First In by Gary C. Schroen

Author:Gary C. Schroen
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2009-09-29T09:30:39+00:00

Rick called Colonel Mulholland at Karshi Khanabad to tell him that the Northern Alliance agreed to receive ODA-555 but insisted that the soldiers wear civilian clothing. The colonel exploded in anger. He wanted his troops in uniform. Rick assured the colonel that we would revisit the issue with Dr. Abdullah when we met with him later that afternoon. We felt that Abdullah would be much more attuned to the political implications of the situation, and Rick assured Mulholland that we thought we could convince the NA leadership to change their stance on the uniform issue. The colonel would pass this news to his chain of command at SOCOM, but he anticipated he would be told to proceed with the insertion of ODA-555 that evening, whether or not there was agreement on the uniforms, because of the growing pressure in Washington to get the Special Forces into Afghanistan. Rick asked about flight clearances, but Mulholland said there was no word on that issue.

We informed Mumtaz that the A-Team was planning to arrive that evening and asked him to arrange to have transportation standing by. The pilots had agreed that the landing field at Astaneh, where we had our helicopter parked, was the best site for this first insertion of U.S. Special Forces. Stan would coordinate the placement of marking lights on the LZ just prior to the scheduled arrival time for the A-Team. For reasons of security, concealment, and surprise, the U.S. military conducts its SpecOps missions during hours of darkness. Their helicopter crews are the best in the world at night-flying techniques. In an operation such as this one, with friendly personnel on the ground to receive the incoming ODA, the landing zone is marked by a specific pattern of lights easily seen by the pilots using their night vision goggles. An improperly marked landing zone would result in the pilots aborting the mission and returning to base. Stan was the logical choice to coordinate the proper marking of the landing zone.

Later that afternoon, as Washington was opening for the day, I called Cofer Black, chief/CTC, primarily to discuss the U.S. military’s bombing strategy as well as to bring him fully up-to-date on the problems we were having with the Northern Alliance on the issue of uniforms.

Cofer reported that CENTCOM was working targets in the Mazar-e Sharif and Konduz areas, because they “can’t find high-value targets in the Kabul area.” I was dumbfounded. Over the past two weeks we had provided Headquarters and CENTCOM with literally hundreds of geocoordinates for Taliban military targets in the Kabul area. The plains area, stretching north from Kabul toward the Northern Alliance lines near Charikar and Baghram Air Base, was as target-rich an environment as could be found in all of Afghanistan. I told Cofer I thought this reluctance to bomb the Taliban around Kabul was a political decision rather than a military one. The risk of civilian collateral damage in the Mazar and Konduz areas was just as great as on the plains north of Kabul.

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