AdamDitch

@MrPitbull07 A truly amazing story. Thanks for posting it. 12 truly heroic US soldiers whose story is the stuff of Legends.. 👏👏

Six weeks after September 11, 2001, twelve American soldiers were quietly loaded onto a helicopter in Uzbekistan and flown over the Hindu Kush mountains in the dead of night. No tanks. No armored vehicles. No air support waiting on the ground. Just twelve Green Berets, over a hundred pounds of gear each, and a mission that their own commanders privately doubted any of them would survive. They landed in a remote Afghan village called Dehi, in the pitch black, surrounded by a country they barely had maps for. And then someone handed them horses. Not metaphorically. Actual horses — Afghan stallions, tough as nails and famously difficult to control. Wooden saddles covered in carpet scraps. Stirrups so short their knees rode up around their ears. Captain Mark Nutsch, who'd grown up on a cattle ranch in Kansas and competed in collegiate rodeos, became trail boss on the spot. For the other ten men on his team — Operational Detachment Alpha 595 of the 5th Special Forces Group — the learning curve was immediate and unforgiving. The first words one of his sergeants learned in Dari were: "How do you make him stop?" They had linked up with General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a Northern Alliance warlord who controlled thousands of fighters and knew this territory like the back of his hand. The deal was simple: the Americans would call in precision airstrikes from horseback. Dostum's cavalry would do the charging. Together, they would take Mazar-i-Sharif — a Taliban stronghold of 250,000 people — and crack open northern Afghanistan. Military planners had estimated it would take two years. Task Force Dagger gave ODA 595 three weeks. For 23 days of nearly continuous combat, the Horse Soldiers lived like men from a different century. They ate what the Afghans ate. They slept on the ground in freezing mountain passes. They rode trails so narrow and sheer that one wrong step meant a thousand-foot drop. Staff Sergeant Will Summers started the mission at 185 pounds. He left Afghanistan five weeks later weighing 143. The Taliban had tanks. Soviet-era armor, antiaircraft guns, fortified positions dug into the mountains. Against this, twelve Americans on horseback radioed coordinates to aircraft circling invisibly above, and watched the positions erupt. On November 9, 2001, they rode into the kind of moment that people are not supposed to experience in the modern world. Nutsch and his team joined hundreds of Dostum's horsemen in a thundering cavalry charge across an open plain — directly into entrenched Taliban lines. Under fire. At a gallop. Calling in close air support between strides. It was the first cavalry charge of the 21st century. It was also the last. The next day, Mazar-i-Sharif fell. The Taliban's northern stronghold collapsed. Within weeks, the regime itself began to unravel — a domino effect that started with twelve men and borrowed horses in the mountains. All twelve of them came home. Zero American fatalities. Against a fortified enemy that outnumbered and outgunned them at every turn. Today, across from Ground Zero in New York City, there is a bronze statue — sixteen feet tall — of a Special Forces soldier on horseback, rifle across his lap, looking west. It honors ODA 595 and the teams who rode with them. Most Americans walk past it every day without knowing the story. Now you do.

@10DowningStreet If my memory serves me right...You wanted to leave NATO...Please correct me if I'm wrong...

Visiting the crew of a Vanguard-Class submarine as they return from deployment. As we face an increasingly volatile world, our nuclear deterrent is more important than ever. Thank you for keeping Britain and NATO safe 🇬🇧

@RussellCro71 Goes without saying... Of course we do.. Watched Nuremburg 2 weeks ago... Then Master & Commander.. You were outstanding in both.. 👋👋

Do you still watch my movies?

@otokyo__ 19...Absolute Legend... Thank you.. 👋

6 for me!! I feel confident nobody Has all 20 How many for you?

@SpyHards OHMSS... We have all the time in the world.. 🙂

Nothing goes together better than bank holidays and James Bond… But what’s the ultimate bank holiday #JamesBond film? 👇

@ShaunPinnerUA Sidewinders for Sea Harriers... Satellite Intel.. Ascension Island... Sat Nav Radios.... Amongst other items.. 👍

Anybody remember the Americans helping us with the Falklands? Thought not 🇬🇧

@benonwine Just got back from the Pub....with the dog... She had a great time.. Everyone loved her..

WOW The BBC is now suggesting the UK needs fewer dogs. That’s… quite something. 😮😳🫢 Dogs are part of everyday life for millions of people in the UK and we are a dog loving people. My MESSAGE to the BBC, F***K OFF! What’s yours?

