My friend Bernie passed this along this morning. With all that's going on in Iraq, it's not really making the news, a shame, some really talented soldiers. They deserve recognition for their valor and sacrifice.
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From Yahoo..
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by Larry Copeland - USA Today
VALDOSTA, Ga. -- Photographs of Air Force fliers cover one wall of Nick and Linda Panousis' pizzeria. For 30 years, men and women from Moodyy Air Force Base across the street have come here to eat and fraternize.
Family Pizza, then, seems a good place to mourn six fliers based at Moody who made a career helping others as members of an elite combat search-and-rescue unit.
Their lives ended far away, in Ghazni, Afghanistan (news - web sites), on March 23. They died when their helicopter, the Komodo 11, crashed in a nighttime thunderstorm. They were trying to reach two Afghan children with life-threatening head injuries, the military says.
Four of the six crewmembers were five days from ending their tours of duty and starting their journey home.
Their sacrifice was duly noted by their hometown newspapers. But their deaths came during the first weekend of the war with Iraq (news - web sites), and the world's attention was riveted elsewhere. So their families grieved, their towns held memorial services, and that might have been that.
Except that Valdosta was not ready to let them go. These six people were too deeply woven into the fabric of daily life here. They had eaten lunch at Family Pizza and brought their families in for dinner. They had coached youth basketball, trying to instill values that transcend wins and losses. They had gone to church, to the mall, to the health club. And, astoundingly, one of them had written from Afghanistan to every child in a local third-grade class.
''When something like this happens, it's like losing somebody who's been a citizen for 50 years,'' Mayor Jimmy Rainwater says.
Their deaths, many here say, should remind the nation that U.S. troops work in harm's way in many places far from Iraq.
''While the emphasis is on operations in Iraq right now, we continue to have approximately 9,000 people stationed in Afghanistan conducting the war on terrorism,'' says Lt. Cmdr. Nick Balice, spokesman for U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
Elsewhere, 6,000 are preserving ethnic peace in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. Almost 38,000 are protecting South Korea (news - web sites) from increasingly bellicose North Korea (news - web sites).
Even in the United States, military men and women face risk every day. The communities surrounding Fort Drum in Upstate New York are still reeling from the deaths of 11 soldiers, who died March 11 when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training exercise.
Valdosta is no different.
''May God Comfort our Moody AFB Families in this time of loss. We are praying,'' says the marquee at New Covenant Church near the base. ''Every one of them was a part of this community,'' says Randy Stephen, associate pastor. ''They were more than just names to us.''
Lt. Col. John Stein, 39, of Bardolph, Ill., was the mission commander; 1st Lt. Tamara Archuleta, 23, of Los Lunas, N.M., was the co-pilot. They and Staff Sgt. Jason Hicks, 25, of Jefferson, S.C., the gunner, and Staff Sgt. John Teal, 29, of Dallas, the flight engineer, were with the 41st Rescue Squadron. Master Sgt. Michael Maltz, 42, of St. Petersburg, Fla., and Senior Airman Jason Plite, 21, of Grand Ledge, Mich., were with the 38th Rescue Squadron as medical specialists whom the military calls ''pararescuemen.''
The six were flying in an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter, the Air Force equivalent of the Army's Black Hawk. Military officials say the crash was not the result of enemy action. But that makes the Komodo 11 crew no less heroes to this town -- and to the widows, fiancées, children and parents they left behind.
Their deaths came as U.S. military officials noted an uptick in enemy activity in Afghanistan. On March 29, a U.S. special operations soldier and an airman died when they were ambushed by suspected Taliban rebels. Killed were Army Special Forces Sgt. Orlando Morales, 33, of Manati, Puerto Rico, and Staff Sgt. Jacob L. Frazier, 24, an Illinois Air National Guardsman from St. Charles, Ill.
There have been 28 combat deaths among the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, and 34 more have died from other causes.
The search-and-rescue motto is simple: ''These things I do that others may live.''
In Afghanistan, crews like the Komodo 11 have saved 57 people in 16 months. They include U.S. and allied military personnel and Afghan civilians.
''Our primary mission is to rescue isolated personnel behind enemy lines,'' says Air Force Capt. Andy Smith, 28, commander of such a unit who's just back from a three-month stint in Afghanistan. ''That could be anybody, from a pilot that ejects out of an F-16, to an Army special operations team that comes under fire. We also fly civilian missions.''
Smith knew all six members of the Komodo 11 crew. ''We accept the danger,'' he says.
Archuleta entered college at age 16, says her father, Richard Long. ''She grew up achieving and excelling in everything,'' he says. ''She wanted to do it all and have it all.''
Smith saw her competitiveness -- Archuleta was a third-degree black belt in karate.
''What a brilliant kid,'' Smith says. ''She flew as my co-pilot a few times. She really wanted to show what she could do.''
Stacy Scarborough saw another side of Archuleta. Scarborough, 32, teaches third-grade at Lake Park Elementary School. In January, she helped her students write letters to the 41st Rescue Squadron. In mid-March, Archuleta sent her class a package containing 15 or 16 letters. ''Each letter started off kind of general, but then it was specific for each child,'' Scarborough says. ''For instance, one child wrote that she liked Mountain Dew. (Archuleta) wrote that that was one of her favorite drinks, too. The children were very surprised. I had explained that we might not be getting letters back because they're very, very busy.''
Archuleta, who had a 3-year-old son and planned to marry in June, also sent the children a U.S. flag with a certificate saying it had been flown over Uzbekistan in honor of their class.
Stein left a different mark on Valdosta. The Komodo 11 commander coached City Manager Larry Hanson's son Dillon, 11, in a church basketball league. ''I found him to be a very caring individual who not only taught basketball but good Christian principles to the kids on the team,'' Hanson says. ''That was really important to him. Not only to teach them about basketball, but sportsmanship.''
The commander left a wife and three children.
The others aboard Komodo 11:
* Teal, who was engaged to be married in July, had always wanted to fly. ''He was just a quiet, extremely kind, generous person -- a clean-cut, All-American kid,'' says Ken Brand, his uncle.
* Maltz had considered retiring after 24 years in the Air Force to be near his son, Kyle, 16, and Cody, 12. ''The only fear he had was getting out of the Air Force,'' says his mother, Patricia Iverson.
* Plite was a 6-foot-5 artist and ''a very giving person,'' says his sister, Nicolle Michaud.
* Hicks played football and worked part-time with the Pageland, S.C., Rescue Squad while in high school. He and his wife, Cristy, had been married since January. ''He always wanted to help people,'' says his uncle, Jamie Hildreth.
Valdosta, population 44,000, clings to its small-town heritage, and small towns honor their dead. Folks here still mourn Senior Airman Jason Cunningham, another Moody pararescueman. He died in March 2002 while treating the wounded behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. They still give to a scholarship fund for Cunningham's two young daughters, and they built a Habitat for Humanity house in his name.
To remember the Komodo 11 crewmembers, Valdosta bought 1,125 yards of yellow ribbon to tie bows on lampposts downtown. About 1,500 people came to a local park for a ceremony honoring military families. Moody Air Force Base held a memorial service.
At Family Pizza, their absence resonates.
''When you see these people, when you talk to them every day, it's hard to imagine that you're never going to talk to them again,'' Nick Panousis says