Word: turner
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...today. On the night the troops come under attack, they are headed into the craggy ridges outside Kandahar to join an operation by coalition forces to corner Maulvi Hannan, a Taliban commander with known links to al-Qaeda. But the ambush and the injuries to the five soldiers force Turner to make some split-second decisions. While an Afghan interpreter tries to clear away local onlookers, the captain is busy on the radio. The medevac helicopter for the wounded soldiers has yet to leave the Kandahar airfield despite multiple promises that the chopper was en route. Furious that...
...Turner is a model of the modern American officer, a wry, boyish-looking West Point graduate equally versed in the works of Clausewitz and St. Augustine. As he waits for help to arrive, he directs his men not to shoot wildly at the shadows flitting through the battle chaos. "Dammit! It's civilians mixed with enemy," he shouts into his radio. "Make sure they're carrying guns before you engage." The Air Force has responded to his distress call by sending over a B-52 bomber, which could flatten the entire village, killing plenty of civilians. Turner gets...
...recent days, a U.S.-led offensive has flushed Hannan and his fighters from their hideout in the mountains of north Kandahar. According to reports of the battle, which involved coalition special-ops troops, as many as 30 Taliban fighters have been killed out of an estimated force of 165. Turner and his company are assigned to wait for the Taliban when they spill out of the ravines. It's a tall order: there are a dozen draws leading out of the mountain labyrinth, and Turner has no way of knowing which escape route Hannan and his men might choose...
...Still, Turner and his men are eager to join the operation. Driving all night along riverbeds and dirt tracks, the convoy reaches its destination at daybreak. A pickup carrying Afghan troops has flipped over, injuring two soldiers, so Turner is down several men. Gates, the least injured passenger in the bombed humvee, insists on coming along. "I wasn't that shaken," says Gates. "I was just pissed that I didn't have a truck anymore. I wanted to do something...
After spreading out his company, Turner receives new orders from headquarters. Two Chinook helicopters are due to ferry 50 of his troops up to a mountain ridge to keep the fleeing Taliban from outflanking the coalition special forces, who have set up an ambush for their prey in a deep canyon. But the Afghan commander, angry that a medevac chopper is late to arrive for his two soldiers who were injured when the pickup overturned, refuses to let his men join the mission. "Look at these Afghans. Why the hell should we be fighting their war?" says a U.S. sergeant...