Those 3 Special Forces troops went down hardcorps in Niger. The 4th we just don't know...might never want to know...

via Sputnik.

They didn't find anything. Instead, 50 militants believe to be aligned with a local Daesh offshoot, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), ambushed the patrol.

Also retrieved was footage from the body camera of Green Beret Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson. It depicts the three American soldiers — Johnson along with Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright — in the midst of a fighting retreat against a vastly superior militant force.

All three Green Berets are slain on the footage. Not depicted is the death of Sgt. La David Johnson, a comrade of the trio whose body was discovered a day later in a different location. Four Nigerien soldiers and an interpreter also met their ends in the battle.

Story here. 

Ok, so the orders were augmented.  Instead of just a patrol they were also on a hunt for a terrorists.

Believe it or not that doesn't alarm me one bit.  I thought we were gonna see something a bit more egregious but if that's all that happened then it's not a really big deal.  AM I DOWNPLAYING their deaths?  NO!!!!  I am saying that getting orders that include "opportunities" are given on a regular basis.  They probably didn't even need to give that order.  If those bubbas got the scent of a terror leader while on patrol they'd probably have notified higher ups, requested support (which would have been given) and started chasing him down.

So the circumstances of this incident aren't alarming.

The fact that they got ambushed, fought hard, and were unfortunately killed? You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.  Again I'm not being flippant but these guys went out like the pros they were.

Which brings me to Sgt Johnson.  We don't know what happened (correction they aren't releasing it).  At this point and with this level of quiet surrounding his death I'm sure the public would be horrified to find out.

If his death really is mysterious then let's hope that he went out hard and was captured and subjected to the barbarity of this region.

At the end of the day, let's clean up our procedures, let's make sure we have sufficient support and let's do this right.