First In, is a first person account of the events between the 19th of September until the 10th of November, told mainly from the perspective of Gary Schroen, leader of the JAWBREAKER CIA squad sent to establish relations with the Northern Alliance in the Panjshir Valley, near the stalemated frontlines of the Taliban. Despite being the lead of US forces in Afghanistan (a 7 man crew), his account is very low to the ground, recounting the incessant problems of Diarrhea and relations and the daily interactions with Northern Alliance leaders. The details make the story, such as taking naps on boxes holding $10 million in cash or the simple pleasure of Starbucks coffee brewed in the field.
Schroen still manages to give a picture of how the Afghanistan war unfolded, with ground forces of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban hemmed in to their respective defensive positions. He details how the US military consistently acted ponderously or incompetently. One poignant example is when Schroen was called by the Air Force to confirm coordinates for a Predator UAV strike; he realized that the ‘thin man wearing western clothing’ was not Bin Laden, but his teammate Ed. Schroen combines the personal narrative with sections from other teams across Afghanistan, when they took Mazar-e-Sharif or the perils of Karzai in the south. The timeline ends with the fall of Kabul, with only a small afterward from 2004.
For what it aims to do, the book succeeds with flying colors. Schroen makes his opinions known, but they do not interfere with the story. Mild prose is overwhelmed by the amount of detail and clear description of the conflicts in strategy among the myriad of parties involved, making for a compelling and informative story.