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BS6's Dude
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Long Island Newsday
November 5, 2003
LI Unit Rescues 2 In Iraq
Guard members rushed to downed copter
By Bart Jones, Staff Writer
In a dramatic mission, members of an elite Air National Guard search- and-rescue unit based in Westhampton saved the lives of two American soldiers trapped in a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq by guerrillas, officials said yesterday.
The downing of the CH-47 Chinook on Sunday, which killed 16 soldiers, was the single deadliest attack on U.S. troops since the United States invaded Iraq in March.
With the shattered helicopter strewn on a field outside the city of Falluja, rescuers from the 106th Rescue Wing swooped in aboard their own choppers, used a "Jaws of Life"-type apparatus to pry open a piece of the downed aircraft, and pulled out two injured soldiers, said the unit's commander, Col. Mike Canders.
The injured soldiers were ferried to a field hospital. The Long Island-based rescuers also retrieved the bodies of three soldiers killed in the attack and removed them from the site, Canders said.
Yesterday, Gov. George Pataki officially congratulated the unit, which gained fame for its role in a 1991 attempted rescue depicted in the book and movie "The Perfect Storm."
"While we were deeply saddened by the loss of the 16 brave U.S. soldiers killed in this despicable act of terrorism, the courageous efforts of New York's own 106th Air Rescue Operation helped spare two American families the pain of losing a loved one," Pataki said in a letter to Canders.
Canders, who has not been deployed to Iraq and spoke from the unit's base, said that for security reasons he could not release the identity of the rescuers or say how long they had been deployed in Iraq.
Two Sikorsky HH-60G helicopters, known as "Pave Hawks," took part in the mission, he said. Each has a crew of six and can be refueled in the air.
While details were still sketchy yesterday, Canders said the Long Island contingent were not the first rescuers to arrive at the crash site. But they got there quickly, and the area, within the "Sunni triangle," was still considered a dangerous hot zone.
"Certainly the threat remained there" while the 106th rescued the soldiers, Canders said. It was "a dangerous operation."
The Chinook, which exploded in mid-air after it was hit by a missile, was no longer on fire by the time the 106th arrived, he said. But the aircraft was scattered in pieces, and the soldiers still alive were trapped inside the smoldering mass.
"It wasn't easy to get them," he said.
Canders said he was not surprised the unit carried out the mission successfully, since "that's what we train for. That's what we do."
The 106th, based out of Gabreski Airport, is trained to rescue people from the sea, the desert or on mountaintops, and sometimes behind enemy lines. It is made up of 900 members, one-third of them full-time, the rest part-time reservists.
"These are rare individuals and a special breed," said Scott Sandman, spokesman for the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs. The unit is "put through some of the most rigorous training in the U.S. military."
Besides the failed "Perfect Storm" mission, in which one of the rescuers died, the unit conducted the longest over-water helicopter rescue ever when it retrieved two crew members in the North Atlantic after their container ship, the Salvador Allende, broke apart in 1994. The round-trip mission took 15 hours.
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Seasoned Vet
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Such brave men, deserve more than what we can award them.
They will say they were just doing there job, but we know that there job requires them to do things that normal human beings cannot imagine.
------------------------------------------------------------ Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. ------------------------------------------ 
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BS6's Dude
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Trooper
 
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| JR, thanks for keeping us updated on these very brave paratroopers. I for one never fully understood their expertise and the risks they take until after reading None Braver. They have my utmost respect and admiration.
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Jumpmaster
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| hooah job...outstanding dedication to duty...
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Hard Charger
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Rogering what Airbrn19th said! Thanks for the info JR, I knew they existed but not the full extent of thier mission. I need to read that book sounds like a good one!!!
Those guys will say doing thier job like you say, they will also shirk off any award, I say buy them a beer, a shot an say a simple Thanks.
"Greater love than this hath no man, but that he should lay down his life for his friends."
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