Acclaimed for its vivid, poignant, and honest recreation of sixteen brutal months of nearly continuous battle in the deadly Hindu Kesh, Outlaw Platoon is a Band of Brothers or We Were Soldiers Once and Young for the early 21st century—a riveting, action-packed, highly emotional war memoir and true story of enormous sacrifice and bravery.
At twenty-four years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon, the 10th Mountain Division—a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws. Tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a valley in the Hindu Kush, Parnell assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians until, in May 2006, a routine patrol in the Afghanistan War turned into a brutal ambush. Through sixteen months of combat, the platoon became Parnell's family. The cost of battle was high for these men. Not all of them made it home, but for those who did, it was the love and faith they found in one another that ultimately kept them alive.
A magnificent account of heroes, renegades, infidels, and brothers, Outlaw Platoon is a standout work of military history that stands with Sebastian Junger’s War as one of the most important books to yet emerge from the heat, smoke, and fire of America’s War in Afghanistan.
What does it take to lead and survive in the deadliest valley in Afghanistan?
- Modern Military Leadership: At just twenty-four, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell is tasked with keeping forty soldiers alive in a brutal, sixteen-month deployment.
- Brotherhood: See how the men of the Outlaw Platoon became a family, finding the love and faith in one another that was essential for their survival.
- Visceral Combat: A riveting, action-packed account of nearly continuous battle, from routine patrols that turn into deadly ambushes to the high cost of victory.
- Unflinching Nonfiction: Standing with classics like War and Band of Brothers, this true story is an honest and poignant look at the realities of modern warfare.
"Sean Parnell reaches past the band-of-brothers theme to a place of brutal self-awareness . . . [he] never flinches from a fight, nor the hard questions of a messy war."
