In 2003, Army Cavalry Officer Second Lieutenant Ross Berkoff led his Scout Platoon from the legendary 10th Mountain Division on reconnaissance missions spanning over 10,000 miles across the perilous southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand—the birthplace of the Taliban—during a nine-month deployment. After transitioning to Military Intelligence, Captain Berkoff returned to Afghanistan in 2006, again assigned to the 10th Mountain Division’s Light Cavalry. By then, the Taliban insurgency had grown in sophistication and deadly effectiveness. Beyond the Outpost: An Army Cavalry Officer’s War Diary on the Frontlines of Afghanistan, 2003–2007 is the first and only unfiltered daily chronicle from a junior officer’s perspective, documenting this volatile and formative early period of the U.S. Army’s 20-year campaign against the Taliban.

In the two years following September 11, 2001, Taliban and Al Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan were largely abandoned. Months of intense U.S. Special Forces raids and bombing campaigns successfully dislodged and disrupted large groups of enemy combatants. However, when the first U.S. Army Brigade Combat Teams deployed to Afghanistan, enemy tactics and momentum began to shift and intensify.

Berkoff’s 2003 deployment marked Operation Enduring Freedom’s first use of Light Cavalry forces on the modern battlefield. His second deployment in 2006 supported U.S. intelligence agencies’ pursuit of Osama bin Laden in the mountainous border region near Pakistan.