Semper Fi

I just finished a new book detailing the Marines' fight for security in the Hindu Kush (Afghanistan) back in 2005. It's an often-harrowing tale of endurance and courage against long odds. In other words, it's exactly what we've come to expect from Marines.

Victory Point: Operations Red Wings and Whalers—The Marine Corps' Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan, by Ed Darack. Berkley Caliber, $25.95 (316p) ISBN 978-0-425-22619-3

In the summer of 2005, the Second Battalion, Third Marine Regiment (2/3 Marines) conducted two operations—Red Wings and Whalers, named after National Hockey League teams—in Afghanistan's isolated and forbidding Hindu Kush region. The first was a disaster; the second, "a masterpiece of light infantry operations." Writer/photographer Darack was there—a Marine embed—and reports in this paean to Marine courage and sacrifice.

When the 2/3 Marines arrived in Kunar Province in the rugged border region of northeast Afghanistan in 2005, it was the "most austere" and "least tamed" pocket of the country. Its valleys housed "some of the most dedicated, well-trained, and fervent Islamic fighters" in the world. The 2/3 Marines' primary mission was to establish security in the run-up to national elections in the fall.

The chief threat to security in the area was Ahmad Shah, a rising Taliban leader. Operations Red Wings and Whalers were designed to isolate and destroy Shah's small, but growing army.

Red Wings was a joint op with SOF (Special Operations Forces) and was compromised when a SEAL (Navy Special Operations) reconnaissance team was spotted and attacked. Racing to reinforce the SEALs, a Chinook flown by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) was shot down by Shah's fighters. All sixteen on board were killed: "the greatest disaster for the 160th, Navy Special Operations Forces, and all of USSOCOM [U.S. Special Operations Command] since the command's founding in 1987." Of the SEAL recon team, only one member—badly wounded—managed to escape.

The Marines extracted their revenge in Whalers. Despite having to overcome the opposition of risk-averse and micro-managing senior commanders and operating in intolerable conditions—at high altitude and under searing temperatures—the Marines flushed Shah's army out its sanctuaries, blocked its escape route, and decimated it.

It's an important and largely overlooked—until now—story of incredible endurance and courage. It deserves to be told.

I respect and admire Marines, but I have a couple of problems with the author's account. First, the narrative is weighed down by rambling sentences and melodramatic prose. The reader would be better served if the author used more periods and less colons, semicolons, commas, and dashes.

Second, the Marines would be better served if the author was less worshipful. I have no doubt that the Marines of 2/3 fought valiantly against long odds in the Hindu Kush and deserve recognition and honor. But, balance equals credibility. Darack is entirely uncritical in the case of 2/3's Marines. That strains credulity.

That said, Darack's detailed account of the two operations puts the reader in the middle of the action and reveals today's Marines to be worthy successors to those who fought at Belleau Wood, Edson's Ridge, Chosin Reservoir, and Hue City.