Word: dasht
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...lines of blue lights etched the outlines of the remote landing strip. Suddenly flames illuminated the night sky, then gradually flickered out. On the powdery sands of Dasht-e-Kavir, Iran's Great Salt Desert, lay the burned-out hulk of a lumbering U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft. Nearby rested the scorched skeleton of a U.S. Navy RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter. And in the wreckage were the burned bodies of eight American military air crewmen...
...such tragedy took place in the medium-size farming community of Dasht-e-Rivat (pop. 1,800 in the past), many of whose inhabitants fled on the third day of bombing in April 1982. Scrambling up a goat path into the 14,000-ft. mountains along the southern edge of the Hindu Kush, the fugitives took nothing with them but thin clothing, a little bread and some dried mulberry flour. For 40 days they hid behind boulders and in mountain caves. Each night it snowed; each day they saw Soviet planes bomb and strafe the valley below. The fatalities included...
Some semblance of normal life has now returned to Dasht-e-Rivat. Farmers can be seen working the fields with wooden plows; young men mix straw and mud to patch bomb holes. One sagging roof is propped up by an unexploded Soviet bomb. But in villages like Jakdalag, 30 miles east of Kabul, the relentless assault upon civilians has taken its toll on the guerrillas. The deserted settlement is pockmarked with bomb craters and littered with spent shells, some measuring 10 ft. in length. Since bombs first began tearing the community apart three years ago, all its farmers...
...fact, the sands had barely settled in Iran's Dasht-e-Kavir desert before Carter took to the road. On Sunday he slipped away from the White House to an undisclosed location to meet with 150 of the commandos who participated in the raid. Afterward, the President made sure that Americans learned of the visit by emotionally describing to Democratic congressional leaders how Colonel Charlie Beckwith, commander of the assault force, had apologized for the failure. The teary-eyed President embraced Beckwith and replied: "You have nothing to apologize for. I thank...
...ceremony honored five of the eight servicemen who died two weeks ago in Iran's Dasht-e-Kavir desert during the aborted raid to rescue the Americans held hostage in Tehran. Some 5,000 people gathered at Hurlburt in memory of the five air commandos who had been stationed there. One by one, the lost men were eulogized. Said Lieut. Colonel Calvin Chasteen about his comrade, Captain Richard L. Bakke, a 33-year-old navigator: "He looked forward with enthusiasm and anticipation to this last opportunity to serve, not for the glory it offered but for the deep satisfaction...