Lone survivor: the eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL team 10

by Marcus Luttrell

  Anyway, that first morning, we did another couple of sets of push-ups and somehow gasped out a loud Hooyah, Instructor Reno! And then he let us sit down again.

  What followed was probably the most stern lecture in SEAL ethos and ethics I’ve ever attended. I did take notes, and I recall everything he told us, and I’ll try to relate it as I believe Reno would wish.

  “This is high-risk training. And we define that as anywhere there is potential for serious injury or loss of life. Any of you see anything unsafe, or any situation where you may be in unnecessary danger, speak up immediately. We do not like mistakes, understand me?”

  “Hooyah!”

  “Always remember your own accountability, to yourselves, your superiors, and your teammates. The chain of command is sacred. Use it. Keep your boat-crew leaders and your class leaders informed of any digression from the normal. And stay with your swim buddy. I don’t care if you’re going to the head, you stay right with him. Understood?”

  “Hooyah!”

  “Respect. I expect you to show complete respect for the instructor staff, the class officers, and the senior petty officers. You are in the military. You will be courteous at all times. Understood?”

  “Hooyah!”

  “Integrity, gentlemen. You don’t lie, cheat, or steal. Ever. You lose an item of gear, you put in a chit and report it. You do not take someone else’s gear. I won’t pretend that has not happened here in the past. Because it has. But those guys were instantly finished. Their feet never touched the ground. They were gone. That day. You will respect your classmate. And his gear. You do not take what is not yours. Understood?”

  “Hooyah!”

  “I’m your class proctor for the next two weeks. And I’ll help you, if you need help, over matters of pay, family, and personal concerns. If you get injured, go to medical and get it fixed and get back into training. I’m your proctor. Not your mother. I’m here to teach you. You stay in the box, I’ll help you. You get outside the box, I’ll hammer you. Understood?”

  “Hooyah!”

  “Finally, reputation. And your reputation begins right here. And so does the reputation of Class Two-two-six. And that’s a reflection on me. It’s a responsibility I take very personally. Because reputation is everything. In life, and especially right here in Coronado. So stay focused. Keep your head right in the game. Put out a hundred percent at all times, because we’ll know if you don’t. And never, ever, leave your swim buddy. Any questions?”

  “Negative!”

  Who could ever forget that? Not me. I can still hear in my mind the sharp crack as Instructor Reno snapped shut his notebook. It sounded to me like Moses, hammering together the granite slabs which held the 10 Commandments. That Reno was a five-foot-six-inch giant. He was some presence in our lives.

  That day we bailed out of the classroom and went for a four-mile run along the beach. Three times he stopped us and told us to get in the surf and “get wet and sandy.”

  Our boots were waterlogged and each passing mile was murder. We never could get the sand out of our shorts. Our skin was chafing, and Reno didn’t give a damn. At the end of the run, he ordered us to drop and start pushing ’em out. He gave us two sets of twenty, and right toward the end of the first set, I noticed he was doing the exercise with us. Except he was using only one arm, and he didn’t even look like he was breathing hard.

  That guy could have arm wrestled a half-ton gorilla. And just the sight of him cruising through the push-ups alongside us gave us a fair idea of the standard of fitness and strength required for us to make it through BUD/S.

  As we prepared to make the mile run to the chow hall around noon, Reno told us calmly, “Remember, there’s just a few of you here who we’d probably have to kill before you’d quit. We know that, and I’ve already identified some of you. That’s what I am here to find out. Which of you can take the pain and the cold and the misery. We’re here to find out who wants it most. Nothing more. Some of you won’t, some of you can’t and never will. No hard feelings. Just don’t waste our time any longer than necessary.”

  Thanks a bunch, Reno. Just can’t understand why you have to sugarcoat everything. Why not just tell it like it is? I didn’t say that, of course. Four hours with the pocket battleship of Coronado had slammed a very hefty lid on my personal well of smart-ass remarks. Besides, he’d probably have broken my pelvis, since he couldn’t possibly have reached my chin.

