Roberts Ridge: A Story of Courage and Sacrifice on Takur Ghar Mountain, Afghanistan.
[rating:5/5]

I’ve been spending a lot of time this week with the Navy SEALs in Afghanistan. This book by Malcom MacPherson, is another look at the events on Takur Ghar, where several special ops warfighters lost their lives to Taliban and/or al Qaeda fighters. I found it an interesting counterpoint to Naylor’s amazing book, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda. Where Naylor quoted other operators critical of the SEALs that day, MacPherson’s book is told from the SEALs point of view. He doesn’t cover up their mistakes, but he doesn’t pile on.

Fifty feet above the ground, as soon as Calvert flared the Chinook, bullets crashed through the chin bubble. in the right seat, he watched as holes pinged through the windshield glass. Two bullets hit his helmet and jerked his head left, as if a hammer had slammed his skull. In the same spray of fire, he was shot eight times across his chest, one bullet lodging in the Kevlar armor while seven flecked off.

It’s a great tale of a tragic battle on the very top of a 10,240 foot mountain peak. One more intersting quote:

A former SEAL had joined SOAR for thrills, and if that didn’t say enough already, in one of his first training sessions he was taking off a Chinook and was powering through 150 feet when his instructor in the next seat leaned over and shut down both engines. The SEAL’s eyes widened and he screamed, “What the f*ck are you doing?” The instructor folded his hands as the bird autorotated in its powerless descent, hard to earth.

Roberts Ridge: A Story of Courage and Sacrifice on Takur Ghar Mountain, Afghanistan.
[rating:5/5]