Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, by Sean Naylor

It was dawn on March 2, 2002, and America’s first battle of the 21st century was about to begin. Soldiers of 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions flew into Afghanistan’s Shahikot Valley – and flew into hell. They were to pay a price in blood for strategic missteps at higher levels of command. Thinking the war in Afghanistan was virtually finished, senior Pentagon leaders at U.S. Central Command refused to commit the forces necessary for total victory at Shahikot Valley. Responsibility for fighting what would be the war’s biggest battle – a battle that afforded the chance to wipe out hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters and kill or capture some of the most senior terrorist leaders – was delegated instead to a hodgepodge of units thrown together at the last moment in a process their staff officers referred to as “ad hocracy.” The soldiers who flew into the Shahikot that bitter morning were carrying out a plan that had emerged from negotiation and compromise, and which was based on a series of flawed assumptions that underestimated the enemy’s strength and willingness to stand and fight. Author Sean Naylor exposes the mistakes behind a hellish mountaintop firefight in which seven brave Americans gave their lives. Not a Good Day to Die tells for the first time the extraordinary story of how 13 commandos drawn from America’s most secret units crept unseen over frozen ridgelines and through snow-clogged mountain passes into the midst of hundreds of hardened enemy fighters, and in so doing prevented a U.S. military catastrophe.

Not a Good Day to Die is not only a celebration of American troops’ courage and sacrifice; it is a depiction of jointness in a current setting, with all the inherent lessons learned, both positive and negative.

ISBN: 425207870
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Pub. Date: March 2005
Publisher: Berkley
Other Formats: Paperback, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, MP3 CD

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