Navy Seal Heroes Honored With Navy Cross

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For regular readers you may recall last July when I posted many times about the 4 Navy Seals who fought close to 100 Taliban in Afghanistan. Only one survived, whom Blackfive calls “The One”, and 16 men aboard a helicopter enroute to rescue the team were killed when their chopper was shot down.

You can visit these posts for more:

Via Blackfive comes the terrific news that two of them will be receiving the Navy Cross, second only to the Congressional Medal Of Honor. The two men are Matthew Axelson and Danny Dietz:

A South Bay Navy Seal killed in the war on terrorism is being honored next month with a Navy Cross. The only higher recognition is the Congressional Medal of Honor. For the first time since their son’s death, Matthew Axelson’s family has granted a television interview.

Donna and Corky Axelson live with a mix of emotion. Their tears represent both pride and anguish.

Donna Axelson, mother: “He was just a wonderful young man.”

[…]The Axelson’s have an impressive collection spanning their son’s five year military career — there’s a silver star, a purple heart and the Navy and Marine Corps commendation medal.

Now this son, brother and husband will receive the Navy Cross, a recognition second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Corky Axelson, father: “We are proud of our son if he didn’t get any of these medals, but this is special.”

The military says Axelson showed extraordinary heroism, providing fire cover for one of his fellow seals even as he was under attack. That courage does not surprise his older brother Jeff.

Jeff Axelson, brother: “Yeah, I looked up to him even though he is a little brother.”

The rescue helicopter had crashed. The Navy SEALS were wounded by Taliban gunmen, vastly overpowered and outmanned in the remote region of Afghanistan.

Danny P. Dietz kept fighting.

More than a year after the 25-year-old Navy SEAL from Littleton was killed, he has been awarded the nation’s second-highest military honor, the Navy Cross.

The award – one of only 20 given for valor since fighting began in Afghanistan and Iraq, and second only to the Medal of Honor – will be presented to Dietz’s widow and parents during a ceremony at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13. The medal will also be presented posthumously to the family of Dietz’s teammate, Matthew Axelson, of Cupertino, Calif.

The pair were part of an elite team of four SEALs on a reconnaissance mission “tasked with finding a key Taliban leader in mountainous terrain near Asadabad, Afghanistan,” according to a Navy news release.

Blackfive gives an excellent summary of the heroism these four displayed:

Having been compromised during their recon, Axelson, Dietz, Lt. Michael Murphy, and the One were engaged by a numerically superior force of taliban from the mountainside above. After calling for a Quick Reaction Force to aid them in their extraction, the SR team fought the enemy for at least an hour. Upon the arrival of the QRF, one of the MH-47 helos was struck by an RPG and crashed, killing eight SEALs and eight Army Nightstalkers. The SR team fought on and Axelson, Dietz, and Murphy all gave their lives with only one survivor-who was also awarded the Navy Cross-escaping. The One evaded the enemy for another day or more having suffered numerous wounds and was taken in by some nearby friendly villagers. After watching taliban barter for his life on several occasions, the villagers helped to smuggle the One out of the village where he linked up with an Army Ranger patrol at which point he took the Ranger radio and called in a series of devastating airstrikes on taliban positions which had engaged them.

These medals are well deserved. Thank God for men like these.

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We pray, love and thank you for your service, honor and courage.

Semper Fidelis

Hooyah! Matthew and Danny.

Thank you…

Semper Fidelis

Should be celebrated over and over again in the mainstream. Their names should be known far greater than PFC Jessica Lynch, Lyndie Englund, or Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, for that matter. Where is the Hollywood studios, clamoring for movie deals?