Horse Soldiers

Doug Stanton was born in the Reed City Public Library. In fact I have heard him say this. Of course at the time it was the Reed City Hospital, but it still makes a great opening line for a review of Doug's newest book, HORSE SOLDIERS, recently released by Scribner. Because Stanton writes like he was born to it. Here is history that reads like the best fiction of the action-adventure type.

Now a resident of Traverse City where he grew up, Doug is a product of the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Iowa Writer's Workshop. His first book, IN HARM'S WAY (2001), was an international bestseller. After reading HORSE SOLDIERS, I strongly suspect it will enjoy similar success.

The subtitle of Stanton's new book may be problematic for some. It show more reads: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan. And, in a nutshell, it's a good description of the book's content. Because the soldiers described in these pages are indeed extraordinary people who deserve to be recognized. The problem for some more politically oriented readers, however, will be the word "victory." They will argue that the U.S. has not achieved victory in Afghanistan and probably never will.

But this is not a book about politics. This is a book about ordinary people, military men and officers, who have trained hard and dedicated their lives to safeguarding the security of our nation, both here and abroad. They are not political people. They were given a mission, and they carried it out to the best of their abilities, despite extreme hardships and unbelievably primitive conditions. They suffered hunger, thirst, cold, exhaustion, sickness and wounds incurred in battle. Against what appeared to be insurmountable odds, these Special Forces soldiers and Special Ops pilots (and a few CIA paramilitaries) persevered and were indeed successful in carrying out their mission, the taking of the town of Mazar-e-Sharif from the Taliban forces. Working in concert with the combined forces of several Afghan warlords of the Northern Alliance, the SF teams lived in caves or in the open, and ate what their Afghan allies ate - often little or nothing. They traveled on horseback, even though many of them had never been on a horse before. This initially prompted some rather comical scenes reminiscent of episodes from F Troop. But despite the too-small wooden saddles, too-short stirrups, and bleeding sores, they quickly adapted. And once mounted, these few dozen courageous soldiers became the first Americans of the twenty-first century to participate in a cavalry charge, racing up and down ridges against vastly superior Taliban forces as they marched steadily north to their objective of Mazar-e-Sharif. In a strange combination of spaghetti western and Star Wars, the Americans, packing radios, GPS devices and laser sights, called in gunships and pinpointed bomb strikes to put the fear of Allah into their numerically superior black-turbaned enemies.

The story told here covers no more than a couple of months' time shortly after the 9/11 bombings of New York. But, sticking to the style that earned him such success in his first book, Stanton fleshes out the narrative with personal details on all the principals involved, having interviewed the men, their friends, families and superior officers. He was able to do this by gaining unprecedented access to the lives of soldiers who are ordinarily very silent about their activities. Stanton logged literally thousands of miles of travel in the six years he spent researching his story, not just here in the U.S., but also in Afghanistan, where he interviewed some of the warlords involved in the operation, as well as various citizens and shopkeepers of Mazar-e-Sharif, the town liberated from the Taliban in November 2001. You will meet men - and their families - from Alabama, Kentucky, Minnesota, West Virginia, California, Kansas, Texas and Michigan. Any one of them could be your neighbor.

The story reaches a horrific climax in the closing chapters when several hundred Taliban prisoners being held in the ancient mud fortress of Qala-i-Janghi rise up and attack their Northern Alliance jailers, and the SF soldiers are caught in the middle of the ensuing siege and resulting bloodbath.

I am sure HORSE SOLDIERS will have its detractors, people who will argue that invading Afghanistan was not the proper response to the 9/11 attacks. And I would not completely disagree with them. And perhaps neither would Doug Stanton, judging by his epilogue critique of the war as it has been waged since 2001. Stanton's intent, however, was not to justify the war, but to honor the men who followed orders and prepared the way, at great cost to them and to their families. In this he has succeeded admirably.

Here is how Stanton explains his motives, at least in part, for writing this book about a period of just a few weeks which may one day be no more than a blip on history's radar -

"... I wanted to know what it was like to wake in the predawn hours on a tree-lined street in the middle of America and leave for war ... Children's toys fill the cracked driveways of the neighbors' houses up and down the street ... This was the face I wanted to see ... the face of that man, in those private hours."

