During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the bulk of American forces entered the country from Kuwait, battling their way through cities like Basra and Najaf en route to Baghdad, a smaller contingent entered from the north. Among them was the 3rd Special Forces Group, which, on the 18th day of the war, engaged in the first major offensive by American forces moving from Kurdistan into government-controlled territory of northern Iraq.

Their mission: to sever Highway 2 and prevent the Iraqi army from reaching the oil fields in Kirkuk.

Even after 13 years of combat operations in the Middle East, one would be hard-pressed to find a story that better highlights the effectiveness of the U.S. Army Special Forces as a small and agile elite fighting force. And it all hinges on the heroic actions of two men: Staff Sgt. Jason D. Brown and Staff Sgt. Jeffrey M. Adamec, who’d both donned the Green Beret for the first time less than a year before.

“Two guys shut down the attack,” Maj. Curtis W. Hubbard, the company commander in charge of the operation, later told The New York Times of Adamec and Brown’s actions. “Two guys turned an organized Iraqi attack into chaos. They halted an entire motorized rifle company.”

Officially, the skirmish was called the battle of Debecka Pass. But among the commandos on the ground on that day, it became known as “the Alamo.” And for good reason: The battle pitted 26 Green Berets and their Kurdish allies against a substantially larger and much better-equipped Iraqi force. A 3rd Group company commander later estimated that the Americans were outnumbered 30 to 1.

Read the Remainder at Task and Purpose