You know, the mission was to render Afghanistan

and usable as a terrorist safe haven, something like that.

It was, you know.

Killer capture Al-Qaeda wherever you find it.

You flew in on the latest technological helicopter in a damn sandstorm.

We have satcom radios and GPS, but yet I'm riding a horse.

You know, Mark was with Dostom. I was with Karzai.

We were all figuring out what we needed to do to hold the country together after the death settled.

And it was something that we just did as captains.

I mean, it's really kind of crazy when you think about it.

Hey, welcome back to another episode of The Spear, a podcast by the Modern War Institute at West Point.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and The Spear is our platform to explore the combat experience.

This is sort of a unique episode of The Spear.

It's been almost exactly 16 years since the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan began after the 9-11 attacks. For 16 years, we've been at war there.

Many of our listeners have been a part of it at one point or another.

But this episode features two guests who were there at the very beginning.

Jason Amarin and Mark Neuch were U.S. Army captains at the time, each in command of a Special Forces detachment.

They were among the very first U.S. military forces in the country in the fall of 2001.

Noosh was in the country's north, fighting alongside Abdul Rashid Dostom in the Northern Alliance,

while Ammarin was with future Afghan President Hamid Karostom in the Northern Alliance, while Ammarin was with

future Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the south.

They sat down with MWI's Captain Jake Morali to share their stories of the very first

...