Special Forces soldiers awarded Silver Stars:

Things were going reasonably well for a group of Special Forces soldiers looking to disrupt Taliban operations in a small Afghanistan village last year, until the team came upon a 20-foot-tall steel gate that no one had anticipated.

Surrounded on two more sides by 10-foot walls, the 59-man group — 10 special operators from 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, two U.S. support elements and a handful of Afghan soldiers — found themselves in a harrowing firefight on Nov. 2.

“The spider senses were definitely tingling, being up there at that gate,” Sgt. 1st Class Sean Morrison said in a Feb. 9 Army release.

For two hours the group held back the attack, dubbed the Battle of Boz Qandahari, killing 27 insurgents and three high-value Taliban commanders, the release said.

The attack took the lives of two Green Berets: Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Gloyer and Maj. Andrew Byers.

For his heroism, Byers was posthumously awarded the Silver Star on Feb. 1. Two of his surviving teammates, Sgt. 1st Class Brian Seidl and Staff Sgt. Andrew Russell, also received the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest award for valor.”

Since only complete psychos torture animals, we may as well use the death penalty: