Jim and his team of U.S. soldiers and Afghan advisors, with the call-sign “Tribe 33,” dressed in Afghan clothing in the qalat where they lived in Mangwel. From upper left: Pfc. Jeremiah “Miah” Hicks, Air Force Staff Sgt. Andy Deahn, Staff Sgt. Robert Chase, Ismail Khan “Ish,” Jim, Sgt. 1st Class Tony Franks, Staff Sgt. Justin Thomas, and Pfc. Andrew Gray (next person’s name is withheld for privacy). Front row, from left: Pfc. Kyle Redden, Capt. Dan McKone, Spec. Chris Greenwalt, Sgt. Mike Taylor, Sgt. Jeremiah Harvey, interpreter Imran Khan. All the U.S. soldiers apart from Jim, Capt. McKone, Staff Sgt. Deahn, and the unnamed soldier were members of the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment. August 2011.
Jim and his Iraqi comrade and interpreter, Mohammed Alsheikh, riding on the hood of a Humvee near Haifa Street in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
Gen. David Petraeus (second from left front with cap), the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and a key supporter of Jim and his tribal engagement strategy, visits Mangwel with other officers in Jim’s chain of command, May 8, 2011. Col. Don Bolduc, commander of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A) (on right next to Jim) and Lieut. Col. Robert Wilson, commander of the Special Operations Task Force-East (SOTF-E) (upper right, directly behind Bolduc). Col. Mark Schwartz is in cap behind Petraeus on the left.
Photograph courtesy of U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Joshua Treadwell
Jim meets with Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham when they visited Mangwel in July 2011. The senators were among a string of VIPs who traveled to the village in 2011 to better understand the local security initiative.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
The original six—then-Capt. Jim Gant and members of his Special Forces team, Operational Detachment Alpha 316—at their camp in Asadabad, Konar Province, Afghanistan, in 2003. From far left, back row: Sgt. 1st Class Chuck Burroughs, Staff Sgt. Dan McKone, Staff Sgt. Tony Siriwardene, Staff Sgt. Scott Gross. Seated from left: Sgt. 1st Class Mark Read, Interpreter Khalid. Seated on floor front: Capt. Jim Gant.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
Noor Afzhal, Jim, and Ann at the Mangwel qalat where Jim’s team, Tribe 33, was based. April 2011.
Jim has an emotional reunion with Noor Afzhal in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in August 2010. It is the first time the two men have seen each other since Jim’s first deployment to Afghanistan in 2003. The meeting also marked the beginning of a powerful alliance that set the stage for Jim’s tribal engagement in Konar.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
Jim giving Noor Afzhal the Joint Service Commendation Medal, which Petraeus awarded Jim during Petraeus’s visit to Mangwel in May 2011. Jim believed Noor Afzhal deserved the medal as the man most responsible for the success of the tribal strategy, and the act also symbolized Jim’s loyalty to the Pashtun tribe.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
Noor Afzhal greets Jim’s father, James Karl Gant, who visited the village of Mangwel in July 2011. The visit was another demonstration of Jim’s trust in the tribe and his respect for Noor Afzhal.
Mohammed Jalil (left), a Taliban sympathizer and member of the Mohmand tribe, meets with Noor Afzhal and Jim in Noor Afzhal’s home in May 2011. Jim’s outreach to the Taliban, an effort to persuade insurgents to quit fighting and return to the embrace of their tribe, was a key facet of his strategy to bring lasting security to the area.
From left: Ismail Khan “Ish,” Afghan Local Police member Safe, Haji Jan Shah (son of Safi tribal leader Haji Jan Dahd), and Jim meet to share intelligence at the Chowkay qalat, March 2012. Jim’s work with the Safi tribe, the most powerful in Konar Province, marked a major expansion of his tribal engagement plan.
Taliban insurgent-turned-Afghan Local Police commander Niq Mohammed (center, with white cap) looks over maps with Jim (back to camera) as they meet in Mangwel for their first serious discussion on establishing an Afghan Local Police force in the insurgent-influenced nearby village cluster of Kawer. Noor Afzhal’s son Asif, second-in-command of the Mangwel ALP, sits on right next to Niq. September 2011.
