one u.s. soldier killed in action. there are other injuries. keep in mind, it was a joint u.s./afghan operation. initial reports of something worse. this now looks to be still a deadly fire fight but that the helicopter was not damaged beyond repair. it was able to take off. jim sciutto, thanks much. we ll let you get back to your sources and get more details for us. thank you. we go to cnn military analyst, rick francona. colonel, talk to me about u.s. special ops in that region. what are they doing and how are they working in concert with the afghan forces? yeah, deb, this is part of the ongoing mission in afghanistan. it s not only to train and advise the afghan forces. it s also to conduct counterterrorism operations. that s what this was. they re doing this either alone or in concert with the afghan forces. this happened to be a join operation. this is aside from the normal mission.
why in the world would they do this? well, you can blame florida. florida has decided to push its primary up to the end of january. so now let the dominoes fall where they may. so iowa could possibly want to move their primary to earlier than new hampshire since they are traditionally the first state to vote. iowa, new hampshire, aren t the only ones a little upset over what florida is doing. cnn s shawna shepherd joins me from south carolina. the site of what is the first southern primary. good morning to you. are they talking as well about what they might do and how much they might move their primary up? reporter: they re absolutely talking about it, and they re going to try to make sure that they get their voice heard. they re not happy with florida s decision, and they really want to hold on to that, that title of the first primary in the south and they re going to do whatever they can to make sure that they don t lose that title. we talk about what the states are goi