Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.

3 Whisky Happy Hour
The Ricochet Podcast
GLoP Culture
Beyond the Polls with Henry Olsen
Gray Matters
Daily Signal
The Erick Erickson Show
Giving Ventures
Mom Wars
3 Martini Lunch
Chicks on The Right
Parsing Immigration Policy
Federalist Radio Hour
What the Hell Is Going On
Freedom to Learn
The Learning Curve
The Conservative Woman’s Guide
Heritage Explains
Not Dead Yet
Who Funds that?
The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour
The Glenn Show
Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
Hillsdale Dialogues
Law Talk with Epstein, Yoo & Cooke
The Libertarian
The Report Card with Nat Malkus
The Kevin Roberts Show with Larry O’Connor
The American Idea
Madison’s Notes
Conservative Crossroads with Henry Olsen
The Back of the Book
Martini Shot
The Dave Carter Show
The Powerline Show
In Dissent
Heard at Heritage
Smart Girl Politics
James Lileks’ The Diner
Case in Point: The Legal Show on the Hottest Legal Cases in Politics and Culture
JobMakers
One on One with Robert Doar
Homeschooling Journeys with Curious MikeRicochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
Tired of the toxicity of social media? Why not join Ricochet for just $5/month? Think of it as an online bar. Come in, have a drink, hang out, say whatever you want. But don’t badger, bully, or berate the other drinkers. That's our only rule.
"...these honored dead."
Five of our finest young men were lost in the Eastern Mediterranean where they likely would never have been in the first place had it not been for the evil and incompetence of the current “administration.”
Here are the details:
The Pentagon on Monday identified the five U.S. service members who were killed when a military aircraft crashed Friday night while taking part in a training operation in the eastern Mediterranean.
The service members were identified Monday as: Chief Warrant Officer 3 Stephen R. Dwyer, 38, of Clarksville, Tennessee; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Shane M. Barnes, 34, of Sacramento, California; Staff Sgt. Tanner W. Grone, 26, of Gorham, New Hampshire; Sgt. Andrew P. Southard, 27, of Apache Junction, Arizona; and Sgt. Cade M. Wolfe, 24, of Mankato, Minnesota.
All five were special operations aviation soldiers.
The Department of Defense said Monday that the fatal crash happened "during routine flight training" on Friday in the Mediterranean Sea.
"The MH-60 Blackhawk was conducting aerial refueling training when the aircraft experienced an in-flight emergency, resulting in the crash," the release said. The aircraft and all five soldiers had been assigned to the first battalion in the 160th special operations aviation regiment, officials said.
"This is devastating news that reverberates across the entire Special Operations community. Every loss is tough, but in this case, service to the Nation is truly a family business and it's hard to express the amount of sorrow that we all feel right now," Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, said in a statement.
The rest of the tragic story is here.
I write this in an attempt to keep the memory of their service alive and, to the tiny extent I am able to do so, assure that they will not be forgotten quickly as are so many of our men and women who serve in harm’s way.
I also shudder to think of what may be coming our way with regard to China’s determined intention to invade Taiwan within the next couple of years if not sooner, and find especially frightening the prospect that the dictator Xi may be thinking (probably?) the coming year may be his last, best chance to take advantage of our poor, spineless, pusillanimous, “woke,” beaten, damaged “leadership” and the devastation it has wreaked upon our military.
May God rest and comfort their souls and may light perpetual shine upon them.
This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.
Discussion (7)
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Yes it's tragic, but military people die in training accidents every year. Last time I checked, it's a higher number than the US military deaths in Afghanistan had been over several years.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Their parents, wives and children don’t really care about statistics now. And they were probably “training” for a mission.
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Good job, Jim George, of attempting to keep their memory alive. May God bless them and heal their loved ones' remorse.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Amen.
As to the comment by @kedavis rather than attempt any kind of rejoinder I'll simply note this was my way of noting sadness at the passing of such fine young men; I 100% agree with your observation about their families.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Of course, but...
They're always training to be ready for various tasks, including in-flight refueling etc.
Many search results now are referring to this latest incident, so it's harder to track down general numbers, but one result I found showed that there were 24 training deaths last year just for the Army.
You're seeing five of seven comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.