And I believe it will mean a lot to the Afghan people because it shows their service in that conflict.. Ive arranged through intermediaries to spend a month with the general, but for the past week, he has been a hundred miles east, trying to subdue Taliban forces that control the city of Kunduz. That heavy reliance on tanks and trucks meant the Taliban wound up fighting a defensive, Russian-style war. Mark Nutsch's team, ODA 595, was dropped in Dehi, roughly 100 miles from the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The men who first defended this post with me are all dead now. I suggest to Bill that we remove Walker from the hospital, where he might be killed by other patients, many of whom were fighting against him at the fortress. I asked for a few Americans, he says finally. Men who are the Armys elite, who are college educated and fluent in several languages, yet who are paid little more than a manager at McDonalds. Yes. Wrapped in blankets, members of the mullahs entourage fix me with soulless stares. War drama directed by Nicolai Fuglsig which is inspired by true events and is set days following 9/11 when a U.S. Special Forces team, led by their new Captain, Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth), is chosen to be the first U.S. troops sent into Afghanistan for an extremely dangerous mission. When an American team finally recovered Spanns body, they discovered it had been booby-trapped with a live grenade (which they removed without incident). In exploring how accurate 12 Strong is, we learned that some members of the ODA 595 Special Forces team had been involved in a nighttime training exercise along the Cumberland River. The men know their story and I wrote it down. 12 Strong - Navid Negahban "General Dostum" [On-Set Interview]Subscribe and click the notification bell HERE: http://goo.gl/SrrTlTSubscribe to Filmisnow Movi. What we are doing now has not occurred since Vietnam. (19 Dec 2001) 1. "We knew nothing about these guys," retired Lt. Gen. John F. Mulholland said. Now, Cpt. In 2014, General Dostum became Vice President of Afghanistan. By the time they come up and look, you are on them. The latter approach was well suited to Dostums style of attack. Dostum chuckles and denies the allegation. Mitch Nelson (1963-) was a US Army captain during the Afghanistan War . He is a thick man with a pug nose, bad skin, tiny teeth, and a cruel stare. "12 Strong": The Inside Story of the Making of a (Refreshingly Accurate General Abdul Rashid Dostum had arrived. No one knew just when or where the team would be sent. This was a guy we considered part of our unit, says Mark. Like in the 12 Strong movie, Nutsch helped teach the other team members how to ride. Mitch Nelson, a character based on Nutsch. Afghans in a blue truck are scavenging for parts. Sidelined, and in exile in Turkey, In 2009, Dostum was begged by President Karzai to come back from exile to reelect him and again in 2014 Dostum engineered the victory ofPresidentGhani.only to go back into exile. "They didn't expect us to survive," Mark Nutsch said. "Excellent." It was then that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld showed the press an image of a bearded Green Beret on a horse and explained that the man was directing air strikes against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in northern Afghanistan. We begged, Mark says, but we were told to stay away. (In the end, the Regulators wouldnt get clearance to enter Qala Jangi until the uprising was over. Dostum implores the mullahs to call down to the bunker and tell the remaining men to surrender. You raise your flag," Nelson says. We are alive thanks to you. As Dostum stands on the porch, looking at the place of his birth, he chokes up. At 3:30 a.m., I go to bed. Who were the 12 strong in real life? - JOUNIMARTIKAINEN As for why the names were changed, one article stated that the studio did not want to have to pay all of the real-life people for the rights to use their names. Men wept as the imam prayed and thanked Dostum for deliverance. Some are provided by Dostum and others. Finally after two weeks they admitted they could not smuggle me across. The mission was also chronicled in Doug Stanton's 2009 book, Horse Soldiers, on which the movie is based. The twisted rag doll bodies of dead Taliban fighters lie heads back, fingers clutched, legs sprawled as if they fell running. Newsweek, The New York Times and other outlets insisted that eyewitness had seen American soldiers laughing and shooting into containers. He knew that he had to put in his time shuffling papers in order to move up in rank. A hundred yards away, villagers stand against a long compound. real general dostum and mitch nelson - diagrammix.com After our time in country, I became friends with the men and defended them when they were accused of war crimes by the media. Its a helluva thing we do, isnt it? Various close ups of American Specia. Military historians have called it one of the most successful unconventional warfare campaigns in U.S. history. They just cant figure it out. What '12 Strong' Tells Us about Afghanistan - The National Interest Based on the novel Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton, 12 Strong offers a realistic depiction of what the unit went through, the inner workings of military culture, and the effect on both Afghan civilians and the units families back home. General Abdul Rashid Dostum and Captain Mark Nutsch achieved this unexpected success in November 2001 by breaking out of a rebel pocket of the Hindu Kush Mountains and seizing Mazar i Sharif,. We were receiving more fire. Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. Their motto is To Free the Oppressedsomething they have done so far in this war with no civilian casualties, no blowback, and no regrets. By the time the team had arrived in Qali-i-Jangi they were gaunt, sick but eager to keep up the fight. 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme. With the help of his troops and Muslim counterparts in Afghanistan, he not only captured the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif, but also topple the Taliban. In the bewildering matrix of Afghan politics, Dostum has frequentlyand nimblyswitched allegiances. In real life, they learned of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center over the truck's radio on their way back to the base. You felt the air leave. The book is the inspiration behind the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film called "12 Strong" that was released in 2018 and stars Chris Hemsworth as Capt. We grabbed our stuff and ran., The team knew that their story would be stolen, rewritten and misused as Rumsfeld and others seized the moment. Dostum, a former Communist general, had a reputation for violence. It took just a few months for American and Afghan forces to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan; thus ousting them from power. The radio crackles with call signs and traffic broadcast between bombardiers and the American soldiers. A local mullah sings a prayer of deliverance and thanks to Dostum. -Horse Soldiers book, The movie finds the soldiers being told that there is a good chance they won't survive the mission. He takes me to the hilltop above the village. I was full of emotions. . Once they hit the ground, the Regulators would be writing their own game plan. Now the CIA and spec ops have been let loose., Dostums men were a loose alliance that grew with every victory against the Taliban. I screened the war drama 12 Strong with a group of military spouse bloggers recently in Hollywood. Arent you the guy who goes to all those dangerous places?. At the end of the Soviet period Dostum had 45,000 troops with about half of them as village reserves. William Fichtner portrays Mulholland in the movie and Homeland's Navid Negahban plays General Dostum. He says it was an area sympathetic to the Taliban and that his heart went out to them. Dostums first stop was the blue mosque at the tomb of Hazrat Ali, the revered son-in-law of the Prophet. We thought he was wounded. None of the 12 soldiers died during the 2001 Afghanistan mission. I soon learn that yesterday some 400 foreign Taliban prisoners overpowered their guards, broke into arsenals, and took over part of the fortress. All the while ostracizing the now First Vice President Dostum who is currently in exile in Ankara plotting his next move. But on the ground in Afghanistan, theyre on their own. They are known as the quiet professionals because their missions are covert and, for obvious reasons, they rarely publicize their exploits., Actor and producer Thad Luckinbill commented on the need to just be authentic and pay these guys the respect that they deserve and tell the story that should be told., One of the most fascinating threads throughout the movie is the forging of an uneasy partnership between Captain Mitch Nelson (Hemsworth) and Northern Alliance General Dostum (Navid Negahban). I had jumped a train in Tajikistan, snuck into Uzbekistan and remained holed up in a dusty border town. The only mystery was the lack of interest in the NGO, governments and media in investigating the facts. We wind through the tight pass alongside a swollen mountain river, go over the pass, then head a kilometer down the south side of the divide and stop at a freshly mudded house. Moments later Mike would be murdered by prisoners. He ended up in the Takhar Province, in the northeastern part of the country. These are two of the Taliban who chased Dostum out of Mazar in May 1997, but still he treats them more like honored guests than prisoners of war. Some hide their faces, others convulse and shiver. However, it's hard to imagine that was the case with the 12 Strong movie, since Nutsch has become a fairly well-known public figure. The lead horsemen disappeared behind the rocks, and the Regulators all held their breath, praying the bombs would reach the bunkers before the cavalry did. Theres one time Ill never forget, he says. Instead of the expected handful of holdouts, no fewer than 86 foreign Taliban emerged after a week in the agonizing dark and