Ann Scott Tyson - American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant

For my beloved mother and father, Joy and Haney,

and my parents-in-law, James and Judy,

wise teachers all, who have touched many lives with their little,

nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.

and

In memory of Malik Noor Afzhal, a great man.

It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.

T. E. LAWRENCE

CONTENTS

NIGHT WAS FALLING ON the valley.

Beneath the Hindu Kush Mountains, the terraced fields, and the rock-strewn grazing lands, an isolated band of American soldiers and Afghans returned from patrol, navigating the rugged terrain. They wore night vision goggles to see in the darkness, and passed without a whisper through mud-brick farming villages clustered along Afghanistans Konar River. Theyd been summoned by their commander, a man who never let them forget that Taliban insurgents could be watching from the high ground. The sky was pitch black by the time the men reached their walled outpost, a typical Afghan compound, or qalat , and made their way to the makeshift operations center inside.

Dressed in traditional tunics and baggy pants, most of the men were Pashtuns, members of the powerful ethnic group whose tribes had dominated the border with western Pakistan for thousands of years. But the Taliban was Pashtun, too. The remote outpost was situated on the edge of the village of Mangwel in Afghanistans Konar Province. Konar was considered by the U.S. military to contain a witches brew of hard-core foreign and local insurgents, and its valleys had proven some of the deadliest battlefields in Afghanistan. In a 2005 ambush, insurgents in Konar left only a lone survivor, Marcus Luttrell, when they killed three members of a four-man Navy SEAL team and then shot down a quick reaction force helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), sending sixteen more U.S. troopers to their deaths. It was one of the biggest American losses of the war. Intense fighting had led U.S. forces to abandon some Konar outposts in 2009 and 2010, including one named Restrepo.

A few miles to the east lay Pakistans tribal territory, and another hundred miles beyond that was the teeming Pakistani city of Abbottabad, the hideout of Al Qaeda terrorist group leader Osama bin Laden. Members of Al Qaeda as well as the Afghan and Pakistani factions of the Taliban and other radical Islamic groups had sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border. Insurgent fighters moved unfettered along mountain trails into Konar Province and other parts of eastern Afghanistan to stage attacks on U.S. forces. Al Qaeda and the Taliban alike sought to strengthen their grip on Konar. The Pashtun tribes that held sway in these villages and valleys were the only force that in the long run could stand in their way. Osama bin Laden understood the power of tribes at a strategic and visceral level. He took refuge in tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and often appeared in propaganda videos wearing the traditional dagger of his Yemeni tribal ancestors.

Two tribesmen, Hakim Jan and Umara Khan, shouldered their AK-47 rifles at the end of their guard shift and climbed down wooden ladders to join the other men in the central courtyard of the small camp. They were members of the force of twenty Afghan tribal police that lived in the Mangwel qalat together with a dozen U.S. soldiers. The American mission was simple: to empower the tribe to push the insurgents out. The lives of everyone in the camp depended on it.

Conditions in the camp were austere. The commander made sure they stayed that way. It had crude outhouses and no running water. All of the men slept on cots in canvas tents. They ate the same food, too, mainly beans, rice, and flatbread. The commander knew that the hardship could bring these strangers together. Soon the men were conversing in broken Pashto and English as they went about their workcleaning weapons, loading bullets into magazines, repairing vehicles, standing guard.

Staff Sgt. Robert Chase, a thirty-two-year-old U.S. infantry squad leader, and Pfc. Jeremiah Miah Hicks appeared before the assembled soldiers and Afghan tribesmen. They carefully unfolded an eight-foot-long American flag and, each holding one upper corner, unfurled it before the group.

Then their commander, Special Forces Maj. Jim Gant, wearing a black Afghan tunic and pants with a fitted maroon kandari cap, stepped in front of the flag. The bearded forty-three-year-old Green Beret addressed his men.

Today, we had our revenge, our badal , he said, using the Pashto word for retribution. I am proud to fight alongside you, he went on. Tonight, in honor of that, I will bleed.

Gant drew an eight-inch Spartan Harsey knife, a gift from the father of a fallen Special Forces teammate. As a captain, Gant had embraced the Spartan warrior ethos of sacrifice and courage and used it to inspire every unit hed commanded. Gant believed in the depth of his being that men had to be willing to die for one another without hesitation if they were to be victorious in battle. He also believed that the ancient code of honor that Spartans lived by was, at its core, no different from the one that underpinned Pashtun tribal law.

He had carefully planned this meeting to inspire both his American and Afghan men, and he had already asked that a goat be slaughtered and prepared in the Pashtun tradition.

Gripping the Spartan knife in his right hand, Gant slowly slit long, deep gashes between the thumb and index finger of his left handone cut each for seven of his friends killed in Afghanistan. The blood ran down his hand and dripped onto the broken ground.

He stared into the shocked faces of his men.

Today was a long time in coming for us, Gant said, his face drawn and voice tense. Some eighteen hours earlier, on May 2, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALs had stormed a fortified three-story house in Abbottabad. Theyd gunned down Osama bin Laden and packed up a treasure trove of Al Qaedas strategic and tactical plans as well as its leaders personal effects.

Osama bin Laden was a coward and a murderer, Gant continued. He killed innocent men, women, and children in our country. Thousands of them. His actions have cost your great country thousands of lives and hurt relations between Muslims and Christians all over the world.

He watched the shock become hushed recognition. Gant was shedding his blood in honor of the dead, and it was vital that his men understood this.

Now if we could just have a moment of silence for all of our friends, for all of the people who have been killed...

The Afghans and Americans, indistinguishable one from the other in the darkness, stood shoulder to shoulder and bowed their heads. They remembered their fallen comrades and the homes they were fighting for near and far, and they smelled the rich scent of simmering goat that awaited them.

SEVEN THOUSAND MILES AWAY from that otherworldly corner of Afghanistan, the lights flickered off and on in my Bethesda, Maryland, rental house. Rain pelted against the cellar window and dripped onto the sill through a crack in the glass.

I watched a small pool of rain swell until it overflowed in a thin stream down the wall, the trickle triggering in me a disproportionate flood of doom.

It was September 2012. I was living temporarily in a one-bedroom basement apartment with my fianc, my fourteen-year-old daughter Kathryn, a stray cat, and God knew how many camelback crickets.

Kathryns makeshift room had no walls, only crimson bedsheets attached by clothespins to a rope I strung along the ceiling. The setup cost $13.91 from the hardware storenot bad. There was no kitchen. We boiled macaroni in a microwave and ate on paper plates. Putting the best spin I could on the latest Dickensian twist in our lives, I told Kathryn hardship was good for hershe would thank me one day. She shot me a look that said maybe, maybe not.