Final Engagement

<div><b>Through his team’s deadly last showdown fighting alongside Afghan forces against the Taliban on the dangerous southern Helmand border, Marine Corps veteran Christopher Izant illustrates the impossible conditions and strategic blunders that disillusioned a generation of American veterans and all but guaranteed defeat. </b><br></div><div><br></div>They were stepping into a world of hidden minefields, cultural clashes, “green-on-blue” insider attacks, and an ever-patient and relentless enemy. . . . But Christopher Izant and the Marines on his team volunteered to train the Afghan National Security Forces and fight the Taliban alongside them despite the risks and a seemingly futile mission they would term “advise and abandon,” made by policymakers a world away. <p></p>In <i>Final Engagement</i>, readers join then-Lieutenant Izant and the last team of Marine Corps combat advisors at Combat Outpost Taghaz in southern Helmand Province during Oper