What we are doing now has not occurred since Vietnam. 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. Officials had been unaware that Dostum's army still used a horse cavalry. After that hit, all of them took off on foot to Mazar. The shelling, raping, pillaging, looting, and house-to-house fighting that then befell Kabul stained the name of every mujahidin commander, including Dostums, and fueled his reputation for brutality. Compliance. The rounds are zinging over my head. Mitch Nelson in the film about a team of Green Berets on a strategic mission in Afghanistan in the days immediately following 9/11. John Walker Lindh was the second Irish American jihadi I had met who was trained in Bin Ladens camps. A day laterThursday, five days since the uprising broke outthey are still firing sporadically at soldiers removing bodies from the courtyard of the fortress. (In his book Taliban, author Ahmed Rashid reports a tale he heard that Dostum once ordered his men to drag a thief behind a tank until all that was left was a bloody pulp of gore. 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. One Leadership Skill That Turned 12 'Horse Soldiers' Into An Elite They also need blankets.". I ride in the warlords communications truck, a white Land Cruiser. Now, Cpt. Ive arranged through intermediaries to spend a month with the general, but for the past week, he has been a hundred miles east, trying to subdue Taliban forces that control the city of Kunduz. Mitch Nelson, a U.S. Army captain with Green Berets Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 595, is moving into a new home with his wife and daughter on September 11, 2001, after receiving an assignment to staff duty under Lieutenant Colonel Bowers. The conflict we expected to be over in months inexplicably continues on. A military man and his wife hold each other, knowing they will be separated in the morning, unsure of the future. I asked for a few Americans, he says finally. Later that week, Dostum casually mentions that 3,000 other foreign fighters from the surrender at Kunduz are in a Soviet-era prison in the city of Sheberghan, 80 miles west. And that is a story worth telling. Its three weeks after the madrasah bombing, and word has come down that 3,000 Taliban are still occupying the city and environs of Balkh, Alexander the Greats old walled capital, a few miles west of Mazar. An NGO insisted that thousands of corpses were dumped at a graveyard calledDasht-i-Leili outside of Shiberghan but refused to actual exhume them. When an American team finally recovered Spanns body, they discovered it had been booby-trapped with a live grenade (which they removed without incident). William Fichtner portrays Mulholland in the movie and Homeland's Navid Negahban plays General Dostum. There are tanks. They are direct military descendants of the Devils Brigade, a joint Canadian-American unit that fought in Italy during the Second World War. I head downstairs and discover a group of soldiers bantering cheerfully, mostly in southern accents. After the American bombing campaign decimated their forces, Walker and members of his unit fled on foot nearly a hundred miles west to Kunduzall for nothing, as it turned out. Nelson must convince Col. Mulholland (William Fichtner) that his team is ready to meet with Northern Alliance General Dostum (Navid Negahban) to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Each night, Dostum would sit down with the Americans and lay out the battle plan for the next day. My opinion is an unequivocal yes. The prisoners were not properly searched by members of the Northern Alliance before they were crammed onto trucks and the troops had not realized the American Lindh was among them. I convince the staff to move him to an upstairs bed, where Bill inserts an IV of Hespan into the mans dehydrated body to increase blood circulation. At a full gallop, its a smooth ride. This is where Alexander ruled, where Zoroaster was born, where Buddhists came on pilgrimages, a center of art, poetry, and study where lions were hunted and where Genghis Khan came to conquer. Yes. 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. The 12 Strong true story confirms that he had been given an administrative staff position in the Fifth Group Headquarters. In the afternoon, when I visit the 1985 fort called Qala i Jangi or Fort of the Soldiers, bullets sing over my head. Open your eyes! It was old-fashioned professionalism. After four times or so, they didnt get bombed, so they just stayed there. People still walk by the 16-foot bronze statue of a Green Beret on horseback overlooking Ground Zero and are unaware of its significance (the Horse Soldiers monument is pictured near the bottom of this page). We had hardened fighters holed up in the middle of an urban area who wanted to die, says Will. Dostums men had finally flooded them out by sluicing frigid water into the subterranean room. Some huddle together to watch the gray pillars of smoke from the bombing runs. 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. There is aneed to never forget the sacrifices men make in war. 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. 