He was new to the team, but this is where Staff Sergeant David Sanders had wanted to be all along. Even if that meant being in a remote valley far from home.
It had been a long journey for Sanders from Hunstville, Alabama, to the Shok Valley. An only child, Sanders grew up in a community nicknamed “The Rocket City” for its close history with U.S. space missions. Located in the Tennessee River Valley, it’s an area nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains with rivers, natural springs, and caves. As a child, Sanders loved to explore the outdoors, but had no interest in joining the military. That all changed with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
At the time, he was in high school. But watching the images of the death and destruction on U.S. soil made him want to get involved. So when, during his senior year, the United States invaded Iraq, he decided he was going to enlist. Caught up in the patriotic fervor, he knew he wanted to serve his country. Something inside told him it was the right thing to do.
It was 2004 when he joined the Army Reserves as an intelligence analyst. He had completed one semester at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. But he decided to drop out. He wanted to go to war but was in a quandary. The unit he joined had already deployed a few years before and wasn’t slated to go again anytime soon. He discovered that reserve duty was pretty much meeting up and going to lunch on the weekends. So he went back to school for another semester and decided to go to Special Forces Selection.
He came in on an 18X contract, which essentially guarantees a new recruit the opportunity to “try out” for Special Forces. After being selected, he was trained as an engineer and signed on with 3rd Special Forces Group well after they left for Afghanistan. The clerk, when he arrived at the headquarters on Fort Bragg, asked him if he wanted to deploy.
“You ready to deploy now?”
Sanders didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Okay. In ten days we’ll have you on a flight.”
He was finally on the cusp of making it to a war zone to fight the terrorists who promised more attacks on the United States. It had taken him from July 2004 to November 2007 to get to the point where he could deploy. And he was relieved to finally answer the call.
When he arrived in Afghanistan, he just wanted to fit in with the team. As the new guy in the unit, he kept his mouth shut and listened.
He went on his first live mission in early January 2008. It was nothing exciting—a routine reconnaissance patrol. For three days, they drove in the desert. At one point, a truck broke down and they had to wait for a part to be dropped off. After they resumed the trip, they ended up in a village where they talked to some locals for a few hours. Then they turned around and headed back to the base. That was it. Most of his time was spent in a Humvee.
The next mission was a little more exciting—and Special Forces–like, he thought. In the middle of the night, his team and commandos dropped into a village and busted an opium-processing facility. He knew that in Afghanistan terrorists helped finance their operations by selling drugs. The hills were some of the most fertile in the world for growing opium poppies, whose seeds were extracted to make the most addictive drugs on the black market. Opium is the source of many opiates, including morphine, codeine, and heroin. After the mission, when he had time to reflect, he thought: This is why I joined.
But he knew that was just a warm-up for the Shok Valley. And now, as he was walking the trail to the enemy compound, he wanted to make sure he did everything right. It didn’t matter that he had only been there a short time. There was no room for error.