An account of the horrendous October 2009 attack on the American Combat Outpost Keating in Afghanistan, told in a frank, engaging vernacular by the staff sergeant and Medal of Honor winner. Romesha ably captures the daily dangers faced by these courageous American soldiers in Afghanistan.-- "'It doesn't get better.' To us, that phrase nailed one of the essential truths, maybe even the essential truth, about being stuck at an outpost whose strategic and tactical vulnerabilities were so glaringly obvious to every soldier who had ever set foot in that place that the name itself--Keating--had become a kind of backhanded joke." In 2009, Clinton Romesha of Red Platoon and the rest of Black Knight Troop were preparing to shut down Command Outpost (COP) Keating, the most remote and inaccessible in a string of bases built by the US military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three years after its construction, the army was finally ready to concede what the men on the ground had known immediately: it was simply too isolated and too dangerous to defend. On October 3, 2009, after years of constant smaller attacks, the Taliban finally decided to throw everything they had at Keating. The ensuing fourteen-hour battle--and eventual victory--cost eight Americans their lives. Red Platoon is the riveting firsthand account of the Battle for COP Keating, told by Romesha, who spearheaded both the defense of the outpost and the counterattack that drove the Taliban back beyond the wire and received the Medal of Honor for his actions.--Dust jacket. adapted from Kirkus reviews.

Introduction: It doesn't get better -- Part I: The road to Nuristan -- Loss -- Stacked -- Keating -- Inside the fishbowl -- Everybody dies -- Part II: Going cyclic -- "Let's go kill some people" -- Heavy contact -- Combat Kirk -- Luck -- Tunnel vision -- Part III: Overrun -- The only gun left in the fight -- "Charlie in the wire" -- The Alamo position -- Light 'em up -- Part IV: Taking the bitch back -- Launch out -- Not gonna make it -- Ox and Finch -- Alive! -- The bone -- Part V: Saving Stephan Mace -- "Go get it done" -- Mustering the dead -- Conflagration -- Farewell to Keating -- Trailing fires -- Epilogue -- In memoriam.