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

by Marcus Luttrell

  I went back into the house to rest my leg and talk for a while with Gulab. He had not seen the parachute drop, and he had no idea how far along the road his father had journeyed. In my mind, I knew what every active combat soldier knows, that Napoleon’s army advanced on Moscow at one mile every fifteen minutes, with full packs and muskets. That’s four miles an hour, right? That way, the village elder should have made it in maybe eleven hours.

  Except for two mitigating factors: (1) he was about two hundred years old, and (2) from where I stood, the mountain he was crossing had a gradient slightly steeper than the Washington Monument. If the VE made it by Ramadan 2008, I’d be kinda lucky.

  One hour later, there it goes again. Bang! That goddamned door went off like a bomb. Even Gulab jumped. But not as high as I did. In came the kids, accompanied by a group of adults. They carried with them a white document, which must have looked like a snowball in a coal mine up here where the word litter simply does not exist.

  I took it from them and realized it was an instruction pamphlet for a cell phone. “Where the hell did you get this?” I asked them.

  “Right out there, Dr. Marcus. Right out there.” Everyone was pointing at the mountainside, and I had no trouble with the translation.

  “Parachute?” I said.

  “Yes, Dr. Marcus. Yes. Parachute.”

  I sent them right out there again, trying to make it clear that I needed the mountainside searched for anything like this, anything that might have come in on the parachutes.

  My guys don’t drop cell phone pamphlets, but they might have been trying to drop me a cell phone and the pamphlet just came with it. Either way, I could not find out for myself, so I had to get the guys to do it for me. Gulab stayed, but the others went with the kids, like a golf crowd fanned out to look for Tiger’s ball in deep rough.

  Gulab and I settled down. We had a cup of tea and some of those delicious little candies, then lounged back on our big cushions. Suddenly, bang! The door nearly cannoned off its hinges. I shot tea all over the rug, and in came everyone again.

  This time they had found a 55-90 radio battery and an MRE (meal ready to eat). The guys must have thought I was starving. Correct. But the battery did not fit my PRC-148 radio, which sucked, because if it had, I could have fired up a permanent distress signal straight into the sky above the village. As things were, I had no idea if my present weak radio beacon would reach much higher than the rooftops.

  I had no need to interrogate the kids further. If there had been anything else out there on the mountain, they’d have found it. There obviously wasn’t. Whatever the drop had contained, the Taliban had beaten the kids to it. The one bit of reverse good news was they clearly had the cell phone or phones, and they would probably try to use them. And the entire U.S. electronic surveillance system in the province of Kunar would be listening, ready to locate the caller.

  But then I noticed something which made my blood boil. Almost every one of the kids had been battered. They had bruises on their faces, cut lips, and bloody noses. Those little pricks out there had beaten up my kids, punched them in their faces, to stop them getting the stuff from the drop. There is no end to the lengths these people will go to to win this war.

  And I’ll never forget what they did to the kids of Sabray. I spent the rest of the day patching them up, all those brave little guys trying not to cry. I nearly wiped out the entire contents of Sarawa’s medical bag. Whenever I hear the word Taliban, I think of that day first.

  More strategically, it did seem the American military believed there was at least one SEAL still alive down here. The question was, What now? No one wanted to risk sending in another MH-47 helicopter, since the Taliban seemed to have become very adroit at knocking them down. Mind you, they have had a lot of practice, right back from when they were using those old Stinger missiles to knock the Russians out of the sky.

  And we all knew the danger point was landing, when the ramp was down, ready for an insert. That’s when the mountain men aimed the RPGs straight in the back, to explode right in the fuel-tank area. And I guess the U.S. flight crews could never be sure of any Afghan village, who might be in it, what weapons they had, and how skilled they might be at using them.

