Fascinating story of how the US galloped into Afghanistan (literally) just after 9/11. As if riding back in time, confronting the war lords of the 19th century, except it was the 21st century. ( )

A story of the initial involvement of US special forces and CIA agents in the attack of Afghan warlords against the Taliban and Al qaeda in 2001. Written in what some might call a “workman-like” fashion, the plot (anyway) commands our interest, as a novel story of the at least somewhat successful use of US advisors guiding sophisticated air power against enemies armed with AK47’s and RPG’s. I found the accounts of the warlords themselves, the Afghan Northern Alliance soldiers, and their relationship with the Taliban to be most interesting. I’ve read enough war stories to know that it is difficult to accurately describe a battle, and I was sometimes confused. The number of US characters is large. Some are with one warlord and some are with another. Some are called by their first names, and some are almost always called by their whole name and rank, including my namesake. The author also mentions and names the wives and children of several of them. Overall, a somewhat chaotic game plan.

After looking at the size of the book’s bibliography, I think this book could have been considerably more than it was. The story is essentially an account of a single unfortunate event in 2001, the fight at Qala-i-Janghi Fortess, due to the mistaken or ill-advised imprisonment of 400 Taliban soldiers in an area containing weapons bunkers; sadly, I am reading it in 2014 and we are still in Afghanistan. In the meantime, the US invaded Iraq, and several of the men who survived the fight described in this book, later died in Iraq. Until the whole sorry business is over, it is difficult to say what a story like this means. We have seen the same thing happen with books about Vietnam. Earlier ones written closer to the conflict seem to have less focus than those that look back from 20 or 30 years (and, although I see many similarities between the wars, the president has spent a fair amount of time trying to sell the differences between them, http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/01/afghanistan.vietnam/index.html?iref=24hou.... ( )

Although this book was better than the previous First In (2005) by the CIA’s Gary Schroen which covers some of the same material, it has serious flaws as well. Schroen is mentioned in Horse Soldiers as the main provider of bribes of CIA money to the warlords soon to be known as the Northern Alliance. This book purports to document the Army Special Forces soldiers (Fifth Group) along with others who were sent into Afghanistan to spearhead an armed military response to the attacks on the US after 9/11. Osama bin Laden had claimed credit for the attack and his operatives had carried out previous attacks which killed many innocents to make a point of showing that Islamic Jihad would use any means to kill westerners where they could be found. This Jihad would be a war against unarmed western civilians.
For some reason, Stanton believes that during the Vietnam War, Survey and Operations Group (SOG or MACV-SOG), SOG was responsible for the assassination and Coup of South Vietnamese President Diem (p. 92). Actually, it was the CIA but in Stanton’s mind SOG and the CIA were the same entity. And that, therefore, Army Special Forces were guilty of war crimes atrocities. SOG was comprised of Special Forces volunteers and directed out of the Pentagon (Headquartered in Saigon) and allied with the CIA intelligence apparatus but it is asinine legal sleight of hand to elide the CIA with SOG during Vietnam. It is silly to assume that since the CIA and Special Forces had the same origin in WWII’s Office of Strategic Services that the CIA & Army Special Forces were identical organizationally. It is a historical commonplace to blame the US military for the failures of the CIA during that time. The CIA alone was blamed by The Church Commission for the Vietnamese regime change in 1963. This shows Stanton to be uninformed but if he wanted the book to be blurbed by CIA people he would be pressured by the publisher to say this.
The book does not focus on the US troops themselves but on “key players”: Warlord Dostum, US Captain Mitch Nelson, and, strangely enough, American Jihadi John Walker Lindh. The book’s Afterward addresses the issue of nation building which became a farce at the end of the Bush Presidency with the so-called Freedom Agenda ending with Democracy in a Box. This book doesn’t go into that sad tale but gives the proposition that Special Forces should have led the Afghan nation building process (unification of tribes) for all of NATO and not just the USA alone footing the bill. This is a very weak analysis because it assumes that the Afghans are even interested in patriotic nation status at all. I would not recommend this book to serious readers but maybe selections for high schoolers who want to read past their grade comprehension level about recent historical events.

The bibliography is probably more worthwhile reading that the book itself which does not pay sufficient respect to the Operators who did the unbelievable work of uniting the militias to reclaim Afghanistan.
Decent Bibliography, Photos, Epilogue & Afterward, No Index

This is a heavy read about the first military into Afghanistan after 9/11. It was a good "boots on the ground" war saga-educating me on the beginnings of our hunt for Bin Laden. The author gives you background on the Special Forces who dropped immediately after the Towers fell, spanning approximately 6 weeks. I found the research done by the author excellent and his story telling acceptable. I just felt that in a lot of places the verbiage could have been cut down and it would have been a better read. What I did gain from it was a ton of respect for the men and woman who protect us. What these people sacrifice, in family life and personal time is extra ordinary. I always try to thank any military personal I see-this book will remind me to keep doing that, it's the least we can do. ( )

Received this from my mom from the CCHS library collection. Read during March/April 2021. Read right after another of Doug Stanton's books. This book helped teach me a lot of things I either did not know and did not remember about the early days of the war in Afghanistan. It was interesting from that perspective. I look forward to watching the movie to see how it measures up. It has very long chapters that do not break up the story very well. Similar to his other works, this seemed like a mostly chronological account of a collection of stories from multiple viewpoints put together by Doug Stanton. Would not recommend to many people unless they are very interested in this specific topic.