Kiowa Helicopter Shot Down Near Kabul

by: Richard Allen Smith

Wed Jul 02, 2008 at 14:57:45 PM EDT

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A helicopter from the U.S.-led forces was shot down south of the Afghan capital Wednesday, but the crew escaped without serious injury, the coalition said.
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Logar police chief Mohammed Mustafa Khan said reports from his officers in the remote district suggested Taliban militants shot down the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.
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Most recently, seven soldiers died when a Chinook helicopter was shot down during an air assault in the southern province of Helmand in May 2007.

That crash in May 2007 runs through my mind fairly often.  I was laying in my rack at Kandahar Airfield in the middle of the night, unable to sleep.  Normally, I worked the night shift in the TOC as the Battle NCO during missions.  On the night of May 30th, however, I switched shifts with the day shift NCO. It was nice to see the sun for a day, but my sleep schedule was now backwards.

When it became obvious that I wouldn't fall asleep anytime soon, I got up and went to go check out the news.  One of the first items I saw was that a U.S. helicopter had crashed in southern Afghanistan. The worst circumstances imaginable entered my mind.  We were in-filling by CH-47 Chinook into the Kajaki District of Helmand Province for the beginning of Operation Kulang Hellion. We had the full support of all American rotary in Regional Command South that night.  All of this added up meant that if a U.S. chopper had gone down in Southern Afghanistan, it was part of our mission.

I headed for the TOC as quick as I could. When I arrived I learned the situation was not as bad as it could have been, but still not good.  The bird had been shot down after it dropped a lift of my battalion's Soldiers.  On the return trip it flew over an area of the battle box that had yet to be cleared when it was hit by a shoulder fired rocket by Taliban forces. The air crew, a British soldier and a Canadian journalist were killed.

The events of May 30th were startling.  No one had thought that the previously obliterated Taliban had the capabilities or the fire power to bring down an American aircraft.  In the previous six years of the war only four helicopters had been downed due to hostile action. Two of those were during Operation Anaconda way back in March of 2002. Since May of 2007, three American choppers have been shot down.

Count this as more evidence that we have neglected Afghanistan to fight the needless, pointless war of choice in Iraq.  In doing so, we have allowed a nearly defeated Taliban to fester and become a legitimate challenge to the security of the Afghan people, as well as our Soldiers within their borders.