While I was studying medicine, Jay was picked up for a commissioning program and eventually graduated among the top of his class at Old Dominion University. He returned to the team as an officer just as the war was ramping up and led his men on mission after mission in very dangerous places. One fateful night, an enemy round nearly ripped his left arm off. As he feverishly applied the tourniquet to his arm and pulled the constricting band tight, another round entered his skull under his right ear. Although rocked by rounds and losing blood quickly, Jay continued to care for his wounds while directing his men to continue the fight. With the help of his medic, the combat surgeons, and hospital stops along the way, he made it to National Naval Medical Center Bethesda.
Bullfrog and I walked into the room unsure of what we’d see. We’d heard Jay was still breathing out of the tracheotomy tube protruding from his neck but was stable and able to communicate by pen and paper. We’d also heard the damage to his face was extensive. We washed our hands with the antiseptic and entered his room, only to see a smiling Jay giving us a thumbs-up as if he were able to defy death with a Harry and David gift basket. Bullfrog and I looked at one another and tried to keep ourselves from cracking up, unsure if it would be acceptable to laugh. Jay hadn’t changed a bit, except he’d married a wonderful wife and started a family. I spoke with Jay as he scribbled his responses while Bullfrog spoke with his lovely wife, Erica.
“Wow, Jay. All things considered, you look great.” I wasn’t being sarcastic, either. Being a medical provider I’d seen and worked on plenty of wounded, and despite taking a few rounds to his upper body and face, he was much better than I expected. Cosmetically it did look bad, but his positive persona resonated through the room, making everyone feel brighter.
“You should have seen him when he first landed. He looked awful,” said Erica, with a combination of humor and concern, but mostly out of love for her husband. I looked at Bullfrog, and we thought, Where the hell do we find more of this? They were the epitome of a grounded couple, focused on all the good that life had to offer.
As we thumbed through the photographs and listened to Erica describe the past few days, Jason flipped his notebook around and wrote that he was going to ask the plastic surgeon for a Brad Pitt nose.
“No, that’s not what you want,” Bullfrog said in a half-joking, half-salesman way as he pushed me aside to stand next to Jason. “You should ask for a big distinctive nose. A Wikul nose,” he said as he turned his head upward to profile his nose. We all broke into laughter, but Pete stayed on point, very serious. “Big noses are legendary. Think of all the great men with a distinguished schnoz.” He paused for effect as we tried to contain our laughter, “There was George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Julius Caesar, Charles DeGaulle and…”
Jason turned his pad around. It said No! clearly underlined, yet Bullfrog continued to pontificate about the virtues of a prominent proboscis.
It was a shared moment of levity between friends and warriors who accept death and destruction as part of the job description. The laughter was a dramatic contrast to the gut-wrenching sorrow we felt each time a casualty report came across our secure network. Nose jokes were definitely fitting for Jay, who wasn’t interested in pity parties. In fact, Jay fended off any visitors who dared enter with sorrow in their eyes and pity in their voices. He wrote a manifesto with a black marker on orange cardboard, informing the world that he received the wounds while defending the country he loved and that sorrow and sympathy were not in the recovery plan. Several days later, the poster was photographed and uploaded to the World Wide Web, and within a matter of days Jay went from being another patient at Bethesda to an Internet legend, encouraging optimism and speedy recovery for all wounded Americans.
* * *
Bullfrog returned to the office while I attended to a few hospital appointments of my own. I stopped by the coffee shop where Steve and I had first met, grabbed another coffee, and watched a group of visitors carry quilts, candies, and gifts through the doors as they headed up to the fifth floor to visit with the wounded troops. What a contrast to Steve’s years of service. He and the other Vietnam vets told stories of the disrespect and downright hate they received when they returned home, mainly from a group of ignorant angry young Americans unsure where to focus their frustrations.
We certainly weren’t suffering from that type of misdirected anger today. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I wore the uniform in public and was treated poorly. It was quite the opposite. A walk through the airport always led to offers of coffee or beer, and handshakes were plentiful. Our wounded from Panama quietly received generous assistance from a handful of our country’s millionaires, and our sailors and soldiers experienced warm welcomes home from the First Gulf War. Modern America loved her military, and we loved her back.
So what brought about the change, from anger to respect? It was the Vietnam veterans! The same men and women who served honorably and were spit upon for their service managed to hold their chin high and say, “Not on my watch!” They didn’t do it for ticker-tape parades or public praise; instead they demanded respect for those that came after them. They simply refused to let another American service member experience the same hell they’d walked through a generation before. They served their country when their country called, and along with their fellow Korea and World War II veterans continue to serve America’s service members today. Every time I’d hear “thank you for serving,” I made it a point to say two “Thank you for supporting” back, one for the citizens of America and the other for the veterans of the past.
