March 2002: “Operation Anaconda.” U.S. forces were chasing down the last organized groups of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. Capt. Nelson Kraft’s troops fanned out across the Shahi Kowt Valley … and found more bad guys than they were looking for.

Mortar rounds, rifle fire and smoke bathed the battlefield. “We were fighting off, in my best estimate, 50 to 100 [enemy fighters] in the west, 50 to 100 in the east, and 50 to 100 to our north,” Kraft recalls. “They were popping in and out of the [ravines] and heading toward our position.”