Michelle Black - Sacrifice: A Gold Star Widows Fight for the Truth

The day my husband was buried, his casket pulled by six black horses, the sun shone brightly. With my boys on either side of me, I wept for their loss, and for mine. I had always assumed that Bryan and I would grow old together. Surely a folded flag was never meant to be mine. But here I was.

Twenty-six days earlier, ten Green Berets fought a lethal battle on the ground in Niger, Africa, against ISIS militants. The ambush, which resulted in the death of my husband and three of his fellow soldiers, was the largest loss of American life in that region since the Battle of Mogadishualso known as Black Hawk Downin 1993. After being ambushed by an ISIS-affiliated group outside of the village of Tongo Tongo, six members of Green Beret Team 3212 would emerge alive but forever changed.

What most Americans remember about the Niger ambush, however, is the argument that erupted over a phone call between the president of the United States and one of the three widows. The poor handling of the phone call, coupled with a media firestorm and a handful of callous tweets, and the resulting feud took the focus from the soldiers and placed it firmly on American politicians. Because of this, the four American and five Nigerien soldiers who died in the attack were forgotten within a couple of weeks.

But not by us. Not by my family and the other families of the fallen.

We were shocked by the attack and wanted to know how and why it had happened. Niger was not meant to be a dangerous assignment. Teams like my husbands conducted missions on the continent using a by, with, and through strategy to train their partner forces by having their partners take a lead role.

Knowing this, we had questions about the ambush: Why was the team out near the Mali border by themselves with no backup and so poorly equipped? Who had made the decisions leading up to these terrible events? General Thomas D. Waldhauser, the commander of AFRICOM (United States Africa Command), quickly started an investigation to learn the facts surrounding the mission that led to the ambush. I knew there was a process to military investigations, and I was certain that the Army would probe every decision that led to this heartbreaking loss of life.

I expected the story of the ambush would be simple, and the investigation truthful. However, over the months of waiting I was surprised and confused by how the team was being treated. The Army referred to the Green Beret soldiers as a team that went rogue and acted like cowboys in order to go after a risky target, putting their lives and teammates in danger. They were disparaged in the media and their captain was blamed and vilified for his decisions during the operation. I counted on the investigations results to clear up my confusion. But after the family briefing in April 2018, I found that I had more questions than Id had going in.

I had thought the day my husband was buried, when my sons saw him put in the ground, would be the worst thing I could survive. But somehow, life had become less bearable. I needed to know the truth, to hear every detail of the ambush, to find out what AFRICOM had failed to tell us. What exactly happened to the men before, during, and after the ambush? The men of Team 3212 knew what had happened on the ground, but due to gag orders put in place by the military, they were not able to speak about it.

I was faced with an overwhelming task, one that I had no idea how to begin. In late spring of 2018, I began talking with the remaining members of Green Beret Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) Team 3212. When the gag orders were lifted, many of the survivors came to my home one at a time and allowed me to record them as they told me every moment of those fateful three days. They answered every question; I wrote their story. Simply by listening to the men of ODA 3212 and not blaming them, I had earned their trust. That trust meant the world to meand I knew I couldnt let them down. I had become the key to telling the true account of what happened in Niger.

I often say Id prefer to hear an ugly truth than a beautiful lie. In the year following my husbands death, I was told plenty of both. Sacrifice details many of the ugly truths I faced following the ambush and the lies I was told in the aftermath. It tells the story of what happened to ODA 3212 in October 2017 in Niger, and shows how that account differs from the official narrative. I have aimed to share that truthand to honor the men who lived it.