27
BRUTAL HONESTY
Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
The next day I met up with Bullfrog’s top intelligence officer to review the proposed training pipeline and discuss any significant events occurring on the battlefield that might require modifying our training regime. Bureaucracy didn’t encumber the enemy; they were able to change tactics at a moment’s notice, so to ensure our personnel were prepared, John Jacobs and I continually met with everyone returning from the front, including Dana, one of Bullfrog’s top performers.
Dana was an intensely passionate and highly valued professional who had just completed a yearlong pump on the battlefield. She entered the navy as an enlisted intelligence specialist at an early age and worked her way up to the officer ranks; along the way, she developed proficiency in a number of disciplines. She spent the majority of her career supporting the SEAL Teams, serving as one of the first females utilized as forward support in combat operations. She opened doors and broke glass ceilings.
“Doc!” Dana said with a big smile as she gave me a quick hug. She’d been away on two weeks’ leave.
“Welcome home, Dana. Did you actually enjoy your leave time, or was your mind still tracking terrorists?” Dana managed the collection and dissemination of information better than anyone else I knew. When a promising lead would come in she’d scour sources looking for corresponding leads. Inevitably she’d find the information and forward it to a spec ops team on the ground, and they would get their man. Her relentless attitude helped her find data on bad guys no one else could, earning her the respected title “Digger.”
“No. Well, yes, but only a little,” she said with her typical muffled laugh. “So let’s see what you got.” She reached out for a briefing package I’d prepared.
Over the next few hours we covered the work she’d done on the battlefield. Dana had sent a constant flow of reports, but there’s nothing better for capturing every detail than getting it from the person’s own mouth. The enemy’s tactics had certainly changed, and increasing effectiveness of IEDs was taking a toll on our troops.
“I think if you implement these changes the next group will be as ready as they can be, but we’re not going to be out of this anytime soon,” she concluded.
“I know, and that’s what’s troubling me. I’m just not sure I believe in being there anymore,” I replied.
“Where?”
“Afghanistan mostly, but I don’t think we need to have troops on the ground trying to help countries that don’t want our help. I just don’t think it’s worth it.”
Dana and I finished our conversation over lunch and traded opinions based on war stories and personal experiences. When she left to head back to work, I stayed at the lunch table and stared at my coffee, lost in thought.
It isn’t that I don’t believe in fighting terrorism; that has to be done. I just question the need to have a large force on the ground to do it. I feel we can fight and contain terrorism without having American men and women doing a job the natives need to do themselves. As much as I like to believe our current strategy is going to work, I seriously doubt anything will change over there, and in the end all we’ll have to show for it is war-damaged veterans and their families.
Bullfrog constantly reminds the crew of the need to be brutally honest with our assessments, because American lives are depending on it. Well, to be brutally honest, I’m not sure there’s any winnable strategy for any invading force in Afghanistan, and only time will tell with Iraq.
Realizing how much time had gone by, I grabbed my tray and dropped it off at the scullery and returned to the office.
“Wow, you look like someone just told you you’re on the way to the hoosegow,” John said as I sat back down at my desk.
“Thanks, John, that makes me feel better,” I said with a chuckle.
“Look, I’ve seen this before, you ain’t feeling it. You’re not going to be able to concentrate, so how about you just head home early today.” John looked at me with concern, and I didn’t bother arguing the point. I packed up and departed. As I walked from the exit to my car, my mind was still focused on the war.
* * *
During the drive home, I reflected on the conversation I’d had with Dana. I knew both political parties were comprised of patriotic citizens who passionately believed in our military leaders and our troops, as did I—but how could any strategy formulated in the depths of the Pentagon differ from those attempted in the past? The British had military officers living and interacting with villages throughout the Stans (Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.) for decades, and the population ultimately viewed them as an occupying force, even though the British considered themselves merely advisers. The Russians had allied with the leaders of Afghanistan and helped build Kabul into a modern city, but when a segment of the country rebelled, the Russians invaded in an attempt to keep control and were eventually defeated. I wasn’t interested in dissecting the politics or tactics of either the Brits or the Soviet Union. I’m positive they had political and military geniuses concocting a number of strategies that worked perfectly well on paper but failed miserably over and over again. What were we doing differently, and to what end?
I lived among the Afghani and Iraqi people. I fought with them and against them and treated their children and tribal elders with the best medical technology available. Yet they still viewed us as invaders. As I drove along, I caught a clear view of the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, and eventually the Pentagon. My thoughts of war had changed since I put on the uniform for the first time. In Panama I wholeheartedly believed it to be a “Just Cause.” America went in and did what needed to get done and got out. The pattern was repeated as we liberated Kuwait. What made the outcomes of those conflicts so different from what happened in Vietnam and what was occurring in Afghanistan today? I pulled into a local grocery store to pick up some supplies and saw a billboard for a nationally known retirement fund. Its message was prophetic: You can’t plan a winning strategy if you can’t define winning.
