Horizon Information Portal

e-branch

Home

My Account/Renew Loans

Find Magazine Articles & more

The hardest place : the American military adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley / Wesley Morgan.

by Morgan, Wesley.

View full image

Random House, 2021.

958.104742 M849h

Afghan War, 2001-2021 -- Campaigns -- Afghanistan -- Pech River Valley.

Afghan War, 2001-2021 -- Campaigns -- Afghanistan -- Korangal Valley.

Afghan War, 2001-2021 -- Campaigns -- Afghanistan -- Kunar (Province)

9780812995060 (hc)

xxvi, 644 p., 8 unnumbered p. of plates : ill. (chiefly color), maps ; 25 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 519-620) and index.

Recurring characters -- Prologue: 2010 -- Part I: Into the mountains, 2002-2003 -- Part II: The Pech bubble, 2006-2010 -- Part III: The long goodbye, 2010-2013 -- Part IV: The new counterterrorism, 2011-2017 -- Epilogue: 2018-2020.

"When we think of the war in Afghanistan, chances are we're thinking of a small, remote corner of the country where American military action has been concentrated: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan provinces. The rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made the region a natural hiding spot for targets in the American war on terror, from Osama bin Laden to the Islamic State, and it has been the site of constant U.S. military activity for nearly two decades. Even as the U.S. presence in Afghanistan transitions to a drone war, the Pech has remained at the center of it, a testbed for a new method of remote warfare. Wesley Morgan, who grew up with the war, observing it closely, first visited the Pech in 2010, while he was still a college student embedding with military units as a freelancer. By then, the Pech and its infamous tributary the Korengal had become emblematic of the war, but Morgan found that few of the troops fighting there could explain how or when their remote outposts had been built. In The Hardest Place, he unravels the history those troops didn't know, captures the culture and reality of the war through both American and Afghan eyes, and reports on the snowballing American missteps that made each unit's job harder than the last as storied outfits like Marines, paratroopers, Rangers, Green Berets, and SEALs all took their turn... As the war drags on through its third presidential administration, Morgan concludes that we've created a status quo that could last forever in the Pech, always in search of the next target"--Publisher.

Horizon Information Portal 3.24_8902M

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal