42 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

We have no one like that today. Instead,accounts of bravery and self-sacrificeseemed to be forgotten amid the frenzieddebate surrounding the wars. I finally be-came fed up and decided to do somethingabout it. That was the start of Valor.

Over six years, I sought out stories ofcourage. I eventually selected nine sol-diers, sailors, and marines whose actionsin the face of grave danger were astonish-ing. Each of the heroes profiled in Valorreceived high commendations for their

actions, including one DistinguishedService Cross, one Distinguished FlyingCross, and several Silver Stars andBronze Star Medals with Valor.

Beyond describing their bravery, I alsotried to capture their humility, which is

Dan Foster:Walking A

Step HigherBy Mark Lee Greenblatt

As the United States trudged through the peaks and valleys of the wars inIraq and Afghanistan, I heard stories of extraordinary heroism by ourtroops – incidents in which soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines risked

their lives to save a comrade or accomplish a mission. I stood in awe of thosemen and women, wondering whether I could muster the same strength, courageand determination. I grew frustrated that such stories – not to mention the he-roes themselves – were not well known. War heroes of previous generations,like Sergeant York of World War I and Audie Murphy of World War II, becamehousehold names. Cities and towns held ticker-tape parades in their honor.

Top: In a photo taken before the engagement, Foster holds a M4 carbine loaded with accessories.

44 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

both heartfelt and powerful. All of theminsisted that they were not heroes at all.They said they did what everyone elsewould have done – that they just hap-pened to be in the right place at the right

time. They all deflected credit,pointed to the actions of a col-league, minimized the dangersthey faced or downplayed theirbravery.

But facts are stubborn, and in each oftheir cases, added up to remarkable sto-ries of valor.

One of those stories focuses on ArmySpecialist Dan Foster, who was awarded aSilver Star for his actions during an insur-gent ambush in Afghanistan in 2010.CHANGE OF THE GUARD – ALMOSTIn the early morning hours of May 21,2010, Dan Foster was really bored. TheArmy specialist was on guard duty in atower watching over a remote outpost inAfghanistan. It was seven and a halfhours into an eight-hour shift, and Fosterwas ready to get out of the damn tower.

It was a drab concrete structure stand-ing about 16 feet off the ground, with atiny circular room at the top. The roomwas roughly four feet across with con-crete walls about six inches thick. The

walls rose to the middle of Foster’s torsoand continued again above his head, cre-ating an open-air window. Inside, theroom was Spartan. Sandbags filled thearea, limiting his movement. The mostimportant feature to the room was thelarge machine gun that was mounted on atripod and pointing menacingly out thewindow toward the entrance to the base15 meters below. The machine gun, aMark 48, was a serious weapon. It wasbelt-fed, capable of firing about 700rounds per minute, and Foster felt confi-dent in shooting accurately at targets up to1,800 meters away. “You could messsome things up with it,” Foster says mat-ter-of-factly.

Not only was a guard alone in acramped room, but the atmosphere waslike a sensory-deprivation chamber. Nextto the tower sat the base’s power genera-tor, which emitted a loud hum thatdrowned out most other noises. Worse,Foster frequently worked the nightshift,with impenetrable darkness surroundingthe base.

It was so quiet because there was noth-ing to do – as in, no threats to guardagainst. The base was seemingly in themiddle of nowhere.

So, as he sat in the tower at 0530 onMay 21, 2010, Foster was looking for-ward to ending his daily torture. He andthe guards stationed at the base’s entranceon ground level had already called for thenext team, and they were just waiting outthe shift.

This particular stint was a tad betterthan normal because Foster had snuck hisiPod up to the tower. It was a breach ofArmy rules, but he did it anyway. “Itwould keep me sharp and alert,” he in-sists. Still, out of deference to the rules,he took out one of the headphones. AnAkon song blared away in his right ear.He didn’t really like Akon, but one of theother guys had downloaded it to his iPoda year earlier, and Foster had never both-ered to delete it.

As the clock inched toward 0600, Fos-ter watched the sunrise and the scenebrightened. That is when he heard thepop…pop…pop…pop of gunfire near thebase’s entrance.TIME TO GET SOME ACTIONOn his 17th birthday, the first day that hewas eligible, Foster enlisted in the Army.Conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan at thattime were quite grim, and he understoodthat he would deploy to a combat zone.That, he says, was the whole point.

Foster was stationed with the 3rdBrigade of the 101st Airborne. After al-most a year at Fort Campbell, Foster’sunit left for Iraq. “We went out thereready to kick ass and pound terrorists,” herecalls.

But they would be sorely disappointed.Their deployment, Foster says, was “re-ally quiet.” The inaction stung Foster par-ticularly hard. He had joined the Army tosee action and gain a sense of accom-plishment. “I was pretty crushed comingback. It felt like I hadn’t done anything.”It was a far cry from the stories he heardon History Channel.

