"Horse Soldiers"

Horse Soldiers  reviewed by Harry Johnquest

If Cedar Point had a rollercoaster named "Afghanistan" it could not out-thrill the reader of  Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton. This is the true account of how a small group of Special Forces soldiers, first ones post 9/ll/01, dropped in on the upper reaches of Afghanistan --- to negotiate with warlords on horseback and ultimately to ride victoriously to defeat the Taliban. Horse Soldiers is as surreally real as Ghengis Kahn punching buttons on a cell phone. Surprisingly touching, Stanton clearly and masterfullly filters through multiple points of view from the home front USA to soldiers' advance in the thick of battle. Local politics are as clarified yak butter, Stanton in an epilogue updates the reader to Afghanistan's current devolution.  It reads as a thriller, it is hard to put down, I'd enjoy reading it again.

Horse Soldiers is major motion picture material. Besides, with its well documented thrilling prose it should win a Pulitzer Prize.

(to be cont.)