Welcome to the Fighter Pilots’ Guide to Living. Today’s guests are three Green Berets from ODA 595, Mark Nutsch, Paul Evans, and Mike Elmore, and three members of VF-213, Nate Bailey, Michael Peterson, and Chip King.Today, we dive into the evolving conditions inside and overhead in Afghanistan as Green Berets arrived in the country, and we talk about the difficulties of calling in close air support in the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Towards the end of the episode, we address the single incident on November 5, 2001 that shifted the way that F-14 Tomcats would support ground forces working to push back the Taliban . About the hosts:Mitch 'TACO' Parmentier has 16 years of experience with the F/A-18 Super Hornet as a Weapons System Operator (WSO). He has a longstanding love of aviation and history that he brings to the podcast.Beth Bailey was raised by F-14 Radar Intercept Officer Glen 'Wheels' Wheless and grew up around aviators and their unique brand of storytelling for most of her childhood. Beth worked in support of Afghanistan operations as a civilian intelligence analyst for the Department of the Army between 2010 and 2013. She is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital and the Washington Examiner, and host of The Afghanistan Project Podcast.