Ten years ago today a group of American soldiers known as Extortion 17 gave their lives for this country.
Special Ops Magazine reported:
On August 6th, 2011, a U.S. Boeing CH-47 Chinook military helicopter was shot down while transporting a quick reaction force attempting to reinforce an engaged unit of Army Rangers in Wardak province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. With 38 people killed on board, it was the largest single-day loss of life in naval special warfare history and the largest single-day loss of life during the war in Afghanistan.
The events that unfolded that night are commonly referred to as Extortion 17, which is the call sign for the helicopter transporting the special operations personnel. It also became one of the most devastating death tolls of the U.S. Special Operations Forces in modern history…
…On August 6th, 2011, the helicopter was fired upon and shot down by a previously undetected group of Taliban fighters. The group fired 2-3 RPG rounds from a two-story building from a location some 220 meters south of the helicopter. The second round struck one of the three aft rotor blades of the helicopter destroying the aft rotor assembly. The helicopter crashed less than 5 seconds later, killing all 38 people on board. Some 30 seconds later one of the AH-64 Apache helicopters in the area reported: “Fallen Angel“.
The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. The crash killed all 38 people on board — including 25 American special operations personnel, five United States Army National Guard and Army Reserve crewmen, seven Afghan commandos, and one Afghan interpreter — as well as a U.S. military working dog. It is considered the worst loss of American lives in a single incident in the Afghanistan campaign, surpassing Operation Red Wings in 2005.
The Extortion 17 site is an online memorial to the soldiers who died that day. Please take a look:
Once you open the site you will see the inside of the helicopter and what it looked like for the soldiers that day. Then for every soldier, the site includes detailed stories of each soldier as well as pictures of them at home and abroad.
The site administrators note that their Extortion 17 memorial site has been up since 2016 and has attracted thousands of visitors.
Here is the Go Fund Me account where you can donate to keep the site in place.
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