Jim meets with Mushwani tribal leader Haji Ayub (center) in the city of Jalalabad in May 2011 at the home of Ismail Khan “Ish” (right), Jim’s comrade, advisor, and interpreter. The visit marked the beginning of an important opportunity to work with the Mushwani tribe, powerful in northern Konar Province and across the border in Pakistan.
Jim and Ibrahim Khan, nicknamed “Abe,” on a patrol deep in the Mangwel Valley, behind the village of Mangwel. Spring 2011.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
Azmat, the third son of Noor Afzhal and leader of the eighty Afghan Local Police in Mangwel, standing in a guard tower in the qalat where Jim lived with his team, Tribe 33. Mangwel is surrounded by foothills of the Hindu Kush mountain range, visible to the right, and its farmland borders the Konar River. July 2011.
Shafiq, a member of the Safi tribe, worked as a mechanic and driver for Jim. Shafiq stands in the qalat in the village of Chinaray, Chowkay District, wearing traditional Afghan leg warmers used when climbing mountains. Shafiq fought to defend the qalat alongside Jim and his new U.S. infantry team, call-sign “Tribe 34,” and the Afghan Local Police they recruited from the area’s dominant Safi tribe. March 2012.
Capt. Dan McKone tries to spot insurgent positions while returning fire and directing his American teammates and Afghan Local Police during a Taliban attack on the qalat in Chowkay District, Konar Province. March 2012.
Mohmand tribesmen recruited as Afghan Local Police in Mangwel are photographed together with Noor Afzhal, Jim, and Bolduc (center front, in uniform). February 2011.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
Lieut. Gen. John Mulholland (left), commander, United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), meets Noor Afzhal in Mangwel in the spring of 2011. Mulholland was impressed by the security gains Jim and his team made by working with the tribe.
Photograph courtesy of Jim Gant
Jim hosts a lunch for Maj. Kent Solheim (right), commander of Special Forces company 3430, and his senior enlisted advisor, Sgt. Maj. Brian McCafferty (center), at the qalat in Chinaray village, Chowkay District, March 12, 2012. Solheim was in charge of all Special Forces teams operating in Konar and Nangahar Provinces. Two days later, Solheim led a mission to Chowkay to relieve Jim of his command and relieve Dan from duty.
Photograph courtesy of Sgt. 1st Class Fernando Gonzales
1st Lieut. Thomas Roberts playing with a monkey at COP Penich, February 2012. Roberts, a platoon leader with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, along with several of his men, was placed under Jim’s direct command in Konar in December 2011. Jim’s new team, Tribe 34, moved from Mangwel to COP Penich in January 2012. Jim then took several infantrymen from the team, not including Roberts, and moved with them to Chowkay to work with the powerful Safi tribe. In March, Roberts submitted a statement to his superiors accusing Jim and Dan of misconduct, prompting a formal investigation.
Photograph courtesy of Sgt. 1st Class Fernando Gonzales
Safi tribal leader Haji Jan Dahd speaks with a group of tribesmen from his home in Chowkay District, Konar Province, September 2011. Jan Dahd held such meetings almost daily and played a key role in resolving tribal and local disputes. Jan Dahd, a former mujahideen commander, was wounded repeatedly while fighting Russian occupation forces in the 1980s, battled the Taliban regime in the 1990s, and served as the governor of Konar Province immediately after the U.S. military invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001. Jim, who first met Jan Dahd as a captain in 2003, reestablished ties with the tribal leader starting in 2011 to vet recruits for the Afghan Local Police as part of a security plan for the area.
Jim, Dan, and other members of Tribe 34 at the qalat in Chowkay on the day Jim and Dan were relieved of duty and taken away by Solheim and his men. From front left: Dan, Jim, Ish, Sgt. 1st Class Fernando Gonzales, Sgt. Danny Bird, Pfc. Chad Armstrong, Pfc. Richard Lerma. Front sea
ted: Spec. Fernando Ruiz. Back row from left: Sgt. 1st Class Tony Carter, Staff Sgt. Ed Martin, Pfc. Jonathan Bartlett, Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Wesley Brooks, Pfc. Jonathan Salyer. March 14, 2012.
