No Way Out
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Subject:
“It seemed like an impossible mission right from the start. A Special Forces team planned to land in an enemy-held valley, scale a steep mountain in Afghanistan to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them... The team was caught in a deadly ambush that not only threatened their lives, but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought for hours, huddled on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine gun fire rained down on them. With total disregard for their own safety, they tended to their wounded and kept fighting to stay alive.When the battle finally ended, ten soldiers had earned Silver Stars- the Army's third highest award for combat valor. It was the most Silver Stars awarded to any unit in one battle since Vietnam.Based on dozens of interviews with those who were there, No Way Out is a compelling narrative of an epic battle that not only tested the soldiers' mettle but serves as a cautionary tale: Be careful what you ask a soldier to do because they will die trying to accomplish their mission.” –ThriftBooks.com
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Author:
Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer
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Length:
324 pages
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Notable Excerpts:
Grabbing Fletcher, who had walked into the operations center, Walton tried one ore time to spike the mission. "The intel you have is not fucking accurate. And now I have to contend with landing in a freaking river," Walton told Fletcher. "Hey, is this an abort call?'..."We're not going to do this fucking mission," Walton said "Unless you order us to do it, I am not going to do this fucking mission." Fletcher didn't flinch: "I order you to do it."
and a more lighthearted one
Beer was currency in Special Forces. And Ford used it to help make his points. If you say you're going to do something for the first time, that was a case of beer. If you make a mistake, that was a case of beer. At the end of most training shoots on the range, there was a "beer shoot". Each Soldier saved a magazine and the worst shot, well, that was a case of beer. The team had been accruing beer debt, so when the refrigerator was finally clean, Ford told the Soldiers who owed beer to stock the fridge before they went home. They came back with twelve-packs. Ford was shocked. "Did I say you owe half a case or a case? I don't do half cases. It is either a full case or none," Ford said. So Ford broke out the marker and drew a box with twenty-four circles on it. "Now you have a pictorial view of what a case of beer looks like," he said. "If you have any questions, come back to this dry-erase board to make sure you know if you have a case or not."
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Overall:
This book was fucking hard to read. These guys couldn't catch a damn break. It was infuriating to read what this ODA was put through. Put on a mission that could, and should, have been handled by a conventional fighting force, allowed no input during the planning process (a critical part of the Special Forces M.O.), and essentially brushed off by the Army they loved. All of this so the brass at the top could show off an Afghan Commando team whose SF mentors urged weren't ready. After multiple WIA and one Afghan interpreter KIA, and the HIT escaping, the mission was regaled as a success for "disrupting enemy activity". This book had an intensity that is incredibly hard to find in writing. The author(s) did an incredible job covering what each of the men were thinking, feeling, seeing, and experiencing.
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Format:
The chapters are laid out clearly and concisely, each one falling into another operators point-of-view. Save the background coverage in the beginning, it flows chronologically, intermittently switching characters to provide maximum coverage of the events that transpired on the battlefield. Weiss and Maurer capture the atmosphere of the teams perfectly and hold true to their promise to each of the members by provided a no-bullshit recount of that day.
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Rating:
5/5. Absolutely wonderfully written. I will definitely be hanging onto this book to read it again down the road.
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Link To Buy:
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Next Book
They Fought For Each Other by Kelley Kennedy
Submitted June 21, 2016 at 07:53PM by APimpNamedThickBack http://ift.tt/28L9ht4 Military
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