The helicopter was heading back to a nearby base when Slabinski and his team realized they had lost a teammate.įor two hours, SEAL Team 6 and officers from the Joint Special Operations Command scrambled a rescue force to recover Roberts. As it attempted to land, the helicopter took fire from Al Qaeda fighters, and SEAL Neil Roberts fell from the back of the helicopter. military’s Operation Anaconda, a multi-day effort to squeeze out and kill the last large group of Al Qaeda militants and Taliban fighters hiding in the valley. On March 3, 2002, a small SEAL Team 6 reconnaissance team led by Slabinski landed atop Takur Ghar, a 10,000-foot peak above the Shah-i-Kot valley in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. All these authorities have refused to conduct any meaningful or robust oversight of a group of elite commandos who have committed war crimes abroad and gone to great lengths to cover them up. More significantly, the decision to award a Medal of Honor to Slabinski represents the enduring failure of the SEALs, the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House to reckon with the dark history of SEAL Team 6 in the post-9/11 wars. The awards have exposed a rift in the special operations community, a long-running argument pitting the Air Force against the Navy SEALs. But the announcement of the award for Britt Slabinski - and the concurrent decision to give the same award to John Chapman, a deceased Air Force combat controller - came after a yearslong campaign to recognize disputed events 16 years ago on a remote mountain in Afghanistan. ![]() Normally, the presentation of the Medal of Honor is a solemn and meaningful recognition of bravery and heroism. On May 7, the White House announced that President Donald Trump would award a retired SEAL Team 6 sniper the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest decoration for battlefield valor.
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