  I knew they’d need a pretty good aerial group to soften the place up before they could come in and get me. And I was desperate to give them some kind of a guide. I rigged up my radio emergency beacon to transmit through the open window. I had no idea how much battery I had left, so I just turned it on, aimed it high, and left it there on the window ledge, hopefully pinpointing my whereabouts to any overhead flights by the air force or the Night Stalkers.

  To my surprise, U.S. reaction happened a whole lot quicker than I thought it would. That afternoon. The U.S. Air Force came thundering in, dropping twelve-hundred-pound bombs on the mountainside beyond the village, right where the Taliban had picked up the stuff from the parachute drop.

  The blasts were incredible. In my house, well, I thought the whole building was coming down. Rocks and dust cascaded into the room. One of the walls sustained a major structural fault as blast after blast shook the mountain from top to bottom. Outside, people were screaming as the bombs hit and exploded; thatched roofs were blown off; there was a dust storm outside. Mothers and kids were rushing for cover, the tribesmen were at a complete loss. Everyone had heard of American airpower, but they had not seen it firsthand, like this.

  In fact none of the bombs, I guess by design, hit Sabray. But they came close. Damned close. All around the perimeter. There must have been a big lesson right here, and a very simple one. If you allow the Taliban and al Qaeda to make camp in and around your village, no good can possibly come of it.

  However, that wasn’t much comfort to my villagers as they tried to clean up the mess, rebuild walls and roofs, and calm down frightened kids, most of whom had had a very bad day. And all because of me. I looked out at the havoc around me and felt the most terrible sadness. And Gulab understood what I was feeling. He came over and put his arm around me and said, “Ah, Dr. Marcus, Taliban very bad. We know. We fight.”

  Jesus. Just what I need. A brand-new battle. We both retreated into the house and sat down for a while, trying to plot a course for me which would cause the least possible trouble to the farmers of Sabray.

  It seemed apparent that my presence here was causing a more and more threatening attitude from the Taliban, and the last thing I wanted was to cause pain and unhappiness among these people who had sheltered me. But my options were narrow, despite the Americans being, it seemed, hot on my trail. One of the main problems was that Gulab’s father had not made contact with us, because there was no way he could. And we had no way of knowing whether he had made it to a military base.

  The Taliban were probably not overwhelmingly thrilled at being bombed by the U.S. Air Force and had probably sustained many casualties out there on the mountain. It occurred to both Gulab and me that the word revenge might not be far from the curled lips of these hate-filled Muslim fanatics and that I might be the most convenient target.

  That meant a major problem and probably loss of life for the people of Sabray. Gulab himself was under pressure since he’d received that threat from the Taliban. He had a wife, children, and many relatives to think about. In the end, the decision made itself. Clearly, I had to leave, just to keep the village from becoming a battleground. Lokhay had worked well, but we both wondered if its mystical tribal folklore could hold out indefinitely in the face of the wounded and somewhat embarrassed Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

  The U.S. bombardment of the mountainside had for a while raised my hopes and expectations. After all, here were my own guys, swooping over these tribesmen from the Middle Ages, hitting them hard with high-tech modern ordnance. That’s got to be good, right?

  But not everything’s good. Retribution, against me and my protectors, was now uppermost in my mind. I think it was the tight-fisted old oil baron John Paul Getty who once observed that for every plus that takes place
in this world, there is, somewhere, somehow, a minus. He got that right.

  The question was, Where should I go? And here, my options were very limited. I could never make the long walk to the base at Asadabad, and anyhow that would seem inane since the village elder was either in there or very nearly. And the only place of refuge close by was the U.S. outpost at Monagee, two miles away over a steep mountain.

  I did not relish the plan, and neither would the guys who would need to assist me on the journey. But so far as Gulab and I could tell, there was nothing else we could do except hunker down and prepare for a Taliban attack, and I really did not want to put anyone through that. Especially the kids.

  We thus resolved that I should walk with him and two others over the mountain to the village of Monagee, which sounds Irish but is strictly Pashtun and is cooperative with the U.S. military. The plan was to wait until long after dark and then slip out into the high pastures around eleven o’clock, stealthily passing right under the noses of the probably sleeping Taliban watchmen.

