Every man and woman in uniform whether Active, Reservist, or Guard puts his or her life on the line for us daily both here in the U.S. and when deployed. Tommy Franks in his biography described a helicopter crash that happened here in the U.S. during a training mission and how terribly hard that was on him as a commander because we just aren't mentally prepared for the loss of life that comes during training and "routine" operations.
Those two soldiers just paid the ultimate sacrifice for us.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the 160th SOAR, they're the best of the best. They're the go-to guys for special ops missions that need helicopters. Other branches of the military ask for them for highly critical missions. The pilots are the cream-of-the-crop of the Army's helicopter pilots. The helicopters themselves are specially modified for them. They're kind of the "Delta Force" of Army aviation units.
The choppers in the Blackhawk Down movie and books were from the 160th SOAR.
It's really sad to hear about this. I'll be curious to see what the cause was.