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Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda | 
 enlarge | Author: Sean Naylor
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  101 reviews
Sales Rank: 403006
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.2
ASIN: B000HT2OWQ
Publication Date: March 7, 2006
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Condition: *** Very Good *** Cover shelf worn, small tears or creases on edges *** Has remainder mark
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Product Description
Command refused to commit the forces required to achieve total victory in Afghanistan. Instead, they delegated responsibility for fighting the war's biggest battle-one that could have broken Al Qaeda and captured Osama bin Laden-to a hodge-podge of units thrown together at the last moment.
At dawn on March 2, 2002, America's first major battle of the 21st century began. Over 200 soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions flew into Afghanistan's Shahikot valley-and into the mouth of a buzz saw. They were about to pay a bloody price for strategic, higher-level miscalculations that underestimated the enemy's strength and willingness to fight.
Now, award-winning journalist Sean Naylor, an eyewitness to the battle, details the failures of military intelligence and planning, and vividly portrays the astonishing heroism of these young, untested U.S. soldiers. Denied the extra infantry, artillery, and attack helicopters with which they trained to go to war, these troops nevertheless proved their worth in brutal combat and-along with the exceptional daring of a small team of U.S. commandos-prevented an American military disaster.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 96 more reviews...
 Superb March 1, 2005
A reader
89 out of 95 found this review helpful
Mr. Naylor is a reporter with Army Times who has covered the military for many years. He displays an insider's understanding as to how military organizations plan and fight. This book is unique in the degree to which the author was able to get the participants to be interviewed; there are a great many details here you won't find anywhere else. He does a great job on the account of Anaconda, a large raid into a mountain stronghold in southeast Afghanistan, conducted in early 2002.
The author covers the planning for Anaconda, the infighting among different organizations, and the significant impact the Secretary of Defense's office had as the numbers of conventional forces were limited due to political considerations. Special operators, generals, infantrymen, apache gunship pilots, all have their voices heard. What happens when plans fall apart and soldiers have to pick up the pieces? It's all in here.
This is the best account of the Army post 9/11 that has been written, and it is highly unlikely you'll find one better anytime soon. A must read. If you have any interest in the military or national security, pick this up.
Adhocacy Hell March 18, 2005
F. Butler
81 out of 95 found this review helpful
Not a Good Day to Die is clearly the equal to the likes of Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers...Once and Young, and Thunder Run. The book is simply one of the finest accounts of modern combat that has ever been written. With that being said however, it is difficult, in a short narrative, to describe all of the troubling aspects about Operation Anaconda. The book illustrates, only too clearly, the fallacy of the term "unity of command" that the services bandy about and the consequences that result when there was, in fact, no "unity of command" in Afghanistan at least where Anaconda was concerned. Not a Good Day... depicts the failure to understand, despite the marvels of modern technology, that even a subset of ground battle cannot be run from thousands of miles away by an Air Force general officer who doesn't understand what is transpiring on the battlefield, even the nature of ground combat, and who will not listen to the people on the ground who do understand what is taking place. Equally as troubling was the apparent prohibition by Rumsfeld and Franks prohibiting, in an attempt to reduce the size of the American footprint, the Army from employing the fire support needed by the infantry - a constraint not placed on Al Qaida. Troubling also was the ad-hoc nature with which the Army slapped together disparate units while attempting to achieve a certain level of manning and the desire to put an Afghan face on the battle. Also shown is that while there is clearly a role for precision guided munitions such as the JDAM they are not a replacement for integral fire support nor will close air support always be available when needed - as was the case of the AC-130 gunships which were not permitted, according to Air Force directives during Anaconda, to fly support missions in daylight. Troubling also is the apparent belief, by some, that "boat guys" (SEALS) can be given a "shake and bake" course and turned into infantrymen. A couple of SEAL units performed outstandingly-overall however, as a Team, the SEALS were found to be wanting. While the military declares Anaconda a success, it, like the earlier operation at Tora Bora, appears to have allowed most of the Al Qaida fighters in the Shahikot area to slip away to fight another day.
