A Chinook helicopter landing in southern Afghanistan, June 2011: AP Photo/Anja Niedri …
The Chinook chopper was on a mission to aid U.S. Army Rangers, who were taking fire from Afghan insurgents in a mountainous area in the eastern part of the country. Profiles of some of the men killed make it clear that for them, sacrificing to help others came naturally.
Robert James Reeves and Jonas Kelsall had been friends since their freshman year of high school in Shreveport, Louisiana--classmates have described them as inseparable. Like 20 of the other servicemen killed in the crash, both men served on the same elite Navy unit, SEAL Team 6, that killed Osama bin Laden in May.
Reeves, 32, was a star soccer and lacrosse player, his father, James Reeves, told the New York Times. "It had never been obvious to me that he was going to choose a military career," James Reeves said. "It is very difficult to make it on these SEAL teams. But that was where he knew he needed to be."
The younger Reeves was no stranger to life-threatening situations. He had been deployed to war zones a dozen times since the 9/11 attacks, and had earned four Bronze Stars, each with a "V Device" for valor.
At a Christmas reunion with his family in Shreveport--the last time he saw them--Reeves didn't talk about the nature of his work, in keeping with the Navy SEAL code of discretion.
Also killed in the crash was Aaron Vaughn, 30, a Navy SEAL from Tennessee, whose wife, Kimberly, told CNN that her husband "wouldn't want to leave this Earth any other way than how he did"--that is, by sacrificing for his country.
"He loved his job," Kimberly Vaughn, a former Washington Redskins cheerleader, added. "There was no way--even if you could tell him that this would have happened he would have done it anyway. All those men are like that. They're selfless."
She said the pair had spoken by phone just hours before his final mission. "We got to tell each other we loved each other, so it was a great conversation to have."
Meanwhile, Patrick Hamburger, a 30-year-old sergeant from Nebraska, was planning to propose to his girlfriend when he got home from what was his first mission, his brother Chris told the AP. Patrick, who had been in Afghanistan just two weeks, was helping her to raise a daughter from a previous relationship, as well as the couple's own 2-year-old daughter.
John Brown, an Air Force technical sergeant from Arkansas, was described by his mother as a "gentle giant" who "just loved anything physical, anything athletic." When she wanted to have a heart-to-heart with her son, she said, she would go outside and shoot hoops with him.
And Michael Strange, 25, from Philadelphia, loved scuba diving, snowboarding, and surfing. After he joined the Navy SEALs, he reassured his worried mother that he'd be OK.
"He wasn't supposed to die this young. He was supposed to be safe," Elizabeth Strange said. "And he told me that and I believed him. I shouldn't have believed him, because I know better. He would say 'Mom, don't be ridiculous and worry so much. I'm safe.' "
You can watch more about the fallen SEALs below.
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