Eagle Down: The Last Special Forces Fighting the Forever War

Jessica Donati deserves a Pulitzer Prize for this extraordinary book about America’s continued behind the scenes fighting in Afghanistan’s “Forever War.” After spending four years in Afghanistan, much of it as “The Wall Street Journal” Bureau Chief, Jessica Donati offers us insights into the quagmire of the longest war in our country’s history. Exactly like her gutsy journalistic style to stay close to the action, Jessica writes with such courage about the havoc political indecision and corruption have wreaked.

The centerpiece of this documentary focuses on the 2015 attack that held the city of Kunduz in the balance, scales tipped by the fearless action of an outnumbered band of U.S. Special Forces. Unfortunately, the devastating aerial attack by an AC-130 gunship on an international hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders, claimed the lives of forty-two patients and staff. The attack on the hospital revealed to the world that America was still very much engaged in a war despite all previous claims of the President and his Administration to the contrary.

Aside from the official reports, Jessica Donati’s interviews with key members of the U.S. Special Forces Groups actually engaged in combat reveal that politicians have still not learned the lessons from previous failed military campaigns where the government sent America’s sons into battle without a plan or proper support. The hard truth born out by extensive research for this book is that our government still has no long-term plan for Afghanistan that might offer American’s even a modicum of assurance that the breeding ground for terrorists will not sprout a fresh crop of attacks on us at home. Even worse, it unveils the ugly reality that we are sacrificing America’s finest in secret without any clear goal for ultimate victory, a madness all too reminiscent for Vietnam veterans and their families.

The take-away from this book kick-starts the discussion of the “Forgotten War” by assigning responsibility to the politicians who have been politely changing the subject far too long.