What are the official military findings or after‑action reports about the November 12, 2004 shootdown of Duckworth’s Black Hawk?

1. What contemporaneous reporting and Duckworth’s memoir state about the incident

Multiple contemporaneous news accounts and Duckworth’s memoir excerpt consistently say the Black Hawk took a direct hit from an RPG on November 12, 2004, that exploded in her lap and severely wounded her—she lost both legs and partial use of her right arm—and that crewmembers and medevac teams evacuated the wounded to Baghdad within the “golden hour” for trauma care ^{[1] [2] [4]}. Stars and Stripes and other reports repeat that insurgent fire produced the hit and that the crew’s actions that day were later recognized by military awards: Duckworth received a Purple Heart and Air Medal and her pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Dan Milberg, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions during the emergency ^{[3] [4]}.

2. Medical evacuation, survival factors, and recognition cited in reporting

Journalistic reconstructions emphasize rapid medical response and evacuation as crucial to survival: accounts note the helicopter that evacuated Duckworth landed in Baghdad less than an hour after the shootdown and that the 31st Combat Support Hospital typically handled numerous traumas daily, which reporting credits for saving lives that afternoon ^[2]. Those same narratives cite post‑incident care at Walter Reed and the lengthy rehabilitation Duckworth underwent, details that have been used in profiles and official bios chronicling her recovery and subsequent awards ^{[2] [4]}.

3. What authoritative military after‑action findings are present in the provided sources

The set of documents supplied here does not contain a formal Department of Defense investigation report, safety board finding, or inspector general after‑action dossier specific to the November 12, 2004, shootdown that would normally detail ordnance forensics, fire‑origin analysis, aircrew debriefs, and systemic recommendations; the only defense‑institutional document in the batch is a GAO review about a 1994 Black Hawk fratricide incident, which is unrelated to the 2004 RPG strike on Duckworth’s aircraft ^{[5] [6]}. Therefore, while reporting and Duckworth’s first‑person accounts state cause and sequence, no verified DOD after‑action report text or summary from these sources is available to cite here ^{[1] [2]}.

4. Alternative framings, investigative gaps, and implicit agendas in the sources

Public narratives rely on testimonial, news, and biographical sources that understandably foreground heroism, survival, and political trajectory; those emphases can obscure the technical, forensic, and command‑accountability details that formal after‑action reports provide—details absent from the supplied material ^{[2] [3] [4]}. The military awards and hospital accounts corroborate an insurgent attack narrative, but without a released DOD investigative report in the provided reporting, questions about whether any systemic lessons or formal recommendations resulted from the incident cannot be confirmed from these sources ^{[3] [2]}.

5. Bottom line: what the record here establishes and what remains unverified

From the available reporting and Duckworth’s own memoir excerpts, the factual core is clear: an RPG struck the Black Hawk on November 12, 2004, causing severe injuries to Duckworth and others and prompting an emergency medevac and later recognition for crew actions and survival ^{[1] [3] [2]}. What cannot be confirmed from the materials supplied is the text or specific conclusions of any official after‑action or investigative report issued by the Department of Defense, Army command, or an independent inspector—that documentation is not present among these sources ^{[5] [6]}.