And in just 72 hours, ODA 574 experienced an opening salvo that momentarily had brought them to their breaking point. In less than 60 days, 5th Special Forces Group transitioned from peacetime training missions to leading an international war effort. But these were just pickup trucks we were expecting government forces at a minimum.” “Based on the environment and how we knew fought,” he says, “I said, ‘Smoke ’em,’ and cleared the aircraft hot to drop ordnance. So, at 2 a.m., when aircraft above Tarinkot spotted a few pickup trucks advancing toward the town, Jason weighed a decision that might have produced international consequences and set back the newly formed American-led coalition war effort. rules of engagement throughout incursions in South America and the First Gulf War in 1991. was in Vietnam, and the lingering effects of that war’s atrocities had impacted U.S. But in 2001, the last major war that had been fought by the U.S. The bloody sectarian violence that blanketed Iraq in the mid-2000s highlights the difficulties of fighting an enemy that either blends in with or readily uses civilians as cover. In the past 17 years, the insurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan have desensitized Americans to the humanitarian consequences of collateral damage during combat. Again, greeted only by about a dozen guerrillas, the Americans began planning their defense and what would be a likely retreat under fire. ODA 574 drove into Tarinkot and met with the local resistance at the former governor’s mansion. Instead, a decade into his service, a point where most soldiers map out their strategy to retirement, Jason sacrificed his “golden boy” potential and adopted an arduous task that is routinely dismissed during war: spreading the truth. Being an officer in charge of one of those teams, Jason could have leveraged that fame politically to control his ascension as an officer. Just months after the 9/11 attacks, every home in America was familiar with the heroic actions of the 5th Special Forces Group A-Teams in Afghanistan. air power would be used at the tactical level in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But even without participating in the rank-climbing rat race, Jason had enough notoriety as a combat leader through battles such as Tarinkot in 2001, a fight that arguably established precedence for how U.S. Go to the right dinner parties, publicly agree with the right strategies (not for the war, but for your career) and you’ll advance. More than just executive professionalism, this behavior ensures career advancement no different than with individuals in the private sector. Military officers are conditioned to be calculated with speech. military, his control of language is also the result of a career spent being center stage in the national conversation-first for the heroic accomplishments of his Special Forces team in Afghanistan and then their ultimate tragedy. Although such is the quality of any former senior officer in the U.S. When he speaks, he does so calmly and with effortless precision. He has an athletic build but isn’t overly macho, such as how commandos are portrayed in movies that value romanticized narratives over factual depictions. It is a task he describes as difficult-while simultaneously holding up his iPhone X-because we are a culture obsessed with new gadgets.īut today he sits across from me in jeans and a T-shirt. As a Future War Fellow, he reminds distracted policymakers that the fundamentals of war do not necessarily change at the pace that new technology is developed. On any other day, Jason easily blends into the sea of suits and clean haircuts en route to his retirement job at New America.
Outside the coffee shop the sidewalks are packed with the everyday hustle that is the nation’s capital. War-Zone Rescue Pilot MJ Hegar Settles the ‘Women in Combat’ Debate
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