Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life
Page 24
As we all waited, Nike looked back at me and said,
“Chief, I hate turn over missions.”
After the pause, one of the men from Echo called over the radio that he needed immediate medevac. That was all that was said. That was all that needed to be said. After twenty years of being in wars all over this crazy planet, all a warrior needs to know is “what” happened, “where” is it, and “how” long do I need to be there. This particular situation met the “what” happened thing. I knew “where” the bloody SEAL was. And I didn’t want to be here any longer … the “how.”
Luckily, one of the helos had just dropped off the SF guys and was only five minutes away. Our comms expert called him back and gave him the map location where we were going to clear a landing spot. What he didn’t tell the helo pilot is that four of my guys ran across an uncleared mine field to clear another minefield so that the helo could land. I don’t think the helo pilot would have landed had he known the truth.
Thank God the minefield was unmanned and not one the enemy was then going to shoot our asses off as we went to rescue the downed SEAL Team One guy. Yes, not three days in hell, and a new guy had already gotten severely wounded. However, the rescue went down without a hitch. Other than the fact that the mine had gone low order, which means it didn’t fully blow up, we experienced little danger. The helo landed, and Dan Gnossen and Echo platoon’s corpsman got on to fly immediately to a hospital.
The rest of the clearance went on as if nothing had ever happened. We found hundreds of pounds of explosives, drugs, and more drugs. We did what we do best. We burned all the bad stuff and waited for the enemy to come see what all the smoke was. Then the craziest thing happened: some poor enemy car must not have gotten the word that the Americans were around and decided to drive a car loaded with guns and drugs into the south side of town, where they then decided to shoot at us, not knowing they were fully surrounded. Poor fellas.
The remainder of the day was the usual suspects. Enemy soldiers would probe our position, shoot at us, and we would accurately shoot at them. Trying to explain the goings on of war is surreal for me. I have seen so much war, it truly seems normal to say, “I shot two guys and my snipers shot nine others. Then we hiked out into the desert and waited for the helos to pick us up.”
Once back, we all headed over to see Dan. He had lost both his legs from above the knees. He was still alive and rather in good spirits. We awarded him a Bronze Star for Valor that morning. He had shown some sick bravery in the middle of losing his legs, he truly had. The EOD guy had crawled across Dan’s bloody body to cut the wires to the other bomb that had not blown up but needed to be defused so that it, too, wouldn’t go off. Now that was some sick brave shit. They all had gotten rocked, but they kept their heads.
I walked back to my room knowing Stacy, as the ombudsman, would have known about the injury. My not calling would worry her more. When I opened my computer and typed in, hello, I am waiting. Stacy immediately connected on cam and said:
“Oh, shit I thought it was you. The skipper called me two nights ago and said a SEAL in your location was seriously wounded then hung up. I have had the worst day thinking it was you. So, I know you can’t say anything, but how are you and your men?”
“Well, it is now official. Turn over missions are stupid. We should just have the leaders come here and show them around base, then we leave. Dan got his legs blown off in the first hour, of the first night, of the first mission. I am tired now, for sure. I need not ask how exhausted you are. I only have two more weeks, and I am out of here.”
“Thom, listen to me. As much as waiting on pins and needles to find out if you or one of your men were injured sucked, I do not ever want you to let your guard down. I am sure coming home is on your mind, but you still have work to do. You and I have talked about many things over the years, and one thing has been a constant theme. You told me before we got married that if we were going to make this relationship work and not fall prey to the things that cause divorces, we both have to create each moment like no other moments before had happened, and not think of any future moments. You are meant to be there. Fight until you are on the plane headed home.
Thom, I need you to come back to us. Do not fear dying. It makes you weak.
“Stacy, I am tired. I really don’t give a shit anymore. Everything here just pisses me off. We need to leave here and drop a nuke bomb. These people don’t care about democracy. Our leaders are kidding themselves. We don’t even have a victory plan. And for God’s sake, all the local people the SF are training, and now we have to train, want to shoot us in the back,” I replied from the deepest place of ‘I don’t care’ possible.
“Yeah, well get over your shit fast! Remember all of this is a game. Either you play with it, or it plays with you. I personally say you should play the role of a Spartan and go to war—not some pussy who dreams of something stupid and believes that life could be different. Do you have another mission?” Stacy said so matter-of-factly I didn’t even know she asked a question. “Thom, do you have another mission planned?”
“Yes, we do,” I said sorta under my breath.
“Alright, so do you remember when you told me when you were a boy how fun it was to hunt all day? You would hunt rain or shine because you loved just to track a deer, even if you didn’t get to shoot it,” Stacy said as if she was calling to something in me that was hidden.
“Yeah, I miss hunting,” I breathed back to her.
“Well, tell me about your hunt in Colorado, that elk hunt where you hiked up that mountain, even though you had a fever and were coughing. Why did you do that?” She suggestively was laying down the rules for the fight to get me back.
