The Navy SEALs have lost their first operator in the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq. Charles Keating, 31 years, former athletics star and grandson of a disgraced financier, was killed during a fire fight against more than 100 terrorists, in the city of Telskof, 18 miles north of Mosul.
His Seal unit was in advanced redeployment with Kurdish peshmerga troops, when it was attacked by a strong ISIS contingent, formed by 100 terrorists supported by armored vehicles and suicide vehicles.
He was hit by direct fire during an attack - reads a Pentagon note - coordinated and complex. He is the third American soldier dead in Iraq and the first Navy SEAL to die against the Islamic State since the summer of 2014.
The target of the terrorists, it turned out a few hours later, was a SEAL base three miles away. Immediately after breaking through a checkpoint, enemy forces were heading against the base when they were attacked by armed drones in flight to protect them. A few minutes later, F-15 and A-10 started pounding the Isis forces.
Charles Keating graduated from Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona. He is confirmed as a star of athletics at the Indian University which he abandons to enlist in the armed forces and attempt access to the Seal. C4, so called because it had the same name as the three generations that preceded it, came from a family of soldiers and sportsmen.
His great-grandfather Charles Keating, fought during the First World War. Grandfather, Charles Keating Jr. served as a naval pilot in World War II. Keating's father, a former student of the Indian University, was three-time All-American for the Hoosiers and four-time Big Ten champion. Keating III came fifth in the frog at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. Charles Jr. rose to prominence in the middle of the 20 century as a lawyer and businessman, making millions in the real estate field before being convicted of fraud. The scandal of the Savings & Loan shook the American political world. He died in the 2014 at 90 years.
C-4 should have been married next November.
