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By Root 1327 0

printed, televised, and broadcast a host of errors, from the actual name of the operation, calling it “Operation Redwing” or “Operation Red Wing” to calling Shah “one of Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenants” or a “top Taliban commander,” to claiming that Shah commanded an army of hundreds or even thousands of Taliban fighters (both videos, later analyzed and authenticated by U.S. military intelligence, showed eight, including Shah himself; furthermore, extremist “commanders” typically lie and exaggerate about how many fighters they command, often multiplying by tens, even hundreds). Media reports also initially claimed that the MH-47 had been shot down by an SA-7 shoulder-launched, heat-seeking, surface-to-air missile, and after being struck by the warhead, the Chinook lumbered through the air for a good mile before setting down on a cliff edge, which crumbled beneath the craft, sending the MH-47 plunging to its destruction. Even a relative neophyte like Shah was able to leverage the error-laden media coverage to his benefit, claiming, after learning of American forces rescuing Luttrell and discovering the bodies of Murphy and Dietz, that he had the fourth member of the team (Axelson) in hiding with him, and would behead the SEAL in a videotaped spectacle. The global media even got the Gulab story wrong, never mentioning Shina, Matt Bartels, or Camp Blessing, and claiming that Gulab himself walked to American forces—at Asadabad.

In the days following the rescue of Luttrell, Marines of Golf Company’s First Platoon, under the command of First Lieutenant Kyle Corcoran, entered Salar Ban and made a brief visit with Gulab as part of the company’s sweep up the Shuryek. The villager seemed to be doing well, but was terribly worried about retaliation from Shah, and had asked to be moved to Asadabad with his family, but was unable to get a response from any Americans at Asadabad’s Camp Wright. In mid-July, as Red Wings II wound down, Gulab showed up at Camp Blessing; he met with Matt Bartels and discussed Shina’s harsh treatment at the hands of SOF interrogators, then revealed that while Shina was given money and a number of valuable items as payment for aiding in Luttrell’s rescue, he had received nothing. Gulab also told Matt of a number of death threats against him and his family, and showed him a list, left with a death threat on his doorstep, of the Taliban’s most wanted dead. Number one was George W. Bush; number two, the commander of Camp Blessing; number three, Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Matt, laughing at the list—but not at the death threats against Gulab and his family—immediately got on the line with Rob Scott, who pushed a request all the way up the channels to CJTF-76. Within weeks, Gulab had a job and house in Asadabad, and received a reward for helping save Marcus Luttrell.

Many of ⅔’s grunts had spent nearly three weeks in the field by the time Red Wings II had come to an end. Their feet bloodied from tromping up and down endless miles of mountainous terrain, their bodies enervated from the heat of the day, the cold and wet of the night, the dehydration, and for some, dysentery, the Marines nevertheless came out of the campaign much tougher and much fitter, ready for the next challenge.

And while Red Wings had been marred nearly from its beginning by tragedy, the battalion did uncover a few weapons caches—the lifeblood of cells such as Shah’s—during their tromps through the Korangal and Shuryek. But the most notable gash in the region’s network of ACM support during this time came from a simple patrol led by Bartels, a small mission not even theoretically part of Red Wings or Red Wings II. As all eyes focused on Sawtalo Sar for the recovery effort, Matt decided to act on some intel that Westerfield had given him in early June, intel that he’d been instructed to act on only if he found the time—it wasn’t considered priority. The information pointed to a possible cache of weapons, a potentially large number of munitions in a home owned by a man who at one time supported the Taliban and whose brother had been hauled