Afghan Lessons May Change U.S. Warfare
W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 12 -- The response to the al Qaeda attacks on America was a military campaign unlike any in U.S. history.
Just 200 American soldiers on the ground for most of it — guiding massive U.S. air power and improvising as they went along — toppled a government and defeated an army in less than two months.
Never before had special operations teams played such a huge role in an American war. They turned ragged bands of Afghan militiamen into a conquering army.
The lessons they learned promise to reshape American warfare forever.
Only now are these soldiers sharing their experiences. Most still insist we not use their full names to protect their families. But here is a glimpse at their story.
Oct. 19
On a moonless night, U.S ground forces draw first blood.
It's a highly visible show of force, grabbing for just a few minutes a lightly guarded command post and airfield 60 miles from Kandahar. It is, in part, a diversion.
That same night, 300 miles to the north, two special forces "A" teams — each with about a dozen men — are secretly dropped onto remote mountainsides to establish the U.S. military's first contact with a group of Afghan warlords. They are known as the Northern Alliance and have been fighting the Taliban for years.
These elite American troops have never set foot in Afghanistan. They do not know the languages or the leaders. Only a handful of CIA operatives are on the ground ahead of them.
But these soldiers — mostly Army special forces — make an immediate impression on skeptical Afghan allies.
"We were like, where do you want the bombs? And they were like, yeah right. Like you can have a plane here in 10 minutes," said a special forces medic. "Ten minutes later a plane was coming in overhead, dropping bombs …. You want to talk about immediately establishing rapport with these people."
Nov. 5
Just 17 days after U.S. soldiers arrive, the first major offensive of the war begins high in the mountains south of the strategically important town of Mazar-e Sharif.
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