David Toon

On this day, June 28, 2005, Lt. Cdr. Erik Kristensen, the SEAL officer who led the rescue force into the Hindu Kush, was killed during Operation Red Wings. When Lt. Michael Murphy’s call for help came down, Kristensen was the ground commander of the quick reaction force, and he did not have to be on that helicopter. As a senior officer in SEAL Team 10, he sat above the platoons that ran most of the direct action, and his own mother was told he likely wouldn’t be aboard. But these were his men in trouble, men he had trained, and so he went, leading from the front. He boarded Turbine 33 with 7 other SEALs and 8 Night Stalkers from the 160th, and an RPG brought the Chinook down before they could reach the team. All 16 aboard were killed. Kristensen’s road to that mountain was a long one. Born into a Navy family, son of a future rear admiral, he was a Naval Academy graduate who majored in English, taught the subject back at Annapolis, and was attending St. John’s College before he walked away from the classroom to chase a harder calling. He reported to BUD/S at 27, one of the oldest men in his class, and earned his Trident. Friends remembered a brilliant, funny, slightly absent minded man who once showed up to a dance class in flip flops, an officer who led with wit instead of weight. He was set to study in Paris on a scholarship after the deployment, thinking already about a life beyond the Teams. He never got the chance. In the wreckage of Turbine 33, recovery troops found a dog tag stamped not with a name but with the Warrior Ethos, ending in the line "I will never leave a fallen comrade." Erik Kristensen and the men he led embodied exactly that. He is buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery, and his example is still taught to the midshipmen who walk the grounds he once did. Not forgotten 🔱

On this day, June 28, 2005, 11 Navy SEALS and 8 Night Stalkers, 19 of America's finest warriors, died during Operation Red Wings. Please help me honor them.

Chief Petty Officer Christopher “Chris” Kyle. United States Navy SEAL, and the most lethal sniper in American military history. A small town Texas kid born in Odessa and raised on a cattle ranch in north central Texas, Chris was the son of a Sunday school teacher and deacon who put a .30-06 Springfield in his hands at the age of 8. He grew up hunting deer and pheasant, working ranches, and chasing rodeo, eventually becoming a professional bronco rider. A serious rodeo accident in 1998 ended his career on horseback, and on August 5 of that year he enlisted in the United States Navy. He was initially turned away from the SEAL program because of his rodeo injuries. The Navy reconsidered after seeing his performance in dive training. Chris graduated BUD/S Class 233 in March 2001, just months before September 11. He was assigned to SEAL Team 3, sniper element, Charlie Platoon (later renamed Cadillac), and would deploy four times to Iraq between 2003 and 2009. His battlefield record across the invasion of Iraq, Fallujah, Ramadi, Sadr City, and Sadr al Yusufiyah is unmatched. Chris is officially credited with more than 160 confirmed kills, including a 2,100 yard shot near Sadr City that took out an enemy fighter armed with a rocket propelled grenade aimed at US forces. Iraqi insurgents called him al Shaitan, “the devil,” and placed an $80,000 bounty on his head. Through it all, his teammates, including Marines and SEALs whose lives he protected from above, simply called him “Legend.” He was shot twice in combat, survived six IED blasts, and helped lead the SEAL sniper community as Chief Instructor of the Naval Special Warfare Sniper / Counter Sniper schools after his deployments, where he wrote the first official Navy SEAL sniper manual. The US Navy’s official records confirm Chris was awarded one Silver Star, three Bronze Stars with Valor, the Combat Action Ribbon, and several other commendations. He was honorably discharged as a Chief Petty Officer in 2009. Out of uniform, Chris dedicated himself to his wife Taya, his two children, and his fellow veterans. He founded Craft International, a tactical training company, and partnered with the FITCO Cares Foundation to provide fitness equipment to disabled veterans struggling with PTSD. His autobiography, American Sniper, spent 37 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was later adapted into the 2014 Clint Eastwood film starring Bradley Cooper. On February 2, 2013, Chris and his close friend Chad Littlefield drove a fellow Marine veteran struggling with PTSD to Rough Creek Lodge near Chalk Mountain, Texas, in an effort to help him. The veteran, Eddie Ray Routh, shot and killed both men at the range. Chris was 38 years old. More than 7,000 people gathered at AT&T Stadium for his memorial. Hundreds more lined the 200 mile funeral procession to the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. In 2015, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared February 2 “Chris Kyle Day,” and he was posthumously awarded the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor, the state’s highest military honor. He died doing what he had always done: serving others.