Victory Point - Ed Darack [3]
Operation Whalers (named for the Hartford/New England Whalers), which had the same objective as Red Wings, succeeded. But the details of the success went unreported—as well as overlooked by military historians. Another canvas left virtually blank.
Why the glaring oversights? While a number of reasons contribute to the void of accurate information, a lack of on-site reporters ranks at the top of this list. With the exception of a Marine Corps combat correspondent (Sergeant Robert Storm, one of the best), no photojournalists accompanied forces on the ground during Red Wings or Whalers. Instead, tidbits of information were fed to reporters far in the rear, at Bagram Airfield; these reports consisted of brief summaries—with few specific details. Erroneous, hearsay-inspired “accounts”—published by outlets spanning from blogs to major magazine and newspaper publications—bloomed to feed the public’s hunger for information, creating a whirlwind of distorted facts and some blatant fiction.
I wrote this book in order to chronicle the amazing events in Afghanistan’s Kunar province during the summer of 2005. While I am not, nor have I ever been, in the Marine Corps, I have written Victory Point from a Marine perspective. The Marine Corps planned and executed these operations (with the exception of those aspects tasked to the Naval Special Operations Forces personnel for Red Wings), and the Marines undertook the execution of them. I have gone to great lengths to gather information about and interview personnel of non-USMC units who proved vital in the support of these missions, including Army and U.S. Air Force aviation units. An amazing amount of effort and bravery went into these operations by non-Marine Corps units, particularly during the search and recovery phase of Red Wings as well as the Air Ambulance and close air support provided during Operation Whalers.
I would also like to make note on the spelling of Afghan place-names. The same location, cited on five different maps, will often be spelled five different ways. For example, what I cite as the Korangal Valley, other writers and cartographers have referenced as the “Korengal Valley,” “Karangal Valley,” “Kiringal Valley,” and even the “Giringal Valley.” I chose to use spellings listed on recently published maps, published in English, but developed in Afghanistan. I also use both “standard” and metric measurements—each where most appropriate.
I should also give a quick overview of the genesis of my involvement and interest in this project. As a freelance writer/photographer, I sought to chronicle the training at a little-known Marine Corps base in the late winter of 2005, the Mountain Warfare Training Center, near Bridgeport, California. While at the MWTC, I spent time with the Marines of the Second Battalion of the Third Marine Regiment, who were training for deployment in, and would soon be departing for, Afghanistan. One evening after a training exercise at the base, I asked the battalion’s executive officer, Major Rob Scott, and the operations officer, Major Tom Wood, if I could join the battalion in Afghanistan as an embedded writer/photographer. After consulting with the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andy MacMannis, Majors Scott and Wood informed me that I was welcome to come for as long as I wished.
And so, in late September of 2005, I journeyed to Kabul, Afghanistan, and after credentialing as a media embed, was sent to Camp Blessing, in the village of Nangalam in the country’s eastern Kunar province. Over the