The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Fought for a New Afghanistan

The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Fought for a New Afghanistan

by Eric Blehm
The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Fought for a New Afghanistan

The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Fought for a New Afghanistan

by Eric Blehm

eBook

$14.99  $19.99 Save 25% Current price is $14.99, Original price is $19.99. You Save 25%.

Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers

LEND ME® See Details

Overview

"The one book you must read if you have any hope of understanding what our fine American soldiers are up against in Afghanistan.” —Former Congressman Charlie Wilson

From the author of the award-winning THE LAST SEASON, the untold story of the U.S. Army Special Forces team that conquered the Taliban against overwhelming odds while protecting Hamid Karzai, viewed at the time as the country’s best hope for a successful, democratically-elected leader.

On a moonless night just weeks after September 11, 2001, a U.S. Special Forces team of Green Berets known as ODA 574 infiltrated the mountains of southern Afghanistan with a seemingly impossible mission: to foment a tribal revolt and force the Taliban to surrender. Armed solely with the equipment they could carry on their backs, shockingly scant intelligence, and their mastery of guerrilla warfare, Captain Jason Amerine and his ten men had no choice but to trust their only ally, a little-known Pashtun statesman named Hamid Karzai. Having returned from exile, Karzai—on the run from the Taliban—was traveling the countryside to raise a militia.

The Only Thing Worth Dying For chronicles the most important mission in the early days of the Global War on Terror, when the men on the ground knew little about the enemy—and their commanders in Washington knew even less. With unprecedented access to surviving members of ODA 574, key war planners, and Karzai himself, award-winning author Eric Blehm cuts through the noise of politicians and high-level military officials to narrate for the first time a story of uncommon bravery and terrible sacrifice, intimately exposing the realities of unconventional warfare and nation-building in Afghanistan that continue to shape the region today.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061959790
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 03/19/2024
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 513
Sales rank: 94,152
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Eric Blehm is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestsellers Fearless (soon to be a major motion picture) and The Only Thing Worth Dying For. His book The Last Season won the 2007 National Outdoor Book Award and was named by Outside magazine as one of the "greatest adventure biographies ever written."


Eric Blehm is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestsellers Fearless (soon to be a major motion picture) and The Only Thing Worth Dying For. His book The Last Season won the 2007 National Outdoor Book Award and was named by Outside magazine as one of the "greatest adventure biographies ever written."

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 A Most Dangerous Mission 3

2 The Quiet Professionals 21

3 To War 47

4 The Soldier and the Statesman 67

5 The Taliban Patrol 95

6 The Battle of Tarin Kowt 111

7 Credibility 139

8 Madness 161

9 Death on the Horizon 201

10 The Ruins 233

11 The Thirteenth Sortie 259

12 Futility 283

13 Rescue at Shawali Kowt 299

14 Worth Dying For 321

Epilogue 341

Map of Tarin Kowt 352

Map of Shawali Kowt 354

Acknowledgments 357

Selected Bibliography 363

Notes 367

What People are Saying About This

The Only Thing Worth Dying For is not only brilliant, it's the one book you must read if you have any hope of understanding what our fine American soldiers are up against in Afghanistan. --Former Congressman Charlie Wilson, of Charlie Wilson's War

Through careful reporting and crisp narrative pacing, Eric Blehm has given us a thrilling, forgotten drama from the opening chapter of the war in Afghanistan. The Only Thing Worth Dying For will become an enduring classic of this extraordinary theater, where so much hangs in the balance. --Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder

Eric Blehm has written a literary masterpiece about modern war. The whole witches' brew is here: valor, honor, heroism, cowardice, incompetence, stupidity, triumph, blood, death and despair. That America has soldiers like these should fill every American heart with pride. Read this book! --Stephen Coonts, bestselling author of Flight of the Intruder and The Disciple

The work of elite Special Forces is the subject of endless commentary, usually by those who know nothing about it. Blehm provides powerful and unflinching insight into a real-life mission that ended in tragedy but left an indelible mark on history. From the comic moments to the bleakest hour, it's a testament to how a small team of well-trained men can shape a nation's destiny. --Stephen Grey, award-winning author of Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA's Torture Program and Operation Snakebite: The Story of an Afghan Desert Siege

No other book has gone to such depths in research, nor been so descriptive in recounting this critical mission during the earliest days after 9/11 when the US Army Special Forces successfully waged unconventional warfare in Afghanistan. --Sergeant Major Billy Waugh, (US Army Special Forces Retired), author of Hunting the Jackal and Isaac Camacho, An American Hero

The greatest story of a small unit's battle through an untamed land since Lawrence of Arabia. --Adam Makos, editor, Valor Magazine

A captivating account of our heroic warriors -- a remarkable U.S. Army Special Forces unit's hard-fought success against incredible odds. It reads with the thrill of fiction -- but this is the damned deadly real deal. --W.E.B. Griffin & William E. Butterworth IV, bestselling authors of The Traffickers and The Honor of Spies

W.E.B. Griffin & William E. Butterworth IV

“A captivating account of our heroic warriors-a remarkable U.S. Army Special Forces unit’s hard-fought success against incredible odds. It reads with the thrill of fiction-but this is the damned deadly real deal.”

Stephen Coonts

“Eric Blehm has written a literary masterpiece about modern war. The whole witches’ brew is here: valor, honor, heroism, cowardice, incompetence, stupidity, triumph, blood, death and despair. That America has soldiers like these should fill every American heart with pride. Read this book!”

Billy Waugh

“No other book has gone to such depths in research, nor been so descriptive in recounting this critical mission during the earliest days after 9/11 when the US Army Special Forces successfully waged unconventional warfare in Afghanistan.”

Adam Makos

“The greatest story of a small unit’s battle through an untamed land since Lawrence of Arabia.”

Charlie Wilson

“The Only Thing Worth Dying For is not only brilliant, it’s the one book you must read if you have any hope of understanding what our fine American soldiers are up against in Afghanistan.”

Bob Woodruff

“A skillfully reported and masterfully written account of one of the most crucial moments of the War Against Terror. Blehm reminds us of the perils, the triumphs and the sacrifices made in the name of freedom.”

Stephen Grey

“Blehm provides powerful and unflinching insight into a real-life mission that ended in tragedy but left an indelible mark on history. From the comic moments to the bleakest hour, it’s a testament to how a small team of well-trained men can shape a nation’s destiny.”

Hampton Sides

“Through careful reporting and crisp narrative pacing, Eric Blehm has given us a thrilling, forgotten drama from the opening chapter of the war in Afghanistan. The Only Thing Worth Dying For will become an enduring classic of this extraordinary theater, where so much hangs in the balance.”

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews