On August 6, 2011, 30 US service members were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter they were being transported in crashed in Wardak province, Afghanistan. It was the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. 17 members of the elite Navy SEALs were killed in the crash.

Circa News had an exclusive interview with retired Air Force officer, Joni Marquez who has recently come forward to give her eyewitness account of one of the most deadly attacks on Navy SEALs in history.

What really happened that night in Afghanistan where 17 Navy SEALs and 14 other U.S. Military personnel including a Military working dog were killed in a Chinook helicopter? The incredibly brave, Joni Marquez gives us a lot more insight to that tragic night.

Via Circa News:

A decorated retired Air Force officer who witnessed one of the most deadly attacks on Navy SEALs in U.S. history is breaking her silence, saying the government covered up evidence detailing that the 2011 downing of a Chinook helicopter gunship that killed 38 fighters in Afghanistan could have been prevented had it not been for restrictions to the military’s rules of engagement that were changed under the Obama administration.

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Circa News describes the Mission:

August 6, 2011: Retired Air Force Capt. Joni Marquez and her crew were working the dark morning hours aboard an AC-130 gunship after being summoned to a mission she describes “as almost like a 9-1-1 type of a situation.” The gunship was ordered to fly close-in air support above Afghanistan’s dangerous Tangi Valley, in Wardak Province, assisting troops with the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment who were being fired on by eight heavily armed Taliban insurgents. The Rangers had called in for assault helicopters to engage the enemy hiding among the rocky valley. The air weapons team fired on the Taliban fighters, but not all of the insurgents were killed as originally believed.

Marquez begged for permission to engage several times, yet was denied…

“We had seen two of them (insurgents) moving, crawling away from the area, as to not really make a whole lot of scene,” she recalled. Monitoring the scene from above, she relayed the scene to the ground force commander. “You have two enemy forces that are still alive,” she said. “Permission to engage.” They were denied. Marquez told Circa the ground commander’s decision to not allow her crew to engage the two enemy fighters sealed the fate of those involved in Extortion 17.

Watch the full interview with Sara Carter of Circa News and Joni Marquez here.

The rules of engagement set by the Obama administration were specifically designed to protect Muslims and put our brave men and women serving our country in danger.

A retired Special Operation Combat Vet told TGP reporter Cristina Laila that this crash was the greatest single loss of life ever suffered by the Special Operations community in the 24 year history of the U.S. Special Operations Command. He also said, “it is tactically unsound to put that many Special Operators in one bird (helicopter)”.

Why was this Chinook helicopter hovering for 13 minutes making our men sitting ducks?

Conservative watchdog group, Freedom Watch is legally pursuing this scandal with the goal of bringing all involved to justice: