The US Green Beret Commando who became known as the Lawrence of Afghanistan

[shian]

[img]http://a.abcnews.com/images/Blotter/ABC_gant_graphic_kab_140624_12x5_992.jpg[/img]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpNKADTSCoY[/media]
[quote]
Given the lackluster results of the U.S.-initiated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans might want a military officer willing to break the rules to accomplish something on the ground in such faraway places. That someone might have been Army Green Beret Major Jim Gant, who was credited with winning his slice of the Afghan war in northeastern Kunar province until his career derailed after a love affair with a newspaper reporter who quit her job to live with him in Afghanistan.

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The tale of Gant and former Washington Post reporter Ann Scott Tyson, is detailed in her recent book American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant. She came to know Gant— who some described as “Lawrence of Afghanistan” for adopting local customs and exchanging his Army uniform for traditional Afghan garb, along with a full beard—while covering the war for the Post.

Gant, who won a Silver Star for valor in Iraq in 2006, had achieved notice for detailing his thinking on how the U.S. could prevail in Afghanistan in a 2009 paper, One Tribe at a Time. A copy had been found in Osama bin Laden’s quarters following his killing by U.S. forces in 2011, Tyson writes. There were notes in the margins about the difficulties al Qaeda was having in Kunar province, believed written by bin Laden. A second document, from bin Laden to his intelligence chief, named Gant, and said he “needed to be removed from the battlefield,” according to Tyson.

Tyson first met Gant at the 2007 ceremony where the Army awarded him that Silver Star, and wrote about him in a 2010 profile for her newspaper. The headline declared him “the Green Beret who could win the war in Afghanistan.”

Although each was in a failing marriage with four kids, the couple decided to live together amid Afghanistan’s mountains for nine months starting in mid-2011. Gant was running the war his way and “indulged in a self-created fantasy world” that mixed booze and drugs, according to the Army. He kept his relationship with Tyson hidden from his superiors. “We both knew that there was a lot of risk in doing what we did. And I would do it again,” Gant tells ABC News. “It was extremely unconventional, yes, to say the least.”

Gant’s extremely unconventional approach to war—and his unusual living arrangement with Tyson—led the Army to relieve him of command in 2012 after a freshly-minted lieutenant from West Point complained.

“There is a belief [in the Army] that you went COL Kurtz and went totally native,” an Army comrade wrote to Gant after he returned to Fort Bragg, N.C., according to Tyson’s book. Colonel Walter E. Kurtz was the rogue Green Beret officer played by Marlon Brando in 1979’s Apocalypse Now.

The Army—which had praised Gant’s approach to counter-insurgency by grooming local tribesman into police forces to oppose the Taliban—turned on him after internal investigations revealed some of his unusual counter-insurgency methods. Gant dealt with his PTSD and traumatic brain injury with alcohol, supposedly banned in Afghanistan for U.S. troops, and prescription drugs. And he endangered his troops, according to the Army:

During your time in command, you purposefully and repeatedly endangered the lives of your Soldiers…You painted inappropriate and unauthorized symbols on Government vehicles, painted the symbol on your vehicle a different color, then challenged the enemy to try and kill you without consideration to your Service Members’ lives or well being. You sent `night letters’ to the enemy, further drawing dangerous attention to yourself and subordinates. These are the same Soldiers that you have the duty to properly train, mentor, lead and most importantly, defend.
Yet Gant never lost a man, Tyson wrote. The service didn’t think much of his arrangement with her, either: “By providing his paramour unimpeded access to classified documents in a combat zone, MAJ Gant compromised the US mission in Afghanistan.”

Lieut. General John Mulholland, then-commanding general of the Army Special Operations Command (now the deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command), acknowledged Gant’s “record of honorable and valorous service” in a career-killing reprimand in July 2012. Gant’s conduct was “inexcusable and brought disrepute and shame to the Special Forces” and “disgraced you as an officer and seriously compromised your character as a gentleman.” He retired as a captain. The couple married last year.

But it wasn’t only Gant’s relationship with the Army that raised questions. Among reporters, so did Tyson’s relationship with Gant.

David Wood, a Pulitzer-winning veteran military correspondent, wrote a profile of the couple for the Huffington Post when Tyson’s book was published in March:

A once-promising strategy for stability in Afghanistan ended badly two years ago, along with the career of its author and chief proponent, Army Special Forces Maj. Jim Gant. His gripping story is detailed in a new book, American Spartan, by Ann Scott Tyson, the former Washington Post war correspondent who interviewed him for an admiring story in late 2009. They fell in love. Tyson eventually joined Gant in an Afghan village, where he built a reputation mobilizing local tribes against the Taliban. A tough, wiry Special Forces soldier, Gant was decorated and recommended for promotion over 22 continuous months of combat in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011. But in the end, the iconoclasm and disdain for military protocol that enabled Gant’s success were instrumental in his eventual downfall.[/quote]

[url]http://time.com/2921469/the-fall-of-the-green-berets-lawrence-of-afghanistan/[/url]

A real shame he got kicked out. He looked so happy being with the locals.

