Thursday night marked yet another unwanted mishap in the Armed Forces. An Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the USNS Arctic off the coast of Virginia during a joint Army-Navy exercise. There was one casualty and eight injuries; the identity or the branch to which the lone casualty belongs has not been released.

According to various reports, including one posted on the ArmyTimes.com,the exercise most probably involved Virginia-based Navy SEALs and members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, more popularly known as the Night Stalkers. The 160th regiment is an element of the Special Operations Command of the Army based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The Night Stalkers themselves are based out of Fort Campbell in Kentucky. The Army Special Operations Command, though, has not confirmed that the Night Stalkers were indeed involved in the exercise; this conjecture is based on the fact that the SEALs almost usually work with them in missions and exercises such as this.

The Navy SEALs themselves do not have their own helicopters; when the need arises, they usually fly with the Night Stalkers, who are considered as among the best-trained pilots in the Army. The 160th received the nickname due to the fact that they frequently fly on nighttime missions, practically a necessity when one takes into consideration the kinds of missions that they are sent to.

One of the more famous of those missions is an operation in October 1993 involving the regiment in Mogadishu, Somalia. The mission became the subject of a book and went on to be produced into a movie – “Black Hawk Down”.

These collaborative missions, in order to be successful in the field, entail exercises that are as risky as actual missions. They are invariably conducted and involve dangerous maneuvers to be performed by everyone concerned. At the time of the accident, the exercise entailed Navy SEALs rapelling onto the USNS Arctic under the cover of darkness, a tactic that SEALs can use when dropping in on pirates and terrorists at sea. It would have required a low, fast approach and a low hover.

The price of security and freedom, indeed, is very high; this is why it is important to support those who more than willingly make this sacrifice, along with their families.