Photograph courtesy of Sgt. 1st Class Fernando Gonzales
Afghan Local Police commander Abdul Wali fires his AK-47 rifle at Taliban insurgents attacking the qalat in Chowkay District in March 2012. Abdul Wali is fighting alongside U.S. infantryman Pfc. Richard Lerma (rear of vehicle) and Pfc. Jonathan Bartlett (in gun turret). Abdul Wali was one of eighteen tribal fighters who guarded the qalat in nine-man shifts and went on missions with Jim’s team.
Abe helps Jim put on his ammunition rack in Chowkay, March 2012, before a mission to the nearby insurgent-held Dewagal Valley. They are wearing red, green, and black shoulder patches bearing the Pashto word ghairat or “honor.”
The qalat in Chinaray village, Chowkay District, in the heart of the territory of the powerful Safi tribe, on the day Jim and Tribe 34 moved into the compound in February 2012. Insurgents staged attacks from positions in the mountains behind the qalat until Jim sent Safi tribesmen recruited as Afghan Local Police into the high ground to set up observation posts.
Abe fires an M240 machine gun during an attack by Taliban insurgents on the qalat in Chowkay in March 2012.
Jim holds a team meeting in the rudimentary operations center inside the qalat in Chowkay in March 2012. Haji Jan Shah (seated, wearing an Afghan pakol hat), son of Safi tribal leader Haji Jan Dahd, attends the meeting. From left to right: Senior Master Sgt. Wesley Brooks, Pfc. Richard Lerma, Pfc. Jonathan Salyer, Haji Jan Shah, Ish, Abe, Shafiq, Sgt. 1st Class Fernando Gonzales (standing), Capt. Dan McKone.
Afghan Local Police member Mahmud Dwaher carries his commander, Abdul Wali, into a room in the qalat after Wali was shot in the leg by Taliban insurgents during an attack on the qalat in March 2012.
Abe plucks a white Taliban flag from a compound deep in the Dewagal Valley, Chowkay District, Konar Province, during a mission in August 2011. Jim stands nearby as Ish takes a picture. The move was meant as a signal to Taliban insurgents operating in the valley that Jim and his team would challenge them head-on.
Jim congratulating a new group of Afghan Local Police recruited from the Safi tribe in Chowkay in March 2012. Jim and his team quickly recruited and trained scores of tribesmen in a few days after moving into Chowkay in February 2012.
Former Taliban commander Obeidullah, who decided to switch sides with Jim’s backing, in a meeting at the qalat in Chowkay in March 2012.
Ann, dressed in a traditional Afghan burkha to blend in, travels through Jalalabad in March 2012 after evading the U.S. military in Konar.
Tribal leaders and Afghan Local Police commanders from Konar Province gather at the compound of Governor Fazllulah Wahidi to protest Jim’s removal from his command and ask for his return. March 2012.
Jim and Ann during a walk through the village of Mangwel. August 2011.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANN SCOTT TYSON is a war correspondent with a decade of combat experience, beginning with the invasion of Iraq. She has written for the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post and contributed to the Wall Street Journal. A Pulitzer Prize nominee, Tyson is a graduate of Harvard University with an honors degree in government and has studied economics and business at Columbia University. She and Jim Gant are married and live in Seattle, Washington.
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CREDITS
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover photographs: background texture by Haywardcy/iStock Images; Mountain Pass © by Peter Langer/Corbis; Lambda and Special Forces Patch Courtesy of the Author
Map by Nick Springer, copyright © 2014 Springer Cartographics LLC.
COPYRIGHT
The names and identifying characteristics of three individuals in this book have been changed to protect their privacy or maintain their current position in the military.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint from the following:
“Book 23: The Great Rooted Bed,” from The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, translation copyright © 1996 by Robert Fagles. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.
AMERICAN SPARTAN. Copyright © 2014 by Ann Scott Tyson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Frontispiece: Panjshir valley, Afghanistan © Lebedev/Shutterstock, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-0-06-211498-3
EPUB Edition APRIL 2014 ISBN 9780062115003
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