My operations officer spoke up. “Sir, Charlie Three Five says they can’t get a lock on the vehicle. The clouds are covering the target.”
“Shit!” Looking up onscreen, I could see a broken layer of low-lying clouds, the blue sedan coming in and out of view. From their holding point, Van Hooser had directed the helos toward the target.
“Sir, helos are inbound,” the ops officer announced. “One minute to the target vehicle.”
Van Hooser tapped the talk button and looked into the camera head-on. “Boss, request permission to shift to guns,” he said, a sense of urgency in his voice.
On the screen the village was coming into view. The sedan was moments away. If it was Nabhan, this might be our last chance. If it wasn’t, I would be responsible for the deaths of four innocent people.
“Shift to guns!” I yelled.
“Roger, shift to guns!” Van Hooser repeated.
Onscreen I could see the four helos in a tight flight formation as they crossed the beach. The driver in the blue sedan spotted the aircraft and immediately began to speed up.
“Sir, the birds are taking rounds!” the SAR NCO announced.
The helos with the miniguns swung into attack formation and returned fire on the now swerving sedan. From the overhead Predator video, the rounds coming from the helos looked like a single unbroken line of red and yellow fire. The bursts of ammunition lasted no more than five seconds. The driver and passengers were killed immediately and the sedan veered off the road into a small ditch, smoking from the impact of the rounds from the miniguns.
No one in the SAR said anything. All we could do at this point was watch. The two gunships stayed hovering in position as the other two Little Birds landed on the road. Even before the skids touched down the four SEALs on each aircraft jumped to the ground and ran toward the smoking car, rifles up, ready to engage any threat that might still be alive.
Two minutes passed and Van Hooser’s voice came back over the screen. “Boss, we have four military-aged males, all deceased. We will gather up the bodies and bring them back for identification.”
“Roger, Pete. Understand four military-aged males, all deceased. We’ll stand by.”
As the SEALs pulled the bodies from the wreckage of the sedan, a small group of locals from the village began to gather. I watched as the SEAL officer approached the villagers and asked them to stay back. They all complied and seemed more interested in knowing who was in the vehicle.
Within fifteen minutes the bodies had been placed in body bags and loaded onto the helo. The helos lifted off and began their return flight to the destroyers.
An hour passed before Van Hooser came back on the net. I could tell by the widening smile on his face and slight twinkle in his eyes that he had good news.
“Sir, we sent the photos off to the FBI and have received confirmation that one of the males is”—he paused slightly—“Saleh Nabhan.”
I tried not to look overly excited; killing men is not a sport. But when you bring justice to someone like Nabhan who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds, it does feel good.
“What about the other three?”
“All known accomplices of Nabhan.”
“Well done, Pete!” I said.
Van Hooser smiled widely and signed off.
The staff in the SAR went to work providing detailed debriefs to the Joint Staff, the White House staff, and others. Later that afternoon I received word that Admiral Mullen wanted to videoconference with me.
“Well, William, congratulations!” I could see that Mullen was genuinely pleased. “The President asked me to pass on his congratulations as well.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied.
“There is one thing, though, Bill.”
“Yes sir?”
Mullen had a wry grin on his face. “I specifically recall you telling the President that you weren’t going to use the Little Birds for direct action.”
“Well, sir,” I started to answer.
Mullen interrupted. “The President seems to recall that as well.”
“Yes sir.” I hesitated momentarily. “Unfortunately, the aircraft couldn’t get a good fix on the car and I had to make a command decision whether to let Nabhan go or bring in the Little Birds.”
Mullen leaned forward into the camera, his face growing larger on my screen. He gave me a fatherly look: a bit of sternness and a bit of pride. “Okay, William, we’ll let this one go,” he said, his left hand trying to cover the smile on his face.
“Roger, sir.” I smiled back.
“Get back to work, Bill. There are still a lot of bad guys out there.”
“Yes sir.” I gave a short salute and he signed off.
Over the three years to follow, the task force would capture or kill more than two thousand medium- or high-value individuals every year—individuals who were threats to our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and to our homeland. In the course of those operations, more than three hundred special operations soldiers would lose their lives and thousands were injured, some never to live a normal life again.
Not a day goes by that I don’t reflect on the sacrifices of those men and women. It’s easy to judge the wars today and say they clearly did not deliver the peace or the change we had hoped for. But… how many more Americans, or our allies, would have died in embassies, in airplanes, in towers, in subways, in hotels, or on the streets if we hadn’t eliminated terrorists like Saleh Nabhan, or the countless others who were plotting against us? We may never know, but I take some consolation in believing that somewhere out there is a world leader, or a brilliant scientist, or a lifesaving doctor, or a renowned artist, or a loving mother or father—someone who will bring about real change in the world, someone who is alive today because my men did their job.
It is enough to let me sleep well at night.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE NEXT GREATEST GENERATION
THE UNKNOWN INFANTRYMAN
The room had that sterile smell you expect in hospitals: a mixture of alcohol, cold air, and fear. I had stopped at the nurses’ station to gown up. The area I was entering was a clean room, which required all visitors to put on a full white overgarment, a mask, rubber gloves, and blue booties.
It was May 2007 in Landstuhl, Germany, home of the military’s premier hospital complex in Europe. I was a two-star admiral in charge of all the special operations forces in Europe and Africa. As such, I often traveled from my headquarters in Stuttgart to visit the wounded soldiers returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of these soldiers had severe injuries. So severe that a stop in Landstuhl was required to ensure they were stable enough to make the final journey back to the States.
