Silver Bullet Actual

Medal of Honor recipient and former DEVGRU (SEAL Team 6) operator Master Chief Britt Slabinski stood at the center of one of the most complex and contested events in recent SEAL history: the Battle of Takur Ghar, better known as Roberts Ridge. From the moment he entered the Navy in 1988, his sole ambition was to become a SEAL. He earned his Trident with BUD/S Class 164 in January 1990 and went on to complete 9 overseas deployments and 15 combat deployments, among them the 2003 mission to recover Army Private Jessica Lynch. In the early hours of March 4, 2002, Slabinski led a reconnaissance team onto Takur Ghar, a snow covered 10,000 foot summit in Afghanistan’s Shahi-Kot Valley. As their helicopter approached, an RPG struck the aircraft and Petty Officer Neil Roberts tumbled out the back ramp into a heavily defended enemy position below. Slabinski immediately turned the team around and pressed back up the mountain to recover him, assaulting and clearing an enemy bunker under intense fire. In the ensuing chaos, Combat Controller John Chapman was gravely wounded. Convinced Chapman was dead, Slabinski ordered the team to pull back with another critically injured teammate. Only years later, after drone footage was carefully reviewed, did it become clear that Chapman had regained consciousness and continued fighting alone for nearly an hour, drawing enemy fire away from an incoming Ranger rescue force before he was killed. The gulf between what Slabinski reasonably believed in the moment and what later evidence revealed sparked lasting controversy when both men received the Medal of Honor on the same day in 2018. Slabinski’s award was an upgrade from an earlier Navy Cross. Some voices within the special operations community and the press contended that leaving Chapman was a mistake that should not have been recognized, while others, including senior military leaders, maintained it was the only sound decision a commander could make with the information available during a night firefight high on a mountain, certain his teammate was already gone. Seven Americans lost their lives in the larger battle, along with Rangers and airmen in the fighting that followed. Rest easy to all who fell, and respect to every man who fought on that ridge.

House Speaker Mike Johnson defended congressional stock trading by pointing to lawmakers' frozen salaries. "The salary of Congress has been frozen since 2009," he said. "At least let them engage in some stock trading so that they can continue to take care of their family." The median U.S. congressional salary is $174,000. 70% of Americans can't cover a $1,000 emergency.