Less than a month after the September 11 terror attacks, combat controllers with the Air Force Special Tactics Squadron and Army 5th Special Forces Group’s Operational Detachment Alpha 595 were among the first U.S. troops to invade Afghanistan. Deployed from Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in neighboring Uzbekistan on October 10, the mission — codenamed Task Force Dagger — was simple: Link up with Northern Alliance fighters led by Soviet-trained former Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum ahead of the multinational push to oust the Taliban.