by Doug Stanton
He has taught at the undergraduate and graduate level and worked as a commercial sport fisherman and caretaker of Robert Frost’s house in Vermont. Stanton graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and Hampshire College in Massachusetts. He also received an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he studied both poetry and fiction. He and his wife, the investigative reporter Anne Stanton, have three children, John, Katherine, and William August McCoy Stanton.
Photographic Insert
Flying into remote Afghanistan locations required the 160th SOAR pilots of Chinook helicopters to operate in strange weather conditions that presented enormous dangers. Threading the aircraft through the 14,000-foot-plus mountains, the pilots had never before attempted such a daring mission.
The Darya Suf region was utterly beautiful yet laced with hidden Taliban encampments and land mines. The enemy knew the Americans had landed.
Northern Alliance soldiers at rest. At the time of the arrival of U.S. Special Forces, they had almost no ammunition left with which to fight the Taliban. The Horse Soldiers, because of their unique training, were able to unite the different ethnic groups against the Taliban.
Mules loaded with U.S. soldiers’ gear. The sure-footed animals could carry heavy loads and were essential to the Americans’ historic efforts to repel the Taliban. The Americans, armed with lasers and GPS, rode to war on horses.
The Special Forces were able to airdrop two Gator vehicles into the fighting zone. They were used to ferry people, food, weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies. These soldiers are headed to the calamitous assault at the Gap.
Armed with automatic rifles and rocket-powered grenades, some of the troops loyal to Northern Alliance commander Dostum travel to war. Many of these men had been at war for twenty years.
Lieutenant Colonel Bowers and Commander Dostum had to learn to understand and trust each other to fight the Taliban successfully. War planners would later call the Special Forces culturally nuanced and Afghan-centered campaign a groundbreaking template for resolving future global conflicts.
Commander Dostum and U.S. soldiers on horseback in the Darya Suf Valley. They would soon encounter stiff Taliban resistance as Northern Alliance horsemen charged the enemy’s trenches.
Beautiful, desolate, and extremely difficult to control, the valley of the Darya Suf and its small villages had to be captured before the Americans pressed on. Many of the villages had been decimated by earlier Taliban attacks.
Using a Dshka (“Dishka”) gun and SOFLAM, American soldiers were able to rain explosives down on distant Taliban forces that had never before seen such high-tech firepower.
American soldiers in a high trench scanning the horizon for Taliban targets. Using laser-guided weapons proved to be both science and art. Northern Alliance and Taliban soldiers bantered with one another using walkie-talkies to critique the accuracy of the strikes.
The narrow and dangerous Tiangi Gap was the most direct route to Mazar-i-Sharif from the Darya Balkh Valley, and was the scene of a bloody Taliban counterattack. Thousands of friendly Afghan soldiers, along with Special Forces, poured through this valley in pursuit of the Taliban.
Staff Sergeant Brett Walden, thirty-six, from Florida, as he rode into Mazar-i-Sharif. Walden, as did all of the Special Forces, took great care to recognize the customs and culture of local Afghan citizens. He would survive the conflict in Aghanistan and was later tragically killed in Iraq.
The massive Qala-i-Janghi Fortress, shown in an aerial reconnaissance shot. More than 600 yards long, the fort is bisected by a large interior wall. Made of mud, straw, and timber, the fort was completed in 1889, after twelve years of labor by 18,000 workers.
The main gate of Qala-i-Janghi, through which captured Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers, including John Walker Lindh, were taken.
The southeast corner of Qala-i-Janghi, showing horse stables at left and the middle wall at right. The Pink House and the site of the siege’s beginning are center-left in the photograph.
Northern Alliance soldiers climbing up the outside of the fortress while the battle raged on the other side of the thick mud walls. (© Getty Images/Oleg Nikishin)
Northern Alliance general Ali Sarwar on the parapet overlooking the Pink House in the southern courtyard, aiming a rifle at pro-Taliban forces, November 27, 2001. (© Getty Images/Oleg Nikishin)
Northern Alliance fighters battle pro-Taliban forces. Suprisingly, a number of the fighters arrived at the battle by taxi from nearby Mazar-i-Sharif, weapons at the ready. (© Getty Images/Oleg Nikishin)
American and British Special Operations soldiers observe fighting between Northern Alliance troops and pro-Taliban forces on November 27, 2001. Major Mark Mitchell is third from the left. (© Getty Images/Oleg Nikishin)
In the struggle to suppress the Taliban revolt, U.S. forces dropped an enormous bomb on the northeast corner of the fort, nearly killing five Americans. The explosion was earth-shattering and the damage to the main wall enormous, but the Taliban fought on. The injured were rescued, in part, by the U.S. Army’s Tenth Mountain Division, which had to dodge furious gunfire.
The Pink House in the fortress stood atop the underground room where the Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners were housed. During the battle, they shot out of the small holes in the base of the walls.
The remains of one of the massive weapons caches seized by the Taliban prisoners from the containers inside the fort and used in the uprising.
John Walker Lindh shortly after his capture by Northern Alliance soldiers at the Qala-i-Janghi Fortress on December 1, 2001. Lindh had traveled from California to unexpectedly find himself in the bloody battle, and in the global media spotlight. (© The Sun/Terry Richards)
Johnny “Mike” Spann, the first American to be killed in post-9/11 battle, in a family photograph. A former Marine officer, Spann had recently joined the CIA as a paramilitary officer. (© Corbis)
*While Bowers believes that Faisal was an architect of the Taliban’
*In the errant bombing, four British SBS soldiers, with whom U.S. Navy Seal Stephen Bass was deployed, were also wounded. At least eighty Afghan soldiers suffered serious injury.
*Chief Petty Officer Stephen Bass also received recognition; he was awarded the Navy Cross Award for “