  I could only hope my left leg would stand up to the journey. I’d lost a ton of weight, but I was still a very big guy to be half carried by a couple of slender Afghan tribesmen, most of whom were five foot eight and 110 pounds soaked to the skin. But Gulab did not seem too worried, and we settled down to wait out the long dark hours before eleven, when we would make our break.

  Night fell, quite abruptly, as it does up here in the peaks when the sun finally slips behind them. We lit no lanterns, offering no clue to the Taliban. We just sat there in the dark, sipping tea and waiting for the right moment to leave.

  Suddenly, from right out of the blue, there was the most colossal thunderstorm. The rain came swiftly, lashing rain, driving sideways over the mountain. It was rain like you rarely see, the kind of stuff usually identified with those hurricanes they keep replaying on the Weather Channel.

  It belted down on the village of Sabray. All windows and doors were slammed tight shut, because this was monsoon rain, driving in, right across the country from the southwest. No one would have set foot outside home because that wind and rain would have swept anyone away, straight off the mountain.

  Outside, great gushes of water cascaded down the steep main trail through the village. It sounded like we were in the middle of a river, the water racing past the front door. An area like this cannot, of course, flood, not up here, because the gradient is far too steep to hold water. But it can sure as hell get wet.

  We had a rock-and-mud roof that was sound, but I did wonder how some of the households down below us were getting along. Everything here is communal, including the cooking, so I guess everyone was just crowded in together in the undamaged houses, out of the rain.

  Up above us, the mountaintops were lit up by great bolts of forked lightning, ice blue in color, jagged, electric neon in the sky. Thunder rolled across the Hindu Kush. Gulab and I got down close to the thick rock wall at the back of the room because our own house was by no means watertight. But the rain was not driving through the gaps in the rocks and mud. Our spot was dry, but we were still deafened and dazzled by this atrocity of nature raging outside.

  That level of storm can be unnerving, but when it goes on for as long as this one, you become accustomed to its fury. Every time I looked out the window, the lightning flashed and crackled above the highest peaks. But occasionally it illuminated the sky beyond our immediate range of hills, and that was just about the creepiest sight you’ve ever seen, like the wicked witch of the Kush was about to come hurtling through the sky on a broomstick.

  Lightning out in front, naked and violent, is one thing. But similar bolts hidden from view, turning the heavens into a weird, electric blue, made a landscape like this look unearthly, enormous black summits, stark against the universe. It was a forbidding sight for a wounded warrior more used to the great flat plains of Texas.

  But slowly I became used to it and finally fell into a deep sleep flat out on the floor. Our departure time of 2300 came and went and still the rain lashed down. Midnight came, and with it, a new calendar date, Sunday, July 3, which this year would be the midpoint of the Fourth of July weekend, a time for celebration all over the U.S.A., at least in most parts, except for those in profound mourning for the lost special forces.

  While I was sitting out the storm, the mood back home on the ranch, according to Mom, was very depressed. I had been missing in action for five days. The throng gathered in our front yard now numbered almost three hundred. They had never left, but the crowd was growing very solemn.

  There was still a police cordon around the property. The local sheriffs had been joined by the judges, and the state police were busy providing personal escorts in the form of cruisers to accompany the SEALs on their twice-daily training runs, front and rear.

  Attending the daily prayers were local firemen, construction men, ranchers, bookstore owners, engineers, mechanics, teachers, two charter-boat fishing captains. There were salesmen, mortgage brokers, lawyers from Houston, and local attorneys. All of them fighting off my demise in the best way they knew how.

  Mom says the whole place was lit up all night by the lights from the automobiles. Someone had brought in portacabins, and there seemed little point in people going anywhere. Not until they knew whether I was still alive. According to Mom, they separated into groups, one offering prayers every hour, others singing hymns, others drinking beers. Local ladies who had known Morgan and me all our lives were unable to hold back their tears. All of them were in attendance for only one reason, to comfort my parents if the worst should be announced.

