The Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce is hosting a special event: Lunch With A Legend: Will Summers. Will Summers, was a part of the 12-Man Special Forces Team belonging to ODA 595 based out of Fort Campbell, KY that was one the first of several Special Forces teams sent into Afghanistan to topple the Taliban right after the 9/11 attacks as part of an unconventional mission known as Task Force Dagger.
In Afghanistan, the team was faced with unconventional warfare and with enormous operational challenges such as adapting twenty-first century combat technologies and tactics into age-old models of guerilla and tribal warfare. Lacking body armor and transportation against an onslaught of Taliban forces, the soldiers used whatever means possible to defeat the enemy, including riding horses provided by the Afghan Northern 29 Alliance to aid them in navigating the Central Asian terrain, leading to their being dubbed 30 "Horse Soldiers". With this suitable means of transportation in their possession, the Horse Soldiers successfully achieved, in weeks, what was originally speculated to take months or even years.
The Team's remarkable story was chronicled in the New York Times Bestseller: Horse Soldiers The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan, which became the inspiration for the major motion picture 12 Strong.
The public is invited to join us for this lunch to get a 1st hand account of this remarkable mission.
