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I get lots of books sent to me, unsolicited and free of charge to read and write reviews on. I have a stack of them next to my bed that I am trying to get through.
However I hope I get this one. I think I would move this to the top of the stack.
According to a former Navy SEAL who claims to have the inside track, the mangled tales told of that historic night have only now been corrected.
“It became obvious in the weeks evolving after the mission that the story that was getting put out there was not only untrue, but it was a really ugly farce of what did happen,” said Chuck Pfarrer, author of Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden.
Thanks to the many hours of personal time spent blogging, I have been lucky enough to have publishers and authors send me books to read and review. I have a stack of them next to my bed and I usually spend at least a few minutes every day reading. Some are good and some are just awesome. When I say “awesome” I mean can’t put it down awesome.
One of the books I just finished qualifies as “can’t put it down AWESOME”. It is called the Lions of Kandahar and is written by Special Forces Major Rusty Bradley and Kevin Maurer.
I have received a few books that talk about some awesome battle that nobody has heard about or what a tide-turner in the war on terror. Usually when they say that, my eyebrow raises with skepticism. The subtitle on this book does not say that, it just states “The Story of a Fight Against all Odds”. However once you get into the book reading about this one significant battle then it comes clear that the battle of Sperwan Ghar in Kandahar Province Afghanistan was truly a battle that shaped the war there not only that year but for years to come.
I am a big fan of James F. Christ’s books about huge but unknown battles in Afghanistan in his series that he has written about Embedded Training Teams (ETT). I am a fan, not only because I was an ETT, but several of them are written about battles that happened when I was there and many include people I know. Rusty’s book stuck with me for some of the same reasons. Even though he has multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq this book is written about one specific battle that happened in 2006, the same time I was there. In fact this battle was part of a larger operation called Operation Medusa. At the same time that Medusa was happening I was involved with Operation Mountain Fury which was a shaping operation for Meduda. So this book did strike a chord with me for that reason also. Continue reading →
I found this video today thanks to David himself. I had no idea that someone had created a re-enactment of one of his actions in Iraq in 2004. Not just any action but the one for which he was and still is recommended for the Medal of Honor. David is a friend and I am glad to call him such.
I talked about David’s book, House to House, which has this one incident documented in great detail along with a whole lots more from this tour. You can read that posting at: www.bouhammer.com/2010/09/my-own-return/
Take a minute and listen to David talk about this one particular day as they show the re-enactment and then go check out the book at: www.amazon.com/House-David-Bellavia/dp/1416574719 because you won’t be disappointed in reading it.
First let me thank blackfive.net for putting these videos up so I knew about them. Second I want to point you to the videos below. They are a series of 4 videos which basically make a documentary about the men and actions of ODA 574. This Special Forces team is the focus of Eric Blehm’s book, The Only Thing Worth Dying For. I wrote a pretty extensive review of this book on this blog in the posting at:
Thanks to Eric’s book and things like this series of videos from the NRA can America even know the story about the brave team of ODA 574 and what they did and sacrificed to help topple the last of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. Please take time to watch these videos, but do yourself a favor and also read the book. It has a lot of more detail and will be a hard book to put down as I talked about in my review.
THE CALLING
THE COURAGEOUS
THE SACRIFICE
I wrote about these guys again after visiting Gabriel Field myself. That blog posting is at:
Please bookmark this posting, share with your friends, put on your Facebook wall, tweet it, whatever. Taking the time to watch these four videos is the least you can do as Americans to at least become a little smarter into the sacrifices that just a few of our bravest warriors have went through.
Longtime friend of mine and Bouhammer.com, Clayton Merwin, now has his first volume of the graphic novel “Untold Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan” available for your order. This graphic novel is 3 1/2 years in the making and has overcome a lot of obstacles and distractions. Funding has been a challenge for Clayton as has been keeping the artists on track and schedule as they did work for the novel for free, and on the side of their normal paid jobs.
There have been many people involved with this project and all of them along with the stories listed in both Volume I and Volume II (forthcoming) at heroesfallenstudiosinc.webs.com/whoweare.htm. As you will see, I along with many other vets have stories represented in both volumes via the talents of many great artists.
Clayton is not a veteran himself, he does not have a kid who is serving, or any other connection to the military other than his love of this country and his care for those who defend and guarantee our freedoms. He started this project purely out of his love for this country and his desire to somehow do something to give back to those that defend his love. The proceeds from the sale of this graphic novel are benefitting four great troop supporting organizations.
They are:
Wounded Warrior Project
Soldiers’ Angels
USO
Fischer House
You can’t go wrong in supporting these organizations and there is no argument that they all directly contribute back to our service-members.
If you are a fan of milblogs then I really think you will really like this book as it tells the same type of stories, but in a graphic “comic-book” style of presentation. Head over to heroesfallenstudiosinc.webs.com/ to learn more and go to heroesfallenstudiosinc.webs.com/hfsiwebstore.htm to place your order today. You can also click on the graphic to the right that looks like the one below. I am giving Clayton some free advertisting space here on Bouhammer.com becuase I beleive in this project and I believe in him.
