The Real Story of General Dostum and 12 Strong Green Berets What made working with him particularly dangerous was that he was known for switching sides during several conflicts with Afghanistan. These Special Forces soldiers took on the Taliban on horseback We wind through the tight pass alongside a swollen mountain river, go over the pass, then head a kilometer down the south side of the divide and stop at a freshly mudded house. It took about an hour to get the aircraft. Dostum tells me that he has fought on every inch of Afghan soil and can recite the names of his men who have died, describe each battle in detail, and tell you what he has learned from every encounter. In real life, they learned of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center over the truck's radio on their way back to the base. An old man yells, God bless you. The greatest restrictions they face have been placed on them by Dostum himself. You call in an airplane; you say, Can you see that place? Accordingly, on 25 May 1997, Malik arrested Khan, handed him over and let the Taliban enter Mazar-e-Sharif, giving them control over most of northern Afghanistan. This story needed to be shared with the rest of the country. It was September 12, 2003. On another truck are the seriously wounded. Most of the fallen look as if they were killed instantly. The wholesale conversion of talibs to the government side during theKunduz surrender had created confusion in how many Taliban existed in the North. At first I thought, Why not let them rule? he says. Dozens of dark-eyed men in turbans scramble into battered Toyota pickup trucks and assorted four-wheel-drive vehicles. The enemy was 700 meters out and moving quickly. The now declassified mission, code-name Task Force Dagger, included joining forces with the loosely organized Northern Alliance to help take back certain provinces, as well as act as the tip of the spear in the initial fighting against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. I thought the guy was this ruthless warlord, one soldier says. It took just a few months for American and Afghan forces to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan; thus ousting them from power. What '12 Strong' Tells Us about Afghanistan - The National Interest They landed near a mud-walled compound in the remote Darra-e Suf valley in northern Afghanistan. -The Fayetteville Observer. Capt. The soldiers on the U.S. Special Forces teams were used to state-of-the-art warfare. There is aneed to never forget the sacrifices men make in war. Their closest call came toward the end of the campaign, before theyd reached the Tingi Pass; Id gotten an account of it last night from Mike, a big, bearded, soft-spoken soldier. Newsweek, The New York Times and other outlets insisted that eyewitness had seen American soldiers laughing and shooting into containers. They also need blankets.". All the while ostracizing the now First Vice President Dostum who is currently in exile in Ankara plotting his next move. Paul, Andy, and I drive past villages of round, domed huts, past a checkpoint manned by Dostums men, and up along the winding road to the Tingi Pass. The baby was born early while Mark was in Afghanistan. I now have a friend named Mark, Dostum says, referring to the Green Beret captain. It took a few hours for bombers to arrive from their carriers. Support Dostum. Instead, 12 Strong simply tells a storya true one. The idea that that Dostum would actually savethe day for an embattledAmerica is an irony that has not fully played out. He confesses that he had worried at first how the Americans would handle Afghan warfare: It was cold; the food was bad. What happened to General Dostum in Afghanistan? Dostums father talks to his son as though he were a child, telling him that he and the teacher have been praying for his success. There were some deep unresolved internal conflicts because of the death of Mike Spann and why they over their protests had been sent to Kunduz. ODA 595 Prepares to retrieve the body of Mike Spann from Qala-i-Jangi Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. They had to kill their horses for food. The money was hardly enough for feeding my horses, Dostum says. My friends were struggling against the Taliban, and I was sitting there., Dostum says that to help him get back into the fray, the former president of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, sliced offabout $40,000 from the CIA funds. And waited. We thought Kunduz was [going to be] a full-scale attack, says Captain Mark. We are alive thanks to you. As Dostum stands on the porch, looking at the place of his birth, he chokes up. Yes. The