U.S. Marines and Navy SEALs conduct a debrief during a joint visit, board, search, and seizure exercise as part of composite training unit exercise COMPTUEX in the Atlantic Ocean, July 20, 2015. US Department of Defense
Boston Globe: For elite US troops, a never-ending war
Daniel Winschel of Peabody has seen more of war than most ever will. Over eight deployments, he dropped from Special Forces helicopters onto mud-brick homes, ran through doors breached by explosives, and hunted the enemy night after night in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Winschel has been steeled by combat, but he cried when he heard that Sergeant First Class Eric Emond, a friend and the father of three young girls, had been killed in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb.
Emond, a native of Fall River, died with two other Special Forces soldiers in the Nov. 27 explosion. His death came on his seventh deployment overseas, a testament to his patriotism and the military’s unprecedented reliance on Special Operations Forces.
As America’s longest war drags into its 18th year, the burden is falling heavily on a small number of elite fighters who are being sent into battle over and over, leaving loved ones behind each time. This year, 7,500 Special Operations Forces were deployed in 133 countries around the globe, and many have been deployed a dozen times or more.
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WNU Editor: All wars come to an end. But for U.S. Special Forces .... these wars have been ongoing for far too long time.
