Global War on Terror

Sergeant First Class Alwyn Cashe, Two Special Operations Soldiers To Receive Long Delayed Medal of Honor

SFC Alwyn Cashe Will Finally Recieve The Congressional Medal Of Honor

The Biden administration is expected to award the Medal of Honor to three Army soldiers for valor during the Global War on Terror (GWOT), according to a story by the Washington Post.

The three soldiers, SFC Alwyn Cashe, SFC Christopher Celiz, and MSG Earl Plumlee are expected to be honored at the White House by President Biden. Cashe and Celiz died as a result of wounds that resulted from their selfless actions. They will be represented by family members. Plumlee is expected to attend.

The award for SFC Alwyn Cashe has been considered the one award that has been the longest in coming. On October 17, 2005, Cashe, was on a combat patrol in Samarra, Iraq. As an Alpha Company platoon sergeant from Forward Operating Base (FOB) McKenzie, adjacent to Diyala, SFC Cashe was in the lead Bradley Fighting Vehicle when it struck a roadside Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The vehicle’s fuel cell ruptured, instantly covering Cashe in fuel. The vehicle came to a stop and immediately erupted in flames. While under intense small arms fire, SFC Cache managed to escape through the gunner’s hatch and assisted the driver out of the vehicle to safety. The flames burning his fuel-soaked uniform quickly spread all over his body.

SFC Alwyn Cashe (right) in Iraq. US Army photo

Despite Horrible Burns, Cashe Insisted That Other Wounded Soldiers Be Evacuated First

Despite his terrible burns Cashe placed the injured driver on the ground and extinguished his burning clothes. He returned to the burning vehicle to retrieve another burning soldier. All the while, he was still on fire. Then he moved to the back of the Bradley to pull more of his soldiers out from the flames inside. In all, Cashe pulled six troops and an Iraqi interpreter to safety.

Sgt. Gary Mills was on fire, his hands so badly burned that he couldn’t open the rear troop door to free himself and other soldiers trapped inside the flaming vehicle. Cashe opened the door from outside. A powerful hand grabbed Mills and yanked him to safety. Within seconds, Cashe ran back to the flames and crawled into the vehicle to haul out the platoon’s critically burned medic.

SFC Cashe kept going back into that vehicle even after his uniform had ignited, and flames had severely burned most of his body. He got all of his soldiers out.

When help arrived from the Forward Operating Base(FOB) about four kilometers away they set up an aid station in a ditch, but a dust storm prevented helicopters from evacuating the men by air; instead, they had to be taken to the FOB by vehicle. Cashe refused help until everyone else had been carried to the medevac, but would not allow himself to be carried by his comrades.

With some help, he walked to the medevac flight.

SFC Cashe Did Not Survive His Injuries

When Cashe arrived at the U.S. Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Air Base in Iraq, he was still fully conscious. Alisha Turner, then an Air Force medic, was part of the team that treated Cashe and three of his wounded comrades. Cashe, she remembered, was the fourth casualty through the door. He was burned badly. What remained of his uniform was melted to his skin. Turner’s team rushed Cashe into the ER, where he tried to get off the gurney and return to duty. “He just kept saying, ‘I’m good, I’m good, take care of my guys,’ Turner said. “He wanted us to focus on everyone else. It was as if they were his children.”

Cashe died a few weeks later on November 8 at the Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas. He was 35 years old.

He was immediately awarded a Silver Star but after his Battalion Commander, now LTG Gary Brito learned the details of his heroism, he led the fight to get Cashe’s award upgraded to the Medal of Honor. The fight to get this Silver Star upgraded went up the line all the way to Congress which in November 2020, approved legislation that would pave the way for Cashe’s family to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for him posthumously, and then all progress ground to a halt for 13 months.

Cashe will be the first African-American to be awarded the Medal of Honor during the Global War on Terror, and the seventh award of the MOH during the war in Iraq.

Rangers Lead The Way

SFC Celiz was a mortar platoon sergeant in Company D, 1st Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment who was on his fifth deployment during the GWOT.

On July 12, 2018, in the Paktiya province of Afghanistan SFC Celiz and his Rangers were providing security for an incoming MEDEVAC flight that was under heavy fire by Taliban insurgent forces when he was shot. Celiz was then medically evacuated to the nearest medical facility, but there he died of his wounds.

SFC Christopher Celiz, from the 1st Ranger Bn. US Army photo

The Rangers were assisting CIA personnel who were involved in a secret program that was targeting insurgent leaders for capture or being killed. This operation took place in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktiya province in July 2018.

As the medevac helicopter was preparing to take off, Celiz moved from a covered position and placed himself between the Taliban and the helicopter to deliver covering fire. But then he was wounded. Crew members saw him hit and the pilots went back to pick him up.