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. The CIA provided intel on which ethnic leaders to work with, including Afghan General Rashid Dostum. Later, several months after the Taliban fell, the special operations teams returned to Mazar-i-Sharif to bury the piece of the World Trade Center. -The Fayetteville Observer, In addition to ODA 595, three other teams were selected. Wrapped in blankets, members of the mullahs entourage fix me with soulless stares. ODA 595 followed by ODA 555 were the first two teams to have boots on the ground in Afghanistan following 9/11. Then the bombs are dropped, and I look through the scope and see body parts flying everywhere. It took just a few months for American and Afghan forces to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan; thus ousting them from power. We thought Kunduz was [going to be] a full-scale attack, says Captain Mark. They range in age from mid-20s to early 40s. Furthermore, as shown in the movie, they were grossly outnumbered. Both are awake, both unwilling to break the silence as their young child sleeps nearby. An old man yells, God bless you. Then theres Steve, a well-mannered southern medic; Pete, the burly chaw spitter; Mark, their blond, midwestern captain; and so on. "We knew nothing about these guys," retired Lt. Gen. John F. Mulholland said. You see the village; you see the bunkers, says a second Steve, one of the two Air Force men attached to the team to help coordinate air strikes. Later, one is shown penning a goodbye letter to his family. Same thing: We identity it and boom! Sidelined, and in exile in Turkey, In 2009, Dostum was begged by President Karzai to come back from exile to reelect him and again in 2014 Dostum engineered the victory ofPresidentGhani.only to go back into exile. Trigger warnings include battlefield violence, repeated explosions and gun battles, and up-close scenes of civilian killings by the Taliban. Now, in a scene that has been repeated over and over for the past 2,000 years, a warlord is arriving. Is 12 Strong a Real Story? Ending Explained, and More Transfixed, they watch the Christmas tree being lit in Rockefeller Center. -BUILD Series. Lined up against a wall is the most pathetic display of humanity I have ever seen: the survivors of the bunker at Qala Jangi fortress. You could see horses falling. An outcrop obscured views of the last 250 meters to the target. I whip my horse, it takes three steps, and stops. It was at K2 that their team received new orders, after which it was no longer a mission about personnel recovery. The lead horsemen disappeared behind the rocks, and the Regulators all held their breath, praying the bombs would reach the bunkers before the cavalry did. The problem is that the the Convoy of Death story is false. 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. 12 Strong | JH Movie Collection Wiki | Fandom -SOFREP, In the movie, Chris Hemsworth's character's wife is not pregnant. Mazar-i-Sharif was the stronghold for the Taliban's northern force and once liberated, the northern provinces quickly fell. The estimated 30 Alliance soldiers who died have already been taken away by their friends. Nutsch is portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in the movie and renamed Mitch Nelson. The crumpled bodies of prisoners, frozen in agony, are scattered everywhere. But 9/11 changed all that. Paul points to a misty, triangular peak that forms one side of the gap. 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. How Accurate is 12 Strong? The True Story of the Real Horse Soldiers vs On October 7, 2001, ODA 595 arrived in Karchi-Khanabad (K2) Airfield, Uzbekistan. As Bill checks for wounds, he talks to the young man briefly in Arabic. They told us, If Dostum wants to go to Kabul, you are going with him. Chris Hemsworth plays Special Forces leader in '12 Strong' No one individual was the model for the statue. 12 Strong: Directed by Nicolai Fuglsig. In real life, Bob Pennington wasn't badly injured by a surrendering enemy fighter who blew himself up with his own grenade, an act that leaves Michael Shannon's character clinging to life as his fellow soldiers hurry to extract him. A typical meal at Dostums guesthouse. Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. The soldiers on the U.S. Special Forces teams were used to state-of-the-art warfare. Dostum proves to be significantly more expansive in conversation than his scant press clippings would suggest, and hes happy to fill me in on his background. The idea that that Dostum would actually savethe day for an embattledAmerica is an irony that has not fully played out. They placed it in a body bag and lowered it into the ground. Beyond that, all I know is that Dostum, born a poor peasant, grew up to be a brilliant commander, a general, and a warlordone of the many regional leaders across Afghanistan whose power derives both from ethnic loyalties and from military strength. The Americans, up on the ridge, are using GPS units to finalize coordinates. I have been to America and know the quality of life they enjoy. He had been assigned to a Manhattan reserve unit at the time of 9/11 and spent part of September 2001 cleaning up debris from the World Trade Center. Although nighttime gunfire is normal in Afghanistan, there is an urgency to the sound of the deep explosions that come from the 19th-century fortress of Qala Jangi, just over a mile east from Khoda Barq, a Soviet-era apartment complex west of Mazar. (Within a week, he will be named deputy minister of defense for the new interim government of Afghanistan.) The Regulators have served in the gulf war, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and in other places they cant talk about. to talk. We did all that we could. This is where the Taliban made their last stand. This was a guy we considered part of our unit, says Mark. Based on history and dossiers full of Pakistani provided intelligence, theAgency wanted nothing to do with Dostum. Nutsch commented: Were humbled that a movie has been made about our teams mission in that pivotal post 9/11 period. War drama directed by Nicolai Fuglsig which is inspired by true events and is set days following 9/11 when a U.S. Special Forces team, led by their new Captain, Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth), is chosen to be the first U.S. troops sent into Afghanistan for an extremely dangerous mission.