Author / Photographer Ed Darack's fourth book, VICTORY POINT: Operations Red Wings and Whalers—The Marine Corps' Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan is now available in paperback, published by Penguin. VICTORY POINT documents two Marine Corps Operations, Red Wings (often mis-referenced as "Operation Redwing"), and Whalers. The target of both operations was a terrorist / insurgent cell led by a man named Ahmad Shah. The Marine Corps planners of Red Wings brought in Navy SEALs for the opening phases of the op (for reasons to be disclosed for the first time in VICTORY POINT); the four-man SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team tasked to positively identify Shah inserted near the target's suspected location on the night of 27 June, 2005. Just hours later, in the late morning of the 28th, they fell into a horrific ambush at the hands of Shah and his men, who killed three of the SEALs. 16 special operations personnell (8 Navy SEALs and 8 Army special operations aviators of the 160th SOAR(A)) subsequently perished when one of Shah's men shot the Army Special Operations MH-47 Chinook they were in down during the rescue attempt. Operation Whalers, which had the same goal as Red Wings, utilized only U.S. Marines with attached Afghan National Army Soldiers, had a much different outcome. Read a primer on VICTORY POINT and Operation Red Wings and Operation Whalers HERE.

VICTORY POINT's previous web page on Darack.com.

Darack is the author of three previous books, now out of print, but still available used through Amazon.com.

Darack has written for a number of magazines and publications, including Smithsonian Air and Space, Weatherwise (where he is a contributing editor), Alaska Geographic, the Weather Guide Calendar, Climbing, Rock and Ice, Alpinist, a variety of outdoor and photography publications, Gannett Newspapers, Proceedings of the Naval Institute Press, the Marine Corps Gazette, and others.

Literary rights inquiries should be directed to Scott Miller, Darack's agent at Trident Media Group.

Searchable article database coming soon.