Joint Staff spokesman USAF Brigadier General John W. Rosa announced at the Pentagon on 20 March that US forces found a hand-held global positioning system device in an Afghan cave that may have belonged to Medal of Honor recipient Army MSG Gary Gordon. Gordon was killed by Somali militiamen during the infamous "Black Hawk Down" battle at Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993.

American forces searching a cave in the Anaconda area on 19 March discovered the hand-held GPS unit and its military carrying pouch, which bore the name "G. Gordon". Rosa said that the GPS unit could be evidence of a tie between the al Qaeda terrorist network and Somalia, but also pointed out that the GPS unit could have been sold on the black market. 

American officials initially felt that they may never know how it got to Afghanistan. Subsequent research regarding the origin of this particular GPS unit indicated that the unit belonged to an American pilot who had recently served in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. This service member gave his GPS unit to another American pilot before redeploying from Afghanistan. The second pilot lost possession of the GPS unit in a firefight during Operation Anaconda. - Adam Geibel