Stanton found that man - those men - who left for war, and he is Everyman. Yet he is unique, apart. And we owe him.


- Tim Bazzett is the author of the Cold War memoir, Soldier Boy: At Play in the ASA. He lives in Reed City. show less

An interesting look at the first US soldiers to go into Afghanistan in 2001. Most military history will focus on one man, unit or event. Here, like in many modern books on Special Forces, it covers too many people and they all tend to blend together. It's comprehensive but not as cohesive as it could have been. Having said that this is a good book telling an interesting story, which gets better as it goes along. The amount of research done is very impressive.

A fairly straight forward telling of the story of the CIA and Special Forces in Afghanistan immediately after the Islamist attack on the United States on September 1, 2001, The story covers, in depth, missions to guide JDAMs onto Taliban forces and efforts to bring allies into the fight. A fast and interesting read.

I purchased this book from Amazon for my husband to read. (Which is a challenge in itself.) But after it was sitting on the shelf and I read the blurb I decided to read it. All opinions are my own. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 12 Strong by Doug Stanton (previously published as Horse Soldiers). I knew this was a true story going into it but I still could not believe 12 special forces military personnel rode into Afghanistan on horseback......yes! Horses in the desert in a military operation.....I had no idea THIS still happens in modern day war. 12 men, 12 horses, and all their gear made a difference in the world like no other. They were outnumbered 40 to 1 and pursued the enemy to capture the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. But during the surrender the show more Horse Soldiers were ambushed and every thing takes a very wrong turn. Being captured was not an option and many lives were at stake or lost in order to disband the Taliban. Whatever you think you know about the wars that followed 9/11 I promise you, you really have no clue unless you lived it. Review also posted on Instagram @borenbooks, Library Thing, Goodreads/StacieBoren, Amazon, Twitter @jason_stacie and my blog at readsbystacie.com show less

Stanton documents the actions of U.S. Special Forces soldiers who entered Afghanistan in October 2001 with the mission of assisting Northern Alliance forces in their battle against the Taliban. The description of 21st Century horse cavalry charges alone are worth reading the book for. Besides the stories of the men involved Stanton also documents the activities of John Walker Lindh. The book culminates in the riot at Qala-i-Jangi where Lindh was captured and Mike Spann became the first U.S. casulty of the Afghan war.

While the U.S.'s lack of preparation and intelligence prior to the start of the war is apparent throughout, the Special Forces troops helped the Northern Alliance take control of Afghanistan. The epilogue explains how it show more was then lost when the U.S. stopped using the tactics that had worked in the first place, it was also critical of the methods used in Iraq.

One issue I had with the book was Stanton often ascribed words or thoughts to people he was unlikely to have interviewed. In one case he wrote about something Mike Spann was thinking shortly before he was killed, however from the time he had these "thoughts" until his death a few minutes later, he didn't speak to anyone. While in all likelihood Stanton used these for narrative effect, it does make me question what else he may have invented. Regardless, a good book well worth reading. show less

While there were parts that seemed a bit too full of words, overall it was a well done. Informative of the events that took place following the 9/11 attacks, following a group of SF and CIA agents that were injected into Afghanistan. The amount of time these soldiers spent with the residents of the country seeing things from their view helped them accomplish so much in a small amount of time, with a small number of people. I would recommend it to anyone.

Doug Stanton asserts that wars in the 21st century will require as much diplomacy from soldiers as knowledge of warfare. His work narrates the compelling story of a small group of American Special Forces soldiers who fignt alongside anti-Taliban Afghanis in the weeks after 9/11, combining advanced tecnnology with ancient warefare, riding small, hardy horses through rugged terrain to quickly defeat the unpopular oppressors. Their methods of developing mutual trust and respect with the Afghan warlords and soldiers are starkly contrssted with the experience in Iraq, especially with the dissolution of the Iraqi army. Carefully researched, Stanton creates memorable characters in the background stories of these brave soldiers and homey family show more men, and makes the reader wonder why the general American population doesn't know their remarkable story. show less