This is Jockel Podcast number 295 with Echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.

Good evening, echo. Good evening. On November 14th, 2001, the troops of General

Fahin Khan rolled into Kabul and liberated the city from five years of

despotic rule by the Taliban. To win over the pastunes in the south and begin

operations against the Taliban, the coalition planned to insert two ODAs near

the city of Kandahar. Major Donald Bolduk was a member of special operations

command and control element 52, which had attacked control of the two ODAs.

Bolduk explained the mission, quote, basically from November 2001 until

complete, we were able to provide C2 and conduct unconventional warfare in

order to advise and assist Hamid Karzai and Ghul Shazai in organizing anti-

Taliban forces, which was what they were called at the time and to conduct

combat operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. End quote.

Bolduk further described the key tasks that the ODA had to accomplish with

their Afghan partners. Quote, we were to secure Kandahar city, develop a plan

to stabilize Kandahar city and operate from a secure base and then

concentrically improve that security from Kandahar city, which was considered

the cultural and religious center of gravity out to other provinces in the

south and then on order, exfiltrate the operational area. Coalition leaders

also understood that they could not simply leave the area once Kandahar was

out of the Taliban grip, but had to set conditions for the next phase of the

campaign. Major Bolduk asserted that the end state for the ODAs was the

creation of a, quote, stable, safe and secure Kandahar city ready to

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