First Casualty
The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11
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Narrated by:
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Dan Woren
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By:
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Toby Harnden
About this listen
"Harnden skillfully interweaves dramatic action sequences with the backstories of the book’s central figures, and briskly highlights the failures of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Readers will be swept up in this little-known chapter of America’s 'forever war.'" (Publishers Weekly)
This dramatic true story reveals the secret mission of the eight members of the CIA’s Team Alpha, the first Americans to be dropped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan after 9/11.
America is reeling; Al-Qaeda has struck, and thousands are dead. The country scrambles to respond, but the Pentagon has no plan for Afghanistan - where Osama bin Laden masterminded the attack and is protected by the Taliban. Instead, the CIA steps forward to spearhead the war. Eight CIA officers are dropped into the mountains of Northern Afghanistan on October 17, 2001. They are Team Alpha, an eclectic band of linguists, tribal experts, and elite warriors: the first Americans to operate inside Taliban territory. Their covert mission is to track down Al-Qaeda and stop the terrorists from infiltrating the United States again.
First Casualty places you with Team Alpha as the CIA rides into battle on horseback alongside the warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. In Washington, DC, few trust that the CIA men, the Green Berets, and the Americans’ outnumbered Afghan allies can prevail before winter sets in. On the ground, Team Alpha is undeterred. The Taliban is routed but hatches a plot with Al-Qaeda to hit back. Hundreds of suicidal fighters, many hiding weapons, fake a surrender and are transported to Qala-i Jangi - the “Fort of War”.
Team Alpha’s Mike Spann, an ex-Marine, and David Tyson, a polyglot former Central Asian studies academic, seize America’s initial opportunity to extract intelligence from men trained by bin Laden - among them a young Muslim convert from California. The prisoners revolt and one CIA officer falls - the first casualty in America’s longest war, which will last two decades. The other CIA man shoots dead the Al-Qaeda jihadists attacking his comrade. To survive, he must fight his way out against overwhelming odds.
Award-winning author Toby Harnden gained unprecedented access to all living Team Alpha members and every level of the CIA. Superbly researched, First Casualty draws on extensive interviews, secret documents, and deep reporting inside Afghanistan. As gripping as any adventure novel, yet intimate and profoundly moving, it tells how America found a winning strategy only to abandon it. Harnden reveals that the lessons of early victory and the haunting foretelling it contained - unreliable allies, ethnic rivalries, suicide attacks, and errant US bombs - were ignored, tragically fueling a 20-year conflict.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Critic reviews
"Run, don’t walk to pick this up. Toby Harnden has done a masterful job.... What a powerful read." (James Gagliano, former senior FBI officer)
"This is Afghanistan's Black Hawk Down.... Harnden’s account is both well-informed and panoramic." (Daily Telegraph)
"The hard-to-imagine drama, in the hands of another narrator, could easily turn overwrought; in this book, it is not. First Casualty is rife with heroic moments. But it is the variety of the human reactions in those moments, and afterward, that separates this book from others. Fear, combat fatigue, and sadness appear often in the narrative.... This book is compelling, sometimes disturbing, but in a necessary way." (Philip Mudd, former senior CIA officer, The Cipher Brief)
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Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area’s rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it a natural hiding spot for local insurgents and international terrorists alike, and it came to represent both the valor and futility of America’s two-decade-long Afghan war.
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A walk through time
- By Brandon Kennedy on 04-12-21
By: Wesley Morgan
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All Secure
- A Special Operations Soldier's Fight to Survive on the Battlefield and the Homefront
- By: Tom Satterly, Steve Jackson
- Narrated by: Tom Satterly
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As a senior non-commissioned officer of Delta Force, the most elite and secretive special operations unit in the US military, Command Sergeant Major Tom Satterly fought some of this country's most fearsome enemies. Tom is a legend even among other Tier One special operators. Yet the enemy that cost him three marriages, and ruined his health physically and psychologically, existed in his brain. Told through Satterly's firsthand experiences, it also weaves in the reasons for his career-long battle against the most insidious enemy of all: post-traumatic stress.
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- One of those books that truly make a difference
- By henry on 12-21-19
By: Tom Satterly, and others
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Mosul
- Australia's Secret War Inside the ISIS Caliphate
- By: Ben Mckelvey
- Narrated by: Nick Farnell
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Taking us from the suburbs of Western Sydney and Australia's military army bases, to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, this is a remarkable audiobook that reveals the as-yet untold story of the battle for Mosul and the secret involvement of Australians on both sides of the war - both our commandos and Australian ISIS fighters. Mosul details the rise of ISIS influence in Australia, the Iran and Australia allegiance to fight Daesh and shows what led up to the battle and the ramifications that are still being felt at home - by our soldiers and the victims of that war.
