The young Mansoor has become a legend in the region. His supporters claim he has said he would prefer to die fighting than live under U.S. occupation. The son of a famed mujahedin who was killed by a car bomb in 1993, he seems to have tried to make a deal with Wardak to surrender his forces when an American attack became imminent. But local feuds got in the way; Mansoor led his troops into the mountains, where they had already made preparations. Wardak says that in the tiny villages that cling to the slopes, al-Qaeda fighters had been buying the houses with mud walls, like miniature medieval fortresses. "Those who didn't want to sell," Wardak told Time, "were asked to leave." Some al-Qaeda fighters hunkered down; high above the valley floor, others headed for the caves that Mansoor's father had dug 20 years ago.

The attack Mansoor expected finally came on Saturday morning, March 2, after being postponed for 48 hours because of bad weather. At Bagram, Colonel Frank Wiercinski told his men that this would be a "defining moment" in their lives. Echoing the motto of the 10th Mountain Division, he said, "This is your climb to glory." The helicopters took off and flew south. The division, heading for battle position Eve, attacked the villages of Sarkhankhel, Marzak and Babakul, taking al-Qaeda by surprise. "The bad guys were drinking tea when we arrived," says Hagenbeck. "Our snipers," says one soldier, "whacked a whole lot of people."

But almost immediately, other Americans ran into far more trouble than they had bargained for. At battle position Ginger, Grippe found hundreds of enemy fighters waiting. "They came at us with mortars, rpgs, and light and heavy machine guns," he told Time. "From a blocking mission, it turned into a reconnaissance force on an al-Qaeda stronghold." Grippe radioed to base for reinforcements and was told that none could get through the hail of fire. He was ordered to hold out until after dark, when evacuation would be possible. It was still only 7 a.m. Grippe's team spent the day fighting off Taliban and al-Qaeda incursions. "My men were whacking people from 400 to 500 meters," he said, "but there were also gunfights. We're talking nose to nose." Incessant mortar fire kept men pinned, squirming, to the ground. "With small arms, you can fight back," says Sergeant David Smith, who was hit twice. "But with mortars, you can't do anything much about it. We had to just lie on the ground and basically take it." By the time the first rescue helicopters arrived at 8 p.m., the 10th Mountain had 17 wounded. One man lost two toes; another had to have blood pumped out of his lungs. "We'd just been in a gunfight for 18 hours," Smith told Time, before correcting himself. "I would say the gunfight lasted for 17 hours and 58 minutes. The first two minutes weren't bad."

Amazingly, the companies at the south of the valley did not suffer an American fatality that first day. Things went less well in the northwest, where a force of Afghans led by General Ziahuddin, accompanied by American special forces, was to enter the valley from Zurmat. Abdul Sabur, a young Afghan, had signed on with the Americans for $200 a month, plus a mountain parka, a new Kalashnikov assault rifle and the promise of meat at least once a day. The risks seemed worth it; Sabur's own commander had not paid him for months.

That Saturday morning, the convoy headed east along a muddy, rutted road. Sabur was in the back of a brightly colored pickup; two Americans sat in the cabin, and another team of special forces followed them. As the truck splashed around a muddy bend, Sabur told Time, "al-Qaeda opened fire on us with something big." In a mud-brick hut was hidden an antiaircraft gun or mortar. Munitions ripped through the cabin. Sabur took shrapnel in his leg. The convoy returned fire and called in air support. Three helicopters thundered up the canyon, blasting away at enemy positions. A few days later, another Afghan from the convoy showed a Time reporter the truck, lying on its side in a ditch. "When we'd finished," he said, "all the Arabs were dead." So were three Afghans and one American. Army Chief Warrant Officer Stanley Harriman, 34, based in Fort Bragg, N.C., who had been in the cabin of Sabur's truck, was flown to Bagram, where he received last rites.

Intense fighting continued through Tuesday and Wednesday. In the first five days of the battle, some 500 bombs and missiles were dropped on the valley. Gunships raked al-Qaeda positions, killing hundreds. "You could hear the AC-130 bombers circling above in the clouds, then this slow thud, thud, thud," said Marine Captain Jeff Pool. "Then these great showers of dust would rise up from the valley floor." By the weekend, snow and freezing rain returned, and American commanders had to decide whether to risk more casualties by going after those fighters—maybe 200 of them—still in the caves.

The battle, said an emotional President Bush in Florida last week, "is a sign of what is going to happen for a while." In the war against terrorism, more American casualties are inevitable. One day, perhaps, Americans will tire of the slow drip of deaths—three here, five there—of the sort that old colonial powers like France and Britain once learned to endure. That hasn't happened yet; Shah-i-Kot marks the first time in many years that Americans have died in battle on a foreign field without a sense of outrage and shame at home. After 18 Army Rangers and special forces died at the battle of Mogadishu in 1993—the subject of the film Black Hawk Down—some relatives of the dead thought their sons had been betrayed by their political leaders, while many citizens felt guilty about allowing men to be placed in danger for an ill-defined purpose.

This time is different. Twenty-eight Americans have died in the war since October, but the national mood remains resolute. Here, without argument, is one way in which Sept. 11 truly has changed the way we think. "The American public," says Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a military scholar, "is sensible about war and amazingly stoical." Who, six months ago, would have dared say that?

—Reported by Mike Billips/ Jacksonville, Tim McGirk and Michael Ware/ Gardez, Alex Perry/ Bagram, Sean Scully/ Los Angeles, Mark Thompson/ Washington and Rahimullah Yusufzai/ Peshawar

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