by Doug Stanton
People would later ask Sergeant Pat Essex, “Did we do the right thing by fighting in Afghanistan? Do you think we made a difference?”
Essex felt he could reply, “You won’t be able to say today or tomorrow if it was the right thing. You’re gonna have to go back to Afghanistan in ten or fifteen years from now and say, ‘Was this right?’”
He believed that it was.
In Memory of U.S. Army Fifth Special Forces Group
Soldiers Who Died in Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi
Freedom
Dustin Adkins, Specialist
William Bennett, Sergeant First Class
Jason Brown, Staff Sergeant
Nathan Chapman, Sergeant First Class
Jefferson Davis, Master Sergeant
Gary Harper Jr., Staff Sergeant
Aaron Holleyman, Staff Sergeant
Matthew Kimmell, Staff Sergeant
Paul Mardis Jr., Staff Sergeant
Ryan Maseth, Staff Sergeant
Kevin Morehead, Master Sergeant
Daniel Petithory, Sergeant First Class
Brian Prosser, Staff Sergeant
Michael Stack, Sergeant Major
Paul Syverson III, Major
Ayman Taha, Staff Sergeant
Michael Tarlavsky, Captain
Benjamin Tiffner, Captain
Brett Walden, Sergeant First Class
Justin Whiting, Staff Sergeant
Daniel Winegeart, Specialist
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND SOURCES
I would like to thank the following people for their assistance and support as I traveled in the United States and Afghanistan conducting interviews, gathering research, and touring key sites. In all, I conducted approximately one hundred interviews with pilots (helicopter and fixed wing), soldiers, civilians, and family members, and consulted material such as news and magazine articles, books, scholarly papers, soldiers’ journals, monographs, “after-action reports,” hundreds of photographs (taken by soldiers in battle), and various detailed documents describing the movements of the Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan, as well as interviews with their Afghan colleagues.
Much of my research is drawn from my own interviews with the principal people involved, as well as the observations I made while visiting key locales in Afghanistan. Because of this, I have been able to look at the campaign of the Horse Soldiers from many important perspectives—the ground, the air, and the living rooms of the families left behind as their fathers and husbands deployed to Afghanistan. In short, I was able to speak with someone (and in most cases, multiple individuals) involved in nearly every element of the campaign.
I would also like to express my thanks to the soldiers and members of the defense community who met with me, but whose names they’ve asked me not to disclose. (Some appear below using their pseudonyms.) All military ranks listed here, unless otherwise noted, are contemporaneous with the time frame of this story.
First, I want to especially thank Major General Geoffrey Lambert (now retired) for opening doors for me within the entire Special Forces community, both in the United States and Afghanistan. His astute insight into the battle, as well as the mind of the Special Soldier, was invaluable. Likewise, I want to thank then–Fifth Group Commander Colonel John Mulholland (now general) for his hospitality whenever I visited Fort Campbell, and acknowledge as well the help of Sergeant Danny Leonard and ad hoc press officer Major James Whatley. And in Afghanistan, Colonel Jeffrey Waddell provided much appreciated support as I moved around the country.
Brigadier General David Burford, Colonel Charles King, and press officer Major Rob Gowan were invaluable whenever I visited Fort Bragg. At MacDill Air Force Base, Deputy Public Affairs Officer Ken McGraw, of U.S. Special Operations Command, helped as I arranged interviews. The following individuals also extended a welcome in the course of my travels: Colonel John Knie, Colonel Warner “Rocky” Farr, Command Chief Warrant Officer Lawrence Plesser, Major Gary Kolb, Major William Owen, Major Christopher Fox, Lieutenant Colonel Kent Crossley, Carol Darby, Colonel Robert L. Caslen, Tommy Bolton, Colonel Manuel Diemer, Major Christopher Miller, Colonel John Fenzel, Barbara Hall, Marie Hatch, Jim Ivie, Gabe Johnson, General Mike Jones, Major Rich Patterson, Major Scott Stearns, and Kevin Walston.
I also want to acknowledge the hard work and scholarship of Dr. Charles H. Briscoe, U.S. Army Special Operations Command historian, at Fort Bragg, who provided counsel and support, and pointed me in the right direction to invaluable information concerning Afghan soldiers and American personnel on the ground. I also appreciate the support I received from archivist Cyn Harden, and U.S. Army Special Warfare Center and School historian Dr. Kenn Finlayson. Dr. Briscoe, along with a team of writers—Richard L. Kiper, James A. Schroder, and Kalev I. Sepp—wrote a definitive and especially useful history of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan titled Weapon of Choice, which I referred to throughout my writing, in particular when I was describing aspects of the K2 base camp; the inter-tribal fighting among Afghanistan’s ethnic groups; and Massoud’s predicament as presented in September 2001, plus the movements of soldiers in general. Thank you, Chuck et al.