coldstarved, deaf, hypothermic, wounded, and exhausted. Were not about to stand up and watch whats going on. Privacy Policy Over the ensuing days, I take every opportunity to spend time in these makeshift barracks, particularly once I discover that this is the very unit of Green Berets that Id been hearing rumors aboutthis is Dostums covert support team. Mitch Nelson (Aussie Chris Hemsworth, aka Thor) is the highly trained but not combat-tested leader of the small team dubbed Task Force Dagger and sent by Col. Mulholland (William. They were potentially facing about 50,000 Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The general climbs out of the tiny black car and tucks his hands into his belt. Astoundingly, after two days of bombardment, the prisoners still control the fort. He did have trouble getting off his horse, and like in the movie, the medic gave him something for the pain. If you drive west from Mazar, past Qala Jangi, past Khoda Barq, past the ancient, crumbling city of Balkh, and head south toward a ridge of snow-dusted mountains called the Alborz Range, you will see a gapthe Tingi Pass. What happened to General Dostum in Afghanistan? "All of these guys have blood on their hands. Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. Mark Nutsch, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in the movie, had recently been promoted out of the job he loved, serving in the field as a Special Forces team captain. In the words of director Nicolai Fuglsig: This is a movie where you can rally around both the Americans and the Afghans because, together, they took an epic ride into the mouth of hell. How the 'Horse Soldiers' helped liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban There were some deep unresolved internal conflicts because of the death of Mike Spann and why they over their protests had been sent to Kunduz. He points out that the word "Tiangi" actually means gap, so when they refer to the "Tiangi gap" in the movie, they're actually saying the gap, gap.Pennington said that with regard to the enemy vehicle (BM-21) launching rockets in and around the Tiangi, it did happen, several times. Meanwhile, Im hunkered down, waiting for Dostum. Airstrikes, AC130s and Hazara guards had killed all but 86 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. If one was to look for the roots of Dostums warlord reputation it began when he was the direct and most successful enemy of the CIA-backed insurgency of fundamentalist warlords based out of Pakistan. Like in the movie, Doug Stanton's book Horse Soldiers describes Nutsch going to Colonel Bowers after the attacks to ask to be placed with his team again. No more Taliban. Captain Nelson was determined to get the mission done in a timely fashion because of the promise he made to his superiors. They have been blowing themselves up with grenades. Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. Others have speculated that the filmmakers changed some of the names to diversify the Special Forces team for the movie, but that has not been confirmed. He talked for half an hour. Then came September 11. On the morning of September 11, the team was returning to base after an all-night training exercise. John, he says. Accordingly, on 25 May 1997, Malik arrested Khan, handed him over and let the Taliban enter Mazar-e-Sharif, giving them control over most of northern Afghanistan. It feels more than a bit odd to be recognized for my books and TV showas someone who specializes in traveling to the worlds hot spotswhile poking around a war in Afghanistan. "When I went to Afghanistan, I reported to Lieutenant Colonel Max Bowers. However, at least 3 false starts delayed their deployment for almost a month. Instead, 12 Strong simply tells a storya true one. He would say he is going to attack at about 2 p.m., says Air Force Steve. The risk they were taking was indeed that great. Abdul Rashid Dostum - Wikipedia You call in an airplane; you say, Can you see that place? ODA 595 followed by ODA 555 were the first two teams to have boots on the ground in Afghanistan following 9/11. Fifty tents later, they told us to pack our shit again.. The old men are frail, with deeply lined faces. He went on to serve in the US Army, although he did not see combat until the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Again he began integrating mujahideen into the political military ranks among them his number two against the Taliban Lal Kamadan. The baby was born early while Mark was in Afghanistan. After a cinematic pause to allow the implications of his arrival to sink in, Dostum phones the village leadership from the Audi: Send out your weapons and any fighters or were going in. All I see is brown dirt and men on donkeys leading camels along the road. There are tanks. He sits and makes small talk, then excuses himself to take a shower. 