American Heroes in Special Operations Read online

  We, the men of Special Forces, acknowledge our dependence upon Thee in the preservation of human freedom.

  Go with us as we seek to defend the defenseless and to free the enslaved.

  May we ever remember that our nation, whose motto is "In God We Trust", expects that we shall acquit ourselves with honor, that we may never bring shame upon our faith, our families, or our fellow men.

  Grant us wisdom from Thy mind, courage from Thine heart, strength from Thine arm, and protection by Thine hand.

  It is for Thee that we do battle, and to Thee belongs the victor's crown.

  For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever.

  AMEN

  INTRODUCTION

  Their mottos inspire allies and intimidate adversaries: “De Oppresso Liber,” Latin for “Free the Oppressed,” the slogan of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces; the SEALs, “Ready to Lead, Ready to Follow, Never Quit”; “First There . . . That Others May Live” for U.S. Air Force Special Operations units; and the U.S. Marines’ Special Operations Command, “Always Faithful, Always Forward.”

  Those who know these slogans best are the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines of U.S. Special Operations Command—the tip of the spear in the war against radical Islamic terror. They have all been subjected to rigorous selection, screening, and qualification and then uniquely trained and equipped to become masters of unconventional warfare.

  From the jungles of the Philippine Archipelago, to the deserts of Iraq to the shadows of the Hindu Kush, they undertake daring missions in some of the most difficult and dangerous places on this planet.

  Modern Special Operations units trace their lineage to 1675 when Captain Benjamin Church recruited and led a force comprised of New England Militia “Rangers” and Native Americans during “King Phillip’s War.” Less than a century later, in the midst of the French and Indian War, Major Robert Rogers raised and led a formation of colonial irregulars that came to be know as “Rogers’ Rangers.” His twenty-eight-point “Standing Orders for Rangers” are still part of the U.S. Army training.

  Today, Special Operations units are an indispensable part of American military strategy. U.S. Special Operators have been constantly deployed and engaged on the “bleeding edge” of the fight against radical Islamic terror since America was attacked on September 11, 2001.

  Though many of the missions conducted by these “Quiet Professionals” remain highly classified, U.S. Special Operations Command has permitted our FOX News “War Stories” team to accompany them on more than a dozen deployments that literally span the globe. We have been with them in the southern Philippians on operations against Abu Sayef and Jemaah Islamiah; in Iraq while they pursued Baath, al Qaeda, and Shiite Militia high value targets (HVTs); and in Afghanistan as our Spec Ops units chased down Taliban kingpins and narcoterrorists.

  Activated in 1987, the U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, now numbers more than fifty thousand unconventional warfare specialists from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. These extraordinary fighters undertake some of the most sensitive, high risk, missions in the world. And though technology has revolutionized the battlefield, the human component—the warrior—is still the most important element in determining the outcome of a fight.

  After a mission with the special mission unit at Shindand

  WHAT MAKES THEM SO SPECIAL?

  Above and beyond the combat fundamentals taught to every member of our Armed Forces, Special Operators must also master an additional set of skills—call it an “Advanced Degree” in war fighting. They train to fight as small, independent units—often for months at a time. They must adapt to and blend into foreign cultures in which they live, train, and fight.

  While Spec Ops personnel are justifiably described as elite, they also know dealing with host nation forces often requires real humility, tempered with the mental toughness to take quick, violent action when necessary. They are trained and equipped to operate in harsh and unpredictable conditions, far from friendly forces for extended periods of time, and their physical conditioning often rivals that of Olympic athletes. Instead of contending for a gold medal, these modern-day gladiators compete for the loyalty of oppressed people by offering to shine the light of liberty into the world’s darkest places.

  Wherever Special Operators are deployed, it comes at great sacrifice. More than three hundred members of SOCOM have lost their lives since 9/11/01. Two of them—Navy SEALs Michael Murphy and Mike Monsoor—are among the five Americans posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in the global war on terror. Their valor indicates the true nature of a hero—one who goes into harm’s way for the benefit of another.

  Because of the highly classified nature of many of their missions, these “masters of chaos” rarely receive the credit warranted for their successes. For example, the highly-publicized capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in December 2003 was initially attributed to the 4th Infantry Division, for Saddam was captured in 4th ID “battlespace.” But those responsible for pulling the deposed Iraqi dictator out of the hole where he was hiding were members of Task Force 20, a Joint Special Operations Task Force comprised of Delta Force operators, SEALs, and CIA officers from the Special Activities Division who had been tracking High Value Targets (HVTs) across Iraq since the invasion in early 2003.

  But these men aren’t in it for publicity. In fact, the assignment criteria for the United States Navy SEALs, arguably one of the most elite Special Operations units in the world, specifies that they want warriors to volunteer for this duty because they are seeking “experiences that are both personally and professionally rewarding.”

