Read The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor Online
Authors: Jake Tapper
Tags: #Terrorism, #Political Science, #Azizex666
Information about the memorial service was gleaned from a video of the service provided to the author.
Ken and Beth Keating expressed their reservations in interviews.
Information about the mission to save this young Afghan man came from interviews with Gooding, Boulio, Johnson, Best, Claiborn, and Hall.
The text of the night letter was taken from an ISAF memo obtained by the author.
Information about the murder of Fazal Ahad came from Nuristani, Nicholson, Howard, and Gooding.
Remarks from the dedication of FOB Fenty were included in a staff report published in
Army Times,
May 7, 2007.
Chapter 15: “Don’t Go Down That Way”
Information about the commando mission at Kamdesh Village came from interviews with Nuristani, Nicholson, Paparo, Howard, Gooding, Hall, and Schmidt.
Information about the ambush on the ANA troops came from Best, Pearsall, Steele, Sears, Anderson, McHugh, Kittle, and Guthrie.
The comments made by Abdul Raouf were reported by Kim Barker of the
Chicago Tribune
on May 13, 2007. Barker also provided some information about Fazal Ahad.
Information about Gooding’s and Berkoff’s departures was drawn from interviews with them.
Sources for Book Two
For the section of book 2 dealing with 1-91 Cav, the following individuals were interviewed:
Wayne Baird
Bert Baker
Nic Barnes
Bobby Bostick, brother of Tom Bostick
Carrie Bostick, aunt of Tom Bostick
Robert Cusick
Chris Doneski
Nicholas Dubaz
John Faulkenberry
Sarah Faulkenberry, wife of John Faulkenberry
Rob Fortner
Frank Helmick
Hank Hughes
Joey Hutto
Scott Ingbretsen
Kenneth Johnson
Brandon Kennedy
Chris Kolenda
Jennifer Lowell-Hetfleisch, sister of Jacob Lowell
Kyle Marcum
Nick McGarry
John McHugh
Bryan Morrow
Alex Newsom
Matthew O’Neill, then with HBO, who was embedded with 6-4 Cav and was generous enough to show me some of his footage
William Ostlund
Sam Paparo
Chip Preysler
Jesse Queck
Shamsur Rahman
Brenda Keeler Bostick Richardson, mother of Tom Bostick
Jim Richardson, Tom Bostick’s stepfather since 1983
Dave Roller
Nate Springer
Jonathan Sultan
Stan Trapyline
Unnamed Special Forces soldier
John Wilson
For the section of book 2 concerned with 6-4 Cav, the following individuals were interviewed:
Keith Bodmer
Steven Brewer
Chris Briley
Brad Brown
Andrew Bundermann
Ronald Burton
Chris Cordova
Amanda Cuda
Randy George
Adam Laman
Tom Nelson
Jim Markert
Joe Mazzocchi
Kaine Meshkin
Donald Parsons
Dan Pecha
Karen Pfeifer, widow of Chris Pfeifer
Chris Safulko
Shane Scherer
John Spiszer
Kyle Tucker
Rick Victorino (not his real name)
Red Walker (not his real name)
Jim Witherington
Dena Yllescas, widow of Rob Yllescas
Chapter 16: “There’s Not Going to Be Any Ice Cream”
Information about the battle of Saret Koleh came from Roller, Newsom, Faulkenberry, Fortner, Wilson, Barnes, Baker, Morrow, Hutto, Kolenda, Sultan, Johnson, and Springer.
Information about Bostick’s genealogy was provided by his family. Sion Record Bostick’s recollections of the capture of Santa Ana were recorded in the
Quarterly of the Texas Historical Association,
October 1901. Accessed on the Texas A&M University Web site.
Information about Lowell came from his sister, Lowell-Hetfleisch, and Kolenda.
Information about the water-pipe project came from Kolenda and Springer. The phrase “
Zar, zan, zamin”
is said to have been popularized in the West by Louis Dupree’s
Afghanistan
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1980). The 2011 study referred to in the footnote is, again, Paul Fishstein and Andrew Wilder’s
Winning Hearts and Minds? Examining the Relationship between Aid and Security in Afghanistan
(Medford, Massachusetts: Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, 2011).
Chris Kolenda,
Leadership: The Warrior’s Art
(Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Army War College Foundation Press, 2001).
The activities at Camp Kamu were described in interviews with Newsom, Faulkenberry, and Baird.
The discussion of what insurgents were called was informed by numerous interviews with troops who didn’t want to be quoted using terms that their commanders would deem inappropriate.
Information about Ryan Fritsche came from interviews with his mother, Volitta Fritsche, as well as with Hutto. Another resource was Volitta’s book,
Why Ryan?,
self-published in 2009.
Information about the interactions between Fritsche and Wilson was taken from interviews with Wilson.
Chapter 17: “Bulldog-Six, Where Are You?”
Accounts of the battle of Saret Koleh were provided by Roller, Newsom, Faulkenberry, Fortner, Wilson, Barnes, Baker, Morrow, Hutto, Kolenda, Sultan, Johnson, and Springer.
The account of events at FOB Naray was drawn from interviews with Hutto and Doneski.
The story of Fritsche’s family’s hearing the news of his death came from Volitta Fritsche and her book.
Information about the recovery operation came from interviews with Preysler, Ostlund, Hutto, Wilson, Morrow, Newsom, and Roller.
