Posted on: Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Bodies of two SEALs recovered
| • | A tribute to Pearl Harbor's Navy SEALs |
Advertiser Staff and Wire
Two Navy SEALS missing in Afghanistan have been found dead, a senior U.S. defense official said last night.
Another SEAL was rescued Saturday, and the fate of a fourth SEAL was unknown. The official who confirmed the recovery of the two bodies spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing effort to account for the missing U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, an American air strike in Afghanistan's rugged eastern mountains killed 17 civilians, including women and children, an Afghan official said yesterday. The U.S. military confirmed civilian deaths but said the numbers were unclear.
An initial air strike destroyed a house, and as villagers gathered to look at the damage, a U.S. warplane dropped a second bomb on the same target, Kunar provincial Gov. Asadullah Wafa told The Associated Press.
The team of SEALS was reported missing last Tuesday in Kunar province. A rescue effort the same day ended in tragedy when the transport helicopter seeking to extract the team was shot down, killing 16 troops aboard.
The serviceman rescued Saturday had taken shelter in a village elder's home in the province before American forces were notified of his location and picked him up, Wafa said.
Earlier, Wafa said a second missing service member had been located in his province. His information came from Afghan intelligence sources, he said. But a senior Defense Department official in Washington said a second SEAL had not been found.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, said last week that militants had captured one team member. He said the "high-ranking American" was caught in the area where the helicopter went down.
Hakimi, who also claimed insurgents shot down the helicopter, often calls news organizations to take responsibility for attacks, and the information frequently proves exaggerated or untrue. His exact tie to the Taliban leadership is unclear.
U.S. officials said they had no evidence indicating any service members had been taken into captivity.
The Navy SEAL rescued from Kunar province was being evaluated yesterday, officials said. He was in stable condition and receiving medical treatment at the main U.S. base at Bagram.
Valerie Robinson of Poway, Calif., said yesterday she had been estranged from her son and his three brothers since Shane, who later followed his father to become a SEAL, was 11.
After that, Shane and his brothers were raised in Nevada by his father, Jim, and his stepmother, Pat, she said.
"I will never see his eyes, touch his cheeks, hear his voice and hug him, hold him," she said. "My little boy."
Robinson said she heard of Shane's death through a friend and was later visited by Navy officers, who told her he was killed last Tuesday in the crash in the mountains of Afghanistan.
"Shane is a hero," said Linda Berdeski Hamilton, a Kaua'i resident and Shane's maternal grandmother. "He had the courage to go beyond fear."
Attempts to reach James Patton last night were unsuccessful.
Shane Patton was assigned to SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team One at Pearl Harbor.
An unprecedented spate of rebel attacks across the country has left about 700 people dead. Afghan officials insist the violence will not disrupt legislative elections slated for September.
The U.S. air strike came Friday in the same province where the transport helicopter was downed.
The military said the attack was carried out "with precision-guided munitions that resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of enemy terrorists and noncombatants."
"The targeted compound was a known operating base for terrorist attacks in Kunar province as well as a base for a medium-level terrorist leader," it said. "Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing."
The statement added that U.S. forces "regret the loss of innocent lives and follow stringent rules of engagement specifically to ensure that noncombatants are safeguarded. However, when enemy forces move their families into the locations where they conduct terrorist operations, they put these innocent civilians at risk."
Wafa said it was unclear who was killed in the initial attack in the tiny village of Chechal. "Maybe some militants were killed, but I don't know," he said. "The 17 people were killed in the second bombing."
Advertiser staff writer Karen Blakeman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In California, the mother of a Pearl Harbor-based SEAL who was killed in the Chinook helicopter crash said that as a boy, Shane Patton idolized his Navy SEAL/bodybuilder father and would flex his arms to show that he had muscles like his father.
Shane Patton