I want to thank Major Dean Nosorog for visiting my home for a week of intensive, intellectually challenging talks and interviews, ranging from the history of the Middle East to present-day Iran, to the challenges of riding a horse into war. Dean, like many a Special Forces soldier, is a voracious observer, possessing a highly syncretic bent of mind. It was he who, among his numerous anecdotes, included a description of the refugee camps near Mazar-i-Sharif, and offered keen observations of Atta the warlord. He further dictated a fascinating account of his team’s entrance into the city. I also want to thank other members of Dean’s team for talking with me, including Jerry Booker, Darrin Clous, Mark House, Brad Highland, Stu Mansfield, and James Gold. Likewise, Cal Spencer, Sam Diller (now retired), John Bolduc (retired), and Lieutenant Colonel Max Bowers (retired) also opened their homes to me. Bowers loaned me his battle map of the campaign, which he carried on horseback, and upon which the post–November 2 movement of all U.S. troops in the region was planned. It was of special significance to hold in hand this dog-eared document and to study the grease pencil marks outlining the positions.
I’m also grateful for the opportunity to extensively interview Captain Mitch Nelson and his team members, including Sam Diller, Cal Spencer, Pat Essex, Ben Milo, Sonny Tatum (U.S. Air Force), and Brian Lyle. I want to thank Major Mark Mitchell (now colonel, commander of the Fifth Special Forces Group) for taking the time to patiently answer my questions, especially during one long stretch in the Tampa Public Library, and in countless phone calls and e-mails. All of the insights and recollections of these men, and their colleagues, were integral to reconstructing the thoughts, words, and actions of the Horse Soldiers and the battle at Qala-i-Janghi. Throughout, dialogue is drawn from primary interviews, previously published accounts, videotapes, transcripts, journals, and monographs of the events, and from people later privy to them. Along with Mitchell, I want to thank Kurt Sonntag, Pete Bach, Martin Homer, Steve Billings, Roger Palmer, Burt Docks, Malcolm Victors, Kevin Leahy, Dave Betz, and Ernest Bates. Many people welcomed me into their lives and entrusted me with their stories: I am grateful.
For an understanding of guerrilla warfare, I was greatly aided by my weeklong visit and participation in a Special Forces training exercise, called Robin Sage, in the woods of North Carolina. There, Special Forces soldiers to-be are immersed in a real-time scenario of life in a foreign guerrilla camp. The arriving Americans must ingratiate themselves with the “local population,” grasp the locals’ will, and fight alongside their warlord toward a desired political and social change. I’m grateful to Major Scott Stearns (retired), Major Kathleen Devine (retired), and Major General Jerry Boykin, who welcomed me at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg and introduced me to members of the training community, among them the entertaining Brian Bolger.
I also greatl
y benefited from discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan, past and present, with Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson’s work on behalf of the citizens of these countries is inspiring and groundbreaking, and his sense of selflessness is something to aspire to. Likewise, I benefited from meeting Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. These two educators are on the cutting edge for crafting new diplomacy in the world’s troubled spots.
For a complete listing of secondary sources, see the bibliography. In particular, I want to acknowledge the following authors and their work:
For information about the last days of hijacker Mohammed Atta and his cohorts, and the attacks of September 11, 2001, and America’s military response to these attacks, I referred to numerous reports by Terry McDermott of the Los Angeles Times. I also used “Four Corners” from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, broadcast November 12, 2001; “Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in ’00,” by Douglas Jehl, published in the New York Times, August 9, 2005; “Atta’s Odyssey,” published October 8, 2001, in Time; “The Plot Comes Into Focus,” by John Cloud, published October 1, 2001, also in Time; “The Hijackers We Let Escape,” by Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, published June 10, 2002, in Newsweek; “They Had a Plan,” published August 12, 2002, in Time; “The Night Before Terror,” from staff reports, published October 5, 2001, in the Portland Press Herald; “Atta’s Will Found,” posted on www.abcnews.com, October 4, 2001; The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, published by W.W. Norton; and The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, published by St. Martin’s Press, 2004. Technical information about the hijacked planes came from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, September 2005, and the book-length reporting of Bob Woodward, Rowan Scarborough, Norman Friedman, George Friedman, and Gerald Posner.