  We had a new instructor for the pool, and we were all driven through the ice-cold jets of the decontamination unit to get rid of the sand on our skin. That damn thing would have blasted the scales off a fresh haddock. After that, we piled into the water, split into teams, and began swimming the first of about ten million lengths we would complete before our years of service to the navy were complete.

  They concentrated on buoyancy control and surface swimming for the first few days, made us stretch our bodies, made us longer in the water, timing us, stressing the golden rule for all young SEALs — you must be good in the water, no matter what. And right here the attrition began. One guy couldn’t swim at all! Another swore to God he had been told by physicians that he should not put his head underwater under any circumstances whatsoever!

  That was two down. They made us swim without putting our heads up, taught us to roll our heads smoothly in the water and breathe that way, keeping the surface calm, instead of sticking our mouths up for a gulp of air. They showed us the standard SEAL swim method, a kind of sidestroke that is ultra-efficient with flippers. They taught us the technique of kick, stroke, and glide, the beginning of the fantastic SEAL underwater system that enables us to gauge distances and swim beneath the surface with astounding accuracy.

  They taught us to swim like fish, not humans, and they made us swim laps of the pool using our feet only. They kept telling us that for other branches of the military, water is a pain in the ass. For us, it’s a haven. They were relentless about times, always trying to make us faster, hitting the stopwatches a few seconds sooner every day. They insisted brute strength was never the answer. The only way to find speed was technique, and then more technique. Nothing else would work. And that was just the first week.

  In the second, they switched us to training almost entirely underwater throughout the rest of the course. Nothing serious. They just bound our ankles together and then bound our wrists together behind our backs and shoved us into the deep end. This caused a certain amount of panic, but our instructions were clear: Take a huge gulp of air and drop to the bottom of the pool in the standing position. Hold it there for at least a minute, bob up for new air, then drop back down for another minute, or more if you could.

  The instructors swam alongside us wearing fins and masks, looking like porpoises, kind of friendly, in the end, but at first glance a lot like sharks. The issue was panic. If a man was prone to losing it under the water when he was bound hand and foot, then he was probably never going to be a frogman; the fear is too deeply instilled.

  This was a huge advantage for me. I’d been operating underwater with Morgan since I was about ten years old. I’d always been able to swim on or below the surface. And I’d been taught to hold my breath for two minutes, minimum. I worked hard, gave it all I could, and never strayed more than about a foot from my swim buddy. Unless it was a race, when he remained on shore.

  I was leader in the fifty-yard underwater swim without fins. I already knew the secret to underwater swimming: get real deep, real early. You can’t get paid for finding the car keys if you can’t get down there and stay down. At the end, they graded us underwater. I was up there.

  Throughout this week we took ropes with us underwater. There was a series of naval knots that had to be completed deep below the surface. I can’t actually remember how many guys we lost during that drownproofing part of the Indoc training, but it was several.

  That second week was very hard for a lot of guys, and my memory is clear: the instructors preached competence in all techniques and exercises. Because the n
ext week, when phase one of the BUD/S course began, we were expected to carry it all out. The BUD/S instructors would assume we could accomplish everything from Indoc with ease. Anyone who couldn’t was gone. The Indoc chiefs would not be thanked for sending up substandard guys for the toughest military training in the world.

  And while we were jumping in and out of the pool and the Pacific, we were also subjected to a stringent regime of physical training, high-pressure calisthenics. Not for us the relatively smooth surface of the grinder, the blacktop square in the middle of the BUD/S compound. The Indoc boys, not yet qualified even to join the hallowed ranks of the BUD/S students, were banished to the beach out behind the compound.

  And there Instructor Reno and his men did their level best to level us. Oh, for the good old days of twenty arm-tearing push-ups. Not anymore. Out here it was usually fifty at a time, all interspersed with exercises designed to balance and hone various muscle groups, especially arms and abs. The instructors were consumed with abdominal strength, the reasons for which are now obvious: the abdomen is the bedrock of a warrior’s strength for climbing rocks and ropes, rowing, lifting, swimming, fighting, and running.

