Roberts Ridge: A Story of Courage and Sacrifice on Takur Ghar Mountain, Afghanistan

Afghanistan, March 2002. In the early morning darkness on a frigid mountaintop, a U.S. soldier is stranded, alone, surrounded by fanatical al Qaeda fighters. For the mans fellow Navy SEALs, and for waiting teams of Army Rangers, there was only one rule now: leave no one behind. In this gripping you-are-there accountbased on stunning eyewitness testimony and painstaking researchjournalist Malcolm MacPherson thrusts us into a drama of rescue, tragedy, and valor in a place that would be known as...

ROBERTS RIDGE

For an elite team of SEALs, the mission seemed straightforward enough: take control of a towering 10,240-foot mountain peak called Takur Ghar. Launched as part of Operation Anacondaa hammer-and-anvil plan to smash Taliban al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan the taking of Takur Ghar would offer U.S. forces a key strategic observation post. But the enemy was waiting, hidden in a series of camouflaged trenches and bunkersand when the Special Forces chopper flared on the peak to land, it was shredded by a hail of machine-gun, small arms, and RPG rounds. A red-haired SEAL named Neil Roberts was thrown from the aircraft. And by the time the shattered helicopter crash-landed on the valley floor seven miles away, Robertss fellow SEALs were determined to return to the mountain peak and bring him outno matter what the cost.

Drawing on the words of the men who were thereSEALs, Rangers, medics, combat air controllers, and pilotsthis harrowing true account, the first book of its kind to chronicle the battle for Takur Ghar, captures in dramatic detail a seventeen-hour pitched battle fought at the highest elevation Americans have ever waged war. At once an hour-by-hour, bullet-by-bullet chronicle of a landmark battle and a sobering look at the capabilities and limitations of Americas high-tech army, Roberts Ridge is the unforgettable story of a few dozen warriors who faced a single fate: to live or die for their comrades in the face of near-impossible odds.