Hammerhead Six: How Green Berets Waged an Unconventional War Against the Taliban to Win in Afghanistan's Deadly Pech Valley

Two years before the action in Lone Survivor, a team of Green Berets conducted a very different, successful mission in Afghanistan's notorious Pech Valley. Led by Captain Ronald Fry, Hammerhead Six applied the principles of unconventional warfare to "win hearts and minds" and fight against the terrorist insurgency.

In 2003, the Special Forces soldiers entered an area later called "the most dangerous place in Afghanistan." Here, where the line between civilians and armed zealots was indistinct, they illustrated the Afghan proverb: "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend." Fry recounts how they were seen as welcome guests rather than invaders. Soon after their deployment ended, the Pech Valley reverted to turmoil. Their success was never replicated. Hammerhead Six finally reveals how cultural respect, hard work (and the occasional machine-gun burst) were more than a match for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

• Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds
• The Chosen Few: A Company of Paratroopers and Its Heroic Struggle to Survive in the Mountains of Afghanistan
• The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Fought for a New Afghanistan (P.S.)
• Dagger 22: U.S. Marine Corps Special Operations in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan
• The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi
• Level Zero Heroes: The Story of U.S. Marine Special Operations in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan
• Dog Company: A True Story of American Soldiers Abandoned by Their High Command
• Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan
• Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior
• Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War