![]() The plan was to "cordon off Baghdad and train up some guerrilla forces to take Baghdad in a couple months," Amerine added. "What was amazing was the organization worked, the training worked, the organizational culture worked." But once they got home, the team was quickly spun up again to help with the Iraq invasion while "big Army" sent brigades into Afghanistan. We never did the, 'What should we sustain? What should we improve?'" he said. "Fifth Group never captured the lessons learned. Asked after the screening what went wrong in the ensuing 14 years of combat deployments to Afghanistan, the retired officer said there was a failure to debrief. Lessons, not learned "I think we did make it look too easy," Amerine said in the film. "It's something that I'll take to my grave with me," Fox said in the documentary. Photo Credit: Army The Green Berets theorized in the documentary that Fox wanted to bomb a suspicious looking cave that day, hours before the Taliban were due to surrender, to score himself points as a battlefield commander. Hamid Karzai, center, who would go on to be the president of Afghanistan, stands with members of 5th Special Forces Group's Operational Detachment Alpha 574 during the early days of the war. "What makes it so personal, and really kind of sinks its claws in me, is that we had two friendly fires within a week of each other caused by headquarters bombing themselves, that never should have been calling in airstrikes," Amerine told Army Times. An investigation later found that the Air Force joint tactical air controller attached to the unit had accidentally calibrated his equipment with his own coordinates rather than those of the target ordered by battalion commander Lt. 1st Class Daniel Petithory died of his injuries later that day. Davis was killed immediately in the blast, while Sgt. "Everyone I've ever led in combat has been killed or wounded," Amerine said in the film. On the morning before the Taliban surrendered, an Air Force bomber accidentally dropped a joint direct attack munition on ODA 574's position outside the city. The campaign was considered a stunning victory - a couple dozen guys in their early 30s taking down a brutal regime - with a tragic end. Jason Amerine led ODA 574, which was tasked with guarding future Afghan president Hamid Karzai as he coordinated his Pashtun allies to bring down the Taliban in their Kandahar stronghold. Photo Credit: Army Meanwhile, in the south, retired Lt. Some of them rode into battle on horseback alongside fighters from the Northern Alliance. Green Berets from 5th Special Forces Group were among the first to deploy to Afghanistan after the Sept. Nutsch's team, who became known as the " horse soldiers" because of their old-school transportation, was in charge of leading the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan to unite against Taliban rule. "For the American people to understand, kind of, how we went out on our mission that was extended for weeks and months," he said, adding that they did it all without body armor or tactical vehicles, living with Afghan partners and following an Afghan plan. Mark Nutsch, team leader of ODA 595 in the fall of 2001. ![]() "Our entire team was nearing retirement, and we knew they were going to complete their time on active service," said retired Maj. Production began back in 2015 and, the retired Green Berets said, the opportunity to participate came just at the right time. "I was amazed every time I would hear another team’s stories about the things they did." Using personal photos and video from the deployment, blended with group and individual interviews of the former members of 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group and their wives, director Greg Barker brought together the stories of Operational Detachment Alpha 574 and ODA 595. Scott Neil said Wednesday evening at a screening of the film in Washington, D.C. We didn’t know each other’s stories," retired Master Sgt. "All these years, we’ve become so compartmented because the war’s continued. But the two didn't know about each other, and though each team's story became a book, they've been brought together for the first time in "Legion of Brothers," a documentary produced by CNN Films along with journalist Peter Bergen and documentarian Tresha Mabile. ![]() 11, 2001, attacks, the Defense Department sent two teams of Army Special Forces soldiers to Afghanistan to bring down the Taliban.
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