths of the men that attempted to rescue him and what was left of his team. It would be six days before he was rescued by American forces. Learn the 3 most popular shooting stances & more. Matt Axelson invented chill. His injuries were so traumatic that the Navy recommended a closed casket. [2][3] The intensity of the incoming fire, combined with the type of attack, forced the SEAL team into the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar, on the Shuryek Valley side of Sawtalo Sar. The Real-Life Story Behind "Lone Survivor" - HISTORY Thats some serious badassery; thats a level of practically inhuman strength. In a country full of nothing but goats and goat-herds? Add in all the other ridiculous bits in the book, like out of four SEALs on a mountain recce, not *one* of them carried anything to tie up the goatherds, and you gotta wonder what kind of people just swallow this self-serving fable whole. There was no signal at all where the men were positioned; Murph needed to find an open, high point, and so he went. Using imagery intelligence taken from an unmanned aerial vehicle on June 17, 2005, Westerfield identified likely structures used for housing his team, IED making, and overwatch of the area below for IED strikes. In my 14 years of Navy experience, I've never seen or heard of anything like that. Matthew Axelson - Wikipedia The battalion agreed to this, believing, however, that this unconventional command structure defied a fundamental tenet of successful military operations "unity of command". In Luttrell's own official after-action report filed with his superiors after his rescue, he estimated the size of the Taliban force to be around 2035. [3] Official media reports from the military estimated the size of the Taliban force to be around 20 as well, while in the Medal of Honor citation for Murphy, the Navy cited 3040 enemies. Operation Red Wings (often incorrectly referred to as Operation Redwing or Operation Red Wing),[13] 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.