The Global War on Terror, if we’re allowed to call it as much anymore, has produced wide array of books with a cacophony of voices. At one end of the spectrum are those which profess to predict the future through the lens of our Vietnam experience (Tom Ricks’s Fiasco and George Packer’s Assassin’s Gate fit in here) the other, and currently dominant end of the spectrum are the soldier’s narratives in the tradition of Joe Galloway’s We Were Soldiers Once… And Young and Mark Bowden’s Blackhawk Down. These would include Thunder Run by Mark Bowden’s colleague Dave Zucchino and Not a Good Day to Die by Sean Naylor. Doug Stanton’s Horse Soldiers fits squarely within the latter category.

Stanton eschews political posturing and Monday morning quarterbacking in favor of telling a small but important story from the viewpoint of a handful of Special Forces officers and non-commissioned officers who supported the Northern Alliance in October-December 2001.

For those who followed the events following the attacks of September 11, 2001, one of the primary feelings was frustration. In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon most Americans wanted a decisive response, quickly, which would demonstrate American resolve to harry those responsible to the ends of the earth. As the days mounted, frustration grew.

There were the inevitable air strikes in Afghanistan but the Taliban, and their al-Qaeda guests and sponsors, remained fully in control and many of us feared the war would devolve into a series of impotent air and missile strikes against a very primitive enemy. While the press was consumed by stories of conflict between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and US Central Command commander, General Tommy Franks, several Special Forces A Teams were quietly inserted into Afghanistan in support of the most effective warlords.

Then in a whirlwind campaign, the Special Forces soldiers blended 21st century technology into a campaign being conducted primarily by horse cavalry. The result was the rapid and stunning collapse of the Taliban. And contrary to the infatuation much of our media have had with the high-tech aspects of modern warfare, much of the fight by the men of ODA 595 was very low-tech, indeed, it could very well have come from a Louis L’Amour novel:

As he rode, J.J. started passing Taliban fighters who had been hiding in the grass. They jumped up shooting, and J.J. spun in his saddle, firing his AK. Spann came upon a Taliban who was running away, back to his line, when suddenly the soldier turned and took aim. Spann shot the man in the head.

Nelson rode past dead and dying men, the air misting with the iron scent of blood, the burnt sting of gunpowder. Smoke hovered above the field. The charging horsemen raised their RPG tubes and fired at the Taliban. The explosions rocked them in their saddles.

Up ahead, Nelson could see the Taliban line breaking in places. Here and there, like a sand wall crumbling. Nelson was amazed when he saw that some of the Taliban were running toward Dostum’s men, their hands held high in surrender.

He was equally surprised when they started falling face-forward, dead, in the dirt. He would later learn that they had been shot in the back by their commanders still on the line.

Dostum reined his horse and cut across the field to its right flank, then pulled up and stopped. the general did not like what he was seeing. the Taliban had dialed the range on their remaining ZSU-23. The rapid banging of the antiaircraft gun hurled through the Afghan line. Men blew apart in their saddles and were lifted off the ground as they walked, cut in two.

Of the 600 men who had started the charge, Nelson guessed that maybe there ewer 300 still in the fight. The remainder had been wounded, killed, or had scattered. And Dostum’s men were close, within striking distance for victory. One last hill separated them from the Taliban, about 100 yards. But Nelson sensed they were losing momentum.

Stanton highlights the political pressure for action that was placed on the Special Forces. According to Stanton, the Secretary of Defense called Colonel (now Lieutenant General) John Mulholland at TF Dagger headquarters at Karshi-Kanabad (known as K2) Airbase, Uzbekistan demanding to know why the Special Forces were not producing results. This resulted, naturally, in Mulholland telling the team leader Captain Mitch Nelson to get off his butt and do something. That, in turn, provoked a unique report that was eventually read by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on at the Fletcher Conference on November 15, 2001:

“I am advising a man on how to best employ light infantry and horse cavalry in the attack against Taliban T-55s (tanks) … mortars, artillery, personnel carriers and machine guns — a tactic which I think became outdated with the introduction of the Gatling gun. (The Mujahadeen) have done this every day we have been on the ground. They have attacked with 10 rounds AK’s per man, with PK gunners (snipers) having less than 100 rounds … little water and less food. I have observed a PK gunner who walked 10-plus miles to get to the fight, who was proud to show me his artificial right leg from the knee down.

