Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan

by Sean Parnell

were Pakistan Army Frontier Corps soldiers, Pakistan’s ragtag border militia. We found their identity cards.

TWENTY-EIGHT

EIGHT

HOMEWARD

BOUND

FOB Bermel January 20, 2007

to come and start our journey home.

Serving the men of Outlaw Platoon was the greatest honor of my life.

Being a part of the platoon validated my life.

The sound of our freedom. The

men grew silent, realizing that soon our union would be broken apart.

we have been extended for a hundred and twenty days.”

Greeson just shook his head. “Sir, every deployment I’ve ever been on has been extended.

I called my father. He’d been my lifeline through the entire year. He had planned a huge party for my return.

They were reissued their body armor, helmets, and gear and thrown back onto a Chinook.

Military police knocked on their doors or met them at the airport and told them the news. They were told to pack and escorted onto the first available flights out.

We’d cheated it so many times that it seemed inconceivable that luck would have our backs now.

Suck it up.”

Not a man refused his duty.

EPILOGUE

Summer

2009

Arlington National Cemetery in August is distinctly unpleasant.

resulted in a traumatic brain injury.

my cognitive ability began to degrade. I had trouble driving. My motor coordination suffered. I

finally got help and was going through intensive neurocognitive rehabilitation.

retired from the career I loved.

In several firefights, five were killed and several more were wounded. After a while, the task left both of us feeling gutted.

Third Platoon had become more than a brotherhood, it had become a family.

Now Wilson’s coffin lay before us, sealed, with his body inside.