By: Ben Mckelvey
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Masters of Chaos
- The Secret History of Special Forces
- By: Linda Robinson
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Special Forces soldiers are daring, seasoned troops from America's heartland, selected in a tough competition and trained in an extraordinary range of skills. They know foreign languages and cultures and unconventional warfare better than any US fighters, and while they prefer to stay out of the limelight, veteran war correspondent Linda Robinson gained access to their closed world. She traveled with them on the frontlines, interviewed them at length on their home bases, and studied their doctrine, methods, and history.
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Story of Special Forces
- By Austin Pearson on 02-28-18
By: Linda Robinson
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The Warriors of Anbar
- The Marines Who Crushed Al Qaeda - the Greatest Untold Story of the Iraq War
- By: Ed Darack, James E. Donnellan - foreword
- Narrated by: James Edward Thomas
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment ("2/3") arrived in the little-known "Haditha Triad" region of western Iraq's Al Anbar Province in September of 2006, the region exploded in a storm of terrorist violence. The most battle-hardened of Al Qaeda had fled to the Triad, and, taking their last, desperate gasps for survival after years of bloody war, lashed out at the battalion with everything they could muster.
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Amazing story.
- By David Moseley on 02-11-20
By: Ed Darack, and others
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Eyes on Target
- Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs
- By: Scott McEwen, Richard Miniter
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Told through the eyes of current and former Navy SEALs, Eyes on Target is an inside account of some of the most harrowing missions in American history-including the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and the mission that wasn't, the deadly attack on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi where a retired SEAL sniper with a small team held off one hundred terrorists while his repeated radio calls for help went unheeded.
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Just an attempt to cash in
- By John on 09-24-16
By: Scott McEwen, and others
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Alone at Dawn
- Medal of Honor Recipient John Chapman and the Untold Story of the World's Deadliest Special Operations Force
- By: Dan Schilling, Lori Longfritz
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel, Betsy Foldes Meiman
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the predawn hours of March 4, 2002, just below the 10,000-foot peak of a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, a fierce battle raged. Outnumbered by Al Qaeda fighters, Air Force Combat Controller John Chapman and a handful of SEALs struggled to take the summit in a desperate bid to find a lost teammate. Chapman, leading the charge, was gravely wounded in the initial assault. Believing he was dead, his SEAL leader ordered a retreat. Chapman regained consciousness, alone with the enemy closing in on three sides, beginning the most difficult and exceptional fight of his life.
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Wasted chance to honor a hero.
- By Scott on 07-11-19
By: Dan Schilling, and others
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Swords of Lightning
- Green Beret Horse Soldiers and America's Response to 9/11
- By: Mark Nutsch, Bob Pennington, Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
They landed in a dust storm so thick the pilot used dead reckoning and a guess to find the ground. Welcomed by a band of heavily armed militiamen, they climbed a mountain on horseback to meet the most ferocious warlord in Asia. They plotted a war of nineteenth-century maneuvers against a twenty-first-century foe. They trekked through minefields, sometimes past the mangled bodies of local tribesmen who'd shared food with them hours before. The men they helped called them brothers. Hollywood called them the Horse Soldiers. They called themselves Green Berets—Special Forces ODA 595.
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Very timely
- By Mary E. Dasaro on 08-08-22
By: Mark Nutsch, and others
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Imperial Grunts
- On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond...
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Plunging deep into midst of some of the hottest conflicts on the globe, Robert D. Kaplan takes us through mud and jungle, desert and dirt to the men and women on the ground who are leading the charge against threats to American security. These soldiers, fighting in thick Colombian jungles or on dusty Afghani plains, are the forefront of the new American foreign policy, a policy being implemented one soldier at a time.
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Excellent book
- By Rob on 10-03-05
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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Full Battle Rattle
- My Story as the Longest-Serving Special Forces A-Team Soldier in American History
- By: Ralph Pezzullo, Changiz Lahidji
- Narrated by: Eric Pollins
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Master Sergeant Changiz Lahidji served on Special Forces A teams longer than anyone in history, completing over a hundred combat missions in Afghanistan. Changiz is a Special Forces legend. He also happens to be the first Muslim Green Beret. Changiz served this country starting with Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when he entered Tehran on a one-man mission to spy on Iranian soldiers guarding the US embassy where 52 US diplomats were being held hostage.
