The Only Thing Worth Dying For is the harrowing true story of eleven Green Berets who fought alongside the future leader of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban in southern Afghanistan and bring hope to a nation during the first few months of the Global War on Terror, or Operation Enduring Freedom—when the soldiers on the ground knew little about the enemy, and their commanders in Washington knew even less.
On a moonless November night, just weeks after 9/11, five Blackhawk helicopters infiltrate southern Afghanistan, dropping Special Forces A-Team—ODA 574—deep behind enemy lines in the mountains of Uruzgan. Hundreds of miles to the north, the U.S. military, aided by the armies of the Northern Alliance, is routing Taliban forces, but here in the Pashtun tribal belt—the Taliban’s own backyard—Captain Jason Amerine and his ten Green Berets are on a seemingly impossible mission: to destroy the Taliban from within and prevent a civil war from consuming the country. Armed only with the equipment they can carry on their backs, shockingly scant intelligence, and their mastery of guerrilla warfare, ODA 574 must somehow foment a tribal revolt and force the Taliban to surrender. This lone team of Green Berets has just one ally: a little-known Pashtun statesman named Hamid Karzai, who has returned from exile and is being hunted by the Taliban.
While Karzai attempts to raise a militia, the men of ODA 574 find themselves outnumbered against a ruthless Taliban force. They are in a land where respect is earned at gunpoint, and Karzai’s practiced diplomacy needs the credibility of a warrior in order to unite the Pashtun and build his army. That respect will only come from defeating the Taliban in battle. As ODA 574 contends with a patriot’s quixotic dream, a CIA case officer’s murky agenda, and a higher command that refuses to follow its own rules, Amerine and his men take up position in a small town that has just hanged its Taliban provincial governor, ready to defend it against a thousand enemy fighters who are on their way to kill them …
With unprecedented access to surviving members of ODA 574, Special Operations soldiers and airmen, key commanders and war planners, and Karzai himself, Blehm narrates the muddy-boots effort that helped install Karzai as the leader of Afghanistan’s transitional government, the stepping stone from which he became the country’s first democratically elected president. This story of bravery and sacrifice continues to shape the future of the region today.
The Only Thing Worth Dying For was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller.
Reviews and Endorsements
“The Only Thing Worth Dying For is not only brilliant, it’s the one book you must read if you have any hope of understanding what our fine American soldiers are up against in Afghanistan.”
— Former Congressman Charlie Wilson
“A skillfully reported and masterfully written account of one of the most crucial moments of the War Against Terror. Blehm reminds us of the perils, the triumphs and the sacrifices made in the name of freedom.”
— Bob Woodruff, ABC News correspondent
“Through careful reporting and crisp narrative pacing, Eric Blehm has given us a thrilling, forgotten drama from the opening chapter of the war in Afghanistan. The Only Thing Worth Dying For will become an enduring classic of this extraordinary theater, where so much hangs in the balance.”
— Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder
“Blehm provides powerful and unflinching insight into a real-life mission that ended in tragedy but left an indelible mark on history. From the comic moments to the bleakest hour, it’s a testament to how a small team of well-trained men can shape a nation’s destiny.”
— Stephen Grey, award-winning author of Ghost Plane and Operation Snakebite
“Eric Blehm has written a literary masterpiece about modern war. The whole witches’ brew is here: valor, honor, heroism, cowardice, incompetence, stupidity, triumph, blood, death and despair. That America has soldiers like these should fill every American heart with pride. Read this book!”
— Stephen Coonts, bestselling author of Flight of the Intruder and The Disciple
“No other book has gone to such depths in research, nor been so descriptive in recounting this critical mission during the earliest days after 9/11 when the US Army Special Forces successfully waged unconventional warfare in Afghanistan.”
— Sergeant Major Billy Waugh, author of Hunting The Jackal and Isaac Camacho
“The greatest story of a small unit’s battle through an untamed land since Lawrence of Arabia.”
— Adam Makos, editor of Valor Magazine
“A captivating account of our heroic warriors-a remarkable U.S. Army Special Forces unit’s hard-fought success against incredible odds. It reads with the thrill of fiction—but this is the damned deadly real deal.”
— W.E.B. Griffin & William E. Butterworth IV, best-selling authors of The Traffickers and The Honor of Spies
“[A] stirring account of American Special Forces heroics… The author provides a minute-by-minute account of this dramatic campaign, and the page never flags… a gripping story of admirable men.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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