@BoylanRoger Worth waiting for... 👍👍

Harry Andrews, Anthony Quayle, Sylvia Syms and John Mills in "Ice Cold in Alex," 1958.

#callmybluff Great result for me tonight.. I actually won... My wife is not happy.... 😁

@AndyGoode10 Utter nonsense... Geoff Parling was spot on... After all TNT did apologise..

Geoff Parling had a stinker today pushing Craig Doyle, no need for acting like that when the TV broadcasters fund the game

@SethMacFarlane Hi Seth.. Hope you don't mind but my wife Sarah & I have just watched Ted S2 here in England. It was utterly brilliant. The cast were fantastic, the production was superb & the script was sublime. Thanks for making us laugh until we cried. We love Ted.. 👏👏👏

@SkyNews @BethRigby Hope he hasn't had his Mobile Phone stolen...

"I hate the fact that I made that mistake and I dwell on it. I beat myself up about it." Sir Keir Starmer speaks to @BethRigby about his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as U.S. ambassador. Listen to the interview on #ElectoralDysfunction on Friday👉 podfollow.com/electoraldysfu…

@GMB @RobbieRinder @JohnHealey_MP As far as A Ballistic Missile attack being launched against the UK...We have little to no chance of intercepting or destroying any missile. We do have a capability but sadly that capability is tied up in Portsmouth..T45 Destroyers. The RAF might intercept but not very likely.

'I'm asking you about ships and you're answering me about planes,' says @RobbieRinder. He questions @JohnHealey_MP after it took HMS Dragon three weeks to arrive near Cyprus after leaving Portsmouth.

@SkySportsNews England were in fact beaten by an Australian 2nd XI..... Mr Key...🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Brendon McCullum will keep his job as England head coach ECB managing director Rob Key discusses why the New Zealander has kept his job following the winter Ashes 🏏

@GlobalReportNow Try harder.... 🤣

@10DowningStreet That's sorted then...

Together with our allies, we condemn in the strongest terms recent attacks by Iran on unarmed commercial vessels in the Gulf, attacks on civilian infrastructure including oil and gas installations, and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces.

@samrac92 D...

How many holes are in this T_shirt?

@LeeHarris This really does show how Economically Illiterate this Labour Government is... They really are mind numbingly dumb...

I kid you not. Rachel Reeves praises Canada and Norway for INCREASING their production of oil and gas. So while the Labour Party proudly ban new oil and gas production in the UK, they openly support it in other countries. You literally couldn't make it up. This is INSANE!

@InspireExplore An astonishingly brave man...just like his friends in that tent...A man who decided to give his comrades a chance of survival by making the ultimate sacrifice...🇬🇧🇬🇧

Born #OnThisDay in 1880, Captain Lawrence Oates made the ultimate sacrifice on the day of his birth in 1912, by stepping out of his tent into a blizzard never to be seen again. Oates was an integral part of Scott's Polar Party, during the British Antarctic 'Terra Nova' Expedition 1910-1913, and made a brave attempt to preserve enough supplies for Scott, Wilson and Bowers during their return from the South Pole. Oates was severely frostbitten, weakened and suffering from scurvy. Believing he was slowing the other men down, Oates died so they could have a chance at living. As he left the tent, Oates's famous last words are recorded as "I'm just going outside and may be some time..." Captain Scott recorded these words in his diary, and some uncertainty lies over whether it was on the 16th or 17th March, the day Oates was born 32 years earlier. Scott also wrote of Oates in his diary, "...it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman." Lawrence Oates was born in Putney, Surrey and in 1898, joined a militia regiment, the 3rd Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. In 1900, he was given an attachment to the British Army's 6th Inniskilling Dragoons and fought during the Second Boer War in South Africa. During the war Oates suffered a bullet injury to his thigh, leaving him with a limp and one leg shorter than the other. This injury caused him further pain, when the chill of the Antarctic intensified the effect of his injuries. Oates' body was never found, however near where it is presumed that he died the search party erected a cairn and cross with the inscription; 'Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L. E. G. Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons. In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard, to try and save his comrades, beset by hardships.' 📸 Lawrence Oates, Alexander Turnbull Library #OTD #inspire #explore #discover #conserve #Antarctica

@samrac92 2...

Which car should go first ??