  I don’t know that much about other states, because my experience in California has been strictly sheltered in the SPECWARCOM compound. But in my opinion, that nearly weeklong vigil carried out in an entirely impromptu manner by the people of Texas says a huge amount about them, their compassion, their generosity, and their love for their stricken neighbors.

  Mom and Dad did not know all of them by any means, but no one will ever forget the single-minded purpose of their visits. They just wanted to help in any way they could, just wanted to be there, because one of their own was lost on the battlefield far, far away.

  And as the weekend wore on, no Stars and Stripes were flying. I guess they were not sure whether to raise them to half-mast or not. My dad says it was obvious people were becoming disheartened — the sheer regularity of the signal by phone from Coronado: “No news.” The grimness of the media announcing stuff like: “Hope is fading for the missing Navy SEALs…seems like those early reports of the death of all four will be proved accurate…Texas family mourns their loss…Navy still refusing to confirm SEALs deaths …”

  It beats the hell out of me. In the military, if we don’t know something, we say we don’t know and proceed to shut up until we do. Some highly paid charlatans in the media think it’s absolutely fine to take a wild guess at the truth and then tell a couple of million people it’s cast-iron fact, just in case they might be right.

  Well, I hope they’re proud of themselves, because they nearly broke my mom’s heart, and if it had not been for the stern authority of Senior Chief Petty Officer Chris Gothro, I think she might have had a nervous breakdown.

  That morning he found her in the house, privately crying, and right then Senior Chief Gothro stepped in. He stood her up, turned her around, and ordered her to look him straight in the eye. “Listen, Holly,” he said, “Marcus is missing in action. That’s MIA in our language. That’s all. Missing means what it says. It means we cannot at present locate him. It does not mean he’s dead. And he’s not dead until I tell you he’s dead, understand?

  “We do not have a body. But we do have movement on the ground. We cannot tell right now who it is, or how many there are. But no one, repeat, no one in SPECWARCOM believes he is dead. I want you to understand that, clearly.”

  The austere words of a professional must have hit home. Mom rallied after that, aided and comforted by Morgan, who still claimed he was in contact with me and th
at whatever else was happening, I was not dead.

  There were now thirty-five SEALs on the property, including Commander Jeff Bender, Admiral Maguire’s public relations officer and a fantastic encouragement to everyone. Navy SEAL chaplain Trey Vaughn from Coronado was a spiritual pillar of strength. Everyone wanted to talk to him, and he dealt with it all with optimism and hope. When the mood was becoming morbid and there were too many people in tears, he would urge them to be positive. “Stop that crying right now…we need you…we need your prayers…and Marcus needs your prayers. But most of all we need your energy. No giving up, hear me?” No one will ever forget Trey Vaughn.

  There were also two naval chaplains from the local command who just showed up out of nowhere. Chief Bruce Misex, the navy recruiter boss from Houston, who’d known me a long time, turned up and never left. As the days had worn on, shipments of seafood started to arrive from the gulf ports to the south: fresh shrimp, catfish, and other white fish. One lady brought an enormous consignment of sushi every day. And families who had spent generations in the South stuck hard by that old southern tradition of bringing covered dishes containing pots of chicken and dumplings to a funeral.

  Dad thought that was a bit premature, but there were a lot of people to feed, and he assumed a loose command of the cooking. Everyone was grateful for everything. He says it was strange but there was never any question of anyone going home. They were just going to stay there, for better or for worse.

  Meanwhile, back in the freakin’ thunderstorm, more than thirty pounds lighter than when I first set off on this mission, I was sleeping like a child. Gulab said at 0300 it had been raining for nearly six hours without ever slowing up. I was out to the world, the first time I had slept soundly for a week, oblivious to the weather, oblivious to the Taliban.