Eagle Down: The Last Special Forces Fighting the Forever War by Jessica Donati

Author:Jessica Donati [Donati, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 21st Century, Afghan War (2001-), Asia, Foreign Affairs, History, Military, Political Science, Special Forces, United States
ISBN: 9781541762558
Google: 66N2zQEACAAJ
Amazon: B0881XQJ9Y
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2021-01-19T03:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Sangingrad

CALEB

CALEB was the one to help the new team settle into Camp Antonik in Helmand, as Matthew Roland had when Caleb’s team first arrived. The swap had happened in days, and the new team hadn’t had a chance to do their intelligence preparation, a process that normally took place in the months leading up to a deployment. Caleb immediately became the senior Fox on the team, and they relied on him to help plan a campaign for the remainder of the tour.

Andy MacNeil, the captain of the new team, thought it would be best to focus on a specific area instead of firefighting all over Helmand. It seemed that the previous team had chased the Taliban from one spot to the other, leaving them always a step behind. He submitted a campaign plan that focused on easing pressure on Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, by systematically clearing the route to Marjah.

Caleb shared what limited intelligence his team had gathered. US intelligence assets in Helmand were severely reduced, and even the computers that stored intelligence had been sent back to the United States, so there was no historical record of attacks in the province—something that would have been helpful.

The team set their sights on destroying a Soviet ZPU-4, a quadruple-barreled antiaircraft gun, that they had spotted on a drone feed. A Taliban commander liked to parade it on a truck while driving through villages, passing out RPGs to rally crowds. In earlier years, the team would have been cleared to take it out with an airstrike, but this wasn’t an option due to the restrictions on engagement and concerns about civilian casualties. The team decided to target it in person.

Maj. Gabriel interrupted the planning cycle with orders to leave immediately for Sangin. Sangin district had been known to British troops as the deadliest place in Afghanistan during the four years in which they were responsible for Helmand before handing it over to the Americans. They nicknamed it Sangingrad after the World War II siege by German troops of Stalingrad, where thousands perished during the Nazi invasion of Russia. The team was ordered to prepare for a joint multiday operation with the Afghan commandos, to prevent the district from falling.

They usually operated at night and left the site of the operation by morning, but Gen. Swindell, the top commander of US and NATO Special Operations, wanted them to stay overday, or through a period of daylight. The sudden enthusiasm for multiday operations was apparently linked to a successful 3rd Group operation in the north that had unearthed a huge cache of Taliban weapons. Andy didn’t like the idea of staying through the day. The team was isolated, and the strict limitations on air support made them wary of being out during daylight hours in Sangin, when they would lose the element of surprise and the advantage of night vision.

With brown hair and freckles, Andy was one of the youngest captains in the company. He was brand new to the Special Forces and full of enthusiasm, but he wasn’t reckless.

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