“Oh, that one. I parked my car and climbed up to 12,000 feet and finally shot the Imperial elk at 500 yards with my 30-06. I then spent the next three days climbing up and down to get the meat, antlers, and hide out,” I said as I recalled the feeling of fun and enjoyment of hunting flooding my mind.
“Now is the time for you to just say to yourself that hunting is fun and go hunt some more. You have nothing to do but hunt,” she said in a playful way.
“Damn, I hate when you do this. Can’t a man complain about anything around you?” I asked, knowing she was spot on.
“I love that you are a hunter and enjoy being a SEAL. It is OK that you are there.”
As I turned off the computer, I jumped into my Tempur-Pedic bed and lay dreaming of that elk hunt and the hundreds of deer hunts during my youth. Hunting had been a way to get away from all the shitty things about being young, like having to follow rules, fit in, and do whatever someone else wanted. Hunting an animal for hours, following its tracks, and trying to think what the animal was doing made me feel totally at peace with the world. I even recalled finally aiming at a buck I had hunted for twenty hours, and as I looked through my scope and watched him breathe and move his muscles, I had decided to let him go.
As I drifted off to sleep, I recalled the playfulness that was supposed to be life. Life was supposed to be fun and playful no matter the conditions. The only way to overcome conditions was to create fun through just saying I enjoy doing what I was doing.
The next day, I woke up refreshed and walked over to the intel shop to pick up a mission that would be exactly what the doctor ordered. One final hunt.
I do not recall any of the details of the planning or the next few days, but I do recall we decided to take a mission where we would fly in right at daylight using some Russian MI17 helos. The flight in was impressive just flying ten feet off the ground at 120 miles per hour with no seatbelts. My legs were hanging out the back, and I decided I wasn’t going to die here. The hunt was on!
We landed just fifty yards from our target building and sprinted like our hair was on fire. Within two minutes, we had the compound cleared and were setting up our sniper positions. Within forty-five minutes, I had shot an enemy soldier who was aiming at us. His buddy had run away, and I was tracking his movement along a wall ab
out 280 yards away. I imagined he was thinking he could sprint from the cover of the wall and go the thirty yards without being shot. As he broke from cover, I saw he had a grenade launcher and could see his muscles rippling. I led the bullet about three mils in front of him and squeezed. He fell and dropped the launcher. I watched. I watched the blood flow into the dirt. Then I watched the wall from where he had come and waited. Bullets were flying over my head from one of his buddies, so I ducked down and waited. His buddy would try to save the launcher I was sure. They rarely care about their buddies, but they do care about those launchers. After twenty minutes of waiting, I eased up over the small wall and put my cross hairs on it … and waited some more. I saw him carrying a bush in front of him, slowly moving himself and the bush toward the grenade launcher. I held off and let him try. He was patient. I don’t think I would have tried that move. I had to give him credit for trying. The moment he picked up the launcher, I shot him in the space right in front of his ear. He wouldn’t have felt it nor heard it. He most certainly wouldn’t be launching that grenade! He wouldn’t be taking a single American life either.
I watched him for another three minutes and decided to try to shoot the launcher itself. After ten attempts, I finally hit it mid-tube, and it broke into pieces.
Later that day, I watched a van drop off armed enemy soldiers. They were long shots, so I missed the first five. Finally, on the sixth shot, the man in black with a machine gun dropped in his tracks. I felt like a hunter again.
Toward the end of the day, we lost all communications with the base and with the helos that were supposed to come pick us up. However, our plan had specified if we lost communications, they were to pick us up fifteen minutes before dark. Around thirty minutes before dark, we were still in a firefight, but clearly the helo was coming to get us. At the fifteen minute mark, we dropped everything we were doing and ran as we heard the helo fly in. It landed 100 yards from our position in the middle of a field. That sprint was not fun. Enemy rounds were hitting everywhere. Once on the helo, we flew straight toward the enemy. Nike and Jake were shooting out the back of the helo as we passed over the enemy.
The elation of flying away from the last combat target of my career as a SEAL was exciting. I survived hell. I brought all my men through hell without a scratch.
ADAMANTINE LESSON ELEVEN
Living in this moment
You do not have to go to war to face death. However, you should not run from death. Death is the most inevitable thing of life.
I would ask you to get in touch with what your Internal Dialogue is saying about death, about your fear of death, and your fear about living. Internal Dialogue is really the whole point of each of the exercises. Like the man said in the movie Tommy Boy, “You don’t have to stick your head up a bull’s ass to look at the steaks. Just take the butcher’s word for it.” Do not fear death. It makes you weak.
SECTION TWELVE
FUTURE
“The best teacher is not the one who knows most, but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.”
—H.L. Mencken
“When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become—whether lawyer, scientist, artist, or leader, in any realm—her goal remains abstract. Such models as appear in books or on the news, however inspiring or revered, are ultimately too remote to be real, let alone influential. But a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, ‘Yes, someone like me can do this.’”
