The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor (97 page)

Information about Nuristan and Kunar Provinces, and Afghanistan in general, came from many sources, including Katz and Strand as well as Richard Strand,
Nuristan Provincial Handbook: A Guide to the People and the Province,
ed. Nick Dowling and Tom Praster (Arlington, Virginia: IDS International, 2009). Additional information came from Jerry Meyerle, Megan Katt, and Jim Gavrilis,
Counterinsurgency on the Ground in Afghanistan: How Different Units Adapted to Local Conditions
(CNA Stability and Development Program, November 2010).

Information on the problematic borders was provided by Berkoff and Strand as well as by Joshua Foust, “Sub-National Administrative Boundary Discrepancies in Eastern Afghanistan,”
Cultural Knowledge Report
, August 7, 2008, Human Terrain System–Research Reachback Center.

Information about the insurgent attack on the three Marines came from an interview with the one survivor, Brian Molby.

Accounts of the mission in the Kotya Valley were provided by myriad interviewees, including Berkoff, Swain, Byers, Hawes, Cunningham, and Fisher.

George Scott Robertson’s book
The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush
was first published in 1896, in London, by Lawrence & Bullen.

Information about the Dawlat was taken from Daan Van Der Schriek, “Nuristan: Insurgent Hideout in Afghanistan,”
Terrorism Monitor
3:10, (May 2006), published by the Jamestown Foundation of Washington, D.C., as well as from Barnett Rubin,
The Fragmentation of Afghanistan,
2nd ed. (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2002).

Information about ethnic groups, as well as other details about the people of Nuristan, came from the aforementioned
Nuristan Provincial Handbook: A Guide to the People and the Province,
plus Strand and Katz.

Information on the presentation by the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth was provided by 3-71 Cav officers.

Chapter 4: War, Fate, and Wind

Descriptions of the mountaintop landing were provided by Pilozzi, Netzel, and Gooding.

Information about the Korangal Valley came from Nicholson, Katz, Strand, and Berkoff.

Information about Moquin and Netzel came from Netzel and from Vaillancourt, Moquin’s mother, who also shared the letter he wrote her.

Details about the hike were gathered from interviews with Hendy, Larson, Netzel, and Passman.

Details about the flora and fauna of the region came from interviews with troops from all four years covered in this book, as well as from
Wildlife Surveys and Wildlife Conservation in Nuristan, Afghanistan, Including Scat and Small Rodent Collection from Other Sites,
published in August 2008 by the Wildlife Conservation Society/United States Agency for International Development, Afghanistan Biodiversity Conservation Program.

Information about the operation at Chalas was provided by Brooks and Jorgensen.

Accounts of Fenty’s conversations were provided by Kristen Fenty and Nicholson. Information about Kristen’s delivery came from her and Miller.

The story of the L-RAS incident that Keating investigated is drawn from Keating’s “Memorandum for the Record: AR 15-6 Investigation Concerning the Destruction of LRAS, Serial Number: 0582, on Abbas Ghar Ridge,” obtained by the author, and from letters Keating wrote to his father describing his feelings about the matter.

With a script by Iva Hoth and illustrations by Andre Le Blanc,
The Picture Bible
was published by David C. Cook in 1978.

Keating’s conversations were drawn from his emails home as well as from interviews with Beth Keating and Timmons.

Chapter 5: “This Whole Thing Is a Bad Idea”

Accounts of the Chalas operation were provided by Brooks, Jorgensen, Netzel, and Berkoff.

Details about the helicopter crash were drawn from the Army’s investigation into the incident, as well as from interviews with Nicholson, Metheny, Rozman, Berkoff, Timmons, Brooks, Pilozzi, Cavoli, and Sears. The comments that Task Force Centaur’s commanders had done the troops “an injustice by sending them to war before they were ready,” that the “proficiency of crew members is not up to standards,” and that the Task Force was “at best marginally prepared to conduct air operations” in Afghanistan were taken from the report on the Army’s investigation into the helicopter crash.

Descriptions of the conversation between Joe and Kristen Fenty were provided in interviews with Kristen Fenty and Miller.

Chapter 6: Maybe That’s Just the Wind Blowing the Door

The aftermath of the accident was described by Brooks, Pilozzi, Timmons, and Nicholson. Information about thermal imaging and other details came from the report on the Army’s investigation into the crash, obtained by the author.

The account of Kristen Fenty’s hearing the news came from interviews with her, Richard and Gretchen Timmons, Nicholson, and Howard.

The emails from Ben Keating were provided by his father.

Chapter 7: Monuments to an Empire’s Hubris

Information about the plans to go to Kamdesh District and the meeting with the Kamdesh elders was taken from interviews with Swain, Snyder, Howard, Fisher, Byers, Timmons, and Berkoff.

The differences between Donahue’s and Nicholson’s views were extrapolated from interviews with both men.

Biographical information about Tamim Nuristani came from an interview with him.

Information about Snyder’s mission and subsequent ambush was provided in interviews with Snyder, Swain, Howard, Fisher, and Nicholson.

Information on the village-hopping plan was furnished by Howard and Berkoff. Details about the specific mission to Hill 2610 came from interviews with Howard, Flores, Schmidt, Brooks, Cunningham, and Grzecki.

Information on the illegal timber industry came from Yaroslav Trofimov, “Taliban Capitalize On Afghan Logging Ban,”
Wall Street Journal,
April 10, 2010, in addition to interviews with Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kolenda (source for book 2) and Lieutentant Colonel Brad Brown (source for books 2 and 3).

Information about Jared Monti was shared by his father, Paul Monti.

