'Viper Company' Suffers Loss At Forward Post

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
NBC
October 21, 2008

NBC Nightly News, 7:00 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: As you may know, we aired a gripping piece of reporting here last night from our chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, embedded with members of Viper Company – a U.S. Army outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.
Many of you wrote to us in response, including one viewer who e-mailed us wanting to pay to adopt the members of this entire company. And as we’re about to see in tonight’s dispatch – and it is gripping viewing, by the way – the dangers of war in an unforgiving and unfamiliar place caught up with the men of Viper Company in the very worst way.
RICHARD ENGEL: With just 150 men, 29-year-old Capt. Jimmy Howell has a daunting mission – to drive the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters out of the Korengal Valley, their main safe haven in Afghanistan. But first, Howell has to find them. He has a daring plan. Before dawn, his unit sets out for the village of Korengal, a Taliban stronghold. They travel in Humvees. They want to be seen. They’re the bait. But Howell’s planned a surprise, too. The rest of the mission is up to the men from the hilltop outpost of Restrepo. Their job is to sneak into Korengal, find a safe house, and wait to attack.
At an abandoned farm house overlooking Korengal’s terraced fields, flanked by two mountains, Howell is ready. Within minutes, the plan starts to work. The Taliban open fire, exposing their positions on the mountain slopes.
CAPT. JIMMY HOWELL [Viper Company]: Two of the elements in a shot, firing from the southwest in the Korengal, break.
ENGEL: Howell quickly calls in mortars and 2,000-pound bombs to destroy them. They’re falling simultaneously on both mountains. But suddenly, it goes tragically wrong. A mortar hits the house where the soldiers from Restrepo are positioned. We can hear their screams, even from a few hundred yards away.
HOWELL: Six wounded and one KIA, over.
ENGEL: One American is dead. He was Sgt. John Penich, 25, from Beach Park, Illinois. We met Penich at Restrepo the day before. Calm, mature, he’d already been recommended for a Silver Star for valor. Sgt. Chez Carter (ph), who only joined the platoon last week, and PFC Jeffrey Lawonsky (ph) are among the injured.
The wounded men release red smoke so the medevac helicopter can find them.
HOWELL: Right now, we’re requesting an air medevac. We’ll setting it up at this time.
ENGEL: Howell and his team watched anxiously. But the Taliban see an opportunity and as the medevac helicopters continue to evacuate the dead and wounded, they themselves have now come under fire from at least two positions in the valley.
An Apache gunship moves in to protect them, firing into the hills. But Howell has a new problem. He’s been out for five hours, his positions have been exposed, and he still has to get his men back to base. Howell expects an ambush. It comes quickly. Pinned down, backs against a rock wall, we tried to stay behind the Humvee.
As we tried to cross an open stretch of road, we came under attack. There’s incoming fire right now. We’re using this Humvee for cover as we’re trying to get to another base.
We were saved by the Apaches, rocketing the hillsides until the Taliban stopped shooting. Then we see the survivors from Restrepo, exhausted, haunted, blood still on their uniforms.
HOWELL: Boy, the boys are devastated about it. You know what I mean? It’s one thing to have guys that are injured or killed, but it’s another thing when it’s something that could be prevented. I mean, this is obviously something that could be prevented.
ENGEL: The incident is now under military investigation. It’s Viper Company’s first suspected friendly fire since they came to Afghanistan in July. But the soldiers can’t lose focus because their patrols and their enemy will be out again tomorrow.
Richard Engel, NBC News, Korengal.
 
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