  What are those experiences? It’s flying through the night on a blacked-out helicopter fifty feet off the ground at 150 miles per hour. It’s kicking in the door of a suspected high value target and bringing him to justice. It’s raiding an opium bazaar in a remote Afghan village, or treating malaria and providing urgently needed medical care to people who have never seen a doctor. It is knowing that what you are doing matters—that you are a force for good in a world full of evil.

  It’s being part of the dangerous, demanding, and ultimately rewarding existence that is USSOCOM today—a remarkably trained, equipped, and capable group of warriors, honed to a razor’s edge and committed to doing more than their fair share to win the war on terror.

  This book is about those exceptional Americans—past and present—as a tribute to the sacrifices so many of them have made since 11 September 2001.

  America didn’t start this fight, but the warriors of SOCOM are determined to be the ones who will end it. These are their stories.

  For government is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For government is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong. —ROMANS 13:4

  THE WAR ON TERROR

  NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA

  The date will never again pass unnoticed on the calendars of America. The evil committed against her people on that day in 2001 not only rocked the world by its sheer malevolence, it signaled the end of an era. Terrorism would never again be something that happened to unfortunate travelers outside U.S. borders—never again something Americans simply read about in the news before going back to sleep. America’s apathy died that day, along with almost three thousand of her citizens. Things would never be the same.

  September 11 was also a beginning. For the first time in decades, there was near agreement across the land. The emotion was almost universal, a knot in our collective gut as people stood in line to give blood, sat glued to the news, or attended memorial services across the country. And even as we grieved, we wanted justice. Something had to be done. This fresh determination galvanized the free world in the belief that safety would only come when the perpetrators of this evil were sought out and destroyed.


  Those dispatched first to deliver America’s response all belonged to an elite group of warriors—the members of United States Special Operations Command. No matter their branch of service, or their unit designation, every one of them knew this crisis was the one for which they had been preparing all their lives.

  Within days, American intelligence services collected a mountain of evidence implicating Osama bin Laden—a Saudi-born radical Muslim whose al-Qaeda terrorist organization had declared war on the United States during the Clinton administration. Unfortunately his previous strikes against U.S. citizens and property were all but ignored. But if it was attention al-Qaeda wanted, they would surely have it now.

  Above: Emergency response at the Pentagon

  Below: Osama bin Laden

  For nearly a decade, bin Laden and his radical Islamist allies exported their particular brand of hatred from terrorist training camps first in Sudan and then, Afghanistan. In Kabul, the Taliban regime was rewriting the rogue-state rule book on repression—and quickly became al-Qaeda patrons and protectors.

  Before all the remains could be recovered from the rubble at “ground zero” in New York, a handful of American Special Operators from the CIA and the U.S. military were on the ground in Afghanistan, intent on hunting down bin Laden and removing the Taliban from power. Working quickly and quietly with a fractious coalition of anti-Taliban militias and tribal warloads dubbed the “Northern Alliance,” the U.S. teams began the difficult and dangerous task of seizing enemy strongholds—while scouring the landscape for bin Laden and his minions. It took them less than a month to launch the largest covert operation since World War II. The story of their success is the stuff of legend.

  OPERATION ENDURINIG FREEDOM

  AFGHANISTAN

  Just twenty-five days after the 9/11 attack, U.S. aircraft and cruise missiles launched the first air strikes aimed at eliminated the Taliban’s capacity for command and control. Within fourty-eight hours, enemy radar, communications and nerve centers in Kabul, Kandahar, and Jalalabad were elimated. Soon afterward, U.S. special operators—military and civilian—were heading into battle—sometimes mounted on horseback beside their new Afghan allies.

  Despite all the high tech weaponry available to our forces, in Afghanistan sometimes they had to resort to more traditional means of transportation.

  Among them were men like, then Captain Jason Amerine, commanding officer of ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) 574 of the 5th Special Forces Group. On September 11 he and his “A-Team” were deployed in Kazakhstan, on a training mission for the former Soviet satellite country’s counterinsurgency forces. When news came that terrorists had attacked America, Amerine had no doubt what was coming.

  “We knew immediately it was war,” he says. “I was definitely certain that this war was going to take place in Afghanistan.”

  Amerine had been preparing for this moment since he was fourteen years old. He joined JROTC in high school, then after graduation applied and was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. There he focused on cultural and language studies with an eye to someday becoming a Special Forces soldier. When he completed his degree in 1993, he was nearly fluent in Arabic—a skill he would put to good use in the years to come. He paid his dues for several years in conventional units, then upon being promoted to Captain, he volunteered for Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS), which he describes as less a school and more a rite of passage.

  “When you’re in SFAS, the Green Beret cadre run you through the ringer to see how well you operate in a team, see how well you operate individually, and in the end the cadre assess if they want you to go on to the Special Forces Qualification Course.”

  Almost a year of highly focused training followed, after which Amerine proudly donned the Special Forces green beret and reported to the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

  By September 2001 Amerine’s ODA had been working in Kazakhstan for nearly a year. But when four planes were hijacked half a world away, the men of ODA 574 knew their deployment would be a whole lot longer.

