- het verhaal van Op. Anaconda: 2 maart 2002, vlogen meer dan 200 Amerikaanse infanteristen naar Shahikot Valei. Omdat de leiding dacht dat de oorlog voorbij was, kregen ze geen extra infanterie, artillerie, en luchtsteun in de vorm van aanvals helicopters, die feitelijk nodig was voor wat de grootste veldslag in de oorlog zou worden: een gemiste kans om honderden AlQaida strijders plus hun belangrijkste leiders in de pan te hakken.
-dertien commando's slaagden erin door te dringen in een vijandelijk steunpunt op een bevroren bergtop en redden daarmee velen het leven
- auteur Sean Naylor was er 'embedded' bij.....
- Operation Anaconda was the largest battle fought by American conventional forces in Afghanistan. It took place in a remote valley at very high altitude where the thin air hampered helicopter operations and the lack of oxygen sometimes wore down the men. It took place largely out of the sight of TV cameras, partly due to security and partly due to the forbidding environment, which was pretty far from the hotels with room service from which most reporting on this war has been done. But Sean Naylor, a correspondent from the Army Times, was there as an embedded reporter and witnessed the battle. Now he has produced Not a Good Day to Die, a fascinating and disturbing account of one of the hardest fights American soldiers have faced in living memory. Naylor claims in the introduction to his book that the Army at first gave only grudging cooperation with his efforts to research the battle. Reading the book, one can easily understand why.