The Defense Department has identified the Army Special Forces soldier killed Jan. 5 in Afghanistan as SSgt. Matthew McClintock of Albuquerque, N.M. McClintock was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne) of the Washington National Guard. Two more soldiers were wounded in the “clearing operation” in Marjah, where the American Special Forces team was accompanying an Afghan National Army team in Helmand Province. The soldiers are there in a “train, advise, and assist” role, but the troops found themselves in intense combat. “This was clearly a combat situation in which US forces, who were accompanying Afghan forces who were in the lead, found themselves in a very difficult, dangerous situation,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a Jan. 7 briefing. An Air Force HH-60 responded to evacuate the wounded, came under fire,? and was damaged. The helicopter has since been airlifted back to Kandahar, Cook said.
Boeing received a $2.47 billion Air Force contract Nov. 25 for 15 more KC-46s, bringing to 183 the number of Pegasus tankers on contract to all customers, foreign and domestic. The new contract—for Lot 12 of the initially planned KC-46 buy—is to be completed by 2029.