Back at Fort Campbell, the unit learned

SIDESLIPPING DEATH Continued from page 42

Above: Fellow soldiers ap-plaud Specialist Foster, whoremained in the fight desitebeing hit in the face and loos-ing over a dozen teeth. Fosterreceived the Silver Star for hisheroism. Right: Foster holds ashotgun, while a bandage cov-ers the wound to the face hereceived.

SOFMAG.COM AUGUST 2014 45

it would deploy to Afghanistan 14 monthslater. Their destination was a patrol basein a region infested with Taliban guerril-las. Foster and his buddies were excited.They were virtually guaranteed combatexperience.

When they arrived in Afghanistan inearly 2010, however, Foster’s unit wasdisappointed once again. His platoon, agroup of 23 soldiers along with a handfulof support personnel, was split from theircompany and assigned to a small policetraining station. Their little training postwas a relative backwater – certainly not inthe hotbed of guerrilla activity that theyhad eagerly anticipated. “All of us werelivid,” Foster says.

For the first four months of their de-ployment, they did not have a single con-tact with insurgents. In fact, Foster hadonly one live-fire incident – and it was acomplete debacle. A team was patrollingthe area, with Foster manning the .50-cal-iber machine gun in the turret of the leadtruck. During their patrol, an unidentifiedcar rushed toward the convoy. Foster be-lieved it was an insurgent vehicle, so heshot a few rounds into the car, trying tostop it before it hit them. It quickly be-

came clear, however, that the occupantswere unarmed civilians. Thankfully, Fos-ter’s rounds sailed harmlessly through thewindshield and injured no one. But Fosterwas severely reprimanded by his superi-ors for shooting at civilians. (His buddies

also tormented him for missing the in-tended targets. “People were giving meall kinds of shit for putting [.50-caliber]rounds through the window and notkilling anyone.”) Those 10 seconds wereFoster’s only “combat” in more than 18months of deployment.THEN POP POP POP On May 21, 2010, at 0545, Foster was inthe tower. He was listening to Akon inhis iPod, when he heardpop…pop…pop…pop. It was gunfire,roiling the pre-dawn stillness. The shotscame from the main road. He radioed tohis buddy Nick, who was down at thegate, to see what he thought. Neither wasparticularly concerned, as the shots werenot directed at them or the base.

That changed a moment later, when amammoth supply vehicle, roughly thesize of a construction dump truck, turnedfrom the main road onto the base’s drive-

way. A truck like that would rarely, ifever, come into the base, except perhapsas part of a 200-vehicle supply convoy.Such a delivery would have been sched-uled far in advance, would have beenlisted on the log at the gate and definitely

It was so quietbecause there

was nothing to do – asin, no threats to guardagainst. The base wasseemingly in the middleof nowhere.

“ “

would not be scheduled for 0545. Still,Foster gave them the benefit of the doubtat that point – he desperately wanted toavoid a repeat of the shooting debacle of afew weeks earlier.

His hackles rose, however, when thetruck started moving down the drivewaytoward the base. “When I…heard themhit the gas and rev the engine, I was onthe bolt of the machine gun,” Foster says.“As soon as he hit the gas and came for-ward, I squeezed the trigger – I put atleast 30–40 rounds in the windshield.”

His rounds tore through the truck.“They were about 30 meters away. I sawthe glass explode. It was just like you seein the action movies – the bodies riddlingback against the seat, and they justslumped forward,” Foster recalls.

Foster leaned out through the windowof the tower, looking down at the truck. Ithad rolled to a stop about 15 meters fromthe tower. “The first thing I thought wasthat my commander would be pissed be-cause I shot these civilians,” Foster re-calls.

As he peered down at the motionlesstruck, the vehicle detonated. “I saw asmall orange flash and a big orangeflash,” Foster recalls. The explosionwrenched him backward, knocking himviolently to the tower floor. The billowingsmoke and debris from the explosion cast

a dense haze throughout the tower room,choking his lungs and clouding his vision.His hearing was little better; everythingsounded like “a loud, fuzzy hum,” hesays, “almost like machinery at a factory– static noise.”

As the smoke cleared, Foster saw rock-ets streaking in the air and began to real-ize what was happening: they were under

attack. Two individuals began walkingtoward the base. Foster recalls vividlythe way the men walked – they werestrutting. “They had this look on them,like they could fuck up anything,” hesays. One of the outsiders, as he ap-proached the gate, turned his AK-47 to-ward two Afghan guards who had joinedNick in defending the gate. Withoutchanging his pace or even facing the tar-gets, the strutting man shot at the Afghanguards.MISFIREFoster grabbed the machine gun. “I sawthat [shooting], and I was already behindthe [machine gun] and I squeezed thetrigger – pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa! I hit one,and I remember seeing the look on hisface as soon as he heard the machinegun, like sheer, ‘I-fucked-up’ terror,”Foster says. “It was awesome.” Thatepisode – wiping the insurgent’s smuglook off his face and replacing it with

sheer terror – would be one of Foster’s fa-vorite moments of that day.

