(LibertySociety.com) – After three days of silence, the Pentagon released the names of the five servicemembers who were killed in an MH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crash off the coast of Cyprus. All the men were members of a team called the Night Stalkers, which is part of the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
Chief Warrant Officers Stephen Dwyer of Clarksville, Tennessee, and Shane Barners of Sacramento, California, were among the Night Stalkers who were killed. Staff Sgt. Tanner Grone from Gorham, New Hampshire, was another service member killed in the crash. Sgts. Andrew Southard from Apache Junction, Arizona, and Cade Wolf from Mankato, Minnesota, also met their fate after “an in-flight emergency” was identified.
The Night Stalkers’ job is to assist special operations forces through aviation and to take part in secret missions. Other service members from the Navy’s Seal Team 6 and the Delta Force Operational Detachment of the Army were recently deployed to the area where the Night Stalkers were killed. The Pentagon ordered their deployments to ensure that American citizens can be safely evacuated if necessary.
President Biden expressed his condolences to the five who were killed, noting that they paid the ultimate price on Veteran’s Day weekend. Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, who heads up the Army’s Special Operations Command, said that the news of the crash “reverberates across the entire Special Operations community.
Since the deadly October 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, the United States has sent a clear message to other bad actors who are considering provoking an expansion of the conflict. Several aircraft carriers and a nuclear-capable submarine have been moved into the Mediterranean Sea as a show of force and support for Israel’s mission to destroy Hamas.
The deadly attack took the lives of 1,400 people in Israel and marked the beginning of a more than month-long war with no end in sight. Calls for a ceasefire from Israel have been wholly ignored, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refusing to discuss any type of pause until all hostages are released.
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