Darrell's weblog

I just recently finished reading Robert’s Ridge, “a story of courage and sacrifice on Takur Ghar mountain, Afghanistan.” The book is very fast-paced, and I ended up reading it in just three days. For those that know me, this is a phenomenal reading pace, even if the book is only 352 pages. This book is a non-fiction account of what happened on top of Takur Ghar mountain in Afghanistan on March 4th, 2002 as part of Operation Anaconda. The majority of the book is the telling, in intimate detail, the story of what happened based on interviews with (and from the perspective of) the people who were there. The telling of the story is punctuated by brief personal histories of the men who were killed, as well as some of the more prominent players in the story. While these stories do a lot to add to the personal nature of the book, and to pay homage to those who died, they unfortunately also served to interrupt the pace of the story. Part of me feels that these personal biographies should have appeared in an appendix at the end of the book. Speaking of which, the end of the book does contain short snippets detailing those killed on the mountain that day, as well as an objective look at what happened from a high-level perspective.

It’s hard to describe this book without thinking of Black Hawk Down. In fact, many coparisons are already being drawn to that story. For the most part, I think that’s fair, although what happened in this book is considerably smaller scale. Still it’s a great book if you’re into stories about small-unit combat. I also think it makes a good tribute to the men who died on that mountain.