Chapter 8: Hill 2610

Information about the mission to Hill 2610 came from the Army investigation into the incident, as well as from interviews with Howard, Flores, Cunningham, Paul Monti, Hawes, Garner, Grzecki, Chambers, Smith, Linnihan, and Berkoff.

Information about Pat Lybert was provided by his mother, Cheryl Lee Nussberger (now Cheryl Lee Patrick).

Paul Monti expressed his thoughts during an interview.

Information about Brian Bradbury came from an interview with his mother, Rhonda Bradbury, and from a conversation he had with Garner.

Information about Heathe Craig was gleaned from an interview with his widow, Judy.

Details about the aftermath of the operation at Hill 2610 were taken from interviews with Nicholson, Howard, Berkoff, and Schmidt.

Chapter 9: “This Will Happen to You”

Information about the issues with the road came from an interview with Sugrue.

Whittaker recalled his concerns during an interview.

Information about the air assault onto Landing Zone Warheit was provided in interviews with Schmidt, Johnson, and Howard.

Information about projects in the area was gathered from interviews with Schmidt, Howard, Sugrue, Snyder, and Lang. Other information was taken from
The National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2005,
published by the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and the Central Statistics Office.

Information about medical aid for locals came from Schmidt, Johnson, and Araujo, as well as from ISAF cables about the incidents.

Information about Yunus and his murder was derived from interviews with Nicholson and Sugrue, Keating’s letters, intelligence sources, and ISAF cables.

Some information about the development projects was taken from Scott Peterson, “In Afghanistan, U.S. Troops Tackle Aid Projects–and Skepticism,”
Christian Science Monitor,
October 2, 2006; and idem, “Spinning Pop Tunes to Beat the Taliban,”
Christian Science Monitor,
October 4, 2006.

Chapter 10: The Abstract Threat of Terror

Brooks’s view of the outpost was conveyed in an interview with him.

The patrol up the hill to Kamdesh was described in interviews with Howard, Feagin, Johnson, Larson, Araujo, Howe, and Raynor.

Netzel described the patrol with Keating in an interview, and Keating wrote home about his experiences in letters shared by his father.

Chapter 11: The Enemy Gets a Vote

Information about the September 11, 2006, ambush came from interviews with Cline, Passman, Saenz, Boulio, Cerezo, and Netzel.

Information about the meeting between Gooding and Howard was taken from interviews with them.

Information on adrenaline was taken from Dave Grossman and Bruce K. Siddle, “Psychological Effects of Combat,” Academic Press, 2000.

Keating’s thoughts and remarks were excerpted from letters and emails to his father and to Gooding.

Information about the visit to Mandigal was provided in interviews with Saenz and Boulio.

Information about tensions between Keating and Gooding was taken from letters from Keating to his parents and interviews with Gooding.

Matthew Cole, “Watching Afghanistan Fall,”
Salon.com
, February 27, 2007.

Information about the shura came from interviews with Gooding, Feagin, and Cole.

Collateral-damage information was furnished by many troops interviewed who asked not to be identified.

Stambersky provided information about the ambush on his convoy, as did Berkoff and Gooding.

The account of the shift from PRT to outpost is based on interviews with Nicholson, Howard, Feagin, Berkoff, and Gooding.

Chapter 12: Matthias the Macedonian and the LMTV

Information about Howard’s order to drive the LMTV to the Kamdesh outpost came from Stambersky, Brooks, Berkoff, Sutton, and Gooding. When asked about it, Howard himself said he had no recollection of giving the order.

Information about the LMTV convoy to the outpost was provided by Stambersky, Williams, Brooks, Martin, Steele, and Coulter.

Information about the situation at the outpost upon Keating’s return came from interviews with Mathis, Gooding, Westbrook, and Ridgeway.

Keating’s “you do the math” quote appeared in Cole’s Salon story.

Steven Pressfield,
The Afghan Campaign
(New York: Broadway, 2006).

Keating’s feelings about being a liar were expressed in a letter home.

Information about the LMTV’s being parked at the Kamdesh outpost and about Keating’s decision to drive it to Forward Operating Base Naray came from interviews with Stambersky, Williams, Netzel, Cerezo, Johnson, and Gooding, and also from a copy of the report of the Army’s investigation into the LMTV rollover, obtained by the author.

Information about the LMTV’s rollover came from interviews with Cunningham, Gooding, Cerezo, Netzel, Mathis, and Garner, and also from the report of the Army’s investigation into the incident.

The instant messages between Keating and McDougal were shared by McDougal.

The description of Ken and Beth Keating’s hearing about their son’s death came from interviews with them.

Chapter 13: The 7-31

Information about winter at the outpost came from interviews with Gooding, Hendy, Cerezo, Sears, and Anderson.

Information about the ANA and its trainers was drawn from interviews with Best and Gooding.

Information about Buddy Hughie came from Best and from Hughie’s sister, Claiborn.

Information about the meeting with Governor Nuristani was provided by Nuristani and Nicholson, as well as by a memo about it obtained by the author.

The saga of Fazal Ahad was related in interviews with Nicholson, Gooding, and Berkoff, and also in ISAF memos obtained by the author.

Information about adrenaline came partly from David Swink, “Adrenaline Rushes: Can They Help Us Deal with a Real Crisis?,”
Psychology Today
’s “Threat Management” blog, January 31, 2010.

Information about the tour’s being extended was taken from interviews with Howard, Brooks, Berkoff, Jorgensen, and Eikenberry.

Eikenberry’s comments on the “violent spring” appeared in Robert Burns, “U.S. Commander Wants to Extend Some Combat Tours in Afghanistan as Violence Intensifies,” Associated Press, January 17, 2007.