Eagle Down

by Jessica Donati

  Jordan was proud to have been part of a team that displayed courage and competence in the face of chaos, danger, uncertainty, desperation, and sometimes what felt like certain death. Every man felt fear that day, but none showed it, he said. He found closure after the tour fighting Islamic State in Nangarhar, left the army, and lives a quiet life in Montana with his family, where he teaches fly-fishing. He said nothing could match up to being a Bravo on a military team, but he wanted to devote himself to his family and avoid the scars left by repeated deployments that he saw in older soldiers. “Living that life, the longer you do it, the harder it is to adjust,” he said. He wanted to find something peaceful and healing. “I was meant to live old,” he said.

  The team members were all nominated for awards for the Marjah mission, but many were downgraded or denied. Some of the soldiers thought it was because the army didn’t want to draw attention to combat operations that occurred at a time when the war was supposed to have been over. Dan and Jordan were each awarded a Bronze Star with Valor for exposing themselves multiple times to enemy fire to aid a wounded teammate. Six other members of Alpha Company were awarded Army Commendation Medals with Valor, but others were turned down for awards that would have recognized their bravery under fire for almost twenty-four hours.

  The members of the crew that flew the C-130 transport plane over the battlefield to push the parachute drop of supplies were all awarded Distinguished Flying Crosses.

  Flannery, the helicopter pilot who crashed in Marjah, finished the deployment, but after returning to the United States he decided never to fly again, even though becoming a pilot had been his childhood dream. Flying was never the same after the crash. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “It’s something I once loved and don’t care about anymore.” He bought a boat instead and takes it out on the lake often. He recently separated from his wife, with whom he has two children, and lives close to them in Kentucky, where he serves as a police officer. He plans to travel the world after retiring in a couple of years.

  CHRIS LEFT THE MILITARY. He remained close to Caleb, visiting him and Ben, the senior Bravo on their team, at every opportunity, to hunt or spend time with their families. Civilian life was dull after having experienced the raw emotion that came with a firefight or a patrol, the elation of survival and the darkness that came with loss. When Chris was asked to draw on his experience as a veteran, he found it hard to package the dirty, messy emotions that accompanied war into a shiny conference-room pitch. At home, few had any experience of war, and it seemed many Americans had long forgotten about Afghanistan.

  SINCE LEAVING AFGHANISTAN, Dr. Cua has completed missions in Jordan, Syria, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Cameroon. She enjoys traveling the world and being able to help those in need and describes herself as happy. She still thinks about Kunduz, but with less bitterness these days.

  In early 2020, Dr. Cua returned to the Philippines for a long vacation and to work part-time in a government hospital. She is expecting to deploy soon to Houdaidah, Yemen, and then Bentiu, South Sudan. She has volunteered to go back to Kunduz if Médecins Sans Frontières succeeds in reopening the trauma center.

  It took a year for Dr. Nasim to emerge from the trauma and begin to experience any emotion. He talked to a psychologist, started taking medication, and began to exercise. He still exercises to keep the depression at bay. Years later, he remained pessimistic about the future in his country and planned to move his family abroad to give his children better opportunities.

  When asked about his hopes for Afghanistan, Dr. Nasim said that war had irrevocably damaged the fabric of society, and it would take hundreds of years to repair. The country’s government, constantly feuding internally for power and reputed to be among the most corrupt in the world, offered no way out. When he looked around him, all he saw were wild people fighting for their own survival, with no respect for others, the law, or anything else.

  “Afghanistan is worse than the jungle,” he said. “Every jungle has a law. Here, there is no law.”

  Guilhem Molinie, the country director for Médecins Sans Frontières, said the hospital strike changed his perception of how the organization should operate. The fact that the US military was capable of bombing a heavily populated area with barely any information about the target meant that humanitarian workers were exposed to a far greater risk than he had realized. He criticized the US military for heavily redacting the version of the report released to the public and leaving key questions unanswered. He brought up the first question on the organization’s list: Why did the US Special Forces team give the aircrew a physical description of the T-shaped hospital instead of the hexagonal NDS prison?

  “I think, in my mind, I reached closure when I stopped trying to know more for now. I am waiting for the declassification of the documents. Hopefully I will still be alive or maybe my children will be,” he said from his new post as the country director for Médecins Sans Frontières in South Africa.

  I stopped when I understood and said to myself, actually, what they tell us is almost as bad as [if we had been] a targeted strike. It tells us they don’t really know what they’re doing. That a hospital that has been there for fifty years can still be an unknown location, even if it’s on all the Afghan maps and it’s listed as a hospital. When I realized that, as they said, it was a mistake, that’s as bad as if it had been an intentional strike. Honestly. It means they are waging war in a city full of civilians [and] NGOs, not knowing what they’re doing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THIS BOOK would not have been possible without the time and investment of a great many people who believed in the project, took risks to support it, and invested time and energy in its production. I hope to have done their stories some measure of justice and conveyed a sense of the tremendous bravery and sacrifices that make up the invisible costs of the Afghan war.

  As someone with no firsthand experience of military service, the patience of the soldiers and their families was critical to understanding the details and nuances of their narratives. Many agreed to relive painful and traumatic experiences, repeatedly and in detail. And for every episode told in this book, there were many, many more that didn’t make it into these pages.

  In particular, I am grateful to Mike (Hutch) and Tina Hutchinson, Caleb and Ashley Brewer, Alexandra McClintock, Rosemarie Chapman, Andy MacNeil, Dan and Brianne Gholston, Jordan Avery, Casey Gursley, Josh Thiel, and many others that wished to remain anonymous. Chris Clary was an early supporter of this book, made introductions, and acted as a sounding board throughout.

  Elias Altman, my agent, gave me the confidence to believe in the project from the start and was my guide throughout the publishing process, from the writing of the proposal to the final draft of the book. Colleen Lawrie, my editor at PublicAffairs, took on this book at a time when the war in Afghanistan had long ago faded from the public’s consciousness. Colleen’s advice, observations, and edits were always spot-on. I was lucky to benefit from Kelley Blewster’s excellent copyediting, Melissa Veronesi’s sharp eye for detail, and support from the rest of the team at Hachette Book Group.

  The Wall Street Journal granted me an indispensable period of leave to research the book and use of the bureau in Kabul when I traveled to Afghanistan in mid-2019. Over more than five years at the paper, I have worked closely with many inspiring editors and reporters who have made me a better journalist. In particular, Bob Ourlian, the Journal’s indefatigable national security editor, and Paul Beckett, the Washington, DC, bureau chief. Also, my editor in Afghanistan, Peter Wonacott, the Middle East North Africa bureau chief.

  The experience and generosity of many Journal colleagues also helped make this a better book. Michael Phillips, a staff reporter with decades of experience reporting from Afghanistan among other places, undertook a detailed edit of the manuscript and caught small errors that might otherwise have escaped unnoticed. He also introduced me to Lieutenant Colonel Josh Thiel, whose story makes up the final chapters of
the book. Yaroslav Trofimov, the chief global correspondent, was an invaluable resource throughout the writing of the book and also provided feedback on an early draft.

  At the New York Times, I was fortunate to be able to count on T. M. Gibbons-Neff for honest advice and moral support anytime I needed it. He was an early reader of the book and provided important feedback. And when I first moved to DC after more than six years reporting on the wars in Afghanistan and Libya, C. J. Chivers provided counsel on how to recover.

  The Office of the Chief of Public Affairs at the Department of the Army approved my request for access to personnel, facilities, records, and photographs. The US-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan granted embeds with the troops, and multiple battlefield circulations to Special Forces bases around the country in late 2015. General Austin “Scott” Miller took the time to listen to the scope of the book and supported my trip to Baghlan with Hutch (and, of course, led those Sunday PT sessions) in 2019.

  Many former US military and State Department officials also agreed to repeated interviews and helped with fact-checking, which provided critical insight into the political backdrop in Washington, DC, and Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul during the early years covered in this book. Later on, current and former officials provided important details and understanding during US negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, until the signing of the deal in February 2020.

  The Afghan Ministry of Defense granted me access to personnel, facilities, and records during my time at Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, and when I later returned to Afghanistan to research this book in 2019. The Ministry of Interior and National Directorate of Security also provided access to personnel, facilities, and records that shed light on the security situation and efforts to combat the insurgency.

  In Doha, the Taliban’s political office granted me interviews with their members and access to the site of the talks during the negotiation of the deal with the United States.

  At home, my husband, Juan Gamboa, supported me throughout the writing of this book, which took several years of late nights and working weekends. He saw me through the many highs and lows, moments of greatness and of great doubt, and never lost enthusiasm for edits, commentary, and discussion.

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  JUAN GAMBOA

  JESSICA DONATI covers foreign affairs for The Wall Street Journal in Washington, DC, and has reported from over a dozen countries in the role. She joined the paper as the bureau chief in Kabul in 2015 and lived in Afghanistan for over four years. Previously, she worked for Reuters in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, covering the conflicts in both Libya and Afghanistan. Her work on a series on the war in Libya was chosen as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2012. She is British-Italian and grew up in Italy. She lives with her husband and son in Washington, DC.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ALL THE MAIN CHARACTERS cooperated for this book, providing repeated follow-up interviews, photographs, and other materials. They also introduced me to their family members, colleagues, and friends, who offered invaluable background and context.

