Roberts Ridge

June 27, 2005
On March 2, 2002, U.S. intelligence launched Operation Anaconda; having noted a concentration of al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, they dispatched MAKO-30, a seven-man navy SEAL reconnaissance team, attempted a helicopter landing on Takur Ghar, the highest overlooking peak. Tasked with calling in air strikes, MAKO-30 found its landing zone to be a well-concealed al-Qaeda camp; the team's Chinook helicopter was driven off by withering ground fire. When SEAL Neil Roberts fell out of the chopper, the others insisted on going back for him. With the team pinned down by enemy fire and facing annihilation, commanders dispatched a quick reaction force of army Rangers to rescue them. Thus began a harrowing 17-hour drama every bit as perilous and courageous as the Rangers' ill-fated Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia; novelist (Deadlock
) and journalist (The Black Box
) MacPherson eloquently captures this gripping tale, based on interviews with many of the survivors and access to the army's after-action report. And while the battle "played no part in the success of Anaconda," and was in fact a distraction for decision makers, the army after-action report cites the troops' "conspicuous bravery" and "countless acts of heroism"—all of which MacPherson captures with aplomb.

September 15, 2005
This is a real-life thriller with not quite the triumphant ending that fiction often provides, to be sure, but relating a great many hard-won lessons. In March 2002 a team of U.S. Navy SEALs attempted the capture of Takur Ghar, a 10,000-foot-high mountain whose seizure would give the American forces in Afghanistan a key observation post. But the mountain was defended, and when the special forces helicopter reached the peak, it was shredded by enemy fire, and Petty Officer First Class Neil Roberts was thrown from the aircraft. His fellow SEALs were determined to bring him out. This is the story of that attempt. Well told and frightening as well as true, this is a book that bridges the breach between the increasingly professional American military and a civilian culture possessing little knowledge or experience of the military. Though not the only such book, one of the best recent ones.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)