Doug Stanton’s novel Horse Soldiers hasn’t yet been published, which makes this an idea time for Jerry Bruckheimer to snap it up for Disney.
The story is pure Bruckheimer material, primed and ready to be glossed up and slightly dumbed down for a massive action flick. As Variety says, it follows “a band of elite special forces and CIA operatives who secretly invaded Afghanistan post-9/11 on horseback and helped Afghan fighters capture the city of Mazar-i-Sharif and topple the Taliban.”
The non-fiction story features just about everything: bribery (local warlords were paid off to help the invasion) heroism (as Taliban troops surrendered, an ambush attempted to decimate them) and high tech. Just shoehorn in a sexy local liberated after the Taliban is run out of town and it’s perfect summer material. It’ll play great on the 4th of July. Hope McConaughey is available. Wonder if the ghosts of John Wayne and William Holden will be angry.
Stanton also wrote In Harm’s Way, an account of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.