The devil's elbow
by Paolo Riccò (Author)
Afghanistan, 2013. The Italian Brigade, in charge of the Western sector of the ISAF mission, is implementing the Italian forces' redeployment plan towards the Herat base, when General Paolo Riccò, deputy to the Chief of Staff for operations, is entrusted with a mission that many consider to be unscrupulous and highly risky due to the location and the manner in which it is to be conducted. Relying solely on a handful of men, the Italian commander must support and assist the Afghan forces charged with retaking control of Devil's Elbow, a section of the Ring Road of primary importance for supplies from the north-west to the south of the country. The Taliban occupied it, effectively sealing off an American base and preventing supplies. Making the outcome of the operation even more uncertain is the mistrust of Italian troops on the part of General Mark A. Milley, commander of all American and NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan. Milley without much qualms hints at his lack of confidence in our ability to perform the task. Riccò could fulfil the mission by staying away from the front line, only giving directions to the Afghan troops, but his temperament and keen intuition suggest that to face such a critical moment he and his men will have to show all their audacity, vigour and inventiveness. Thanks to a strategy that no one else would have had the courage even to think of, the general successfully completes one of the riskiest operations of the mission in Afghanistan. In this book-testimony, Paolo Riccò, today Italian Military Representative at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, and recipient of numerous medals for valour, recounts all the details and behind-the-scenes stories of those days of fire: the impossible choices, the fears, the need to protect his men, the unjustified mistrust towards them and the climate of extreme tension in which they had to act for the good of all.
Reader's notes:
Commander Riccò gives us another pearl. After Somalia, Afghanistan, after the Paratroopers, the Air Force. It is not a book of history, but of lived stories, which makes it unique A real war diary, a great book, with 'technical' language, which some people like less than others. I found it simply fantastic. Commander, two doesn't make a three... let's wait for the third!
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