Read Online Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man by Dalton Fury - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dalton Fury
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special piece of information that would provide insight into the location of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, or Mullah Muhammad Omar.
When the raid was all over, I could not help but think that here we were in Tora Bora a year after our first violent attacks in these mountains, but instead of having bin Laden within reach, as we did back then, we were now grabbing any little person who might have spoken to him at some time. Gul Ahmed was just another piece in the puzzle. We would not be informed of what, if anything, he gave up, and we went back to work. But the intel on Usama bin Laden remained dry.
Nonetheless, one of the most memorable comments of my career in Delta came from the Unit command sergeant major, Iggy, who remarked as we entered the hot wash after snatching Gul Ahmed, “That’s one for the books, sir!”
Well said, sergeant major!
* Derek Leebaert, in his book
To Dare and to Conquer
, discusses when and where Delta planned to use the Trojan horse option during the eventually aborted rescue attempt of American hostages in Iran. The June 2006 edition of
Tip of the Spear
, a monthly magazine published by USSOCOM, discusses former MACV-SOG Dick Meadows’s participation in Operation Eagle Claw. Already retired from the military, Meadows was pressed back into action, and along with a few others infiltrated Tehran, Iran, to prepare for the arrival of the rescue force and confirm the location of the hostages. See http://www.socom.mil/TOTS/2006/TOTS_web-200606.pdf .
* The flying heroics of the 160th are well known throughout the world and several books cover their selection process and derring-do accomplishments. Retired CW4 Mike Durant, of
Blackhawk Down
fame, had authored two books on the organization. The first,
In the Company of Heroes
, covers his personal experience in Somalia. The second, titled
Night Stalkers
, recounts several previously unknown secret missions of the 160th. Also, David Tucker and Christopher Lamb describe the talents of the 160th in their book,
United States Special Operations Forces
.
2
Welcome to Delta
Don’t be late, light, or out of uniform.
—DELTA SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT CADRE
MEMBER, SPRING 1998
I am an army brat. My father served two tours in Vietnam, including time with the 173rd Airborne Combat Brigade, and spent months hospitalized in a body cast while his wounds healed. In the early 1970s, he was assigned to a new post in Frankfurt, Germany, and I attended a military community elementary school, played baseball, shot marbles, traded comic books and bubblegum baseball cards, and fought a thousand G.I. Joe battles. For cheap thrills, I enjoyed playing combat dodge ball behind the three-story whitewashed apartment building with my twin brother and the other kids.
It was there that I gained my first recollection of terror. The violent, left-wing Baader-Meinhof gang terrorized Germany in those days. In 1972, radical members of the group operating beneath the banner of the Red Army Faction bombed an American military headquarters building in Frankfurt, killing an American officer and wounding a dozen other people. I remember my mother coming around the corner of the apartment building to interrupt our sandbox battle and save the G.I. Joe with his lifelike hair from being crushed by a flying Big Bertha marble.
“Get inside,” she said. “The radio just announced some of the Baader-Meinhof gang have escaped from prison and may be in our neighborhood.”Terrorists were nearby, she said, and I, at eight years old, wondered “What’s a terrorist?” I begged her to let me stay outside, hoping that I might see one of those mysterious gang members skulking about, perhaps wearing a long, dark trench coat. No chance.
Dad was reassigned back to the States a short time later and we settled in a townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia, while he held assignments at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and the Pentagon. My adolescent love of G.I. Joe dolls waned, but my hunger for adventure
When the raid was all over, I could not help but think that here we were in Tora Bora a year after our first violent attacks in these mountains, but instead of having bin Laden within reach, as we did back then, we were now grabbing any little person who might have spoken to him at some time. Gul Ahmed was just another piece in the puzzle. We would not be informed of what, if anything, he gave up, and we went back to work. But the intel on Usama bin Laden remained dry.
Nonetheless, one of the most memorable comments of my career in Delta came from the Unit command sergeant major, Iggy, who remarked as we entered the hot wash after snatching Gul Ahmed, “That’s one for the books, sir!”
Well said, sergeant major!
* Derek Leebaert, in his book
To Dare and to Conquer
, discusses when and where Delta planned to use the Trojan horse option during the eventually aborted rescue attempt of American hostages in Iran. The June 2006 edition of
Tip of the Spear
, a monthly magazine published by USSOCOM, discusses former MACV-SOG Dick Meadows’s participation in Operation Eagle Claw. Already retired from the military, Meadows was pressed back into action, and along with a few others infiltrated Tehran, Iran, to prepare for the arrival of the rescue force and confirm the location of the hostages. See http://www.socom.mil/TOTS/2006/TOTS_web-200606.pdf .
* The flying heroics of the 160th are well known throughout the world and several books cover their selection process and derring-do accomplishments. Retired CW4 Mike Durant, of
Blackhawk Down
fame, had authored two books on the organization. The first,
In the Company of Heroes
, covers his personal experience in Somalia. The second, titled
Night Stalkers
, recounts several previously unknown secret missions of the 160th. Also, David Tucker and Christopher Lamb describe the talents of the 160th in their book,
United States Special Operations Forces
.
2
Welcome to Delta
Don’t be late, light, or out of uniform.
—DELTA SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT CADRE
MEMBER, SPRING 1998
I am an army brat. My father served two tours in Vietnam, including time with the 173rd Airborne Combat Brigade, and spent months hospitalized in a body cast while his wounds healed. In the early 1970s, he was assigned to a new post in Frankfurt, Germany, and I attended a military community elementary school, played baseball, shot marbles, traded comic books and bubblegum baseball cards, and fought a thousand G.I. Joe battles. For cheap thrills, I enjoyed playing combat dodge ball behind the three-story whitewashed apartment building with my twin brother and the other kids.
It was there that I gained my first recollection of terror. The violent, left-wing Baader-Meinhof gang terrorized Germany in those days. In 1972, radical members of the group operating beneath the banner of the Red Army Faction bombed an American military headquarters building in Frankfurt, killing an American officer and wounding a dozen other people. I remember my mother coming around the corner of the apartment building to interrupt our sandbox battle and save the G.I. Joe with his lifelike hair from being crushed by a flying Big Bertha marble.
“Get inside,” she said. “The radio just announced some of the Baader-Meinhof gang have escaped from prison and may be in our neighborhood.”Terrorists were nearby, she said, and I, at eight years old, wondered “What’s a terrorist?” I begged her to let me stay outside, hoping that I might see one of those mysterious gang members skulking about, perhaps wearing a long, dark trench coat. No chance.
Dad was reassigned back to the States a short time later and we settled in a townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia, while he held assignments at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and the Pentagon. My adolescent love of G.I. Joe dolls waned, but my hunger for adventure
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