Information about Hutto came from an interview with him.
Information about Faulkenberry’s recovery was provided in interviews with him and his wife, Sarah Faulkenberry.
Kolenda’s decision to reduce the number of road missions was recounted in an interview with him.
Information about operations at the outpost during this period was gleaned from interviews with Hutto, Newsom, and Roller.
Information about Chris Pfeifer’s wound and treatment came from interviews with his wife, Karen, Baker, and Newsom.
Information about training to become a medic was shared by Donald Parsons of the Department of Combat Medic Training at Fort Sam Houston.
Information about life at OP Warheit was taken from an interview with Roller.
Information about the meeting at Parun came from interviews with Paparo and Katz.
Kutto and Colenda’s reaching the conclusion that the Americans were in the midst of an insurrection was related in interviews with both men.
Information about the August 2007 Ranch House attack was taken from interviews with Preysler and Ostlund. Additional information came from two investigations into the later Wanat incident that referenced the Ranch House: the Army’s official “AR 15-6 Investigation Findings and Recommendations into the Incident at Wanat, August 13, 2008,” and a second study by the staff of the U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute, entitled
Wanat: Combat Action in Afghanistan, 2008
(Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010). Other details were taken from the Army public-affairs story “Sky Soldier Awarded Distinguished Service Cross,” written by Staff Sergeant Brandon Aird, September 17, 2008, and from Keith Rogers, “Soldier’s Courage Reigns Despite Being Outnumbered and Enemy within Meters,”
Las Vegas Review-Journal,
July 4, 2010.
Dealings with locals were described in interviews with Roller, Hutto, Ingbretsen, Briley, and others.
Events at the September 6, 2007, shura were recounted in an ISAF memo obtained by the author.
A description of ghee was provided by Strand.
Marcum expressed his thoughts during an interview.
Information about Chris Pfeifer’s final days was taken from interviews with his wife. Karen, Sarah and John Faulkenberry, and Baird.
Chapter 19: If You’re the Enemy, Please Stand Up
Dealings with locals were described in interviews with Newsom, Roller, Hutto, and Kolenda, as well as in ISAF memos obtained by the author.
Information about the Mandigal shura was gleaned from interviews with Ingbretsen and Hutto.
Disagreements among brigade officers were recounted in interviews with Preysler, Kolenda, Ostlund, and other, anonymous individuals.
Disagreements between Hughes and Roller were described by the two men (who are now friends) as well as by Newsom and Johnson.
Information about the shots fired at the outpost, and Hutto’s investigation into their source, was shared by Hutto in an interview.
Winter at Observation Post Fritsche was described by Marcum in an interview.
Information about the ambush at Gawardesh was provided by Cusick and Kolenda, as well as in the U.S. Army’s narrative for the posthumous Medal of Honor awarded to Miller.
Information about Shabbaz was taken from ISAF memos obtained by the author and from an interview with Hutto.
Cusick and other Special Forces soldiers who preferred to remain anonymous described in interviews their conflict with Kolenda, and Kolenda offered his take on it, too. The plans for an “Operation Commando Justice” were detailed in an ISAF memo obtained by the author and also discussed on background by military officers and troops. Preysler and Kolenda weighed in on the mission’s being scrubbed. Votel’s comment when I recounted the events as they’d been related to me was, “This could have happened, but frankly I do not recall. I do know I would not have done something deliberate like that to the CJSOTF”–Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–“since we had a very good relationship and had supported a number of their operations in Kunar and Nuristan with helicopters and other resources. This was probably a function of priorities if anything.”
Hutto, Roller, and Kolenda provided information about the PowerPoint presentation.
Hutto and Kolenda shared information about the shuras. Memos obtained by the author also contained details about the Hundred-Man Shura.
Karzai’s statement “The Taliban are not strong” was taken from C. J. Chivers, “Karzai Cites Taliban Shift to Terror Attacks,”
New York Times,
June 20, 2007.
The attacks on the outpost were described by Kolenda, Hutto, Newsom, Roller, Hughes, Marcum, Briley, and others who were there, as well as in memos obtained by the author.
Chapter 20: “We Will Go to Kamdesh Next”
The attacks on the outpost were described by Kolenda, Hutto, Newsom, Roller, Hughes, Marcum, Briley, and others who were there, as well as in memos obtained by the author.
The incident involving Laman was recalled in interviews with Laman, Briley, and Roller.
The incident involving Marcum was described by him in an interview.
Hutto and Roller provided information about Cali.
Kolenda’s comments about Bostick on the occasion of the renaming ceremony were included in Staff Sergeant Brandon Aird’s Army public-affairs story “Afghanistan Base Renamed in Honor of Commander Who Died in Combat,” July 11, 2008.
Information about the attack on Wanat came from interviews with Ostlund, Kennedy, and Queck, as well as several other sources: the Army’s official “AR 15-6 Investigation Findings and Recommendations into the Incident at Wanat, August 13, 2008”; a study by the staff of the U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute,
Wanat: Combat Action in Afghanistan, 2008
(Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010); and the first draft of the latter, U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute document. Other resources included Greg Jaffe, “The Battle of Wanat,”
Washington Post,
October 4, 2009, and Mark Bowden, “Echoes from a Distant Battlefield,”
Vanity Fair
, December 2011.
Information about 6-4 Cav’s coming into Afghanistan was taken from interviews with Spiszer, Markert, and Nelson.