An Excellent First Hand Account, but Hard to Follow Military Acronyms and Jargon October 4, 2005
Charlie Brown (Saudi Arabia)
26 out of 28 found this review helpful
This is a superb book about the fateful Operation Anaconda in the mountains of Afghanistan. As the author mentioned, it was a very complex set of events and the book must have been extremely difficult to write. Combat operations are like car wrecks, there are as many perspectives as witnesses. War is a dynamic set of events that are filled with improbable occurrences. For this reason it is most important to have excellent communication and coordination. During this operation both communication and coordination were lacking. This starts from the top on down. The President and the Secretary of Defense (SecDEf ) are to blame in both planning and distracting the top generals from combat operations. As William Kristol of the Weekly Standard put it, Rumsfeld's fundamental error is that his theory about the military is at odds with the president's geopolitical strategy. He wants this light, transformed military, but there is a real war to win, which involves using many troops and equipment to rebuild a critical region of the world. Thus the reluctance of the high command to commit the appropriate number of conventional troops and assets can be traced to this fundamental error Kristol refers. The book reflects this fact.
A brief summary of significant items of critical concern and lessons to be learned are as follows:
1. Overall strategy was that U.S. commanders were reluctant to put many American troops on the ground and had relied on their Afghan allies backed up by Special Forces. The American's faith were misplaced and the Afghan allies were not sufficient to block Osama bin Laden and his henchmen from escaping. Ref. page 10.
2. General Franks declined to commit conventional troops to stop enemy fighters from escaping, causing the fight to slip through Hagenbeck's fingers. Ref. page 12.
3. Special Forces had been created as part of the Army since 1952 and were treated as a bastard child. This did not keep CENTCOM from ensnaring Special Forces in a confusing and often conflicting chain of command that had nearly disastrous results. Ref. page 14.
4. There was no coordination between the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers. Both are excellent in their environments, but they operate differently.
5. The book is filled with complaints of lack of air support. On page 136 the author writes about Lieutenant General Chuck Wald, being the CFACC commander being replaced by Lieutenant General T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley. Wald had a background of flying the F-15E Strike Eagle, which is a ground attack role, and he understood the complex business of close air support. Moseley came from flying the F-15C, an air superiority fighter who had no experience in ground support. Wald had done an outstanding job and the change of commanders was made during the very complex, never-before-done operation in Afghanistan.
6. To augment the situation furthermore, Moseley and the CFLCC commander, Lieutenant Mikolashek had a personality conflict that trickled down through their respective organizations. To make matters worse, during the critical last week of February, when Moseley should have been working with Mikolashek's and Hagenbeck's headquarters, Moseley was not at his desk at Prince Sultan Air Base, but was touring capitals in the CENTCOM region laying the diplomatic groundwork for the war with Iraq (page 271).
7. As the author points out on page 132, there is an advantage to ground troops having artillery, especially if air support is in question. Especially during the daytime operations when the AC-130s could not operate and the enemy was the most active. At least a few artillery pieces would have relieved the burden of the daytime enemy attacks.
8. The Pentagon thinking that the war in Afghanistan was all but won and victory was assured. The belief was that the enemy resistance had all but collapsed. Intelligence agencies assessed that the enemy would not stand and fight (page 120).
9. This resulted in a loose organization being assembled with no definite chain of command and conflicting goals, operation tactics, and missions.
10. The commanders in the field had limited exposure to CENTCOM in Tampa, Florida because of morning and afternoon meeting with SecDEf every morning and afternoon. The field commanders were not allowed to communicate with the CENTCOM starting two ours before the meeting, making most of the day unavailable to the field commanders.
11. On page 303 the author describes the Air Force general Trebon, who had never commanded a ground combat operation before, was making tactical reconnaissance decisions.
12. The TF Blue officer Lieutenant Commander Vic Hyder is described on pages 300-323 as the one who made the fateful mistake of Takur Ghar. The author pointed out that Hyder by-passed Lt. Col. Pete Blaber, who was still in command of the APO.
The author looses one star with use of acronyms and military jargon that is hard to follow. The reader must read halfway through the book to figure some of the terms and references. For the people involved directly in the operation, these terms would probably be easy to comprehend. This is understandable trying to write about such a complex operation with so many misfires and events. I highly recommend this book for everyone trying to understand what is often not reported in the news. The author did an excellent job of piecing together a jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces.