…”We have witnessed the horse cavalry bounding overwatch from spur to spur to attack Taliban strong points — the last several kilometers under mortar, artillery … and PK fire. There is little medical care if injured, only a donkey ride to the aid station, which is a dirt hut. I think (the Mujahadeen) are doing very well with what they have. They have killed over 125 Taliban … while losing only eight.

“We couldn’t do what we are (doing) without the close air support. … Everywhere I go the civilians and Mujahadeen soldiers are always telling me they are glad the USA has come. … They all speak of their hopes for a better Afghanistan once the Taliban are gone. Better go. (The local commander) is finishing his phone call with (someone back in the States).”

On the whole, Stanton does a good job telling the story of those early days in Afghanistan and the small number of men who were sent there to carry fire and sword to our enemies. An unfair, but necessary, criticism of Stanton is that unless you have served in a combat arms outfit you really can’t describe the attitudes and interpersonal relationships that exist there. You can’t begin to understand the ambiguity of a professional soldier’s relationship with his wife, his family, indeed any one but his comrades. Mark Bowden, of all modern authors covering the American fighting men at war, does the best job of capturing a true insider’s perspective. Stanton tries to capture that ambiance but because he hasn’t experienced it, some of the opinions expressed by the soldiers come across as both trite and overly gung-ho.

Having said that, the characterization of the men in ODA 595 and their sister teams and company headquarters is fair and humane. They aren’t supermen. They aren’t Rambo. They are ordinary men who have undergone the rigors of Special Forces training and by dint of hard work and motivation have become superlative soldiers. Stanton is obviously in awe of his subject is at his best in describing the trial and privations they endured during the campaign.

The story is at its weakest when Stanton wanders outside the world of Special Forces. The segments involving John Walker Lindh and the 9-11 hijackers are extremely weak and could be eliminated without loss. The juxtaposition of Lindh’s travels from Marin County, CA to Mazar-i-Sharif with the travel of the Special Forces teams deployment from Fort Campbell, KY to Mazar-i-Sharif is strained at best.

If you are a serious student of the Global War on Terror (there I go again) the absence of footnotes will leave you in tears.  Stanton could also have done with the services of a good fact checker. Major George Rogers did form the force that is the lineal ancestor of the American Rangers and Special Forces, however, Rogers did not fight the British. During the American Revolution he was a Tory. There is no such thing as a T-52 tank. And the vignette I gave you concerning Dr. Wolfowitz is attributed to Rumsfeld by Stanton. These errors, detected while reading the book for a book review, could disguise a sloppiness in other facts I didn’t take the time to check.

Stanton inadvertently raises some interesting points. The CIA paramilitary team at Mazar-i-Sharif doesn’t come across as very tightly wrapped. It isn’t that Stanton has anything but good things to say about them, but you are left with a lot of questions. Why John Micheal Spann and his partner undertook the interrogation of some 600 captured Taliban without a security force. Why didn’t they have communications with either the CIA team or the Special Forces team? Why were they so lightly armed?

As an aside, this whole feeling of the CIA as being a somewhat less than professional or effective organization dovetails neatly with books written by CIA operatives such as Gary Schroen’s “First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan.” For instance, whenever one of the Special Forces team leaders requests biographical information on the Tajik warlord Atta Mohammed Noor, they get the biography of 9-11 hijacker Mohammed Atta.

And there is this tidbit:

[Commander of the US Army Special Forces Commnand, Major General Geoffrey] Lambert knew that Fifth Group’s bell had been rung.

It had taken him about ten seconds to figure out who had masterminded the attacks, and who and carried them out. For the past several years, he had observed a top-secrety intelligence program called data mining that had identified one man, an Egyptian by the name of Mohammed Atta, as a serious terrorist with links to a Saudi named bin Laden, who was a financier of terrorist training camps for men like the Egyptian.

This obviously refers to Able Danger. Is this derived from an interview with Lambert or is it simply inserted, Bob Woodward style, into the narrative. We don’t know but if it is not the product of Stanton’s imagination this paragraph is the most significant thing written on 9-11 including the Commission report.

If you are interested in the geopolitical implications of the war in Afghanistan or if you want to see Donald Rumsfeld used as a pinata then don’t waste your money. This is not the book for you. The book focuses of the men who rode with Abdul Rashid Dostun and Atta Mohammed Noor, what they did during two months in 2001, and to a lesser extent on their families. However, if the stories of American fighting men appeal to you, then by all means buy this book.

As General Dostun said, “I asked for a few Americans. They brought with them the courage of a whole army.” This book tells their story.