Book Review: Major’s comments highlight well-told story of Kandahar battle - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

Book Review: Major’s comments highlight well-told story of Kandahar battle

There’s no big-picture analysis. Instead, there’s a big fight for a little hill, and as exposition without pretense, the details of the battle make a big impact.

How “the actions of the 3rd Special Forces Group soldiers, the [International Security Assistance Force] and their Afghan Army allies disrupted the largest-ever Taliban offensive aimed at taking over Kandahar City” is a well-paced narrative.

The authors — Army Special Forces Maj. Rusty Bradley and Kevin Maurer, a newspaper reporter with a dozen embeds — know the territory and the trials.

Bradley returns to Afghanistan in 2006, and his third time might not be the charm. “The first thing I noticed when I walked in [to headquarters] was the memorial wall. … I fought back tears for my friends. It happened every time I came back.”

The title comes from Bradley giving Afghan soldiers his can-do “football-coach-before-the-big-game-speech. … You are the Lions of Kandahar! You are the protectors of southern Afghanistan!”

Sperwan Ghar is “a tall hill” and ideal spot for calling down “hellish airstrikes.” Against the odds, 30 Green Berets and 50 Afghan soldiers and air support repel counterattacks, kill or wound “nearly 800 enemy fighters including eight Taliban commanders” and liberate “a valley the Soviets never conquered.”

Aside from the straightforward story, part of what makes “Lions” likable is the occasional aside from Bradley:

• “The Apaches were making a final gun run before turning sharply back toward Kandahar. They unloaded everything they had. … I vowed right there and then to keep at least $20 in my pocket in case I ever ran into a thirsty gunship pilot.”

• “The first two minutes of a fight are the most precious. You know who you are up against in the first 30 seconds, if you live that long.”

• “You can’t cram a soldier into boots and equipment made by the lowest bidder and mass produced for every soldier. … That’s why most special operations soldiers wear civilian hiking boots.”

• “A general somewhere in the chain of command had moved up the attack without conducting a reconnaissance of the target. … I am never amazed that certain generals, however far away they are, know more about the battlefield than those standing on it.”

• “I had cheated death but now I knew I wasn’t bulletproof — not a feeling you want to have in the middle of a firefight.”