Dyno

I just joined the army and I'm leaving for basic on May, 27th. I was gonna get an army tat after basic. Let me see your army tat's so I could get an idea of what they look like.

covertwar

Don't even need a picture, lemme spell you one: <H2>G-A-Y </h2>

Sean24

haha i got a USMC tatoo, so to each his own i guess

Dyno

what are you covert? arent you airforce???

Sean24

yep he sure is, hes a cute lil flyboy with his greyhound busdriver uniform lmao jk bro

Dyno

airforce are a bunch of lil boys who are too cowardly to step onto the battlefield themselves they just watch from the distance. Nothing against you Covert but that is my opinion on the airforce.

covertwar

TSgt Keary Miller will be awarded the Silver Star this Saturday, 1
Nov, in Louisville, KY at the base annex of the Kentucky ANG at 1400.

ANACONDA HERO TO BE AWARDED SILVER STAR FOR HEROISM

TSgt Keary Miller’s Silver Star has been a long time coming.

Keary is an AFSOC Pararescueman, a PJ, the PJ Team Leader who was part of the recovery team that went in after Navy SEAL Neil Roberts, who fell from his helicopter after an aborted landing at Takhur Ghar in Afghanistan, an area now known as Roberts Ridge. Several soldiers and airmen are only here today because of Keary’s heroic actions on the ridge top during the early morning hours of March 4, 2002,and the 15 hours that followed. TSgt Miller is not THE hero, but he is certainly A hero. They all were. This ANACONDA story is well known by now. In fact everyone’s story has been published…except Keary’s. For some reason, his story was kept quiet. But his actions speak to why he is one of the heroes that stand out from the rest in the battle of Robert's Ridge. When you hear what he did, you'll wonder why it's ONLY a Silver Star. About the only thing he didn't do was die.

Keary was 5th or 6th out of the helicopter when it crash-landed on the ridge after being hit by RPGs and heavy small arms fire. Two soldiers in front of him were killed outright and another two were WIA. His PJ teammate SrA Jason Cunningham, and the Army Ranger medic, Corey, were still inside and began treating the casualties who were shot before they could even get out. By the time Keary made it out, they already had three KIA and two critically wounded. Keary was the guy who yelled to the other Rangers who were running out to immediately hit the deck when they got out – he directed them on which way to go to avoid becoming casualties themselves.

Keary was now on the ground to the rear of the aircraft amid chaos. Enemy fire seemed to be coming from every direction and in fact, that was about right. The heaviest was coming from the one o’clock, 70 meters from the nose of the helo, and less intense fire from the 3 and 5 o’clock positions. Terrain on the left side of the helo was very steep; nowhere to go over there. He and 3 others were pinned down behind the only cover they can find, a small outcropping of rock about 10 inches high. They were Army Rangers, a USAF TACP, and Keary. They all returned fire. The Rangers quickly got rid of the threat to their right, but they still took intense fire from the one o’clock position.

They needed some air support. They would need comms to get the close air support (CAS) and immediate evac they needed. The TACP had dropped off his radio 30 meters from the rear of the helicopter while dodging incoming rounds and was now engaged in returning fire. Keary was the guy who grabbed the radio and made the initial calls to pass a status report and scream for emergency evacuation. He was the guy that made sure his combat controller teammate was already talking to fire support aircraft, which started pounding the area with CAS. The answer back was the area was still too hot for an exfil bird to get in.

They were only 15 minutes into what was to be an ordeal that would last all day and most of the next night. Keary returned to the helo to help treat the wounded, with fellow PJ Cunningham and Army medic Corey. He could see that the cockpit area was burning.

Keary and Jason had already been on two other hairy combat rescue missions prior to this and were familiar with each other’s way of doing business. They were both also familiar with the altitude and cold of the Afghani mountains.

“How ya doin’ Jason?!”

“I’ve got a chest (wound) and two bleeders…me and Corey got it covered!. The copilot is hit. He’s up front on the ground!”

At this point all casualties were still inside the helo and they were still under pretty intense fire.

Keary was the guy that went to get the copilot. He dashed to the front of the helo, still taking small arms fire, and found the copilot bleeding pretty badly with a broken leg. He placed a tourniquet on the bleeder, but the snow was too deep to drag him back by himself. So he ran back, grabbed the tail gunner and guided him back again to the front of the helo. Together they dragged the copilot back to the rear of the aircraft through knee-deep snow to (relative) safety where Keary continued the medical treatment. Keary was the guy who exposed himself twice to enemy fire to recover his copilot. Saved his life.

Once back at the rear, Keary was one of the guys that started gathering remaining ammo from the helicopter and from the KIA, and redistributing to the other security positions. There were still good weapons on the aircraft, so Keary was the guy who pulled the tail gun off the helo and placed it and one of the crewmembers in a security position to the south.

Keary had been in combat before. He had the situational awareness, the "SA”, to know what was happening – and he knew what he had to do. They were receiving sporadic mortar fire, not real accurate yet, and couldn't tell from where. But he knew the sound and feel of the mortars - they were getting closer and closer to the grounded helicopter. He knew they would soon have to get the casualties out of the helo before it was hit. (The mortars were being fired from another enemy position about 300 meters away, which was eventually destroyed by an air strike.)

The firefight was still blazing with the enemy bunker at the one o’clock position, but fire was suppressed to the southeast, so this gave Keary an opening to move the casualties. He was the guy to make the call to get their casualties to a safer area. Keary, Jason, and Corey carefully moved the casualty collection point (CCP) 30 meters to the southeast of the helo. They had 3 KIA and 4-6 WIA at this time, with three being critical.

After some on-target air power and a few Ranger assaults, the enemy bunker was finally blown into oblivion. They were now four hours into their mission. With the main enemy threat gone, Keary and the Ranger security team leader made the call to move the CCP to better cover to the north, off the nose of the helicopter. Keary moved one of the walking wounded to a security position and supplied him with weapons and ammo before returning to move more wounded. It was at this time when their southern CCP was hit with RPGs and a 20-minute barrage of small arms, coming from down the ridge to the south. When Keary returned, he found that his two teammate medics were hit. Keary was now the only medic not wounded. He was the guy now with the responsibility for 14 casualties. Now the battle would be against time and the environment.

Keary spent the rest of the time on the ridge tending to the wounded. He made several trips back to the helo to gather remaining medical supplies, blankets, anything that would help. In a last ditch effort to fight the elements, Keary had all men that could move, go to tear the insulation from the helicopter wreckage and bring it back to keep the wounded as warm as possible while they waited for evacuation. He did all he could, even when they ran out of medical supplies.

The last radio call said they wouldn’t be evac’d until nightfall and he knew it would get cold - deathly cold. They had used up the supply of whole blood, all IV fluids were gone, they were out of bandages, and the temperature was near freezing. They were in the snow, at 10,000 feet altitude. He relayed back that the casualties would not last that long. And he was right - it would be too long a wait for his buddy Jason. Keary worked on him until he could do no more, but Jason died from internal bleeding an hour and a half before evacuation arrived.

Although Keary will tell you he was not THE hero that night, we all know he was A hero, and by his actions that night, I would say he stood out amongst them all.

covertwar

<h2>Remember Jessica Lynch, remember the movie on NBC? Remember those famous words? "Jessica Lynch we are United States soldiers and we are here to take you home." Those were spoken by an Air Force Pararescueman!

covertwar

Cowards? Remember F-16 pilot Scott O'grady, you say you are from Bosnia, well this man was shot down over Bosnia in 1994 and was on the ground in a hostile area for days until he was rescued. A coward, eh?