  Assigned to support an Afghan opposition unit, days and nights of intense preparation for ODA 574 followed. On 14 November, Amerine and his ten-man team, augmented by a USAF Combat Controller (CCT) to rain destruction on the Taliban from U.S. aircraft overhead, flew into Afghanistan for the first time.

  The small band of Afghan freedom fighters and CIA officers ODA 574 was ordered to guide and protect was being led by a relatively unknown Pashto, whose father was murdered by the Taliban. His name: Hamid Karzai.

  Maj Amerine (2nd from right in back row) with ODA 574 and Hamid Karzai

  Karzai struggled unsuccessfully against the Taliban regime for years. But on the night of November 16, aided by ODA 574, Karzai’s handful of Afghan freedom fighters took Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan Province, in the heart of Taliban territory north of Kandahar. Intelligence gathered there warned Taliban forces were en route, intent on retaking Tarin Kowt from the south and wiping out Karzai’s bid for Afghan freedom before it got started.

  Working urgently through the night, Amerine prepared his men for a showdown at the south end of the city. Using satellite radios, he and his CCT flashed messages back to higher headquarters that the team would need nonstop air support in order to survive. The American soldiers and a few of their Afghan counterparts moved to a scrub-covered hilltop at the edge of town from which they could observe the enemy’s approach.

  A portable laser designator being used by a Special Operations captain in Afghanistan 2001 directing Air Force and Navy bombs.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Shortly after daylight the Taliban assault force came rolling across the valley below. “It looked like a scene from Mad Max,” Amerine recalls. The Taliban were riding in pickups with machine guns bolted to their roofs along with a motley assortment of armored vehicles and heavy trucks carrying troops, ammunition, and even anti-aircraft artillery. The ODA feverishly pinpointed targets for the bomb-laden aircraft circling above, using laser target designators to mark where the guided munitions would have the greatest effect. The results were spectacular. One by one, the Taliban advance evaporated in flame and flying debris. The concussion of the bombs was so intense that some of the Afghan freedom fighters, unaccustomed to such a display of firepower, dropped their weapons and ran for their lives.

  Maj. Amerine in the streets of Afghanistan

  Forced to scramble back to the village, Amerine held a hasty council of war with Karzai—urging him to have his countrymen rejoin the Americans in the fight before the Taliban could mount a second attack. It was imperative they stop the enemy advance before they entered the village, at which point all the American air power in the world would be useless. The American was blunt: “If the Taliban get past us, we’ve lost the town.”

  The tough talk worked. Karzai’s tribesmen regrouped and joined the Americans on a hilltop closer to the capital. For the next eight hours ODA 574 and their newly invigorated Afghan allies fended off wave after wave of enemy attacks, both with precision guided munitions and their own weapons. When the smoke cleared, the Taliban force was routed, leaving hundreds of dead fighters and scores of wrecked vehicles on the battlefield.

  The 17 November victory at Tarin Kowt was decisive. ODA 574 and the American airpower they brought to bear set the stage for further advances by Karzai and his growing column of Pashtun irregulars, culminating with the Taliban surrender at Kandahar on 5 December 2001.

  For his actions leading ODA 574 during this crucial time, Major Jason Amerine was awarded the Bronze star with “V” device for valor. In an interview several years later Amerine called his service, “The greatest privilege of my life.” Then he added, “In Afghanistan, I commanded American and Afghan soldiers, each fighting for his own nation and his people, yet united in a common cause as they entrusted one another with their lives. There is no greater courage than fo
r people to fight side-by-side against the terrible odds they faced with such impenetrable faith in one another.”

  Maj. Amerine receives the Bronze Star with "V" device for valor.

  THE BATTLE OF QALA-I-JANGI

  MAZAR-I-SHARIF, AFGHANISTAN

  While Americans at home were prepared to celebrate Thanksgiving, a desperate situation was developing in northern Afghanistan, near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Hundreds of foreign fighters, mostly Arabs and Pakistanis, surrendered to U.S.-backed Northern Alliance troops. Lacking a suitable place to sequester nearly five hundred prisoners-of-war, the Northern Alliance general, Abdul Rashid Dostum, transferred them to a nineteenth-century fortress he used as a headquarters. In the chaotic environment surrounding the surrender of so many, some of the prisoners were not properly searched. It proved to be a costly oversight.

  BLU-82 "daisy cutter" bombs, like this one, evened the odds for vastly outnumbered Special Operations troops on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001.

  On 25 November several members of the CIA’s ultra-secret Special Activities Division arrived on the scene and began preliminary interrogations of the prisoners. One of the CIA officers, Johnny Michael Spann, had served as a U.S. Marine Captain. As he and his team sorted the enemy detainees, they discovered an American, John Walker Lindh. Lindh was a twenty-year-old convert to Islam from Silver Spring, Maryland, whose life choices were as treasonous as Spann’s were patriotic.