Product Description

At dawn on March 2, 2002, the first major battle of the 21st Century began. Over 200 soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions flew into Afghanistan’s Shahikot valley – and into the mouth of a buzz-saw. They were about to pay a bloody price for strategic, higher-level miscalculations that underestimated the enemy’s strength and willingness to fight. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Coalition forces quickly toppled the Taliban regime from the seat of government. But, believing the war to be all but over, the Pentagon and US Central Command refused to commit the forces required to achieve total victory in Afghanistan. Instead, they delegated responsibility for fighting the war’s biggest battle to a tangle of untested units thrown together at the last moment. Then the world watched as Anaconda seemed to unravel. Denied the extra infantry, artillery and close air support with which they trained to go to war, the soldiers of this airborne assault fought for survival in brutal high-altitude combat. Backed up by a small, but crucial, team of special forces, they were all that stood between the Coalition and a military disaster. Now, award-winning journalist Sean Naylor, an eyewitness to the action, vividly portrays the fight for Afghanistan’s most hostile battleground and details the failures of military intelligence and planning that left victory hanging by a thread.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61400 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

About the Author
Sean Naylor is a senior writer for the Army Times. He has covered the Afghan mujahideen’s war against the Soviets, and American military operations in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Named one of the 22 “unsung” influential print reporters in Washington by American Journalism Review in May 2002, he earned the White House Correspondents’ Association’s prestigious Edgar A. Poe Award for his coverage of Operation Anaconda.

Customer Reviews

Not a easy book to read
I bought this book hoping I could `get into' the experience of being a soldier fighting in Afghanistan, ( like J M Clark's book `Guns Up', about a Marine fighting in Vietnam ) but this book has a far wider scope than that so it's harder to `get into' but nevertheless provides a huge amount of detail, in fact probably too much detail.

It describes the experience of two hundred military Task Force personnel: officers, soldiers, Special Forces, Navy Seals, helicopter pilots, etc who were involved in a long and complex battle in the mountains of Afghanistan in March 2002.

It's undoubtedly a brilliant piece of research drawing together a complex web of different strands but it's not an easy read. I've read a number of military accounts of battles from WWII, Vietnam, the Falklands, and Iraq, but this one was harder to follow because of the number of different units and people involved. I found myself skipping some of the many passages of unnecessary detail.

On the back cover military reviewers have described it as `a riveting read' and said, `you can't put it down'. I can only say that I had to put it down many times to back track and remind myself who was who, and which unit the different people were in.

What I think it needs right at the front is a few pages of summary, outlining just the main units involved, the places, the timeline, and a brief summary of the main battle events with some clear diagrams showing the position of the main forces at the start, middle and end of the battle.
This would provide a framework on which to hang the complex web of detail the book itself provides.

It has 492 pages of text describing the battle, and there are photos of some of the men and equipment. Unfortunately there is only one single diagram ( on p171) showing the battle region itself, so it's hard to visualise in your head.

At the front there is a `Cast of Characters', which names 32 main individuals, so rather than following just one unit, the book follows many different units.
At the back there are 30 pages quoting the sources and references for the detailed accounts within the book, and also a six-page bibliography.

As a piece of reporting, it's a brilliant piece of work ( apart from the omission of a summary as described above ) and the descriptions provide a `warts and all' account of the battle, including many incidents of great courage under fire but also the mistakes, confusion and questionable command decisions, and a 'friendly fire' incident.

This is not a book to take to the beach. Its scope is wide so be prepared to concentrate and work at it if you want to keep track of everything that's going on, but it does provide a very detailed account of a major battle and describes the kind of fighting that's still going on in Afghanistan today.

Very good book.
The book is about one of the major battles in the fight against Al Qaida in Afghanistan done by various special operations forces. The author, who was there before and during the battle, takes us through the battle of the Shaikot Valley and really describes in detail what went wrong. All the different task forces did not share information with each other and that would eventually result in US casualties.
I most say that I was really stunned to learn that the mighty US military could make such basic mistakes.
The individual US soldier performed very well but there was to much cowboy kick ass game for some of the SOF units involved.
The best book I have read for some time now.

Disappointing
Comparisons with Mark Bowden's peerless 'Black Hawk Down' flatter as this book lacks the focus, drama and outright intelligence of that book. The narrative sometimes comes alive, but mostly the author gets bogged down in extraneous details resulting in a narrative as opaque as the fog of war. Naylor's book is a passable read, but ultimately it is a disappointment that lacks any resonance or tangible emotional impact.