  Most of the secondary characters also cooperated, sitting for one or more interviews, checking sections for accuracy, and providing additional context or people to speak with so I could further my research. Some wished to remain anonymous, and for this reason the bibliography does not contain detailed interview notes for each chapter.

  Many of the battle sequences were reconstructed based on the recollections of the soldiers involved and are not intended as definitive accounts. The military declined to make radio transcripts, after-action reports, or other forms of documentation available. The one exception was regarding the operation to retake Kunduz. A heavily redacted version of the investigation into the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital bombing was released to the public in 2016.

  Much of the reporting for this book was conducted during the four years in which I lived in Afghanistan, first as a correspondent for Reuters and then as The Wall Street Journal’s bureau chief in Kabul. During that time, I traveled widely to report firsthand on the way policy changes were impacting the war. On most trips, we stayed at local hotels or embedded with Afghan forces, from village militias to groups of Afghan army commandos.

  I made two such trips to Kunduz, before it fell in 2015 and after it fell again in 2016. I also spent time in Helmand in late 2015 to reconstruct the secret US Special Forces mission to push the Taliban out of Babaji and save the provincial capital.

  I accompanied US military officials on field visits when possible. In 2015, the US Army in Afghanistan offered me a rare opportunity to accompany Sergeant Major James Napolet, the program manager for the Special Operations Joint Task Force, Afghanistan, on a series of field visits to ODAs stationed throughout the country. It was on one of those trips that I met Chris Clary, Caleb Brewer, and the others on ODA 9123 at Camp Antonik in Helmand, a few days after the insider attack.

  I also made multiple trips east to cover the emergence of Islamic State, and I was among the first foreign reporters to reach the scene after the US military dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” in eastern Nangarhar in early 2017, when I was traveling with my Guardian colleague Sune Engel Rasmussen and the photographer Andrew Quilty.

  None of my reporting would have been possible without The Wall Street Journal reporters Habib Khan Totakhil and Ehsanullah Amiri, who patiently explained Afghan history, custom, and practices. Their energy and enthusiasm were always an inspiration, and both often took great personal risks to get to the bottom of a story. I also made many Afghan friends who helped provide perspective, context, and understanding.

  I moved to Washington, DC, in 2017, which allowed me to conduct in-person interviews with many of the policymakers that feature in the book. I also had the privilege of spending time with 1st Battalion commander Lt. Col. Josh Thiel at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State, where I interviewed many of the soldiers who participated in the battles described in the final chapters.

  In July 2019, I returned to Afghanistan to further my research for this book. The Wall Street Journal supported the trip by granting a request for book leave and access to accommodations at the Kabul bureau. Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller was kind enough to listen to my pitch and gave me an opportunity to travel to Baghlan province with Hutch to see his efforts to assist with the development of the Afghan National Army Territorial Forces.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  PREFACE

  Donati, Jessica, and Habib Khan Totakhil. “A New U.S. Front in Afghanistan?” The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2016.

  Obama White House Archives. “Remarks by the President at the National Defense University.” May 23, 2013. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university.

  Resolute Support, Afghanistan. “Kunduz Casualty Release.” November 3, 2016. https://rs.nato.int/news-center/casualty-reports/2016/kunduz-casualty-release.aspx.

  CHAPTER 1

  Cavendish, Julius. “Afghanistan’s Dirty War: Why the Most Feared Man in Bermal District Is a US Ally.” Time, October 4, 2011.

  Connett, Ty, and Bob Cassidy. “Village Stability Operations: More Than Village Defense.” Special Warfare, July–September 2011. www.soc.mil/SWCS/SWmag/archive/SW2403/SW2403VillageStabilityOperations_MoreThan VillageDefense.html.

  Smith, Graeme. The Future of the Afghan Local Police. International Crisis Group report, June 4, 2015.

  CHAPTER 2

  For a complete list of US fatalities in Helmand, see the database https://icasualties.org, an independent website that tracks US and coalition deaths in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in service of Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–2014). Created by Michael White, a software engineer based in Georgia, it operates as a nonprofit. Accessed July 21, 2020.

  Amiri, Rahmatull
ah. Helmand (2): The Chain of Chiefdoms Unravels. Afghanistan Analysts Network report, March 11, 2016. www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/war-and-peace/helmand-2-the-chain-of-chiefdoms-unravels/.

  Obama White House Archives. “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” December 1, 2009. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan.

  Rose, Megan. “Afghanistan Waste Exhibit A: Kajaki Dam, More Than $300M Spent and Still Not Done.” Propublica, January 19, 2016. www.propublica.org/article/afghanistan-waste-kajaki-dam-more-than-300-million-spent-still-not-done.

  Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2016. https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2016-07-30qr.pdf.

  Stancati, Margherita. “Last US Marines Leave Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.” The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2014. www.wsj.com/articles/last-of-u-s-marines-leave-afghanistans-helmand-province-1414410005.