risk they were taking was indeed that great. However, one was dropped due to a lack of confidence in the team. Its a gritty reminder of who our common enemy wasone that not only strove to kill Americans, but also attempted to force its archaic way of life on whole countries. I grab my cameras and ask Bill, a pensive Green Beret medic, to come with me. Nelson and five of his men set off behind General Dostum and his forces, leaving Cal Spencer, Pat Essex, Charles Jones, Scott Black, Ben Milo, and Fred Falls behind to coordinate logistics and . Its a helluva thing we do, isnt it? The real-life base wasn't built up at that point and amounted to little more than a series of Soviet-era bunkers. Or maybe that scene in Star Wars: These sand people started jabbering in a language we had never heard. The Americans shouldered their hundred-pound rucksacks while the Afghans hefted the rest of the equipment. Like in the 12 Strong movie, the real Horse Soldiers were able to liberate Afghanistan's fourth largest city, Mazar-i-Sharif, in just three weeks. At the same moment he was trying to flee Mazar from the Taliban assault. It feels more than a bit odd to be recognized for my books and TV showas someone who specializes in traveling to the worlds hot spotswhile poking around a war in Afghanistan. Buzkashi is the way Afghan boys learn to rideand its the way Afghan politics is played: There are few rules and the toughest, meanest, and most brutal player takes the prize. This time I had less worries with just a few hours waiting for Uzbek guards to look the other way while we hustled our kit over the blockade Friendship Bridge at night. "If they got in trouble, there was very little I could do and nothing I could do quickly. Horse Soldiers Analysis - eNotes.com In seconds, 250 men on horseback were thundering toward the Taliban position a mere 1,500 meters away. That heavy reliance on tanks and trucks meant the Taliban wound up fighting a defensive, Russian-style war. Ill admit, my guard was up, as I dont expect even-handed treatment of military-heavy stories these days. The tape now shows Dostum, leaning against a mud wall, watching through large binoculars. The gear seemed to float from the landing site under a procession of brown blankets and turbans. Its a high, lonely place. He points out that the word "Tiangi" actually means gap, so when they refer to the "Tiangi gap" in the movie, they're actually saying the gap, gap.Pennington said that with regard to the enemy vehicle (BM-21) launching rockets in and around the Tiangi, it did happen, several times. I head downstairs and discover a group of soldiers bantering cheerfully, mostly in southern accents. True Story of 12 Strong: The Horse Soldiers - Average Joes "I created the face without the use of models or photos," said artist Douwe Blumberg, who designed the statue in collaboration with Mark Nutsch. This included Detachment Commander Mark Nutsch (Chris Hemsworth onscreen) and Assistant Detachment Commander Bob Pennington (Michael Shannon in the movie). No more Taliban. Since he cant speak Urdu, he was assigned to the Arab-speaking branch of Ansar (the helpers), a faction that Walker claims is sponsored by Osama bin Ladenwhom Walker says he saw many times in the training camps and on the front lines. We jump in a Toyota off-road vehicle and set off. A day laterThursday, five days since the uprising broke outthey are still firing sporadically at soldiers removing bodies from the courtyard of the fortress. The two Green Berets are solemn; they insist on driving through the gap so they can tell their story from the right perspective. I could see the horses blasting out the other side. Dostums men have been throwing down grenades and pouring in gasoline and lighting it, but the foreign Taliban refuse to come up. This included using horses to navigate the mountainous region. Over 5000 Taliban remained hidden in surrounding villages. Once they hit the ground, the Regulators would be writing their own game plan. Men wept as the imam prayed and thanked Dostum for deliverance. Submit an Article A small group of CIA that included Mike Spann, flew in to the Darra-e Suf the day before ODA 595 would land. After four times or so, they didnt get bombed, so they just stayed there. On September 11, 2001, Mitch Nelson, a U.S. Army captain with Green Berets Operational Detachment Alpha 595, moves into a new home with his wife and daughter after receiving an assignment to staff duty under Lieutenant Colonel Bowers. In all, less than 100 Special Forces soldiers toppled the Taliban government. General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Captain Mark Nutsch achieved