by Mark Owen
As hard as it can be to criticize the actions of a teammate, or to take criticism from a brother, it is one of the most important tools a SEAL has to improve. The hardest thing to do is honestly communicate with people, especially when you might be at fault. Mistakes are made in combat and that’s understandable. The thing to remember is that communication and the lessons learned from the AAR are only put in place to make the team better. Understanding that it’s not all about you is tough and was one of the hardest things for me to learn throughout my career. Slowly over the years I began to understand more and more about how important it was to stay humble and understand that everyone can make mistakes. You don’t turn your back on them because they made a mistake, but learn from them so the next night you do things better.
Lessons learned in combat, and sometimes in blood, must be passed on.
CHAPTER 8
Shoot, Move, and Communicate
Relationships
The dogs were keeping up a steady bark as we patrolled toward the compound.
I could hear them as soon as the sound of the helicopter’s engines faded. The first bark echoed through the valley as the team took our ritualistic piss after getting off our long helicopter ride. Seconds later, I heard a second one. By the time we were in patrol formation and started moving toward the target, it sounded like a choir of dogs alerting every farmer and fighter in the area to our presence.
I was now a veteran of eleven years in the SEALs and had been around long enough to become a team leader, and I was pretty well versed in the basic building blocks of operations. I no longer let standard human fears get in the way of making good decisions, and I knew communication and teamwork were the keys to success in combat.
That didn’t mean anything came easy.
We had flown up to Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan. The Germans and other Coalition forces had been in charge of the northern part of Afghanistan for years at this point. They conducted very few, if any, offensive operations in the area. They were focused much more on building roads, schools, and clinics. With no one chasing them out, enemy fighters had begun using the area as a safe haven. Hell, I wouldn’t want to leave the wire either, with a beer garden and several bars and clubs on base, but that was a different story.
We’d come up to northern Afghanistan after our intelligence analysts picked up a tip that a high-level Taliban commander was in the area. As the analysts continued the surveillance, we flew up to the area. We wanted to be close so we could launch once the operation got the green light.
We had no idea what the commander looked like, so the image of him on the briefing slide was just a silhouette.
Throughout the day, our analysts tracked the commander and watched via ISR as he moved from location to location, picking up fighters along the way. Finally, after the sun set, we observed the group move to what we call a bed-down location, usually a tree line or some defensible position where they would stop moving for the night and get some rest. It just so happened that the tree line they picked butted up against a large compound. It was standard practice for fighters to show up at a random civilian compound, demand to be fed, then, with full stomachs, fade into the tree line to sleep. With the thick vegetation of northern Afghanistan, it was easy for the fighters to simply patrol into the trees and hide from our drones flying overhead.
When the fighters arrived that afternoon, the drone pilots watched them go into the compound and then a few hours later disappear into the trees. From what we could see via ISR, the fighters never left the tree line. This didn’t mean they hadn’t moved through the trees and left the area. They were smart enough to know we had drones watching for them. The enemy would routinely move to multiple bed-down locations during the night.
In this case, the analysts were confident that the fighters hadn’t moved from the tree line, so we decided to launch on the mission.
Since I was a team leader, I had the internal radio net in one ear that allowed me to talk to my teammates and the command net in the other ear that allowed me to talk with the troop commander, troop chief, and any drones or aviation assets patrolling above.
“No movement,” the drone pilot said. “All the pax”—“pax” is shorthand for “people”—“are still in the tree line. It appears that the white station wagon is still in the same place.”
The Taliban commander and his group of fighters used the car and several dirt bikes to move between villages. If the car was still parked in the same location near the compound, we were confident the fighters weren’t far away.
The dogs barked for the entire seven-kilometer patrol. We were doing our best to be sneaky, and our snipers picked the best route in order to avoid the local villages. But after each step all I heard were the dogs. It definitely gave us all an uneasy feeling.
“These fucking dogs are killing me,” Steve said as we took a short break. “Do they always bark this much, or do they work for the Taliban?”
Steve was a fellow team leader and one of my best friends in the command. He was “country” strong, with a thick chest and arms. He had a bushy beard that covered his face. It made him look like a groundhog. We joked about it so much it became his nickname.
I met the Groundhog during S&T. From the first day, when asked to rate the top five and bottom five in the class, I always put Steve in my top five, and he always stood out as a leader in the class. I was lucky to get assigned to the same squadron as he did. We were assigned to different teams, but we basically grew up together in the command. He was on all of my deployments and training trips. Steve was the guy I went to when I had an idea and wanted some feedback. We almost always saw eye to eye, so when he would tell me he didn’t agree with something I was doing or had some advice for me, I always listened. His early advice was always the same.
“Take a wrap off, man,” he would tell me. “If you’re too emotional, no one is going to listen.”
But Steve was also a lot like me.
He and I almost got sent home from a deployment after we were critical of the tactics of one of our troop chiefs. The troop chief hadn’t asked for any guidance or input from any of the team leaders. He came up with a plan and refused to listen to the other leaders in the unit. The troop chief overheard us criticizing the plan. We were new to the command at this point and the troop chief didn’t take kindly to us “new guys” questioning his plan. He threatened to send us home from deployment, but our team leaders protected us.
We worked together for six years before both of us got our own team in the same troop. As team leaders, we worked in concert. I knew his moves and he knew mine. We’d been teammates so long that when the shooting started I always knew how he was reading a situation and how he and his team would react.
The SEAL community has a saying that each team member has to be able to “shoot, move, and communicate.” Being able to shoot means having the tactical skills needed to fire your gun safely and effectively. Moving refers to how you work as a team and how effectively and tactically you move around the battlefield. Communicating is all about speaking clearly and effectively so your teammates know what you’re doing. After years working so closely together, we could move and react almost seamlessly in a combat situation. We looked for SEALs who not only mastered those skills, but fit into our team. I never worried about guys on target. They knew what to do when the bullets started flying. My biggest leadership challenge was mentoring and teaching them what to do back in the team room.
I’ve sat in on the review board screening candidates for S&T. The oral interview process came after the physical fitness test—which I’d almost failed when I screened—and is probably the most nerve-wracking part of screening for S&T. It doesn’t take a lot of mental aptitude to run fast and do push-ups. That is more about will and preparation.
Most of the questions during the board were what-if scenarios that tested your integrity. The key was to have a reason for your actions and be
able to logically explain the choice you made. One of the best questions was about range time. I was asked the question when I screened for S&T and in turn asked the question when it was my turn to sit as a member of the board.
“You’re not getting the range time you think you need to adequately prepare for a deployment,” the board would ask. “You want to do more shooting. Do you take some nine-millimeter rounds from work and go to the civilian range?”
I still remember my answer.
“Yes, absolutely,” I immediately blurted out, sitting in my dress uniform, a fresh shave and haircut, trying not to look nervous.
“Wouldn’t that be illegal?” one of the master chiefs on the board said.
“I’m not stealing them,” I said. “I am shooting the ammo. The logistics of my team make it difficult to train. I can’t check out my work gun and go to a work range because the closest range was at Camp Pendleton. It is over an hour drive away from where I work and is hardly ever available. Shooting those rounds is going to make me better at my job; besides, I would make sure to tell the guys that manage our ammo what I’m doing with them.”
Apparently that was the right answer. At the time, I wasn’t sure why. But after being in the command, I understood. It showed drive and initiative to go beyond the minimum training goals, both key ingredients for an S&T candidate. It was also a good example of how I would overcome an obstacle to better my skills and be an asset to the team. We wanted to see intrinsically motivated candidates who would go above and beyond to get the job done.
When I was on the board, I tried to get to know each candidate with an eye toward determining if he fit into the command’s culture because there was a chance one day he might be on my team.
“What do you bring to the table? Why should we select you to attend S&T?” I always asked during the interview.
The top answer was always “I’m a really hard worker,” followed by “I’m really good at CQB,” or close quarters battle, meaning they were good at clearing rooms.
“So fucking what?” was my response. Everybody in the command was a hard worker and good at CQB. I wanted the guys who exceed the minimums. The basics of the job are a given. I wanted the guy who asked himself every day the same question:
How do I become an asset to the team?
—
We wanted guys who were always pushing, the ones who did something more than the basic job description. Everyone in our organization did what was asked of them, but we wanted the SEALs who did what was asked and then went out and found more work to do. That was being an asset to the team.
Like everything in the SEALs, the only way to succeed was being all in, all the time. Unlike other units that select operators from throughout the service, candidates selected for S&T come only from the SEAL teams. Our similar backgrounds and the fact that every operator had to complete the exact same standards to get into the unit made our command a very close-knit place to work. These relationships are very important not only to morale and a good working environment, but in combat as well. Our close-knit teams allowed us to anticipate each other’s moves, which over time proved to be the difference between success and failure on target.
—
The dogs were still barking when we stopped at the edge of a big, muddy field opposite the compound and the tree line. I wished the dogs would shut up. Then again, I figured maybe the dogs always barked this much. Hopefully the enemy was deaf to them at this point.
We had a squad of Army Rangers and some Afghan commandos with us. They carried an assortment of weapons but for tonight’s mission had carried several of the larger and heavier MK 48 machine guns. The MK 48 fired a 7.62-caliber bullet and could be very effective providing covering fire into thick tree lines and foliage. We waited as the Rangers along with our Afghan commando unit slowly crept through the waist-deep grass of the field and settled into an overwatch or support-by-fire position. If we got into some shit, we would be able to call them up to provide suppressive fire with the big guns. Once they were set, our troop flanked to the far-right side of the open field and along the edge of the tree line toward the enemy position.
The field was muddy and it took us a while to slowly move around to the tree line. Irrigation ditches ran along the outside of the trees, creating a barrier. If we could get the jump on whoever was in the tree line, they’d be trapped between the ditch and us. I could hear the Ranger platoon commander on the radio as his men watched for fighters. They hadn’t spotted any movement, so we slowly entered the trees.
My team was in the middle. Steve’s team was ahead of me. It was pitch-black. Even with night vision, it was hard to navigate the tight path through the trees because the branches blocked any ambient light. Everyone walked carefully, trying hard not to make any noise.
We all knew that one false step could alert the fighters hiding nearby. I was practically walking on my tippy toes in an attempt to be light on my feet. I could see friendly infrared lasers slowly scanning the area ahead. Each operator had a laser on his gun. The IR flood acted like a flashlight and the small IR dot in the middle of that spotlight was where your bullets would hit. They were invisible to the naked eye, but those of us wearing night vision goggles could see the lasers. The lasers helped us see, especially in the thick tree line.
Less than fifty yards into the trees and off to my right side, I saw Walt tense up and freeze. I’d worked with Walt long enough to know by his body language that he had spotted something. He didn’t need to say a word. We all knew he had something in his sights.
Our entire force stopped in its tracks as Walt and another SEAL inched their way forward. I could see Walt wave us on as he continued to train his gun at the base of a large tree. As we got closer and moved past his position, I could see two fighters sound asleep on the ground. Their AK-47s were lying nearby. Trash was strewn all around the clearing. There were water bottles, cans of food, and bits of paper. Walt took a few steps deeper into the woods, his weapon at the ready. I saw his laser sight shining on the fighter’s chest. He and another SEAL stayed put and covered the sleeping Taliban. Even though we were all using suppressed weapons, Walt made the right call and just sat there watching them sleep, waiting to react if and when they woke up. He didn’t want to risk firing on them and making any noise that would wake up the rest of the Taliban.
Encountering the sleeping Taliban was both good news and bad news.
Good because the bad guys were definitely in the vicinity and hadn’t moved out of the area. But it was bad because we were walking into a firefight. We continued to move silently, careful not to wake the sleeping fighters. About thirty yards past the camp, I saw the driveway that led up to the compound where they had eaten dinner. There were the motorcycles and the white station wagon parked under a giant tree in front of the house.
Moving up the driveway, my team was mixed in with Steve’s team, minus Walt and another SEAL back with the Taliban sentries. There were five of us moving directly up the driveway toward the house. I glanced to the left and could read Steve’s body language. He was thinking the same thing I was. We were about to come face-to-face with the enemy. Steve was crouched down, with his HK416 shouldered and ready to fire. His IR laser scanned the dark trees directly ahead of me.
Steve and his machine gunner, armed with an MK 46 light machine gun, flanked to the left of my group as we began making our way up the driveway. My team kept walking toward the compound and the clump of tangled trees behind it. We knew the fighters didn’t have enough time to go far, nor would they venture out into the open for fear of being spotted by our drones. If they ran into the open, the Rangers set up on the edge of the field would spot them. If we were going to come into contact with the enemy, it would take place inside the tree line directly in front of us.
Near the top of the driveway, I saw a cluster of blankets and mats on the ground. The blankets were in a pile and looked like whoever was under them
had gotten up quickly. There were multiple sleeping mats, at least five that I could see on my first glance. I didn’t bother to count because my mind was fixed on the coming fight.
“OK, shit, where are they?” I thought.
As soon as I spotted the mats, I stopped and began pointing them out to my team using my IR laser. Everyone froze as we started to scan the surrounding wood line. I could see my teammates’ IR lasers crisscrossing over the trees. I slowly tracked my laser across the dark tree line to our left when a head popped up in front of me and then disappeared. It was too fast to positively identify if it was a man, woman, or child.
With the rules of engagement constantly changing and becoming more restrictive, I couldn’t shoot because I had no idea if what I’d seen was a fighter. The odds were definitely good that the head belonged to someone from the nearby bedrolls. If so, based on the sentries Walt had picked out, I was pretty sure he would be armed, but I couldn’t see a gun and we hadn’t been fired upon. Everything was right in front of me. These had to be bad guys. I’d already seen the car, motorcycles, and empty bedrolls and was pretty damn sure this was one of the guys we were looking for.
Without seeing any more activity, I keyed up my radio.
“Hey, guys, I’ve got some movement over here,” I whispered into the radio.
Just as I finished the radio call, a now very obvious enemy fighter stood up out of the ditch fifteen yards directly in front of us. As he stood up he began firing from a belt-fed PKM machine gun.
The muzzle flash looked like he was shooting a howitzer. A three-foot-long flame shot from the barrel as I fell backward and landed on my back. Everything in my night vision goggles exploded in a burst of light. Rounds tore overhead as the gunman fired wildly. The roar of the gun drowned out everything, including any thoughts I had about rules of engagement or what to do. I could see several of my teammates diving for cover. My body switched to survival mode. I had just pulled some Matrix-style bullet dodging and fallen backward onto my back. If I dove forward I’d land in the path of the bullets chewing up the ground around me. I just wanted to get as low as I possibly could, as fast as I possibly could. We were completely pinned down, with zero cover. It would be only a matter of seconds until the rounds from the PKM began tearing my team apart.
