Shortly after the planes hit the World Trade Center, Mike McElhiney’s boots hit the ground in Afghanistan. A U.S. Army Green Beret, he was part of a team dispatched to the south of the country to help oust the Taliban.
On Dec. 5, 2001, they were on a ridge north of Kandahar, using a laser device to pinpoint enemy targets and transmit their coordinates to a B-52 bomber overhead.
When the device ran low on power, an airman quickly changed the battery. He didn’t realize that when he turned it back on, the device defaulted to its own location and sent those coordinates to the bomber.
America’s longest war had barely begun.