When we think of the war in Afghanistan, chances are we're thinking of a small, remote corner of the country where American military action has been concentrated: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces. The region's rugged, steep terrain and thick forests make it a natural hiding spot for targets in the American war on terror, from senior al-Qaida leaders to members of the Islamic State, and it has been the site of constant U.S. military activity for nearly two decades. Wesley Morgan first embedded with American troops in the Pech in 2010, as a freelance journalist still in college. By then, the Pech and its most infamous tributary, the Korengal, had become emblematic of the larger war. But Morgan found that few of the troops fighting there could tell him about the origins of their remote outposts-why and when they had been built-or what American success in Afghanistan might look like. In The Hardest Place, he unravels that history. Drawing on reporting trips, hundreds of interviews with Americans and Afghans, and documentary research, Morgan captures the culture and reality of the war through both American and Afghan eyes and chronicles the snowballing American missteps that made each unit's job harder than the last. He writes vividly of large-scale missions gone awry, years-long hunts for individuals, and the infantrymen, special operations troops, contractors, and intelligence officers who cycled through, including the few who returned again and again to the same slowly evolving fight. As the American war in Afghanistan drags on through its third presidential administration, Morgan concludes that the military has created a status quo that could last forever in the Pech, with U.S. troops and aircraft always in search of the next target. The Hardest Place is not only a story of combat on some of the most unforgiving battlefields of the twenty-first century, but also a portrait of the American military that fought there--a force whose can-do attitude too often led it to plunge headlong into tasks that proved impossible. -- From dust jacket.

America comes to Kunar, 2002-2003 --Winter strike, 2003 -- The A-Camp, 2004 -- Red wings, 2005 -- The plunge, 2006 -- Where the road ends..., 2006-2007 -- Rock avalanche, 2007 -- A valley too far, 2007-2008 -- Stuck in the valley of death, 2008-2009 -- The cul-de-sac, 2010 -- Realignment, 2010-2011 -- Redux, 2011 -- Afghanization, 2011-2013 -- Haymarket, 2011-2013 -- The war that never ends, 2014-2017.