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They need to find a narrator who knows military.
- By Kevin M. Staples on 05-03-18
By: Ralph Pezzullo, and others
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Jawbreaker
- The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander
- By: Gary Berntsen, Ralph Pezzullo
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Jawbreaker, Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA's most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
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A great read (err - Listen)
- By Joshua on 07-01-08
By: Gary Berntsen, and others
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Why We Lost
- A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
- By: Daniel Bolger
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 20 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Over a 35-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions - unusual for a general.
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An apolitical account of our recent wars.
- By DMgraphicGlass on 04-07-15
By: Daniel Bolger
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Night Fighter
- An Insider's Story of Special Ops from Korea to SEAL Team 6
- By: William H. Hamilton Jr., Charles W. Sasser
- Narrated by: Bill Thatcher
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, when President John F. Kennedy pressed Congress about America’s “urgent national needs”, he named expanding US special operations forces along with putting a man on the moon. Captain William Hamilton was the officer tasked with creating the finest unconventional warriors ever seen. Merging his own experience commanding Navy Underwater Demolition Teams with expertise from Army Special Forces and the CIA, and working with his subordinate, Roy Boehm, he cast the mold for sea-, air-, and land-dispatched night fighters.
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OK story
- By dexter on 03-16-20
By: William H. Hamilton Jr., and others
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Truth Worth Telling
- By: Scott Pelley
- Narrated by: Scott Pelley
- Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A 60 Minutes correspondent and former anchor of the CBS Evening News, Scott Pelley writes as a witness to events that changed our world. In moving, detailed prose, he stands with firefighters at the collapsing World Trade Center on 9/11, advances with American troops in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reveals private moments with presidents (and would-be presidents) he’s known for decades. Pelley also offers a resounding defense of free speech and a free press as the rights that guarantee all others.
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A great listen... worth your time
- By Christina on 05-26-19
By: Scott Pelley
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First In
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Directorate S
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Resuming the narrative of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, best-selling author Steve Coll tells for the first time the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.
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Slow At Times But Always Horrifying And Engaging
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Swords of Lightning
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They landed in a dust storm so thick the pilot used dead reckoning and a guess to find the ground. Welcomed by a band of heavily armed militiamen, they climbed a mountain on horseback to meet the most ferocious warlord in Asia. They plotted a war of nineteenth-century maneuvers against a twenty-first-century foe. They trekked through minefields, sometimes past the mangled bodies of local tribesmen who'd shared food with them hours before. The men they helped called them brothers. Hollywood called them the Horse Soldiers. They called themselves Green Berets—Special Forces ODA 595.
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Very timely
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Alone at Dawn
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In the predawn hours of March 4, 2002, just below the 10,000-foot peak of a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, a fierce battle raged. Outnumbered by Al Qaeda fighters, Air Force Combat Controller John Chapman and a handful of SEALs struggled to take the summit in a desperate bid to find a lost teammate. Chapman, leading the charge, was gravely wounded in the initial assault. Believing he was dead, his SEAL leader ordered a retreat. Chapman regained consciousness, alone with the enemy closing in on three sides, beginning the most difficult and exceptional fight of his life.
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-
Wasted chance to honor a hero.
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Relentless Strike
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Overall
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Performance
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Relentless Strike tells the inside story of Joint Special Operations Command, the secret military organization that, during the past decade, has revolutionized counterterrorism, seamlessly fusing intelligence and operational skills to conduct missions that hit the headlines and those that have remained in the shadows - until now. Because JSOC includes the military's most storied special operations units - Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, the 75th Ranger Regiment - as well as America's most secret aviation and intelligence units, this is their story, too.
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Horrible narrator
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The Art of Intelligence
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Overall
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Performance
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A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert here tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions. The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Henry Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever.
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Looking for a place in History?
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The Black Banners (Declassified)
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Widely heralded on publication as a “must-read” (Military Review) and “important window on America’s battle with al-Qaeda” (Washington Post), Ali Soufan’s revelatory account of the war on terror as seen from its front lines changed the way we understand al-Qaeda and how the United States prosecuted the war — and led to hard questions being asked of our leaders.
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Magnificent !
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The Afghanistan Papers
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- By: Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: Defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off-course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives.
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Eye-Opening Book
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By: Craig Whitlock, and others
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The Only Thing Worth Dying For
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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Ending is..... can't even put a word to it.