this unexpected success in November 2001 by breaking out of a rebel pocket of the Hindu Kush Mountains and seizing Mazar i Sharif,. -The Fayetteville Observer, Yes. We will never end wars if we dont understand how to win them. Now, on most mornings, Dostum emerges from his house, squinting into a crowd of turbaned men waiting for an audience. Dostum enlisted in the Afghan militaryone of the few ways for poor men to escape lives of labor and hardship in rural Afghanistan. The rest of the time they travel. Trigger warnings include battlefield violence, repeated explosions and gun battles, and up-close scenes of civilian killings by the Taliban. But back in 2001, Warlord Dostum who was head of the Jumbesh political party had simpler but identical goals: Align with the U.S. to return from exile in Turkey and bring the Taliban into the new government. They moved and attacked mostly at night, riding small, wiry Afghan horses that are well suited to steep slopes and long desert walks. When the videotape of my interview with Walker hits the airwaves back in the U.S., the country focuses its white-hot anger on him, and some of that anger spills over onto me. Nutsch is portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in the movie and renamed Mitch Nelson. I watch a fighter go up to the top, then crumple into a black pile of rags. Despite actively fighting the Taliban, it was not until Santos introducedDostum to JSOC that the United States might want to give him some help. . A hundred yards away, villagers stand against a long compound. Over chai (tea), he announces good news. So, I worked for him, directly," says Riggle. Transfixed, they watch the Christmas tree being lit in Rockefeller Center. At the last minute the Agency was told by the SF ground commander that his men were going in with or without the Agency. The entrance to the bunker was pierced by cannon shots and is blackened from explosions. Theres one time Ill never forget, he says. Yes. Here Spann interviews Lindh but Lindh remains silent. They reach out to shake his hand, to embrace him. What else do you expect my enemies to say? he asks. Dont I know you? one of them says. The crowds quickly grew; people threw money in the air for good luck. I was full of emotions. Green Berets work in secrecy, so only their first names can be used: Theres Andy, the slow-talking weapons expert who is never without his grenade launcher; back home, he keeps the guns in his collections loaded so they are ready when I am. Both he and Paul, a quiet, bespectacled warrant officer, have been in the unit 11 years. I tell the prisoner where he is and who hes talking to. There was talk that the team might be split uprumors of differences with a commanding officer who didnt appreciate the traditional independence of the Green Berets. Meanwhile, Im hunkered down, waiting for Dostum. Paul points to a misty, triangular peak that forms one side of the gap. The radio crackles with call signs and traffic broadcast between bombardiers and the American soldiers. By the time the team had arrived in Qali-i-Jangi they were gaunt, sick but eager to keep up the fight. The men were thrilled; they were so happy. Based on history and dossiers full of Pakistani provided intelligence, theAgency wanted nothing to do with Dostum. The only mystery was the lack of interest in the NGO, governments and media in investigating the facts. In contrast to the Americans high-tech warfare, some of Dostums tactics would have seemed familiar to the British troops who tried and failed to pacify this region in the 19th century. What we are doing now has not occurred since Vietnam. Both of the named Green Berets are commanding officers, John Mulholland and Max Bowers. -Horse Soldiers book, The movie finds the soldiers being told that there is a good chance they won't survive the mission. Finally after two weeks they admitted they could not smuggle me across. The old men are frail, with deeply lined faces. People demanded that I do something, says Dostum. Gradually shapes emerged out of the shadows - a small group of Afghan Northern Alliance soldiers together with four American advisers who had been in country for about two weeks. This part of Afghanistan is ancient, arid, windblownand is the real cradle of its history and wealth. "We dispersed the team at several positions along the ridges of the Tiangi." Shattered, bearded men lie everywhere on stretchers, covered by thin blue sheets. The madrasah was surrounded for about a mile on each side by identical buildings, which made it difficult for the pilots to pick out the school. "It's your city, general. If there is no enemy, then bureaucracy is the enemy, he says. I had first tried to meet the General in May of 1997. 