[SexualShark]

what a badass story

[Joey Skylynx]

If going native is what it takes for us to defeat the Taliban, than let it be.

[BurningPlayd0h]

[QUOTE=usaokay;45218720]New setting for Uncharted 5.[/QUOTE]
*Metal Gear Solid V

[Zonesylvania]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, sometimes, strict adherence to protocol and blind obedience to a time-honored set of rules won't always give you the results you need. Every incident of this nature has to be looked at via a case-by-case basis.

[MR-X]

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;45218988]If going native is what it takes for us to defeat the Taliban, than let it be.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but he broke a lot of rules and regulations. He literally was a cowboy. He has a substance abuse problem among many other issues. [quote]he sleep-walked into his team house and put an unloaded AK-47 in his mouth and pulled the trigger in front of several startled team members, the book recounts. [/quote]

I read a few articles about him and it wasn't uncommon for him to do shit like this [quote]He didn't fear a fight, taunting the enemy into attacking and often riding on the hood of his Humvee[/quote]. He also "forgot" to do a lot of paper work to give locals fuel and weapons. His dislike to army's paperwork and rules was pretty well known. His own actions caused his men to question him and once that starts you're pretty much done.

While I admire his dedication and his tactics in regards to earning the locals trust and working with him. His tactics are sound and clearly worked to a certain degree, but he was out of control.

[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;45219498]I've said it before and I'll say it again, sometimes, strict adherence to protocol and blind obedience to a time-honored set of rules won't always give you the results you need. Every incident of this nature has to be looked at via a case-by-case basis.[/QUOTE]

SOP's are there for a reason, they normally work. Obviously there should be a bit of leeway depending on the situation because not everything is black and white. But once you start allowing people to break protocols and stop following rules you're gonna have issues. This is suppose to be a professional army, not a PMC. So "time-honored rules" and SOP's are the only thing that will keep order and the chain of command. Only reason grant got away with what he did for so long is because the General liked him.

[bravehat]

I dunno, but maybe conventional tactics gargle donkey dick when the enemy you're fighting refuses to be conventional.

Can't fit a square peg in a round hole.

[Fulcrum]

[QUOTE=MR-X;45219509]

SOP's are there for a reason, they normally work. Obviously there should be a bit of leeway depending on the situation because not everything is black and white. But once you start allowing people to break protocols and stop following rules you're gonna have issues. This is suppose to be a professional army, not a PMC. So "time-honored rules" and SOP's are the only thing that will keep order and the chain of command. Only reason grant got away with what he did for so long is because the General liked him.[/QUOTE]

He's special ops not some lowly grunt. He's expressed dedication and discipline.

Substance abuse is widespread in afghan, you go there and segregate/marginalize yourself you will have a very hard time truely winning hearts and minds. You obviously don't need to do drugs to blend in but it should be clear that following army protocol isn't the way to blend in with these people.

When the soviets invaded afghan they tried to push their values and morals on the people and they resisted, you need to be prepared to add that leeway. As for the paper work bit, he deemed it necissary to have those weapons, if he did it by the books he might not have gotten them, some general would think "i can save 500 dollars here" while on the ground this guy is thinking "I can win over an entire village here".

[MR-X]

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;45219600]He's special ops not some lowly grunt. He's expressed dedication and discipline.

Substance abuse is widespread in afghan, you go there and segregate/marginalize yourself you will have a very hard time truely winning hearts and minds. You obviously don't need to do drugs to blend in but it should be clear that following army protocol isn't the way to blend in with these people.

When the soviets invaded afghan they tried to push their values and morals on the people and they resisted, you need to be prepared to add that leeway. As for the paper work bit, he deemed it necissary to have those weapons, if he did it by the books he might not have gotten them, some general would think "i can save 500 dollars here" while on the ground this guy is thinking "I can win over an entire village here".[/QUOTE]

He showed no discipline, he was out of control. That is why do paper work because it isn't his choice, it is the chain of commands choice. Once you start allowing one person to do shit like this, you have to allow others. Once that happens everyone who thinks they got a good idea is going to go do it.

We're not arguing his tactics, they're good tactics. Clearly they worked, that is fine. But he was out of control and that is not fine. Don't care if his was special forces or not, he still has a rank and still has responsibilities. He was let go because he was becoming a risk and was even getting to extreme for his own unit - even they started questioning him, among the many officers that worked with him and visited for inspections. You don't need to have substance abuse to blend in, you don't need to hide a woman you're having an affair with in your base, You don't need completely avoid paperwork to blend in.

Special forces or not, his is suppose to be a professional and still apart of the Army there are SOP's, core values and rules to be followed. Just because you're SF does not mean you're allowed to do fuck-all you want and go rambo. Even grant should know that, hell with how critical everyone is of the US and the war, he should know better that a fuck up in a SF operation is gonna get out there and cause a shit storm.