In addition to my primary interviews and other sources of research, for information about Ahmed Shah Massoud, including his assassination, I referred to The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan, by Jon Lee Anderson; “Slowly Stalking the Lion,” by Craig Pyes and William Rempel, published in the Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2002; “The Lion in Winter,” by Sebastian Junger, published in National Geographic Adventure, March/April 2001; “Good at War, Poor at Peace,” by Luke Harding, published in the Guardian, September 12, 2001; “Afghanistan Reporter Looks Back on Two Decades of Change,” by D. L. Parsell, National Geographic News, published November 19, 2001; and “Massoud’s Last Words,” a Newsweek Web exclusive, posted September 20, 2001. For details about Massoud’s appearance after his assassination, I referred to “The Assassins,” by Jon Lee Anderson, published in the New Yorker, June 10, 2002. I also referenced “A Gruesome Record,” by Michael Griffin, published in the Guardian, November 16, 2001; “The Afghan Who Won the Cold War,” by Robert D. Kaplan, published in the Wall Street Journal, May 5, 1992; and www.Afgha.com for a biography of Massoud, posted August 31, 2006.
In addition to primary interviews and other sources, for information about the surrender at Konduz and some details about the surrender at Qala-i-Janghi between General Dostum and Mullah Faisal, I referred to the following written reports: “Paper Surrender Blowing in the Wind,” by Luke Harding, published November 23, 2001, in the Guardian; “Doomed Arab Units Prepare for Final Battle Against the Odds,” by Khaled Dawoud, Julian Borger, and Nicholas Watt, published November 20, 2001, in the Guardian; and the following reporting of Ian Cobain, published by Times Newspapers Ltd.: “Foreign Fighters Resist Alliance,” November 15, 2001; “Refugees Tell of Frenzied Killing in Besieged City,” November 19, 2001; and “America Will Take No Prisoners,” November 20, 2001. Also helpful for these topics were: “Alliance Says Non-Afghan Taliban Unwilling to Negotiate in Kunduz,” by Sharon LaFraniere, published November 20, 2001, in the Washington Post; “The Rout of the Taliban, Part Two” by Peter Beaumont, Kamal Ahmed, Ed Vulliamy, Jason Burke, Chris Stephen, Tim Judah, and Paul Harris, published November 18, 2001, in the Guardian; and “Kunduz: Northern Stronghold Ready to Capitulate,” by Luke Harding, Nicolas Watt, and Brian Whitaker, published November 22, 2001, in the Guardian.
For further understanding about the history of Special Forces, and war fighting past and future, I was helped by decades of thoughtful work published in dozens of books and articles about Special Forces and Afghanistan. To research the evolution of conventional military units into “culturally responsive” Special Forces teams, I consulted The Devil’s Brigade by Robert H. Adleman and Colonel George Walton; and From OSS to Green Berets: The Birth of Special Forces, by (retired) Colonel Aaron Bank. Of special interest was the provocative and lucid The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century, by Bruce Berkowitz, and The Transformation of War by Martin van Creveld. These are incredibly compelling works. I also found helpful information in A Tribute to Special Operations, as described in “The Green Berets,” by John D. Gresham; “WWII Special Operations Forces,” by Dwight J. Zimmerman; and “USASOC History: From Jedburghs to Devils and Snakes,” by Barbara Hall, published 2003 by Faircount LLC.
For insight into America’s relationship to post–Cold War Afghanistan, Anthony Cordesman’s book The Lessons of Afghanistan: War Fighting, Intelligence and Force Transformation was also insightful, as was Samuel B. Griffith’s translation of On Guerrilla Warfare, by Mao Tse-tung.
I also referred to Colonel Francis J. Kelly’s U.S. Army Special Forces, 1961–1971; The Oxford Companion to American Military History, edited by John Whiteclay Chambers II; OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency, by Richard Harris Smith; U.S. Special Forces: A Guide to America’s Special Operations Units, The World’s Most Elite Fighting Force, by Samuel A. Southworth and Stephen Tanner; Our Vietnam: The War 1954–1975, by A.J. Langguth; and Shelby L. Stanton’s Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956–1975. For a fascinating look at the traits of the Special Forces soldier, see “The Making of a Perfect Soldier,” by Linda Carroll, broadcast by MSNBC on March 7, 2002; “Walking Point,” by Linda Robinson, published October 18, 2004, in U.S. News & World Report; and “A Bulletproof Mind,” by Peter Maass, published November 10, 2002, in the New York Times Magazine.
