Zoroya - Chosen few: one us army companys heroic struggle to survive in the mountains of afghanistan

I assumed command of a joint special operations unit in June 2008. As I sought to gain understanding and appreciation for the fight our elements were engaged in, I quickly learned that the remote mountains of Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in northeast Afghanistan provided a nearly impenetrable sanctuary for several international terrorist groups. Within a month of my taking command, the Battle of Wanat occurred. This battle served to draw international attention to this area. It also served to highlight the tough fight being waged by the Rockthe 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade.

This was a twenty-first-century war against terrorist insurgents. The young US Army paratroopers stationed there were locked in close-quarters combat not unlike the infantry experience of Vietnam, Korea, and World War II. They faced determined enemies who more often than not controlled the high groundand with certainty, it was an enemy who sought to fight the Americans. At that time, there were not the resources we had later in the Afghanistan fight. There was not enough air support, MEDEVAC, or ground support. Not enough troops for the front lines.

While the worlds attention was consumed with the broadening conflict in Iraq, the Rock fought desperate engagements, often outnumbered, with only their training, determination, and acts of valor helping them to prevail.

There had been some media attention for the battalions Battle Company, whose exploits in the infamous Korengal Valley became the focus of the well-received documentary Restrepo and the book WAR. But in a valley just north of the Korengal, fighting in relative obscurity, were two platoons and a headquarters unit of one of Battles sister companiesChosen.

Those paratroopers liked to call themselves the Chosen Few. They were, in fact, seemingly chosen by fate to experience some of the most brutal aspects of war. In three major engagements and several small skirmishes, they fought off successive, coordinated efforts by an enemy determined to wipe them out.

After fifteen months of combat, nearly two-thirds of the Chosen Few would be Purple Heart recipients. Two would be awarded the Medal of Honor, two more would receive a Distinguished Service Cross; more than a dozen Silver Stars and more than two dozen Bronze Stars for valor would be awarded to this company. Rarely in the annals of modern war have fighting men displayed such teamwork, courage, and fighting heart as the Chosen Few.

People often look back with awe upon early generations of American combat troops, up to and including the famous Greatest Generation of World War II, as if to conclude that that kind of warrior has come and gone and we will never see their like again. But that is just not true.

If there is any lesson that the Chosen Few teaches us, it is that the kind of spirit and sense of sacrifice borne out in the young men and women who fill the ranks of the US military are as strong today as they ever were. Special operators, conventional forces, active or reserveour nation should be grateful to have the troops we do. Paratroopers like the Chosen Few demonstrate what our country has come to expect of our warriorscommitment, selflessness, and grit. This is an American story that rivals any in our history for valor, heroism, and sacrifice.

William H. McRaven

Admiral (US Navy, Retired)

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words
of mine which should attempt to beguile you
from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
from an 1864 letter to a grieving mother of sons killed in battle

> > > PROLOGUE
ALONE AND UNDER ATTACK

So this would be the end.

Ryan Pitts lay covered in his own blood, the paratroopers twenty-two-year-old body so riddled with shards of metal from exploding grenades that his legs were all but useless. His friends were dead all around him. Others had fled. Pitts propped himself against a dirt wall inside a sand-bagged observation post in an obscure valley of a mountainous province of eastern Afghanistan, seven thousand miles from his home in New Hampshire. He pulled a rifle into his lap and sat tucked into a corner of one fighting position facing the direction from where the enemy had been attacking.

I want to kill at least two or three of them before they finally kill me.

Even over the din of gunfire and explosions, he could hear enemy fighters just yards away yelling back and forth at one another in Pashtun or Dari or one of those obscure Nuristani dialects that were impossible even for the Armys Afghan interpreters to understand. Oddly, the pain from his wounds was not so bad. Ryans nervous system was still in shock from the explosions that had tossed him like a rag doll and engulfed him in a cloud of steel parts. Blood ran down his face from where the skin of his forehead had been filleted open. The shroud of shrapnel was so condensed that several small pieces had nearly punched holes through two narrow, black memorial bracelets that Ryan wore, each engraved with the names of Chosen Few soldiers who had died during the fourteen months he and the others of his paratrooper company had been fighting in this valley of sheer cliffs and breath-robbing altitude.

They all cherished that nickname for their company, the Chosen Few. It was a play on the unit designation: C Company, or Chosen Company, of the 2nd Battalionthe Rock503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Sky Soldiers. Paratroopers.

The Chosen Few nickname carried plenty of meaning for these men in their late teens and early twenties. Made them feel special. Prized. Maybe because so many of them came from places or families where they had grown up feeling anything but special. Where fathers died or disappeared. Where parents never married or drifted apart. Where a mother lost herself to drugs, leaving a son in despair and desperate for a family. Grandparents had taken charge when some of these men were boys, raising them to adulthood. For others it was just a matter of biding time until they were old enough to break away and start defining life on their terms, which would ultimately mean joining the Army.