I was a Navy SEAL at an intelligence command deeply involved in warfighting, and I couldn’t define what constituted winning in Afghanistan. From the Revolutionary War to World War II, we had a clear understanding of victory that could be conveyed to and understood by the American people. For me, winning a war meant defeating the enemy by destroying their ability to continue to wage war. This could be achieved by either physically removing them from the land as we did with the British or annihilating their armies and infrastructure as the Allies did with the Nazis. That definition of victory certainly didn’t fit with Afghanistan. We destroyed the Taliban’s hold on the country, but this was bigger than the Taliban or al Qaeda. The fight included terrorist organizations that most Americans never heard of, nebulous bands of loosely organized extremists and criminals that had no country, uniforms, or formal organization. Of course, maybe it’s not a war at all. Maybe it’s just a euphemism similar to “the War on Drugs,” which definitely sounded better than saying “catching or killing criminals that kill others and need to be killed.” If that’s the case, why are we fighting it like a war? Why do we keep having American troops blown up by criminals that have no allegiance to their country, the Taliban, al Qaeda, or anything else?
In the First Gulf War we had clear objectives that everyone understood. Whether you believed the war was based on oil or liberating Kuwait was irrelevant to understanding the objectives: remove Suddam Hussein from Kuwait and prevent Iraq from having the power to invade its neighbors. When the goal was met we moved out. Maybe we had that opportunity in Afghanistan? Maybe after we ousted the Taliban we could have come home and begun hunting the masterminds as we are doing today? I don’t know, and I am not claiming to be some philosophical genius with any of the answers. I’m a simple man who believes that before a free nation can fight a war, conflict, or battle, it needs three things: a military force capable of winning; political will, meaning elected officials who accept the consequences that may be related to a winning strategy, including the possible need for mass destruction; and most importantly the backing of the people, who like our military, were growing weary of continual battle.
It seemed to me America had a way to lose the war but no clear way to win it. However, if America’s goal in the fight against terrorism is to keep our citizens safe, there are men and women who volunteered to carry that burden knowing damn good and well the risks they are taking. I was one of them, and now I worked inside one of the many buildings supporting them. In order to do so we have to be willing to take the gloves off and let special operations and the intelligence communities do what needs to be done to prevent another attack from happening.
I have fired a weapon in the heat of battle, and I have held my brothers as their lives slipped away. War is not an esoteric chess game; men die, and their wives and children suffer for a lifetime. I fully understand the consequences of war, and I pray that those who send our men and women downrange do so with victory clearly defined, and with the backbone to stand behind them long after the last troop comes home. I no longer believed the answer requires an army on foreign soil. It is time to bring our forces home and accept the fact that we cannot win “a war” against a nebulous group of criminals huddled away in countries that support them—but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight and defeat them.
28
THE DECISION
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
—JOHN WOODEN
I had first thought about retiring when I took the kids to New Mexico for Christmas with their grandmother while Korrina celebrated the holidays in Iraq supporting a SEAL Team. It was then that I concluded my time in the military was coming to a close. However, rather than rush to judgment or try to discuss a life-changing event over the phone, I decided on waiting a few months until Korrina returned home from deployment so we could talk about it in person.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Korrina asked as we sipped coffee and waited for our food at the only good breakfast shop in downtown Norfolk.
“I’ve given this a lot of thought and prayer, and it’s not what I want to do, but rather it’s something that I have to do,” I said with a slight sadness in my voice. Leaving the uniform was an uncomfortable idea, but I
certainly wasn’t scared of change.
“What are you going to do, medicine? Intel? I hope it’s not going back to special operations. Even training comes with too many risks.”
“I don’t know, but I feel like I’m being pulled toward helping our wounded veterans,” I said with a bit of uncertainty.
“Wounded veterans or wounded and veterans?” she asked, equally confused.
“I don’t know that much yet, but I’ll find out soon enough. There’s a wounded conference where Carl Levin will be speaking that I’ll be attending next week with Jay Redman, and I’m sure it will help shed some light on my decision.”
“I don’t know who that is,” she said.
Realizing her allegiance to Ohio State I thought it best not to mention his being a Michigan senator.
“He’s the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for Pete’s sake,” I said, trying to emphasize the importance of the event.
“Alright, but only because Jason is going with you.”
EXPOSED
For nearly half a decade the navy helped keep my award private. I wore my uniform only on military installations; most of the time my work attire varied from camouflage utilities to civvies. When I did have to wear a uniform that brandished ribbons, I’d wear a jacket to cover my awards, weather permitting, of course. I wasn’t trying to be secretive, although TJ’s words about the navy’s concerns for my family were always on my mind. I just felt awkward wearing awards I’d received for doing my job. Regardless of the reasons for my discomfort, I was about to learn how the press and public felt about keeping things from them.
Battle Ready: Memoir of a SEAL Warrior Medic Page 30