  Back there in Indoc, we did not really get that. All we knew was the SEAL instructors were putting us through hell on a daily basis. My personal hell was the flutter kick: lie on your back, legs dead straight and six inches off the sand, point your toes, and then kick as if you were doing the backstroke in the pool. And don’t even consider putting your legs down, because there were instructors walking past at all times, like they were members of a firing squad under the orders of the Prince of Darkness.

  One time early on, the pain in the nerves and tendons behind my thighs and back was so intense, I let my feet drop. Actually, I dropped them three times, and you’d have thought I’d committed murder. The first time, there was a roar of anguish from an instructor; the second time, someone called me a faggot; and the third time, there was a roar of anguish and someone else called me a faggot. Each time, I was ordered to go straight into the ice-cold Pacific then come out and roll in the sand.

  It wasn’t until the third time I realized that nearly everyone was in the Pacific and then rolling in the sand. We all looked like creatures from the Black Lagoon. And still they drove us forward, making us complete those exercises. It was funny really, but within four or five days, those flutter kicks were no problem at all. And we were all a whole lot fitter for them. All? Well, most. Two or three guys just could not take it and fluttered their way right out of there with smiles on their faces.

  Me? I hung in there, calling out the exercise count, doing the best I could, cursing the hell out of Billy Shelton for getting me into this nuthouse in the first place, even though it was plainly not his fault.

  I completed the exercises with obvious motivation, not because I was trying to make a favorable impression but because I would do nearly anything to avoid running into the freezing ocean and then rolling in the sand. And that was the consequence of not trying. Those instructors never missed a slacker. Every couple of minutes some poor bastard was told, “Get wet and sandy.”

  Wasn’t that bad, though. Right after we finished the PT class and staggered to our feet, Instructor Reno, god of all the mercies, would send us on a four-mile run through the soft sand, running alongside us at half speed (for him), exhorting us to greater effort, barking instructions, harassing, cajoling. Those runs were unbelievably hard, especially for me, and I labored in the second half of the field trying to force my long legs to go faster.

  Reno knew damn well I was trying my best, but in those early days he’d call out my name and tell me to get going. Then he’d tell me to get wet and sandy, and I’d run into the ocean, boots and all. Then I’d have to try and catch up with boots full of water. I guess he knew I could take it, but I cannot believe he was not laughing his ass off behind those black sunglasses.

  Still, eventually it would be lunchtime, and it was only another mile to get something to eat. And all the time they were telling us about diet, what to eat, what never to eat, how often to eat. Jesus. It was a miracle any of us ever made it to the chow hall, never mind study our diets.

  There was also the obstacle course, known to us as the O-course, and a place of such barbaric intensity that real live SEALs, veteran combat warriors from the teams, came over to supplement their training, often preparing for overseas deployment to a theater of war: jungle, mountain, ocean, or desert.

  The Coronado O-course was world famous. And if it tested the blooded warriors of the teams, imagine what it was like for us, ten-day wonders, fresh out of boot camp, soft as babies compared to these guys.

  I stared at the O-course, first day we went there. We were shown around, the rope climbs, the sixty-foot cargo net, the walls, the vaults, the parallel bars, the barbed wire, the rope bridges, the Weaver, the Burma Bridge.

  For the first time I wished to hell I’d been a foot shorter. It was obvious to me this was a game for little guys. Instructor Reno gave a couple of demonstrations. It was like he’d been born on the rope bridge. It would be more difficult for me. All climbing is, because, in the end, I have to haul 230 pounds upward. Which is why all the world’s great climbers are tiny guys with nicknames like the Fly, or the Flea, or Spider, all of them 118 pounds soaking wet.

  I assessed rightly this would be a major test for me. But there were a lot of very big SEALs, and they’d all done it. That meant I could do it. Anyway, my mindset was the same old, same old. I’m either going to do this right, or I’ll die trying. That last part was closer to the reality.

  There were fifteen separate sections of the course, and you needed to go through, past, over, or under all of them. Naturally they timed us right from the get-go, when guys were tripping up, falling off, falling down, getting stuck, or generally screwing up. As I suspected, the bigger guys were instantly in the most trouble, because the key elements were balance and agility. Those Olympic gymnasts are mostly four feet tall. And when did you last see a six-foot-five, 230-pound ice dancer?

  It was the climbing which put the big guys at the most disadvantage. One of our tests was called slide for life, a thick eighty-foot nylon rope attached to a tower and looped down to a vertical pole about ten feet high. You had to climb up the tower hanging on to the rope then slide all the way back down or pull yourself, whichever was easier.

  For the record, on the subject of Instructor Reno, when we had to climb various ropes, he would amuse himself by climbing to the same height as us while using two ropes, one in each hand, never losing his grip and never letting go of either one. To this day, I believe that was impossible and that Reno was some kind of a mirage in sunglasses on the sand.

  I struggled through the rope loop, making the top and sliding down, but one guy lost his grip and fell down, straight onto the sand, and broke his arm and, I think, his leg. He was a pretty big guy, and there was another one gone. The other discipline that sticks in my memory was that cargo net. You know the type of thing, heavy-duty rope knotted together in squares, the kind of stuff that has come straight from a shipyard. It was plainly imperative we all got damn good at this, since SEALs use such nets to board and disembark submarines and ships and to get in and out of inflatable boats.

  But it was hard for me. It seemed when I shoved my boot in and reached upward, the foothold slipped downward, and my intended handhold got higher. Obviously, if I’d weighed 118 pounds soaking wet, this would not have been the case. First time I climbed the net, ramming my feet into the holes, I got kind of stuck about forty-five feet off the ground, arms and legs spreadeagled. I guess I looked like Captain Ahab trapped in the harpoon lines after a trip to the ocean floor with Moby Dick.

  But like all the rest of our exercises, this one was completely about technique. And Instructor Reno was there to put me straight. Four days later, I could zip up that net like a circus acrobat. Well…okay, more like an orangutan. Then I’d grab the huge log at the top, clear that, and climb down the other side like Spider-
Man. Okay, okay…like an orangutan.

  I had similar struggles on the rope bridge, which seemed always to be out of kilter for me, swinging too far left or too far right. But Instructor Reno was always there, personally, to help me regain my equilibrium by sending me on a quick rush into the ocean, which was so cold it almost stopped my heart. This was followed by a roll in the sand, just to make the rest of the day an absolute itching, chafing hell until I hit the decontamination unit to get power washed down, same way you deal with a mud-caked tractor.

  Naturally, the newly clean tractor had it all over us because no one then dumps it into the deep end of a swimming pool and more or less leaves it there until it starts to sprout fins. It was just another happy day in the life of a fledgling student going through Indoc. Understandably, Class 226 shrank daily, and we had not even started BUD/S.

  And you think it was a great relief finally to get through the day and retire to our rooms for peace and perhaps sleep? Dream on. There’s no such thing as peace in Coronado. The place is a living, breathing testimony to that Roman strategist who first told the world, “Let him who desires peace prepare for war” (that’s translated from the Latin Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum — Flavius Vegetius Renatus, fourth century). Or, as a SEAL might say, You want things to remain cool, pal? Better get your ass in gear. I knew I was close.

  That old Roman knew a thing or two. His military treatise De Rei Militari was the bible of European warfare for more than 1,200 years, and it still applies in Coronado, stressing constant drilling, training, and severe discipline. He advised the Roman commanders to gather intelligence assiduously, use the terrain, and then drive the legionnaires forward to encircle their objective. That’s more or less how we operate in overseas deployment against terrorists today. Hooyah, Flavius Vegetius.

  Coronado, like New York, is a city that never sleeps. Those instructors are out there patrolling the corridors of our barracks by night into the small hours. One of them once came into my room after I’d hot mopped it and high polished the floor till you could almost see your face in it. He dropped a trickle of sand onto the floor and chewed me out for living in a dust bowl! Then he sent me down to the Pacific, in the company of my swim buddy and of course himself, to “get wet and sandy.” Then we had to go through the decontamination unit, and the shrieking of those cold hydraulic pipes and the ferocious jets of water awakened half the barracks and nearly sent us into shock. Never mind the fact that it was 0200 and we were due back under those showers again in another couple of hours.