12 Strong - Navid Negahban "General Dostum" [On-Set Interview]Subscribe and click the notification bell HERE: http://goo.gl/SrrTlTSubscribe to Filmisnow Movi. The credits claim that General Dostum and Captain Mitch Nelson have remained friends in real life . After the bombs hit, I peeked over the side of the bunker; our horses were gone. After four days of bombardment, the interior of the fort is a scene of utter devastation. General Abul Rashid Dostum Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. You could see machine gun fire from both positions. When I look at the terrible conditions and the predicament that Walker is in, I have to ask him if this is what he expected. In the afternoon, when I visit the 1985 fort called Qala i Jangi or Fort of the Soldiers, bullets sing over my head. He went on to serve in the US Army, although he did not see combat until the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. They have been blowing themselves up with grenades. However, it's hard to imagine that was the case with the 12 Strong movie, since Nutsch has become a fairly well-known public figure. A good reminder for all Americans are the scenes portraying the oppressive lives the Afghan people were subjected to under Taliban rule. Also, there was hardly any assurance that the team would be safe with the Afghan fighters they were working alongside. After the seventh grade, Dostum left school to help his father on the family farm. He is a kingmaker who works the ethnic minority to choose who will rule and who will fail. You raise your flag," Nelson says. Two Soldiers Tell the Real Story Behind 12 Strong | Paul Asay As for why the names were changed, one article stated that the studio did not want to have to pay all of the real-life people for the rights to use their names. However, the real Amy Nutsch, the wife of Mark Nutsch, was six months pregnant at the time of the September 11 attacks. I am surprised, then, to see Dostum wrap his blue turban around his head and chin and stride into the village . What made working with him particularly dangerous was that he was known for switching sides during several conflicts with Afghanistan. July 22, 2018. Captain Mark Nutsch, Special Forces commander on the mission and Chief Warrant Officer Bob Pennington, the real-life counterparts to the roles played by Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon, were both on set to ensure accuracy in the movie's portrayal. He is a thick man with a pug nose, bad skin, tiny teeth, and a cruel stare. Initially eschewing interaction with Nelson due to his youth and the fact that he doesnt have killers eyes, they come to trust each other and eventually work in tandem along with their teams. It was right at dark. Dostum stays in contact with the Americans by radio, working to help focus the bombing: a man with a seventh-grade education directing the fire of the worlds most powerful military. As we drive, Paul tells me that, back in the U.S., even the Regulators are subject to a military culture of rules and red tape. However, he had been deployed in the Middle East and around the globe. All the while, we could see troops moving and disappearing. Once we hit Keshendeh-ye Bala, we picked up a road and followed it north in a truck Dostums men had captured from the Taliban. They spend every day training for war, teaching other armies about war, and waiting for the call to fight in the next war. They cleaned and stowed their gear and awaited the order. Each night, Dostum would sit down with the Americans and lay out the battle plan for the next day. Nutsch commented: Were humbled that a movie has been made about our teams mission in that pivotal post 9/11 period. Paul here is busy shooting at guys. Their motto is To Free the Oppressedsomething they have done so far in this war with no civilian casualties, no blowback, and no regrets. -The Fayetteville Observer, In addition to ODA 595, three other teams were selected. One Leadership Skill That Turned 12 'Horse Soldiers' Into An Elite The CIA provided intel on which ethnic leaders to work with, including Afghan General Rashid Dostum. Later, one is shown penning a goodbye letter to his family. The old creed is that we never leave a guy behind. The Regulators wanted to find the prisoners who had killed Spann and attacked a second CIA man who was questioning the Taliban. He would say he is going to attack at about 2 p.m., says Air Force Steve. "Very Good," replied Dostum. I was at the prison in Sheberghan when they unloaded the trucks and watched the Red Cross medics count the dead and note the wounded.