—Sonia Sotomayor
As we landed from our last combat engagement, the pilot and helo had endured far more than we had thought. Bullet holes rimmed the cockpit window and traced throughout the frame. The rest of the platoon walked back to the buses, and I stayed to talk with the pilots.
“Jesus, guys, sorry for the bullet holes in the bird,” I said.
“Forget it. That was the funniest thing we had ever seen. You all running through the bullets right into the back. Those small bullets will never bring down a helo like ours,” one of the pilots said without even looking up at me.
Once on the bus to take us back to our compound for our debriefing, I saw all the smiles and felt the sense of “oh my God it is over” in the men’s demeanor. As I stood in front looking back, I noticed Nike’s eyes were tearing up. Once the bus pulled away, he stood up, hugged me, and said, “I owe you everything.”
I replied, “I don’t have the words.”
The rest of the night was the standard dinner, debrief, and weapons cleaning. Since we were all elated to be done, the whole barracks and armory rattled with music and guys talking about the day of killing and what they would do when they got home and had time with their wives and girlfriends. I doubt if they would actually do some of the things that were mentioned, but I do love the fact that they were ready to go home.
For me, I had similar thoughts of finally being with Stacy, but my thoughts were also holding Chance, Autumn, and Garrett: of being at their ball games, taking them to lacrosse and cross-country matches, and seeing the fruit of my combat labors come to life.
Unbelievable! We made it! It is over!
The weight of a lifetime finally came crashing down on me as I headed back to my combat room. I suppose the room was no longer a combat room at this point … maybe just a place to safely sleep and to finally let go of the pressure of having to keep my men alive. I will be coming home to my family very soon.
I climbed up into my Tempur-Pedic bed, the tears of frustration and finality leaked out of my blood-shot eyes as they closed.
In my dream, I stood in the falls of Louisa Lake. Captain Pat was sitting on the rock ledge above me, smiling. His hand, which had had three of the fingers blown off in combat in World War II, rubbed his hip, which had come out of its socket in a helicopter crash in Vietnam.
“Thom, you were never alone,” he said without looking up at me. “I was not the only one with you. Never forget that although your wife helped you, another critical player got you through this hell. Do you know who that is?” Pat asked, staring right through me.
“Yes.”
I awoke several hours later, not having moved a muscle. Except for the drool on my pillow, the only thing that changed in the room was the fact the men and I were no longer preparing for the next mission. Although I had the urge and the five months of routine coursing through my system, I no longer desired to kill the enemy. My system had already moved on.
That is the way of things for warriors in war. When it is over, it is over. When the Internal Dialogue shifts to something new, so does the body, the mind, and the emotions. Too bad, too few soldiers understand that key point. Maybe if they did, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) would not have such a grip on so many. Although you may hear about and read about soldiers who can’t let it go or warriors who, once back home, have nightmares about combat and killing, I personally could care less about what had happened or what would happen with the next platoon. As I have pointed out in each chapter regarding mastering your Internal Dialogue, mine was clear and concise: “I am alive. Bravo platoon is alive. We did our part. Time to move on and do something else.”
As I stretched my legs and climbed down, the dream of Captain Pat flooded back in. I had not realized the importance of having a mentor. Jerry and Tammy Barber had been that for me and Stacy throughout this journey through hell.
ADAMANTINE LESSON TWELVE
Your contribution to others for them
Stacy, Autumn, Garrett, and Chance, this lesson of performance is cap-stoned with being a contribution and being contributed to. Some will call it Mentoring. I actually do not. The whole meaning of mentor has been destroyed by our military leaders, who have not seen war, in hopes to sound smart and profound. It has become a descriptor of actions one might take to connect and lead men and show them the proper way.
The first step in this final task is to be up to something greater than what you think is possible. In reflection of my life, the past six months can be an example for you to not just swing for the fence, but to swing for the parking lot outside the stadium! Be big, be brave in the face of everything that will get in your way, Be humble when someone comes forward and encourages you, and fail gracefully. Those three states of being are worth contributing to by those who seek someone like you.
I failed every single (first attempt) at performing beyond what I dreamed possible. I failed out of the United States Military Academy, then finally graduated from Ball State on the Dean’s List. I hit rock bottom during four separate attempts to make it through SEAL training and finally graduated number two in Class 207. Finally, when I took on adventure racing, I did not complete the first five races.
I swung for the parking lot, got knocked down or sideways, got back up and staked myself out and asked for help, and swung again. I want you to access that form of living, when your Internal Dialogue you have shaped into a mighty force drives your actions.
Do not fear dying. Fear makes you weak.
I am coming back to you, my loves.
SECTION THIRTEEN
PAST
“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. Therefore, you let them go, otherwise, when you open the cage to feed them, they somehow fly out past you. Part of you knows imprisoning them in the first place was wrong, so you rejoice at their freedom. The place where you live is that much more drab and empty with their departure.”