After the gun fired off six or sevenshots, enough to cut down the two strut-ters, Foster heard a sound that all soldiersdread – the loud metallic clang of his gunmisfiring. Then he heard the bolt of thegun slam forward, and the Mark-48 fell

SOFMAG.COM AUGUST 2014 47

Continued on page 48

I saw a smallorange flash

and a big orange flash.The explosion wrenchedhim backward, knockinghim violently to thetower floor.

“ “SIDESLIPPING DEATH Continued from page 45

ACOG fan. I subscribe to shooting withboth eyes open at all times and those(type) of sights accommodate that in-stinctive fire approach. SOF: What sidearm (you said youwere carrying a SIG in the photo yousent) did you prefer and why? SIGwas the issued side-arm and they’re ex-ceptionally reliable.SOF: What is your response to theanti-gunners who are trying to takeadvantage of the recent Eliot Rogersshooting spree? I’m not sure if any ofhis weapons left on a counter couldhave shot anyone; however, imagine ifany one of those victims had beenarmed with minimal training… howmany lives would have been saved, es-pecially when he was stabbing his firstvictims?

SOF: What prompted you to run forCongress? The short answer is SEALsare problem solvers and Congress hassome problems. With the lowest ap-proval rating in history, it’s no surprisethat Congress has the least amount ofcombat veterans since before WWII.The way I see it, when a problem pres-ents itself there are two things to do—get close to the problem and offersolutions, or shut the hell up!SOF: What do you hope to achieve?Bringing clear representation of theConstitution in order to get Congressout of all the political nonsense andback into the job it’s designed to do.Congress is not a parent, church, socialworker, social engineer or health careinstitution. It’s going to take leadershipto stop those trends.

SOF: What will you do to support the2nd Amendment when you areelected? As I see it, the 2nd Amendmentis my personal gun permit, and it’s timewe enforce the 10th Amendment as aprotective measure to stop states fromundermining that right; you see the pen-dulum swings both ways. SOF: Have you considered runningfor the NRA Board of Directors? Ihave not; however, it would be an honorfor any veteran.

Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, USAR (Ret.) Editor, Publisher, Soldier of FortuneMagazineNRA BOD!

COMMAND GUIDANCE Continued from page 8

SOF Interviews a Navy SEAL Running for Congress

48 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

silent. He dropped down to the floor,where the ammunition lay, and saw thatthe links of the ammunition belt lay in tat-ters. So he grabbed a loose belt of roundsand threw them in the gun. He stood up,engaged the bolt, and looked out the win-dow for something to shoot.

There were plenty of targets. Insurgentsswarmed around him. Foster could see sixguerrillas surrounding the tower. Theywere only 20–30 meters away. They werehiding behind security barriers and shoot-ing up at him. “You could see the flashes.You could feel them crack off the tower,”Foster says. “Every time a round cameanywhere close to you, you hear a crackas it goes by, splitting the air. You hearthat, and you hear it echo as it impacted inthe tower. You could feel the concrete offthe tower shattering behind you – tat!-tat!-tat!-tat!-tat!”

There was nowhere for Foster to hide,so he dove down below the windowopening and wedged himself in the sand-bags piled on the ground. He waited untilthe shooting stopped and then – despitebeing outnumbered, surrounded and ex-posed – he stood up behind the Mark-48to fire back.

After a well-placed burst of 10–20rounds, Foster saw the insurgents’ gunscome back from behind the barriers andtake aim at him again. He ducked downbelow the window, and the cacophonoussymphony of shattering concrete eruptedaround him once again.

Foster traded fire with the insurgents inthis manner several times, each side duck-ing behind cover when the enemy sentvolleys of fire at them and then poppingup to return fire. It was something out of

an action movie, Foster recalls.As Foster and Nick staved off the ap-

proaching guerrillas, their unit began re-sponding to the attack. One of Foster’sbuddies came up the tower ladder,yelling: “Friendly comin’ up!” He openedthe door, saw Foster, and froze. The manhad a startled look that said: “What thefuck happened to you?”

