In late June 2005, media recounted the tragic story of nineteen U.S. special operations personnel who died at the hands of insurgent/terrorist leader Ahmad Shah, leaving one survivor, deep in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan. The harrowing events of Operation Red Wings marked an important, yet widely misreported, chapter in the Global War on Terror. This book reveals the complete story of Operation Red Wings (often mis-referenced as "Operation Redwing"), and the follow-on mission, Operation Whalers. Together, these two U.S. Marine Corps operations (which in the case of Red Wings utilized Navy SEALs for its opening phase) unfold not as a mission gone terribly wrong, but as a complex and difficult campaign that ultimately saw the demise of Ahmad Shan and his small army of barbarous fighters. Due to the valor, courage, and commitment of the Marines in the summer of 2005, Afghanistan was able to hold free elections that fall.--From publisher description.