Members of the Operational Detachment Alpha 3336 of the 3rd Special Forces Group endured a nearly seven-hour battle on a mountainside in Afghanistan's Nuristan province on April 6. (Courtesy Of Maj. Emanuel Ortiz Cruz)From The Washington Post:
After jumping out of helicopters at daybreak onto jagged, ice-covered rocks and into water at an altitude of 10,000 feet, the 12-man Special Forces team scrambled up the steep mountainside toward its target -- an insurgent stronghold in northeast Afghanistan.
"Our plan," Capt. Kyle M. Walton recalled in an interview, "was to fight downhill."
But as the soldiers maneuvered toward a cluster of thick-walled mud buildings constructed layer upon layer about 1,000 feet farther up the mountain, insurgents quickly manned fighting positions, readying a barrage of fire for the exposed Green Berets.
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