Reprinted, with permission, from Lt Col. (Ret) Scott Mann’s post on LinkedIn, 22 August 2023

In the fall of 2004, a handful of Green Berets volunteered to risk their lives and recover an Army Air Crew that had crashed their small aircraft in the Hindu Kush. Pushing the chopper to its altitude threshold envelope, they landed near the crash site well above 13,000 feet.

Sadly, the crew had succumbed to the elements and didn’t survive.

Storms started to roll in. The SF team stayed on station and battled severe altitude sickness. They extracted every single crew member and their personal effects so that they could be returned to their families for closure.

It mattered.

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Our men and women warriors deserve to be remembered. Teach these stories of courage and sacrifice to those too young to remember. And teach them to every generation who come afterwards, that we are a people willing to help the vulnerable against the oppressor. -Editor

Lt. Col. (Ret) Scott Mann, U.S. Army Green Beret, served multiple tours in Afghanistan. Author, veterans advocate, keynote speaker, and leadership coach, has testified before Congress on behalf of our combat veterans, Afghan coalition partners and their families. Author of the play Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret, is helping to heal the moral injury to thousands of veterans inflicted on them by 20 years of war and America’s ignominious withdrawal at the end of August, 2021.