“My aircraft would have been critically damaged if it weren’t for Chris, and we owed him our lives.” Captain Ben Krzeczowski, the pilot of the medevac said. Although the aircraft was heavily damaged in the battle to evacuate the wounded, the crew flew to a much further medical location in an attempt to save Celiz, but he died of his wounds. The Blackhawk helicopter was so damaged that it never flew again.

MSG Plumlee Single-Handedly Stopped A Taliban Attack

MSG Plumlee was on FOB Ghazni in Afghanistan in August 2013, when the Taliban detonated a 400-lb car bomb outside the compound, which blew a hole in the wall of the base which insurgents then rushed through equipped with weapons, RPGs, and suicide vests.

According to several eyewitness reports, Plumlee nearly single-handedly stopped the Taliban’s attack on the base. One of the Special Forces soldiers present that day, SSG Michael Ollis used his own body to shield a Polish soldier on the base and was himself killed. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

Plumlee raced toward the breach and used a pistol, rifle, and hand grenades to kill three Taliban fighters and wound a fourth, possibly several more.

MSG, then-SFC Earl Plumlee being awarded the Silver Star. US Army photo

“There was another tremendous explosion that knocked both of us back into a wall, and I got hit in the chest right across the buttstock with about three-quarters of a human arm,” Plumlee said in an interview with the Washington Post, describing his and SFC Andrew Busic’s actions as some Taliban members blew themselves up with suicide vests right in front of them.

Plumlee was put in by his commanders for the Medal of Honor but it was immediately downgraded two levels to a Silver Star.

But due to a controversial DOD Inspector General’s report, Plumlee’s actions were once again looked at and it too was finally approved for the MOH. In that report, one redacted member said that since Plumlee was a “leader” and not just “a soldier”, that his actions didn’t warrant the Medal of Honor.

The nation will honor all three men next week, but the timing has not yet been announced.

SOFREP has followed the story of Alywin Cashe and the quest to see him awarded the Medal of Honor since September 2020. You can read that first story, here.

Navy SEALs Are Placing More Emphasis on Big Wars With China, Russia

“The Times they are a-changin” wrote Bob Dylan in 1964 but for the U.S. Navy SEAL teams, it may not mean that they are changing per se, but returning to their original roots. After two decades of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, the Navy’s Special Warfare specialists are preparing more for a conflict with bigger countries and militaries like Russia and China.

It doesn’t mean an end to counter-insurgency operations and the Direct Action missions that the SEAL teams have been known for but they’re refocusing on some of their more traditional missions.

In a new story on NEWSREP, Stavros Atlamazoglou wrote about the SEALs and their refocusing on the Big Navy:

In a recent interview, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Bill Moran acknowledged and welcomed this development. “It’s to the point now where we include them in all of our exercises, our war games, our tabletops [training exercises] — because as much as it is their chance to ‘re-blue,’ it’s our chance to reconnect from the blue side,” he said. “We’ve grown used to not having them in a lot of those situations. Now as we’ve done the tabletops, the exercises and the war games, we see: ‘Wow, there is some great capability here that can set the conditions for the kind of operations in every single one of those campaigns.’ And that will continue to grow, I think,” added the Navy’s second-in-command.

The best way to display a unit’s relevancy, and thus accrue more funds, is to define a possible threat and show how the unit could address it. In the case of China, the threat would be the numerous man-made islands that the Chinese have been building in the South China Sea. Although nothing more than a few hundred meters of sand, these islands can carry anti-ship missile batteries that would serve as an outer ring of defense against the Navy’s aircraft carriers.

The NSWC appears to understand the problem and the opportunity it offers. What are SEALs good at doing? Other than being authorities in Direct Action (DA) missions, SEALs are capable of hydrographic and special reconnaissance (SR) and stealthy waterborne insertion. Moreover, SEAL Team 6 is renowned for its High Altitude High Opening (HAHO) and High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) parachute capabilities. Thus, in a potential conflict with China, they could be the eyes and ears of commanders in those man-made islands and either direct strikes against them or unilaterally eliminate them. And evidence suggests that this is what they are being training to do.

The SEALs, for example, have requested an exponential increase in training activities in Hawaii’s islands. As of now, around 100 training exercises take place in Hawaii per year, the majority of which are scuba diving training. However, NSWC has requested 330 exercises for 2019. The majority of the exercises would be parachute insertions followed by over-the-beach operations.

The Navy has yet to approve the increase. But, judging by the words of Admiral Moran, it will.

Photo: US Navy

For the entire article click on the link here:

Local Hero, Special Forces NCO Eric Emond Killed in Afghanistan IED Attack

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”
― George S. Patton Jr.

The United States Special Operations Command had three of their commandos killed in an IED attack in Afghanistan on Tuesday. The bombing killed Captain Andrew Patrick Ross, 29, of Virginia, Air Force Staff Sgt. Dylan J. Elchin, 25, of Pennsylvania and Sergeant First Class Eric Emond of Fall River, Massachusetts who all died after the vehicle they were in was struck by an improvised explosive device in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan.

Ross and Emond were Green Berets from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (3rd SFG) and Elchin was an Air Force a special tactics combat controller, embedded with the Special Forces A-Team directing close-air support aircraft, and delivering destructive ordnance on enemy targets.

It has been a bloody, costly week for our Special Operations forces, last week Sergeant Leandro Jassos of the 2nd Ranger Battalion was killed on an operation, also in Afghanistan where he may have been shot by friendly fire from Afghan commandos who are trained and advised by our Special Operations Forces.

But up here in New England, the loss of Emond struck a particular tough chord with the people. First, he was a local, one of them and graduated from Durfee High School in the tough town of Fall River, Massachusetts about 50 miles south of Boston.

Emond was a veteran of 21 years of service. He joined the Marine Corps and was a Scout Sniper during the Marines first incursion into Afghanistan 17 years ago. He later got out joined the Army and became a Green Beret. He was on his seventh combat tour when he was killed in action this week.

Back in 2009, Emond was severely wounded by an RPG in an ambush in Afghanistan’s Paktika Province. As he struggled to get healthy enough to pass a medical board, he was back home in Boston in 2010 when he and a few other combat veterans helped get the United States’ first Iraq/Afghanistan War Memorial built in Boston’s seaport. It is an obelisk and plaque that lists the name of every one of the troops killed during the wars.

Sadly enough, Emond’s name will now be added to the memorial that he helped to make happen.

The war memorial project raised over $2 million dollars in private funds as well as state grants. The entire project was entirely organized by local veterans like Emond. The Massachusetts Fallen Heroes Foundation is now dedicated to providing support to Gold Star Families and educating schoolchildren about their sacrifices.

One hard-boiled Boston Police sergeant, Michael Brown worked with Emond on the war memorial. Brown was also a Marine who fought in Iraq. He had this to say about the Green Beret. “When I tell my kids stories about bravery and courage, it’s going to be guys like Eric Emond I’m talking about,” he told reporters.

“You’re injured, you fight to get back, you keep going forward,” Brown said. “That’s real courage. They keep going back and back for a country that seemingly has found other things to put on the front page.”

Massachusetts Fallen Heroes director Dan Magoon, who also fought in Iraq, said that “He (Emond), was instrumental in getting this off the ground,” Magoon said. “The mission has come full circle. All we can do now is honor his legacy and support his family.”

“He was an unbelievably caring man,” Magoon said. “He cared about this country, he cared about his service, most of all, he cared about his wife and his kids — his family.”

Greg Kelly, a Boston firefighter and fellow Green Beret who is the co-founder of the Massachusetts Fallen Heroes and once served in the same task force as Emond in Afghanistan in 2009, said, “He’s a great American. He served his country his entire adult life. He served his community. He was doing something he loved. He died doing something he loved.”

“He was a soldier’s soldier, a marine’s marine,” Magoon told local television reporters. “He wore two different uniforms throughout his whole adult life serving this country and he cared more about other people than himself.”

Andrew DelRossi Biggio told Boston 25 News that he met Emond while interning at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs in 2009 while Emond was rehabbing from his brain and spinal injuries and the two became close.

“We became friends,” DelRossi Biggio said. “For a year straight, we worked with other veterans in the state creating organizations that are still running today, helping to memorialize veterans from the Commonwealth who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“He didn’t have to go back in the Army after he was wounded,” DelRossi Biggio said. “He chose to. Now three more tours later, he sacrificed his life for us.”

“He motivated me. I looked up to him,” DelRossi Biggio added.

His awards and decorations include three Bronze Star Medals, two Purple Hearts, the Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, two NATO Achievement Medal, four Afghanistan Campaign Medals, Army Good Conduct Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, two Overseas Service Ribbons, National Defense Service Medal, Special Forces Tab, Ranger Tab, Combat Infantry Badge, Combat Action Badge, Parachutist’s Badge. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, and Meritorious Service Medal.

He is survived by his wife Allie and three young children at Ft. Bragg, NC.

October 26, 2001, President George W. Bush Signs the Patriot Act

On this day in 2001, President George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law drawn up in response to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Just 45 days after the attacks of September 11, the Congress passed the Patriot Act nearly unanimously in the Senate (98-1) and easily in the House of Representatives (357-66).

The USA PATRIOT Act, as it is officially known, is an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.” The stated goals of the Patriot Act were to strengthen domestic security and broaden the powers of law-enforcement agencies in order to identify and stop future terrorists from hitting America again.

