Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, a 12-man team of U.S. Army Green Berets inserted deep in northern Afghanistan to aid local partisans in their unconventional war against the Taliban. Working with officers from the CIA, the Special Forces soldiers helped raise an army of some five thousand Afghans, in a campaign across some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world. Over a course of two months, the Green Berets advised Afghan commanders and directed a massive air campaign to rout the Taliban from power. It was the most successful unconventional warfare campaign in modern history. The Americans were dubbed “The Horse Soldiers” by Western media reporting on their triumphs. A monument to their honor, “America’s Response Monument,” was erected at Ground Zero in New York City, where it is viewed by thousands daily. Swords of Lightning is their story, told from their point of view for the first time, with never-before revealed details and insights of the campaign, their struggles, and how close they came to failure and death. This story as written by the Horse Soldiers has never been told directly from the men that shared the experience first-hand.