Foster looked around the tower roomand, for the first time, appreciated thescene. The room was a frenzied mess,www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com

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Specialist Dan Foster, who survived being hit in the face during a firefight athis unit's combat outpost in Afghanistan, wearing his Class A uniform.

with smoke and dust choking the air,chunks of concrete peppered throughoutthe floor, and bullet casings strewnaround. Worse, blood – Foster’s blood –was splattered all over. Foster did not re-alize that he was wounded at this point,except for some annoying grittiness in hismouth. But his buddy was clearly takenaback at Foster’s appearance. Regardless,Foster grabbed his comrade by the shoul-der and threw him on the Mark-48. Thetwo men then acted as a gun team, alter-nating their duties – picking out targets,lubricating the gun with gunoil from a nearby stash, andthen manning the gun.RPG ROCKET TRAILSAfter a few minutes, the pla-toon medic came running to-ward the tower and holleredat Foster to come down.Foster scurried down thesteep ladder, eager to tell thedoc that he had killed two ofthe insurgents. “I was fuck-ing ecstatic,” he recalls. Hewas having difficulty talk-ing, so he pantomimed thenumber two, pointed to hischest, and then made a chop-ping-head motion with hisfinger. But when Foster sawthe medic’s reaction to hisface, he knew there was a problem. Themedic instructed him to run back to thebase’s medical room immediately.

In the cramped medical room, Fosterstarted to appreciate just how serious hisinjuries were. The doc told Foster that hisface, from the tip of his nose to his upperlip, was sliced in half and that the rest ofhis upper lip had been shredded. Severalteeth were missing and a few of the re-maining teeth were hanging out of hismouth. The medic made it clear that Fos-ter was going home.

After the medic left to take care ofother soldiers, Foster grabbed his shotgunand tried to help out his buddies. “By thetime I got out the door,” Foster says, “Iwasn’t wearing any gear – just pants,boots, T-shirt and a shotgun – runningthrough the open area in the base, withRPG rocket trails streaking the air.”

Foster heard a call for ammunitionfrom the tower and made two trips – ex-posed and without any protective gear –to secure additional rounds for the guyson the guns. On his second trip, one of theplatoon sergeants told Foster to stay back

and get treatment. As he waited, other in-surgents popped up on a nearby moun-tainside and started taking pot-shots.Foster, with no helmet or body armor andonly a 12-gauge shotgun, could not resistthe temptation and started shooting backat them. About an hour after the initial ex-plosion, a helicopter arrived to evacuateFoster and other wounded troops.

Foster endured multiple surgeries. Helost 13 teeth and substantial bone struc-ture from his upper and lower jaws. Thesurgeries left a three-inch scar on his face,

and most ofhis upper lipwas scar tis-sue. He alsosuffered somebrain trauma,which im-pacted hisspeech. Theblast from theinitial truckbomb, not tomention thethunderousclamor echo-ing through-out the towerroom duringthe firefight,damaged hishearing. “I

can’t hear [anything] out of my left ear.My right ear, though, has damn goodhearing because the ear-bud was in it,” hesays. “Akon saved my hearing.”

Foster was honored with a Silver Starand a Purple Heart for his actions thatday. He is proud of the Purple Heart, call-ing it a badge of honor. He views the Sil-ver Star differently. In his mind, hisactions did not rise to the level of anhonor like the Silver Star. “I didn’t feellike I’d earned it because my buddieswould have done the same thing,” hesays. “I was just in the right place at theright time.”

Looking back, Foster feels that he didaccomplish something. But he does notbelieve that he belongs in the same eche-lon as his WWII heroes. “I put them on apedestal,” he says. “But after goingthrough it all, I don’t think those men putthemselves on it either. I believe they putall their comrades up there, but not them-selves. I may not walk as tall as thosemen walking out of the forests, but I walkplenty tall standing next to my brotherswho went to their own hell and back.”

About Mark Lee GreenblattMark Lee Greenblatt has conducted in-vestigations for the federal governmentfor more than a decade. Over the courseof his career, Mark has led investigationsinto criminal and ethical misconduct bysenior officials in the U.S. and foreigngovernments, homeland security vulnera-bilities, MEDICARE abuses, and taxcheats. During his tenure with the U.S.Senate Permanent Subcommittee on In-vestigations, Mark led the Senate’s inves-tigation into the United Nations’Oil-for-Food Program. In that role, Marktestified twice before the Senate to presentevidence of corrupt deals involving for-eign politicians and U.N. officials.

Before his government service, Markwas a litigator at two large internationallaw firms and a law clerk for a federaldistrict judge. He received his undergrad-uate degree from Duke University and aJ.D. from Columbia University School ofLaw and was a Senior Managers in Gov-ernment Fellow at the Kennedy School ofGovernment at Harvard University.

Adapted from!VALOR: Unsung Heroesfrom Iraq, Afghanistan, and the HomeFront,!by Mark Lee Greenblatt. Publishedby Taylor Trade Publishing, an imprint ofRowman & Littlefield. Copyright 2014.All rights reserved. Used with permission.Available at!http://www.rowman.com/!andyour favorite bookseller.

SOFMAG.COM AUGUST 2014 49

I may not walkas tall as

those men walking outof the forests, but Iwalk plenty tall standingnext to my brotherswho went to their ownhell andback.

“ “