“We got him, dad.”
“Got who?” Billy Vaughn asked.
“I’m not going to tell you over the phone,” Chief Petty Officer Aaron Vaughn said. “But go turn on the TV in an hour.”
Billy Vaughn related the story of May 1, 2011 — the day his son, a member of the elite SEAL Team Six, helped take down Taliban leader Osama Bin Laden — to a group of riveted students at an event hosted by the College Republicans in Markel Auditorium on Monday.
“So often we are so scholarly at Hillsdale, but yet we don’t always get into the true, impactful ,human side of things,” College Republicans President and junior Sam Holdeman said. “So many people support our military so strongly, I was hoping that we could get people interested in the challenges our military faces at home and on the battlefield.”
The Vaughns relayed that within days of completing the Bin Laden mission, Vice President Joe Biden revealed the identity of the team that had performed the mission, and the Vaughns were told to remove any connection with their son from social media. Their son was a target, and their own lives were in danger.
On the night of Aug. 6, 2011, Aaron Vaughn joined 21 other Navy Seal commanders on a Korean-era CH-47D Chinook helicopter, called “Extortion 17,” for transport. While flying over a heated battle zone west of Kabul, Afghanistan, the chopper was shot down by the Taliban.
Extortion 17 chose not to return fire. There were no survivors from the crash.
“As this ‘school bus’ went in that night, there was no pre-assault fire laid down,” Billy Vaughn said. “Why? Because it was considered aggressive.”
At the briefing on the death of their son, questions arose from the information they were given. Billy Vaughn asked why the chopper did not return fire on the Taliban below.
“A three-star Admiral turned and said to the grieving parents, ‘because we want to win their hearts and minds,’” he said.
The Vaughns learned that in 2009, the United States had implemented the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, “to win the hearts and the minds of the people.” The strategy came in addition to restrictive rules of engagement: Troops are not allowed to fire on enemy unless they can verify that the targets are armed with equal or greater firepower.
Karen Vaughn explained that the Taliban often exploit the ROE by taking cover and making verification incredibly dangerous. She explained that casualties often occur during verification attempts, telling the story of one SEAL who repeatedly asked for permission from his commanding officers to fire on hostile Taliban before being shot.
“Do you know the last words that Navy SEAL said on this earth? ‘Confirmed AKs and RPGs,’” she said.
Billy Vaughn explained that the ROE cause hesitation in combat and fear of prosecution by JAG when soldiers need to be fighting for their lives, taking down the enemy, and winning the war.
“The rules of engagement should favor our men and women — not the enemy that they’re fighting,” he said.
The Vaughns eventually learned from Army Brig. Gen. Jeffery Colt, in charge of investigation of the incident, that Extortion 17 did not return fire on the Taliban that shot down the chopper because “there might have been friendlies in the building.”
She explained that the core of the problem is not solely the ROEs, but the politics behind the policies governing combat.
“America doesn’t think we’re at war — because the president keeps insisting that we are not,” she said.
Billy Vaughn added, “political correctness is killing our military.”
The real key to decisive victory is a change in the nation’s attitude toward the war and toward the enemy.
“We’re the next generation. This country is about to be in our hands,” freshman Theresa Smith said. “We needed that great reminder that freedom is not free. There are men and women dying for us.”
Karen Vaughn said that Americans need to realize that there is real evil in the world, and that the liberties that men have died to defend are at risk.
“We need to pick up the battle culturally,” she said. “If you talk to the war fighters, they’ll tell you this war is 100 percent winnable. Our nation is just not deciding to win the war.”