 WOULD IT HAVE BEEN SO HARD TO insert A FEW MAPS ? March 20, 2005
A. Wilzig (NYC)
25 out of 40 found this review helpful
This book is driving me crazy. I've read 40 battle books and I've never seen so much TEXT wasted on describing "the 7 different passages and 11 different ridgelines" instead of just showing a simple diagram so the words have some meaning to the reader. I'm sure the SF guys who were there and the local Pashtun goat herders could follow right along - but I think the exclusion of diagrams and (photos for non-secret personel) keep this otherwise well-researched book from being great , or even captivating. The lack of same allows my mind to continually conjure images of Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd crossing the mountains in "Spies Like Us".....and I don't think that's what the author was hoping for.
Best Insight into the current American wars January 21, 2006
QR6 (New Mexico)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
Not a Good Day to Die is a must read for anyone who wants to understand what we should really be focusing on to change in our current military if we want to stay relevant in a future that will almost certainly be marked by uncertainty. I am a Reserve Officer who just returned from Iraq and I couldn't believe how many of the lessons I had highlighted in Naylor's book, were still relevant on the ground in Iraq. My son sent me a blog from an unknown author who I would love to thank because he sums up what I believe to be the seminal lesson from Not a Good Day to Die, and the key point we should focus on to improve our military in the future.
A brief discussion about the decisionmaking structure of U.S. land forces. The most remarkable examination of this topic is Sean Naylor's recent book on Operation Anaconda, an American effort in 2002 to trap and destroy a force of hundreds of al Qaeda warriors in a valley in Afghanistan. Naylor's book, Not a Good Day to Die, is far too detailed to come close to summarizing here. But two themes reappear throughout Naylor's narrative.
First, the American military has grown higher headquarters like weeds in rich soil. Meetings over Operation Anaconda, a single operation planned for three days and thought to be aimed against 200 enemy, involved absurd numbers of competing organizations -- and, therefore, competing operational styles and agendas. Here's a typical laundry list for a single meeting: "Representatives from K-Bar, the CIA, Task Force 11, CFLCC, the Coalition and Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force, and Task Force Rakkasan had been invited." And this list is hardly a complete reflection of all the different headquarters involved in Anaconda. As Naylor summarizes: "For a battle that would involve perhaps 2,000 allied troops -- less than a brigade's worth -- in combat, CENTCOM had cobbled together a force that drew elements from eight countries, two U.S. Army divisions, two Special Forces groups, a hodgepodge of aviation units, and a variety of clandestine organizations." Each piece of that stew had its own leadership, with its own agenda and intent. A critical American military effort had become wildly and pointlessly complicated. Four-star generals reviewed plans down to the platoon level.
Second, the coordination of those many different elements and agendas meant that painfully negotiated plans became locked into place simply because they were painfully negotiated. After members of a Delta Force team pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of walking up the side of a mountain in the Afghan winter to get a firsthand look at the valley, operation leaders received reports that there were somewhere around 1000 enemy, not the 200 the American plans had called for -- and then they learned further that the enemy was not in the valley, where the plans put them, but were instead on the high ground around it. Leaders of the battle decided to go ahead with the plan as written, reluctant to throw out weeks of hard-fought staff work on the word of Lt. Col. Peter Blaber's Delta operators. The plans trumped reality, because the plans had come with political and institutional costs.
Finally, one of the ways that Army officers managed the problem of ignoring the Delta Force intelligence showing 1000 enemy on the high ground was to regard the special operators who delivered that intelligence as out-of-control and untrustworthy. Leaders ridiculed the Delta team reports, and "mocked the independent role that Blaber had carved out by calling him 'Peter the Great' and 'Colonel Kurtz.'" The enforcement of institutional orthodoxy allowed leaders to ignore realistic bad news. Today's U.S. Army in a nutshell, right there.
There's much more to Naylor's book, which is so far one of the very few critical pieces of insight into the current American wars. (The battle, by the way, went poorly.)
To summarize, then -- sorry about that -- a too-hierarchical, too-orthodox U.S. Army, and U.S. military in general, leans heavily on lumbering equipment, high technology, and major ground offensives against an enemy that relies on tactics that are often not even conventionally military in nature; we mass artillery against threatening letters and infrastructure sabotage. In equipment, doctrine, tactics, and leadership structure, we're organized for the wrong enemy, in ways that can't be easily or quickly changed.
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