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| Secret mission: The Horse Soldiers of 9/11 |
| 2011-11-12 |
| You just gotta watch the video here -- you got 6 minutes. Looked and looked and looked and yet to find a pic of the 16 foot statue after it was unveiled... Did find an interview with Greg Kelly and his co-host, interviewing one of the four men that were first into Afghanistan. When asked "Why horses?" His reply was "When we got there, there was no transportation. No cars, no roads. We could walk, or we could walk, or we could ride horses." It was the news the world breathlessly waited for immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks: a report of the first American troops on the ground in Afghanistan. All at once the world's attention focused on an iconic photo of those Special Operations Forces doing something no American military had done in nearly a century: They rode horses into combat. Horse Soldiers Their secret mission: secure northern Afghanistan by advising the warring tribal factions that formed the Northern Alliance. During the 2011 Veterans Day Parade on November 11, a new monument to these men -- and to all Americans in uniform -- will make its way down New York City's famed Fifth Avenue on the way to its final home, a stone's throw from Ground Zero. Retired Army general and current CIA director David Petraeus will be among the parade marshals. One vid I saw, had a brief group scene with Petraeus in a suit, but with his beret on. First time I've seen him in a vid since retirement. Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer is producing a future movie about America's "Horse Soldiers." You know his work. Finally, a movie to pay money to go see. You will appreciate if you watch the video The spirit of the elite forces who rode on that dangerous and unprecedented mission in Afghanistan -- the men depicted in this short film -- was the monument's inspiration. War reporter Alex Quade tracked down some of those courageous American commandos. She obtained their permission, and that of their commanding officers, to share their personal stories, their names, their faces, and their mission photos. This footage and most of these photos have never been seen before. And you got to hear their story of the female navigator in an AC130, known as "The Angel of Death." It's in the vid. John Vigiano is a former marine and retired New York fire captain who lost two sons at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. John Jr. was a firefighter. Joe was a New York City police officer. "We are all in this equally, but in a different capacity," Vigiano told Quade. "President Bush called us [in New York] 'the first casualties of the war' ... we may have responded first to the attack, but the Special Forces took it to them on their turf," Vigiano says. "The Horse Soldiers picked up the standard from us, here in the USA, and brought it to them in Afghanistan." "In every sense of the word," he said, "they were an extension of our sons." |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #9 Thanks for the info about the book, didn't know about it. Just ordered it! |
| Posted by: Sherry 2011-11-12 14:47 |
| #8 Second that, good book. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-11-12 13:30 |
| #7 Original video embedded here: |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-11-12 13:29 |
| #6 News video about the statue: |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-11-12 13:19 |
| #5 Corrected an inline mispelling of Petraeus' name. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-11-12 13:04 |
| #4 Sherry, a scale model of the statue is briefly shown at about the 1:12 point in the vid. Shots of a larger rendering start at 5:34. Absolutely magnificent work; somewhere on the other side, Frederic Remington is smiling. And one side benefit to this statue...both the subject and the placement will make fashionably-leftist heads explode all over Manhattan. |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2011-11-12 12:56 |
| #3 Just bought the book and plan to read it. Thanks for the tip, Sherry! |
| Posted by: Steve White 2011-11-12 11:53 |
| #2 I read the book. Excellent. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2011-11-12 10:07 |
| #1 Good find Sherry. Thanks. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2011-11-12 03:02 |