No Way Out: A Story of Valor in the Mountains of Afghanistan

by Mitch Weiss, Kevin Maurer

Overview

In a remote, enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them…

The team was caught in a deadly ambush that not only threatened their lives, but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them. With total disregard for their own safety, they tended to their wounded and kept fighting to stay alive. When the battle finally ended, ten soldiers had earned Silver Stars—the Army’s third highest award for combat valor. It was the most Silver Stars awarded to any unit in one battle since Vietnam.
 
Based on dozens of interviews with those who were there, No Way Out is a compelling narrative of an epic battle that not only tested the soldiers’ mettle but serves as a cautionary tale. Be careful what you ask a soldier to do because they will die trying to accomplish their mission.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425253403
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/31/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mitch Weiss is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist for the Associated Press. In 2003, he was assigned to an investigative series that uncovered the longest string of atrocities carried out by a U.S. fighting unit in the Vietnam War. In recognition of the series “Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths,” which led to an investigation by the Pentagon, he was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Weiss currently works for the AP on investigative projects, and an investigative series he wrote about corrupt real estate appraisers won several national awards in 2009. He also was part of a team of AP reporters that won a George Polk Award in 2010 for their coverage of the British Petroleum oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Kevin Maurer has covered special operations forces for eight years. He has been embedded with the U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan six times in the last five years and spent ten weeks with a team of Green Berets in Afghanistan in 2010. He has embedded with American soldiers in Iraq, east Africa and Haiti.

Table of Contents

Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 3336

Captain Kyle M. Walton

Master Sergeant Scott Ford

Staff Sergeant Luis Morales

Staff Sergeant John Wayne Walding

Staff Sergeant Dillon Behr

Staff Sergeant Ronald J. Shurer

Specialist Michael D. Carter

Staff Sergeant Seth E. Howard

Staff Sergeant David J. Sanders

Staff Sergeant Matthew O. Williams

Staff Sergeant Zachary Rhyner

Sergeant First Class Karl Wurzbach

Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 3312

Master Sergeant Jim Lodyga

Staff Sergeant Eric Martin

Staff Sergeant Nick McGarry

Sergeant First Class Sergio Martinez

Staff Sergeant Dan Plants

Special Forces Commanders

Brigadier General Joe Votel

Colonel Christopher Haas

Lieutenant Colonel Lynn Ashley

Major Timothy Fletcher

Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddnin or HIG

Haji Ghafour

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

Kashmir Khan

Afghan Interpreters (TERPS)

Edris "CK" Khan

Blade

Bouya

Mustafa

Max

Noodles

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"OP Commando Wrath was an operational marshmallow of the highest order where Mission Impossible and Murphy’s Law collided head on with some of the meanest mothers in the valley—Green Berets from ODA 3336. It’s Blackhawk Down in the Afghan Mountains!"—Dalton Fury, author of Black Site
"The book is not just a cautionary tale in warfare, but a powerful portrait of the men who fought to save each other from certain death."—Michael D. Sallah, investigative reporter for The Miami Herald and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting

"It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to know how modern battles are fought—and how they should be."—Ames Alexander, award-winning investigative reporter with The Charlotte Observer
"In this compelling, multi-dimensional account, Weiss and Maurer remind us of the extraordinary risks soldiers take and the sacrifices they make every day both for their country, and for each other."—Publishers Weekly

Michael Repass

It was simultaneously fascinating and disturbing, and an adrenaline rush to hear it first-hand from the operator's perspective... They are fiercely loyal to each other and our nation, and offer the enemy no quarter when the bullets start flying. You have captured all these with your words. Combat vets will read it and "get it" right away. Americans who have no connection with such men of valor ought to read it to understand what intense combat can be like.

Ames Alexander

Take a post-9/11 version of Black Hawk Down, put it in the hands of two gifted writers like Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer and here’s what you get: an adrenaline-fueled narrative that will forever enhance your appreciation of U.S. Special Forces. What’s it like to fight an ill-conceived mission against well-trained insurgents who command the high ground? What’s it like to lower colleagues with life-threatening bullet wounds down an Afghan cliff? With meticulous reporting and powerful writing, Weiss and Maurer put us there. It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to know how modern battles are fought – and how they should be.

Editorial Reviews

"OP Commando Wrath was an operational marshmallow of the highest order where Mission Impossible and Murphy’s Law collided head on with some of the meanest mothers in the valley—Green Berets from ODA 3336. It’s Blackhawk Down in the Afghan Mountains!"—Dalton Fury, author of Black Site
"The book is not just a cautionary tale in warfare, but a powerful portrait of the men who fought to save each other from certain death."—Michael D. Sallah, investigative reporter for The Miami Herald and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting

"It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to know how modern battles are fought—and how they should be."—Ames Alexander, award-winning investigative reporter with The Charlotte Observer

"In this compelling, multi-dimensional account, Weiss and Maurer remind us of the extraordinary risks soldiers take and the sacrifices they make every day both for their country, and for each other."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Weiss and Maurer (coauthor, Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds)—who in the past five years has embedded six times with the U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan—detail the team's ill-fated 2008 mission in eastern Afghanistan's Shok Valley, a place "isolated and surrounded by a wall of mountains." The soldiers had been tasked to capture Haji Ghafour, a high-ranking commander of an extreme militant group. Through interviews with the men involved, the authors provide captivating individual perspectives on the undertaking. Captain Kyle Walton believed the assignment was flawed from the beginning; the authors write that "Not only did the basic tactical plan of attacking up a mountain not work, but it was unclear how they would evacuate casualties." Staff Sergeant John Wayne Walding—who had joined the army just months before 9/11 for "a job where you can ‘lay down your head at night and be proud of it'"—would ultimately lose part of his leg. It was his first and last deployment with Special Forces. Like many of the men in his unit (also profiled in the book) Walding would be honored with a Silver Star. In this compelling, multi-dimensional account, Weiss and Maurer remind us of the extraordinary risks soldiers take and the sacrifices they make every day both for their country, and for each other. B&W Photos & maps. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

It was simultaneously fascinating and disturbing, and an adrenaline rush to hear it first-hand from the operator's perspective... They are fiercely loyal to each other and our nation, and offer the enemy no quarter when the bullets start flying. You have captured all these with your words. Combat vets will read it and "get it" right away. Americans who have no connection with such men of valor ought to read it to understand what intense combat can be like.

Maj. Gen. Michael Repass

Take a post-9/11 version of Black Hawk Down, put it in the hands of two gifted writers like Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer and here’s what you get: an adrenaline-fueled narrative that will forever enhance your appreciation of U.S. Special Forces. What’s it like to fight an ill-conceived mission against well-trained insurgents who command the high ground? What’s it like to lower colleagues with life-threatening bullet wounds down an Afghan cliff? With meticulous reporting and powerful writing, Weiss and Maurer put us there. It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to know how modern battles are fought – and how they should be.

Ames Alexander