Aggie helps save Pfc. Lynch!

[AggieDave 6]

Fight'n Texas Aggies, kicking ass in war since 1876!



[url]http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/iraq/1854638[url]

Quote

Lynch rescue mission nearly turned tragic
By JAMES PINKERTON and HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
AT AN AIR BASE IN SOUTHERN IRAQ -- The dramatic Special Forces mission to rescue Pfc. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital almost ended in tragedy, two Marine pilots who flew helicopters in the operation said Saturday.

One of the transport helicopters delivering Lynch's rescuers hit a heavy support cable on a 300-foot radio antenna near the hospital and nearly crashed, they said.

"It hit the wire, and if it hadn't snapped, we would have lost 16 people, and the mission wouldn't have been viewed as quite a success," said Col. Stuart Knoll, commanding officer of Marine Air Group 16, from San Diego, Calif.

The pilot of the CH-46 Sea Knight -- Capt. William Oliver, 30, a 1995 graduate of Texas A&M University -- said he thought his chopper had been hit by groundfire.

"We went from flying level, down 25 degrees to the right," he said. "We were out of control for 15 seconds."

As things turned out, "we didn't have anyone killed or, as far as I know, even injured," said Knoll, who also piloted a CH-46 in Wednesday's mission.

"And in that kind of environment," Knoll said, "that's a raging success."

Military leaders planned the mission to rescue Lynch from Saddam Hospital in An Nasiriyah -- near the site where her 507th Maintenance Company had been ambushed March 23 -- after local residents told U.S. forces that an injured American was being held there.

One of the informants was an Iraqi who had been airlifted from An Nasiriyah for medical treatment at this air base run by Marine Air Group 29 in the southern Iraqi desert, several sources said.

At a Saturday briefing at Central Command headquarters in Qatar, Maj. Gen. Gene Renuart said the operation to rescue the 19-year-old Lynch included Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Army aviators, Air Force pilots and Marines.

Knoll said a large number of transport helicopters from his Marine Air Group 16 flew the mission from the USS Boxer in the Persian Gulf.

As Knoll and his helicopter crew were approaching the hospital, he recalled, explosions and small-arms fire were lighting up the sky.

Marine Task Force Charlie was staging a diversionary attack to draw Iraqi irregulars away from the hospital, Renuart said. Meanwhile, Rangers, Navy SEALs and Marines were nearing the hospital by helicopter and ground transport.

Soon, Knoll said, "I heard on the radio one of the pilots call and say they had been hit."

That pilot was Oliver, who was flying at 300 feet toward the hospital with a load of Rangers.

Oliver said he was watching tracer fire beneath the aircraft while his co-pilot, Capt. Shannon Fields, was bringing the helicopter toward the landing zone. Suddenly, he said, Cpl. James Cordell shouted, "Sir! Tower."

"And then," Oliver said, "we hit something or something hit us. I never saw it."

The raid's planners, Oliver said, had identified four communications and electrical towers in the vicinity of the hospital. But the cable hit by his helicopter was not on the charts.

Oliver said the chopper came very close to crashing.

"If the wire had been three feet higher, we wouldn't be here," Oliver said. "If it had hit the fuselage or windshield, it would have cut right through that and us pretty easy."

The heavy cable first snagged the front landing gear, he said, and then hung up on the right-rear landing gear. It eventually snapped, gouging a finger-size groove in the chopper.

Once on the ground, Rangers and other members of the rescue team entered the hospital and persuaded a physician to lead them to Lynch, Renuart said. The doctor also told U.S. forces that the remains of other Americans were buried nearby.

The rescue team found Lynch in a hospital bed with a sheet pulled over her head.

"The first man approached the door and came in and called her name," Renuart said. "The soldier again said, `Jessica Lynch, we're the United States soldiers, and we're here to protect you and take you home.' "

Finally, Renuart said, "she looked up to him and said, `I'm an American soldier, too.' "

Renuart said the Ranger doctor determined that Lynch had injuries to both legs, an arm and the head and "seemed to be in a fair amount of pain." Later, aboard a rescue helicopter, Lynch grabbed the physician's hand and said, "Please don't let anybody leave me."

Inside the hospital, the rescue team found a model of An Nasiriyah with blue and red markers showing the positions of U.S. and Iraqi forces, Renuart said.

The rescuers also found a burial site. They had no shovels, he said, so they began digging with their hands.

Eight of the bodies recovered were members of Lynch's 507th Maintenance Company out of Fort Bliss, he said. A ninth was that of a soldier from the 3rd Forward Support Group of the 3rd Infantry Division. Three of the dead soldiers were from Texas.

Knoll said that when he took off from the USS Boxer on Wednesday, he didn't know his flight was part of a rescue operation.

"It was the best and most rewarding mission of my career," said Knoll, a 27-year veteran of the Marine Corps. "I mean, you just kind of sit around with a glow."


Harvey Rice reported from Qatar.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[outofit 0]

whaever!

It is better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool!

[Brains 2]

WHOOOOP!!

Never look down on someone, unless they are going down on you.

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"Fight'n Texas Aggies, kicking ass in war since 1876! "

They're still new at the game then, the "Fighting Pictsies" have been at it for about 2000 years.

Great story though,
Gig 'em Aggs!

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson