Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold
Story of Operation Anaconda by
Sean Naylor
An Excellent Read On Many Levels
Award-winning combat reporter Sean Naylor reveals how close American
forces came to disaster in Afghanistan against Al Qaida—after easily
defeating the ragtag Taliban that had sheltered the terrorist organization
behind the 9/11 attacks. At dawn on March 2, 2002, over two hundred
soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions flew into the
mouth of a buzz saw in Afghanistans Shahikot Valley. Believing the war all
but over, U.S. military leaders refused to commit the extra infantry, artillery,
and attack helicopters required to fight the wars biggest battle— a missed
opportunity to crush hundreds of Al Qaidas fighters and some of its most
senior leaders. Eyewitness Naylor vividly portrays the heroism of the
young, untested soldiers, the fanaticism of their ferocious enemy, the
mistakes that led to a hellish mountaintop firefight, and how thirteen
American commandos embodied Pattons three principles of war—

audacity, audacity, and audacity—by creeping unseen over frozen
mountains into the heart of an enemy stronghold to prevent a U.S. military
catastrophe.
Personal Review: Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of
Operation Anaconda by Sean Naylor
This is a riveting book that will produce the full range of emotions from
sheer anger to bittersweet sadness to total pride and awe for the soldiers,
sailors, marines and airmen who did their deeds; often with incomplete
information to the best that they could under very chaotic and extreme
conditions. The book chronicles Operation Anaconda that occurred in
Afghanistan in March of 2002. It can be read on numerous levels. As a
battle account it reads like another classic, We Were Soldiers Once and
Young. It provides many lessons on communication between different
organizations, planning, Chain of Command (and what can happen when
that becomes convoluted) and the results of micromanagement from overly
politicized higher ups in air-conditioned rooms far away in safe areas.
The book is very detailed and the author did a great job of researching it
from as many perspectives as possible. In fact, some of the information
bordered on Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, that might have been
better left not discussed, used by some of our most secretive units such as
the AFO of DELTA and even the Special Mission Unit known commonly as
"The Activity" that did signal intelligence work in the Area of Operation.
The value of hard realistic training on basic soldiers skills such as
marksmanship, fire and maneuver, battle drills, and battlefield medicine
shines through in how well the participants did under fire in what was for
many of them their first combat engagement. Another element that
impressed me was how good the opposition performed. They were brave
fighters who gave no quarter and appeared to fight their battle as best as
they could. In fact, if the AFO had not prepared or shaped the battle space
as well as they did prior to the first Air Assault the whole Operation could
have been disastrous. I would highly recommend this book to those
interested in modern battle, Special Operations Forces and any aspiring
leaders looking to learn from the experiences of others. For those
interested in reading more on Army Special Mission Units the book Killer
Elite is also a very informative read.
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