Sean Naylor

NOT A GOOD DAY TO DIE
The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda
by Sean Naylor

“[Sergeant First Class] Luman, almost at the top, heard a shout from the bottom.
‘We’ve got a guy down.’ I don’t need this shit, he thought. We always got told
‘march or die.’ I don’t want my boys to die today.
It’s not a good day to die.” --from NOT A GOOD DAY TO DIE

In NOT A GOOD DAY TO DIE: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (Berkley Hardcover, March 1, 2005, $25.95), award-winning Army Times reporter Sean Naylor provides the most comprehensive picture yet of the largest battle of the Afghan war—a grand gesture that turned into a missed opportunity to crush what remained of Al Qaida in Afghanistan. One of only eight journalists allowed to accompany the troops into battle, his first-hand insider information is unmatched. In fact, U.S. Special Operations Command has launched an investigation into what Naylor knows, and how he came to know it.

According to Naylor, the eight U.S. military deaths and the escape of hundreds of Al Qaida fighters had little to do with the men and women in combat. Rather, things spun out of control thanks to a series of miscommunications, technological breakdowns, turf disputes and a feeling at the very top that the war in Afghanistan was virtually over.

NOT A GOOD DAY TO DIE contains never-before-reported findings such as:

How 13 men from a “black” (i.e. classified) commando outfit called Advance Force Operations crept unseen into a valley held by hundreds of Al Qaida fighters, a mission destined to be remembered as one of the most daring ever accomplished by U.S. special operators. Together with their commander, who repeatedly stood up to much higher ranking officers in order to ensure the success of his mission, these men saved Operation Anaconda from total disaster.
How a commitment to “jointness” on the part of the command of our most secret commando units meant that the officer in charge of them in Afghanistan was an Air Force brigadier general whose background was flying transports, not hunting terrorists.
How most of the division best suited to the war in Afghanistan was held in the U.S., in reserve for the Iraq war.
How a Pentagon and CENTCOM decision denied artillery support to a U.S. infantry brigade for the first time since World War II. And how those same headquarters cobbled together a virtual “pickup team” scraped together from different elements around Afghanistan to fight this most important battle.
How misguided decisions and tactical mistakes allowed Al Qaida guerillas to down two Chinook helicopters, precipitating a mountaintop fight in which seven Americans died.
How an Air Force special operator was probably left alone to fight against insurmountable odds after a daring rescue mission went awry.
How despite the use of millions of dollars worth of technology, military planners underestimated the number of Al Qaida fighters in the Shahikot Valley and failed to predict their use of mortars and artillery.
How planners formed a misguided belief that relying on Special Forces, the CIA, local allies and smart bombs—the same tactics used to seize Kabul and defeat the Taliban—would also work in the campaign against Al Qaida.
How U.S. forces were almost withdrawn mid-battle due to the unexpectedly fierce fighting, before a dramatic call from a Delta Force officer changed senior officers’ minds.

Sean Naylor is uniquely qualified to tell this story. After 15 years of reporting on the military for Army Times, he is widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable defense writers working today. In the last three years, he has interviewed almost 200 participants and gained access to secret documents that explain the full role played by Advance Force Operations in minute-by-minute detail.

About the author

Sean Naylor, 38, is a senior writer for Army Times, where he as worked since 1990. His beats include “real world” operations, training, readiness, Army Transformation and the service’s senior leadership.
     Born in Calgary, Canada to British parents, Sean spent the first half of his childhood in England and the second half in Dublin, Ireland. He came to the United States at the age of 17 on an academic scholarship to study journalism at Boston University. Interested in military affairs since infancy, it was at BU that Naylor realized he could make a career out of writing on the topic.
     In 1987, between his junior and senior years in college, he spent the summer in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, covering the Soviet war in Afghanistan as a freelance writer for The Irish Times and other publications. This trip, which included a journey in disguise into Afghanistan with the mujahideen, enabled Naylor, then 20, to meet separately with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Hamid Karzai, all of whom were still playing important roles when he next visited Afghanistan, under very different circumstances, in 2002.
     After graduating summa cum laude in 1988, Naylor spent six months working for a daily newspaper in the Boston suburbs. Then he returned to BU as a recipient of a graduate fellowship from the university’s Center for Defense Journalism. He received an MA in International Relations in 1990, and shortly thereafter was hired as a staff writer for Army Times.
     In December 1992 Naylor deployed to Somalia with 2-87 Infantry, the first Army battalion to enter the country. He spent a month in-country with the battalion, and returned to Mogadishu in February 1994, spending time with 2-22 Infantry on that occasion.
     Naylor’s next major overseas assignment – to Haiti, in 1994 – also involved 10th Mountain Division. He joined 1-87 Infantry as they air assaulted from the U.S.S. Eisenhower into Port-au-Prince. He spent several weeks in Haiti, living with 1-87 in Port-au-Prince and a Special Forces element in the southern city of Les Cayes. He returned to Haiti in 1995, as an “embedded” reporter with 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
     In December 1995 Naylor linked up with 1st Armored Division’s 1-1 Cav and deployed to Croatia with the squadron, before entering Bosnia on the first Humvee to cross the Sava River. Later that year saw the publication Naylor’s first book, Clash of Chariots – the Great Tank Battles, which he co-wrote with Thomas Donnelly.
     Other highlights of Naylor’s career during the 1990s include many rotations at the National Training Center and the Joint Readiness Training Center, including one in which spent a week at the NTC in the loader’s seat of a 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Abrams tank. In 1999 he spent 10 weeks with Task Force Hawk, deploying from Germany to Albania with the helicopter force, and then covering the Apache squadrons’ preparation for combat from the perspective of “a fly on the wall” inside the task force’s headquarters.
     In 2000 Naylor returned to Balkans to spend time with U.S. forces in Kosovo.
September 11, 2001 found Naylor in the Pentagon’s central courtyard, covering the rescue and recovery efforts after the terrorist attack on the Department of Defense. He then waited impatiently for an opportunity to cover the war in Afghanistan with U.S. forces. That chance came in January 2002, when the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) took a couple of dozen journalists into Afghanistan with Task Force Rakkasan.
     Naylor spent almost four months in Afghanistan, including several days in the Shahikot valley at the start of Operation Anaconda. He returned to the valley at the end of Operation Anaconda with 10th Mountain Division troops, and was present when they shot and killed a well-armed Al Qaida holdout who was in possession of U.S. equipment captured during the battle on top of Takur Ghar.