There have been many people critical of the controversial act and there, of course, two sides of the coin. Supporters claim that it gave the government the tools it needed to identify, investigate and arrest terrorists. Some argued that the US didn’t have the same rules for terrorists that it did in investigating the Mafia. Critics claim that this act gave the government too much power, threatened our civil liberties, and undermined the very democracy that it claims to protect. But before going further, some quick background information on it.

Background and beginnings: On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four aircraft taking off on the East Coast. Two of those aircraft were flown into both of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Another flew into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The fourth was en route to Washington when the plane’s passengers attempted to take over the flight back from the terrorists after learning what happened to the other aircraft and in the ensuing melee, the plane crashed into the rural countryside of Pennsylvania. Over 3000 Americans died.

Just a couple of days later, the White House announced that the terrorists were from Al Qaeda. The terrorists were headquartered in Afghanistan but had cells all over the world. The hijackers had support cells working here in the United States. The Global War on Terrorism had begun.

Not long after that US Attorney General John Ashcroft submitted to Congress the changes the government was requesting in regards to investigating terrorist activity. Many of these changes were resisted by the Congress in the past and had been pushed back, but 9/11 changed all of that.

The Patriot Act sailed thru the Senate 98-1, with the only nay vote coming from Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis). It then sailed easily thru the House with a 357-66 vote. The final bill encompassed 342 pages of legalese and changed many of the existing laws. Most of the items that Ashcroft and the Justice Department requested were adopted.

The intention of the law, in President Bush’s words, was to “enhance the penalties that will fall on terrorists or anyone who helps them.” The act increased intelligence agencies’ ability to share information and lifted restrictions on communications surveillance, which includes everyday communication between citizens.

Law enforcement officials were given much more leeway in what they were allowed to do to fight financial counterfeiting, smuggling and money laundering schemes that funded terrorist organizations. The Patriot Act allows the FBI increased powers to access personal information such as medical and financial records and superseded all state laws.

In the uncertainty following 9/11, some advocates for the Patriot Act felt like the bill didn’t go far enough. Others such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argued that this gave the government far too much power to curtail civil liberties and would give the government carte blanche to investigate ordinary Americans with no checks and balances reminiscent of the 1960s and early 1970s. Some aspects of the Patriot Act were set to expire in 2005, but in 2006, President Bush renewed the so-called “sunset clauses” that were expiring.

The Patriot Act: President Bush signed the bill into law on October 26. He spoke about fighting a new danger “a threat like no other our Nation has ever faced.” He also sought to allay some fears by stating that the Patriot Act “upholds and respects the civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution.”

The term “domestic terrorism in the new law is defined actions that are taking place within the United States that are dangerous to human life and are designed to:

to intimidate or coerce a civilian population
to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion
to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping

While Congress has debated several features of the Patriot Act, including the controversial “National Security Letters”, how long the FBI can hold records, and forcing the government to provide more information and explanation for their reasons for requesting search warrants, surveillance or subpoenas, it has remained intact.

Has it Worked? The biggest question is just that, has the Patriot Act worked? Are we safer as a nation now than before? The entire basis of the Patriot Act from the government was that in the face of terrorist threats, Americans must balance their freedom with the need for security. Is that fair?

Certain countries such as Israel live in a very dangerous place where terrorist attacks happen far too frequently and the people live in a perpetual fishbowl it seems. They’ve balanced the very real need for security with the civil liberties they enjoy, where they are freer than any other country in the Middle East.

Since 9/11, several terrorist attacks from organizations such as Al Qaeda or the Islamic State have been thwarted before they could begin. Is it because of the Patriot Act itself or just a heightened awareness after 9/11 and the resultant better communication between agencies, which failed us in 2001? The Justice Department claims that the roving wiretaps and surveillance authorized under the Patriot Act has been instrumental in defeating terrorist operations before they begin.

Critics of the law point to one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin said, “those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.”

Critics even worked in a quote by none other than Julius Caesar about being wary of being whipped into a patriotic frenzy by the war and the law. Later it was proven to be false, Caesar never did say that, but dead men and politicians always make for great quote machines. So while JC never did utter these words….we’ll give whoever did write this, their due (they were brilliant):

“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and
blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”

The scope of the government’s surveillance collection was revealed when Edward Snowden released the extent of the NSA’s collection of American citizens’ communications. Those programs remain intact.

While some in Congress want to repeal or amend it others such as Senator John McCain, (R-AZ) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have continued to argue that had those laws been in place in 2001, 9/11 may have never happened.

The debate will go on and as events change our perceptions, this too shall change. One way or another.

Photo: Wikipedia