12 Strong stars Chris Hemsworth (Thor from the Avengers movies, in case youre not up on pop culture) and Oscar nominee Michael Shannon and is produced by Alcon Entertainment, Black Label Media, and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. At the same moment he was trying to flee Mazar from the Taliban assault. The sound of canon firecontinues without a break but at a slower pace. And that he became the first Afghan commander to take over a major city when he entered Mazar-e Sharif on November 10. These soldiers, I soon realize, come from much the same background as Dostums: sons of miners, farmers, and factory workers; some are men whose only way out of poverty is the military. Three years of drought have broken: A cold rain pours down in gray sheets. (In his book Taliban, author Ahmed Rashid reports a tale he heard that Dostum once ordered his men to drag a thief behind a tank until all that was left was a bloody pulp of gore. The money was hardly enough for feeding my horses, Dostum says. Captain Mitch Nelson (played by Chris Hemsworth) refuses. It feels even more odd when I discover that these are Green Beretssoldiers who truly specialize in the worlds hot spots. An event and a man I will never forget. So we would put in for priority for the planes. The teams primary weapons were not pistols or rifles; they were the most fearsome tools in the American arsenal: F-18s, F-16s, F-14s, and B-52s. They had gone only about 600 meters when they started taking fire. After the bombs hit, I peeked over the side of the bunker; our horses were gone. That, says Dostum, was when the war against terror began., Living in caves and raiding Taliban positions, Dostums men slowly began to harass the well-entrenched Taliban along the Darra-e Suf. Both of the named Green Berets are commanding officers, John Mulholland and Max Bowers. Ten minutes later, another 40 riders galloped up. Each member had an average of eight years experience and most had combat experience in either Desert Storm, Kosovo or Somalia. We could see a bunch of Taliban come out of another bunker complex off to the south and disappear behind a hill. Since he cant speak Urdu, he was assigned to the Arab-speaking branch of Ansar (the helpers), a faction that Walker claims is sponsored by Osama bin Ladenwhom Walker says he saw many times in the training camps and on the front lines. General Abdul Rashid Dostum is a man who has rarely been interviewed but has often been typecast as a brutal warlordusually because of his reputation for winning. No. In the morning Villagers come out in the crisp, golden light of morning, shivering and tired. The first monument to CIA officer Mike Spann, the first casualty in the war on terror was erected by General Dostum. Americas finest were about to fight their first war on horseback in more than a hundred years. Spotlighting a Special Forces unit that went to Afghanistan soon after 9/11 to hunt and destroy al-Qaeda, "12 Strong" follows this dirty dozen led by Hemsworth's "Capt. The rounds are zinging over my head. The prisoners were not properly searched by members of the Northern Alliance before they were crammed onto trucks and the troops had not realized the American Lindh was among them. Outmanned, the Green Berets decided to move out on horseback. Marco Polo App Improves Communication for Military Families. When the two aircraft were on location, the Green Berets radioed Alliance commanders to evacuate civilians from the area. They have Beretta pistols strapped to their thighs like gunslingers and short M-4 rifles slung across their chests. (Though in my opinion, much more time should have been given to family homecoming scenes!). They said, You guys will be on the ground; you figure it out. , Within half an hour of meeting Dostum at the mud-walled compound in the Darra-e Suf, the Regulators swung into action. 12 Strong (2018) - IMDb The first thing we wanted to do was to say to Dostum, The Americans are here, Paul explains, and to make it a fearsome prospect to mess with us. The Americans set up their gear at Dostums command postwhich overlooked Taliban positions about six miles awayand immediately began the process of calling in close air support, or CAS. The young commando Abdul Rashid, quickly rose through the ranks. Up until now the CIA has been hog-tied. The shelling, raping, pillaging, looting, and house-to-house fighting that then befell Kabul stained the name of every mujahidin commander, including Dostums, and fueled his reputation for brutality. They were all quitting demanding to be sent to other units rather than put up with new commander ideas on what soldiering was. Dostum was very concerned about us getting too close to the battlefield, Captain Mark had told me back at the barracks. This is the back jacket of The Hunt for Bin Laden ghostwritten by the late Jack Idema and published as non fiction by Random House editor Bob Loomis. Then the morphine begins to kick in. Toward the end of September, the word came down: Pack your shit., Fifteen days later, the team boarded a C-5 Galaxy with a secret flight plan. I talk to an Iraqi, as well as to Pakistanis and Saudisall of whom speak English. In the conservative press I am criticized for being too gentle in my questioning of an obvious traitor, on the left for cold-bloodedly tricking a helpless boy into incriminating himself. They linked up with Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Uzbek fighters. Surprisingly Dostum agreed. However, when the 2009 Horse Soldiers book was being written, Mark Nutsch had requested that his name be changed to protect his identity, as was the case with most of the other Horse Soldiers. Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved, The joy was short-lived. "It's your city, general. Dostum and Mitch Nelson remain close friends to this day. Real Life Special Forces Heroes Helped Keep 12 Strong True To Life He was authorized to transform his Jowyzjani militia into the 53rd Infantry Division in 1988 and ultimately under the Soviet backed regime of Najibullah, he became commander of the 7th Army Corps in charge of all of Northern Afghanistan. And waited. As he leans into the Afghan wind, the light falls, and a moment in history fades. The crowd of men follows Dostum into his fathers compound. Mitch Nelson | Historica Wiki | Fandom Mitch Nelson, a U.S. Army captain with Green Berets Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 595, is moving into a new home with his wife and daughter on September 11, 2001, after receiving an assignment to staff duty under Lieutenant Colonel Bowers. We fought with nothing but hope.. The only sign that something is about to happen is a white contrail high in the sky. Not exactly. He would take a village by getting the mounted guys up close. This is the first close-air-support strike in years in an urban area, says Air Force Steve. They also had two boys, then ages 4 and 3 (in the movie, they have a little girl). Mullah Nuri insists he doesnt know them and they refuse to come up. Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. Green Berets work in secrecy, so only their first names can be used: Theres Andy, the slow-talking weapons expert who is never without his grenade launcher; back home, he keeps the guns in his collections loaded so they are ready when I am. Both he and Paul, a quiet, bespectacled warrant officer, have been in the unit 11 years. Dostums strategy was now their strategy: to ride roughshod over Taliban positions up the Darra-e Suf Valley, roll north over the Tingi Pass in the Alborz Range, then sweep north across the plains and liberate Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistans second largest city. The movie isn't revealing anything new. They sit patiently for hours, clutching tiny pieces of paper, seeking his aid. Some stayed behind to handle logistics and supplies. Our warhad been big footed by Iraq. The conflict we expected to be over in months inexplicably continues on. "If they got in trouble, there was very little I could do and nothing I could do quickly. "We think they got it, they got the spirit of the Special Forces team in the post-9/11 moment in American history," said team leader Mark Nutsch, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in the movie. The Regulators job was to invent a new form of warfare: coordinating lightly armed horseback attacks with massive applications of American air powerall without hitting civilians or friendly forces. He had been assigned to a Manhattan reserve unit at the time of 9/11 and spent part of September 2001 cleaning up debris from the World Trade Center. The deadline is noon. Once the ODA 595 linked up with Dostum, they were to "render the area unsafe for the Taliban and terrorist activity," says Green Beret Mark Nutsch, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in the movie. "We slept on the ground the first couple of nights." Six months ago, he traveled to Kabul with some Pakistanis to join the Taliban. We kept moving north on horseback, but at that point, no one could tell where the front line was anymore. We thought Kunduz was [going to be] a full-scale attack, says Captain Mark. And that ended the resistance. As the three of us climb back into our vehicle, I glance at the battlefield. I tell the prisoner where he is and who hes talking to. His men rounded up vehicles that the Taliban had left behind, and Heavy D entered the city as a conquering hero, standing through the sunroof of a Toyota Land Cruiser. It didnt seem to matter that there was no actual evidence. We had two days to plan, another Regulator says. Perhaps we really ought to think of the Star Wars icon as an. Later on he had a dark premonition. But when he smiles, he looks like a naughty 12-year-old. The two Afghan leaders study a map with Captain Mark, just in case air strikes are needed. The enemy was 700 meters out and moving quickly. At the time, General Dostum did have a reputation for violence and turning on allies during battle. We jumped in the back of a truck and drove up to Dostums HQ here in this house.. Open your eyes! I target the third bunker. The team set up on the roof of a building about 400 meters from the madrasah and called in a strike. The truck-mounted ZU antiaircraft guns are cranked down to eye level. "They weirdly are a formidable force that will continue to fight, no matter what.".