Jeskimo

deamn covert!!! Pararescue, are they airforce or army? Plus the airforce is not on the front lines fighting a few yards away from the enemy. The airforce is not the one running into a hail of bullets, Army and the Marines do that. I respect the airforce, and i understand that there have been heroes in the Airforce, but they're action does not compare to the action of a Marine or the Army's. How many soldiers were lost in a foreign country from the other military groups? and they were never named, one airforce guy get shot down and he is a hero cause he made it out alive!! Comon man, there are guys that do that everyday...I know the airforce plays a vital role in our military and again I'll say that I have great respect for them.

Also when there is conflict, the airforce does not fly into zones that are "hot", or where they could risk a plane or a pilot, whereas you have marines and the army who go into zones whether they be "hot" or not...

Jeskimo

By the way....this is Dyno, I'm over Jessie's house when I read your reply..

covertwar

Ignorance Every service has a mission, the USAF has it's primary scope which is Air Superiority. There are many support roles, and each in every one directly supports the defence of the USA. Why do you think in times of war everybody on active duty is entitled to wear the NSDM? Because even if you stay in the United States the whole time a war is going on in a foreign theatre, just by being active duty and performing your assigned tasks you are indirectly supporting the war effort, that and also you are on combat readiness, and are willing to deploy into danger at any time.

I can post 1000 articles dating from all the way back to 1947 when the Department of the Air Force was branched out from the Army of heroism in combat and non-combat situations braved by Airmen. To say that one Service is more important than the other is an insult to every man and woman that has served, is currently serving with ANY branch of the US Armed Forces, and God forbid, to those that have died in service to this great nation, in EVERY service. Paygrades are the same, respect given to each rank is the same, that is why you insult everybody on the team by that ignorant comment.

You apparently know nothing about the military, but that is not your fault, the media does not favour the quiet professionals, if you would have read my posts above you would have noticed that our PJ's are among the most elite combat search and rescue forces in the world, if you see something about our military anywhere in the world, no matter who it is there are PJ's standing by. Combat Controllers direct <b>ON THE GROUND</B> covert air strikes to guide Navy and Air Force bombs to ground pound in order to allow Army and Marine troops to move in and "fly bullets."

The first US serviceman to die in Combat after 11 Sept. 2001 was an Air Force Combat Controller in Afghanistan before it was even announced publicly that we moved in!

Air Force Security Forces is the infantry of the AF, who do you think secured Baghdad Airport and made it into an Air Force base.

Get your facts straight before you bash the military.

covertwar

You fock, I thought you were a troll just trying to start the **** with me, you made me type for nothing, my focking hand hurts, I masturbated for over an hour tonight, man I can't believe I wasted all that typing on you, I ****ed my chemistry up, and missed like 100 posts on other boards grrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

JOKER_OF_FFX

damn covert, broke it down to parade rest. Actually before any service risk flying a plane into a hotzone, the navy or marine corp comes in with the EA-6B. This bird is capable of jamming any frequency that SAM sites and enemy radar. Damn newbies

covertwar

Actually, the AF also has that capability in the form of E-3's and RC-135's, but rarely used, usually in an Air Strike the ground is pounded so hard there is little use for electronic warfare, usually EA-6's are utilised in a close air support role to help troop supporting aircraft carrying heavy ordanace.

Sean24

i thought she was rescued by Marines and Seals, well i know i aint gotta argue with ya about Marines

covertwar

They were all part of the <b>joint service</b> rescue effort....

Sean24

yea but you know the Marines were leading that ****

Dyno

covert...im not trying to start stuff...and I'm not being ignorant to the AF. Like i said before I respect the AF and that they do, still though you could not compare that to the things done by infantry...dont get me wrong..

Freakout

US Marine Corps. oath of enlistment:
I, (state your name), swear...duhhh...high and tight...(grunt) cammies...uhhh...perty uniform...air force women...OORAH! So help me corps.
_________________________
(Make your mark and have someone sign it for you)