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12 Strong
- The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
12 Strong is the dramatic account of a small band of Special Forces soldiers who secretly entered Afghanistan following 9/11 and rode to war on horses against the Taliban. Outnumbered 40 to one, they pursued the enemy army across the mountainous Afghanistan terrain and, after a series of intense battles, captured the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The bone-weary American soldiers were welcomed as liberators as they rode into the city. Then the action took a wholly unexpected turn.
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Terrible Narrator
- By Julie-Ana on 12-31-16
By: Doug Stanton
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Razor 03
- A Night Stalker’s Wars
- By: Alan C. Mack
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The attacks of September 11, 2001, prompted the creation of a robust and deadly special operations force—Task Force Dagger. Alan C. Mack, Callsign Razor 03, led a team of MH-47E helicopters and armed MH-60s. Their two-fold mission–Personnel Recovery (PR) and Unconventional Warfare (UW) involved flying in terrain and weather previously not thought possible. If that wasn’t enough, they pushed the flight envelope of their specially modified Chinooks to the limit and beyond.
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The honesty of the author
- By Daniel on 06-10-24
By: Alan C. Mack
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The Chosen Few
- A Company of Paratroopers and Its Heroic Struggle to Survive in the Mountains of Afghanistan
- By: Gregg Zoroya, William H. McRaven - foreward
- Narrated by: Gregg Zoroya
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A single company of US paratroopers—calling themselves the "Chosen Few"—arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides.
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Wow! What an amazing group of men!
- By Myla on 06-22-18
By: Gregg Zoroya, and others
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The Unexpected Spy
- From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists
- By: Tracy Walder, Jessica Anya Blau
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder's tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steel-walled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion.
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This book is word redacted CIA review
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By: Tracy Walder, and others
What listeners say about First Casualty
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- Anonymous User
- 06-25-23
Couldn’t stop listening
Incredible book about the aftermath of 9/11 and the role of The Alpha Team. Really gives you prospective of what they encountered and their incredible stories of heroism. The narrator was terrific!
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- D. Silva
- 09-23-24
Outstanding Read
Excellent read on the experience and backgrounds of America’s brave fighters and clandestine efforts in the wake of 9/11. The author is not afraid to pull punches regarding the strategy from higher ups while also offering an honest insight to the individual experiences of operators on the field… which is an amazing task in itself. Highly recommend.
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- Andrew M.
- 12-12-22
A great insight to the events that shaped our war in Afghanistan.
The story can be a bit choppy trying to get everyone’s back stories to set up the tale. Still it was eye opening how effective the war was at its start and could have been if politics and leadership hadn’t impeded the process.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 03-04-23
Excellent Telling of an Amazing Story
Mr. Harnden is an excellent writer. He successfully develops the character and personalities of the primary subjects while seamlessly and simultaneously painting a detailed picture of everything from the geo-political environment at Langley, The Pentagon and the White House situation room down to the sights, sounds and smells of the combatants. This historical and detailed account of the previously untold story of members and actions of Team Alpha and the early days of America’s response after 9-11 is a must read.
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- MP
- 04-23-22
Definitely worth a read.
I’ve read a few books from this era and about this particular conflict and its early days. This book was very well researched followed a chronological order and laid out some interesting previously unknown facts even if they were very raw. The fact that it was centered around a small group of people made it easy to follow and made it feel more personal. I would definitely recommend it as a read.
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- Bernadette Garcia
- 07-20-22
A Time Capsule
Thank you for sharing this part of history that most had no idea, that the CIA was the first in on this fight.
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- Jonathan
- 01-01-23
Well researched and well written!
The book was very well researched and well written. Additionally, the voice performance is excellent.
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- Jason G
- 09-08-21
Deeply researched
This is a riveting account not just of one battle at the beginning of a long engagement in Afghanistan, but how and why the CIA was leading the fight in Afghanistan in the days after September 11. I appreciated the background that the first third of the book afforded.
The Trojan horse revolt of al-Qaeda prisoners that resulted in Mike Spann’s death was a griping account and clearly the author did a lot of research and apparently even interviewed Dostum.
The Audible reader comprehends the topic and I found him to be easy to listen to at fast speeds.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Jacob Trippe
- 05-14-22
Thank you-A Must Read
Fascinating. I recommend this book to everyone who wishes to gain a greater understanding and appreciation for what people are willing to do for freedom. The intricate and broad interaction between individuals and groups from very different cultures is incredible.
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- Sean O.
- 08-01-22
what a blend of history and personal stories
Amazing detail of the experiences of so many involved. And the fact that the main participants are followed up with decades later was the perfect ending!
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