***UPDATED***
Family members of Navy SEALs who died on duty in Afghanistan claim that an Islamic cleric “damned” the servicemen’s bodies at their memorial ceremony.
Three families of Navy SEAL Team VI special forces servicemen, along with one family of an Army National Guardsman, appeared at a press conference on Thursday. They revealed information about how and why their sons along with 26 others were killed in a chopper crash in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011, a few months after successfully raiding Osama Bin Laden’s compound and killing the 9/11 terrorist mastermind.
The families of the servicemen say that America’s enemies were determined to strike back at our special forces for Bin Laden’s death, so they are questioning why military brass sent their sons into battle “without special operations aviation and proper air support” immediately after President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden announced to the world that SEAL Team VI killed Bin Laden.
Karen Vaughn, who lost her son Aaron, told reporters the area of Afghanistan that the SEALs were shot down in was hostile territory. Flying in a Chinook chopper named Extortion 17, the SEALS, according to Ms. Vaughn were going into danger in using an “antiquated” air vehicle:
We learned that this valley [in Afghanistan] was an incredibly hostile territory which our military had cleared on seven prior occasions and then turned it back over to the Afghanis who could not maintain its stability. We learned that night that the mission was so dangerous, that it had to be authorized out of theater, but even then the following took place. The most elite warriors in our nation’s history and now unfortunately not so secret SEAL Team Six were flown into battles, Billy said that, on a CH47 Chinook Chopper.
This conventional airframe that these American were forced to do battle in that night was built in the early 1960’s and last retrofitted in 1985. We demand to know who made the call to send our sons into hostile territory or evidence proves a shoot down attempt had been in full force for weeks in less than adequate antiquated airframes documented to be in very poor condition. We also demand to know who made the call to mix conventional aircraft and forces with special warfare operations. In our search, we also discovered that Extortion 17 entered the battle field that night completely unescorted with no pre-assault fire paving the way for that school bus to make it slow contemplated landing in that pitch black hostile territory. A territory that had been engaged in a military battle for three and a half hours.
Family members of the fallen say certain members of Congress and the administration have either been unresponsive or restrictive about any information they have requested about the deaths of their sons.
Additionally, Billy and Karen Vaughn described to reporters how the military Rules of Engagement likely contributed to the death of their son and the rest of his team.
A video of the ramp ceremony intended to honor the fallen American and Afghan servicemen shows an Imam praying over the caskets. According to the Vaughns, a certified translation of the Imam’s remarks revealed he “desecrated” and “damned” the bodies of the Americans in Arabic.
Military brass prohibited “any mention of a Judeo-Christian God” at the ceremony the press statement says, but “invited a Muslim Cleric to the funeral for the fallen NAVY SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning as infidels to Allah.”