For information about the financial cost of the campaign in Afghanistan and the number of personnel involved, I referred to Gary Berntsen’s Jawbreaker and Bob Woodward’s Bush at War. For information and insight into General Atta, Afghan politics and history, and Afghan battle experiences in particular, I have relied on extensive interviews, often spanning several time periods, with the following men on Dean Nosorog’s team: Stu Mansfield, Darrin Clous, Brad Highland, Jerry Booker, James Gold, Mark House, Brian Lyle, Donny Boyle (Air Force combat controller), and Brett Walden. Some of these men also provided me with journals, maps, photos, and reports, these last recorded in the field as the battle unfolded. All of these materials offered a palpable sense of the battle as seen from horseback. I also referred to “Afghan Militias ‘Should Disband,’” by Jannat Jalil, broadcast by the BBC, July 19, 2003.
On Mitch Nelson’s team, a number of people provided similar, candid insight into their experiences, as well as the thoughts and actions of the Afghan soldiers fighting with them. They include General Dostum, Cal Spencer, Sam Diller, Scott Black, Ben Milo, Pat Essex, and Sonny Tatum (Air Force combat controller). For biographical information about Sergeant First Class William Bennett, I drew from “Three Soldiers, Many Mourners,” by Scott Pelley, from the CBS News broadcast on 60 Minutes II, July 28, 2004. In addition to primary interviews with teammates, information about Air Force combat controller Malcolm Victors was drawn from “Mazar I Sharif,” by Wil S. Hylton, published in Esquire, August 2002, as well as “The Liberation of Mazar-e Sharif: 5th SF Group Conducts UW In Afghanistan,” by personnel of 3rd Battalion, Fifth Special Forces Group, published in Special Warfare magazine, June 2002, and �
��The Story of ODA 595,” by Barbara Hall, released by the United States Special Forces Command. See also PBS’s Frontline: Campaign Against Terror, broadcast on August 2, 2002, in which team members described some of their adventures on horseback.
For information about the amazing feats of flight performed by the pilots and crew of the 160th SOAR, I want to thank the following members of the Nightstalker community for sharing their experiences with me at the Fort Campbell headquarters: Greg Gibson, John Garfield, Tom Dingman, Jerry Edwards, Steve Porter, Carson Millhouse, and Will Ferguson. Pilot Greg Gibson went to great effort in arranging a “flight” in a Chinook helicopter over Afghanistan. Pilot Jerry Edwards provided me with a journal of events and personal thoughts recorded as the war unfolded. These interviews were invaluable in re-creating the flight of the Special Forces teams into Afghanistan. Truly, the Nightstalkers’ story in Afghanistan is an amazing one.
The following were valuable in describing the history and actions of the CIA: Secret Armies: The Full Story of the SAS, Delta Force and Spetsnaz, by James Adams; Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era, by Steve Emerson; The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives, by Ted Gup; and The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror, by Ronald Kessler.
For insight into the personality, thoughts, words, and actions of CIA paramilitary officer Mike Spann, I was aided by magazine articles about Spann and his wife, Shannon, and Spann’s parents and extended family, as well as numerous news accounts concerning the CIA’s overall presence in Afghanistan. In particular, Shannon Spann has spoken in articles and public speeches about her thoughts and feelings about Mike while he was deployed; and Spann’s father, Johnny Spann, has spoken in print and on television about the ordeal of his son’s death. Two books by former CIA officers, who were also contemporaries of Spann’s in Afghanistan, were helpful in sorting out the physical details of the movements of Agency officers, including Spann’s, as well as of the officers of the Afghan soldiers. The books helped elucidate General Atta Mohammed Noor’s state of mind. These books are: First In, by Gary Schroen, and Jawbreaker, by Gary Berntsen. It was from these books that I drew the anecdotes of Schroen’s encounter with Counter-Terrorist Center Director Cofer Black; the beheading of a Taliban soldier by a Northern Alliance member after a horse charge; and the encounter between Schroen and Northern Alliance leader Fahim Khan, as well as other details about CIA officers’ actions, including conversations among the CIA officers present during a horse charge. CNN’s documentary House of War: Uprising at Mazar-e Sharif, also provided invaluable images and dialogue about Mike Spann and Dave Olson’s interrogation of John Walker Lindh, as did “He’s Got to Decide If He Wants to Live or Die Here,” a Newsweek Web exclusive, by Colin Soloway, December 6, 2001, which includes a transcript of the interrogation. Insight into the actions of Dave Olson and Mike Spann and the events they participated in was also provided by my interviews with the Special Forces soldiers who traveled and worked closely with both men.