December 1st of last year, President Obama gave a speech at West Point announcing his plan to surge in 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to hopefully turn things around. According to Bob Woodward’s book ”Obama’s Wars” which I am still finishing up, the number of 30,000 came after weeks of discussions, arguments, political discussions, etc. between the uniformed leaders of the military and the Obama administration. According to the book, GEN McChrystal really wanted 80,000 additional troops as the ultimate number but knew he would not get that so he also offered two other numbers in his options. 10,000 of nothing but trainers for the Afghan National Army and Police or 40,000 which was a bare minimum to try and train the local forces and provide the necessary security to the countryside and turn the war around.
After all those weeks of discussions the number settled on 30,000 and almost up to the point of the speech at West Point it was still bring decided and confirmed. A lot of people gave the Administration criticism for taking so long to come to that decision, to include yours truly on this blog. After reading the book by Woodward my fears were realized as to why it took so long. The President just did not have the experience or the trusted people around him with the experience to make the decision when it needed to be made. He was getting a lot of varying advice and as I read it, just did not know who to trust.
As part of that deal was the caveat to produce an assessment of the surge in December 2010. Some argued that was way too soon after the surge finally got into theater (which was around the Aug timeframe). Personally I think it is way too early to do this assessment. Of course it was decided to do it in December of this year because the President had stated that a withdrawal of troops would start in June of 2011 (according to Woodward’s book that was originally SecDef Gates’s idea). Since the mid-term elections have ended the date for possible drawdown in Afghanistan has been pushed to 2014. I think that is quite coincidental that the 2014 date was announced after the elections,,,,NOT!
Anyway, back to the point of this post is that this week Afghanistan is about to become the front page news all over again as the assessment is scheduled to be released on Thursday. I think I have a good idea of what will be coming out in it. Based on the comments and interviews over the past week by GEN Petreaus, ADM Mullen and the SecDef it will be a marginally optimistic report that will say something close to the following:
The surge has stopped or started to turn back the progress of the Taliban in the fight against the Coalition
Villages and districts that were once taliban controlled or at least un-friendly to coalition forces are now on our side and defending themselves. (The village of Marjah may be highlighted as an example)
The training of national security forces is progressing, but slower than what would be preferred.
AWOL among security forces is still a major issue
Corruption is the longest pole in the tent and possibly the largest Afghanistan inhibitor to progress
Pakistan has to step up and help us control the borders and police up their own country if our mission in Afghanistan is going to be successful
I am sure there will be much more content in the report but I am predicting based on what I have heard the military leadership say that the meat of the assessment will be close to the above bullet-points. What it probably won’t say is it won’t place any blame on the switchover of command from McChrystal to Petreaus (even though that did have a temporary impact). It will also probably not say anything negative about Karzai as the Wikileaks state department leaks have done more than enough damage already. Lastly it won’t say what really needs to be said and that is that we must have the authority to put ground forces into parts of Pakistan in order to take out the leadership of the anti-coalition forces and to put a stop to many of our threats in country. Pakistan is the key to our success and until they take a strong stance or turn a blind eye to our movement into their country then the supply of people willing to fight our forces will never end.
I have had many people ask me why we don’t just invade Pakistan and take them out? Why do we continue to give them billions in aid and toy around with them when we know they are the root of the problems. The answer is simple, NUCLEAR. They have the nuclear card and as long as they do we can’t risk it. I am convinced that had they not had nuclear weapons we would have had large-scale ground forces in there years ago. However that country is like an unstable powderkeg, except that there isn’t blackpowder in the keg, it is nuclear warheads.
I have talked about SSG Sal Guinta several time on this blog, even before he was officially named as the first live recipient of the Medal of Honor. You can check one out HERE.
SSG Guinta will be receiving the MoH very soon from the President in Washington DC.
The video below is the best I have seen from him explaining exactly what happened that day. In addition to SSG Guinta talking, MAJ Kearney who was the Company Commander of Battle Company is giving his views about the same day. This is a very emotional video with Sal talking raw and open about those moments and his thoughts on the moment he was told he would be getting the Medal of Honor. His exact words…”Fuck You…”. You need to see why he said it and thoughts behind receiving it.
My friend Tim Hetherington who is the filmmaker of Restrepo and was Sebastian Junger’s partner on Restrepo and Sebastian’s book, WAR is the interviewer of this piece. As always Tim has done a great job in his filming and editing to tell the story.
Last but not least, you will hear MAJ Kearney talk about Landigal and that being an objective of Operation Rock Avalanche. If you want to read a phenomenal book that is a great easy read and happened in the same place, Landigal, but two years earlier then check out James F. Christ’s book which goes by that name of that place. You can find it at www.lulu.com/product/paperback/landigal/13236158
I read a draft of Landigal back in May and sent James the following feedback directly to him in an email.
This story needs to be told as quickly as possible. Especially since we have now pulled all US forces out of Korengal. We have given up all that land that these and many other boys bled and died on.
As I said, it is a easy read and not very expensive. Give it a look to understand some of the background of this very volatile part of Afghanistan which we no longer occupy.
The television premiere of Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s acclaimed film, Restrepo, will be on Monday, November 29 at 9pm ET/PT. Tune into your local National Geographic Channel to view it.
