Thursday, May 31, 2007

Seven NATO Soldiers Died in Helicopter Crash

As I awoke this morning to this news - I was truly saddened. (Please note there are currently unconfirmed reports of nationalities of the soldiers.)
I know what many family members are going through.. "the wait" ... while the heart races and .. yes the tears come easily.
Let's pray for and take those soldiers' families and friends and take them into our hearts today no matter which country they are from.... as they are all our family.. our military family.

Chinook Helicopter
Seven NATO soldiers died when their Chinook helicopter crashed on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, the site of some of the heaviest recent fighting between Western forces and the Taliban.
Troops responding to the scene of the crash were ambushed and called for an air strike to eliminate the threat, NATO officials said.
NATO would not say immediately if the big, twin-rotor military helicopter was directly involved in a battle with Taliban guerrillas or whether it was shot down. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

"Clearly there were enemy fighters in the area," said Major John Thomas, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul. "It's not impossible for small arms fire to bring down a helicopter."
The helicopter went down in the southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan's main opium poppy-growing region, where Western forces have clashed repeatedly with Taliban militants in recent months following a winter lull in fighting.
"The entire crew of five died in the incident. There were also two military passengers who died," ISAF said in a statement. "One Afghan civilian was injured by small arms fire after the crash."

ISAF did not release the nationalities of soldiers killed or wounded in Afghanistan.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Such sad news :(

I don't have a friend or relative serving, but I have often thought of sending some postcards or cards through the DoD's "Any Canadian Soldier" program. Military Mom, do you know anything about the program? Has your son ever mentioned it to you, or mentioned whether the soldiers over there like getting postcards from well-wishing strangers?

The other thing I wonder about is reading material. Do they have enough magazines and books to read while off-duty? Could you ask your son about these things?

- wants to be helpful,
Fredericton, NB