In addition to seeing the wounded special operations soldiers, I usually stopped by to visit whoever was in ICU.
“What’s this guy’s story, Doc?” I said, pulling the strap of my mask a little tighter.
“Sir, all I know is that his unit was hit by a large IED. As you will see, he sustained significant blast injuries.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“He’ll live, but it’s going to be a very long recovery.”
The doctor paused. “We have a no-contact rule in the clean room. So please don’t reach out and touch him, even if he offers to shake hands.”
“Roger, understand.”
The doctor nodded and I pushed the door open and entered.
Lying on the bed, completely naked, was a young soldier not more than twenty-five years old. His body was swollen from the impact of the blast. Burns covered the upper half of his torso, and below his waist he had lost half of one leg and much of the other. His face was so badly damaged that his eyes were almost sealed shut and his lips burned clean off. Lifesaving tubes extended from just about every orifice in his body and monitors around the room beeped continuously.
“Sir, he can’t talk, but he can hear you and he likes to engage people,” the doctor said.
I slowly walked up beside the bed, cauti
ous not to touch the young man.
“Hey partner, my name’s Admiral McRaven.” I could see him acknowledge my presence. “You look like shit!”
He managed a smile and reached out his hand toward the nightstand. The doctor grabbed a clipboard and handed it to the soldier.
“He likes to write his responses out.”
Pulling the attached pen from its holder, he scribbled on the notepad, You should see the other guy.
I laughed and he chuckled with me.
“Looks like they are taking good care of you. Is there anything you need?”
Once again he grabbed the clipboard: A beer.
The doctor looked at me and reluctantly shook his head.
“Well, I tell you what. You get back to the States, get well, and the beers are on me.”
He just nodded.
I was struggling with what to say. I had been in these situations hundreds of times before and all you could do was make small talk. Normally, I knew the soldier or his unit and I had something more significant to offer. I walked around to the doctor’s side of the bed.
“Is he a Marine or a soldier?” I whispered to the doctor.
“Sir, I don’t know. I’m just the attending physician. I can find out for you, though.”
“No, not necessary.”
Walking back around to my side of the bed, I leaned over the young man and asked, “Are you a Marine or a soldier?”
He seemed agitated by the question. He pointed to a tattoo that was etched on his thigh. He must have assumed that the tattoo was fully visible, but the blast had burned the leg so badly that only a smudged outline appeared.
I looked closely and could see the image of a Big Red One: the 1st Infantry Division.
“You’re a soldier,” I commented.
He grabbed the clipboard. Infantry, he wrote.
Infantry. The toughest occupation in the Army, I thought. The soldiers are always road marching, always carrying a rucksack, always in the line of fire. You have to be strong and fit to last in any infantry unit, particularly during war.
As I glanced at the young man’s battered body, I wondered if he fully understood the degree of his injuries.
He noticed me assessing his physical condition, and suddenly a look of defiance came across his swollen face. He rolled in my direction and then wrote slowly in capital letters, I WILL BE INFANTRY AGAIN!
I read the note aloud and he nodded, tapping the clipboard for emphasis. “Yes. Yes,” I stumbled. “You will be infantry again.”
He smiled and rolled back over.
Somehow, I believed him. I had seen it time and time again. These young men and women who had joined the Army during the war had a tremendous sense of determination. Nothing was going to stop them in the pursuit of their dreams. And setbacks like this—well, sometimes that was the price of being a soldier.
I left the room and never saw the young man again. I like to believe that he is marching alongside his comrades, two prosthetic legs moving him in rhythm to the cadence. I like to believe that his swollen body is back to normal and that his washed-out tattoo has been replaced with bright new ink. I like to believe he has returned to some sense of normality. I like to believe, because I must. He left me no choice.
SENIOR CHIEF PETTY OFFICER (SEAL) MIKE DAY
I’ve learned that life has a mystical aspect to it. As a man of faith, I have felt the hand of God too many times not to know that it exists. But when you see his handiwork up close, when you examine all the possible outcomes and determine that only one outcome is possible—but then something else happens—that’s when you know there is more to life than meets the eye.
The nurse at the Landstuhl intensive care unit was almost speechless.
“I’ve been in nursing over twenty years,” she said. “And I’ve been here at Landstuhl for the past three years. I’ve seen some of the worst injuries of the war.” She started to tear up, but they were happy tears.
“I have never seen anyone shot up this bad.” She paused. “He’s got sixteen bullet holes in him”—she took a deep breath—“and he is going to be fine.”
I smiled and thanked her and her team for everything they had done to save my fellow SEAL. She looked at me, shook her head, and said, “We had nothing to do with it.”
I understood. Life is that way sometimes.
The man in the hospital room was Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike Day. Mike had served with me in SEAL Team Three. He was a character: a bit mouthy, in a funny Team-guy sort of way. Always had a joke, nothing seemed too serious, but he was a great SEAL operator and a good sailor. I had lost track of Mike after I left the West Coast. Now we were reunited in the worst of all possible situations. A hospital.
Talking with Mike’s military escort, I got the whole backstory. During a raid on a house in Iraq, Mike had been leading a joint U.S.-Iraqi squad. The squad, led by an Iraqi officer, with Mike following right behind, stacked on a door leading into the kitchen area of the home. On order, the Iraqi officer breached the door and the squad stormed in. The room was not the kitchen as expected, but a smaller anteroom. The Iraqi officer froze; the flow of the squad came to a halt.
Mike knew that time was now of the essence. The bad guys inside would clearly have heard them. Mike yelled at the Iraqis to continue the squad surge into the next room, but fear overcame the Iraqis and they began to retreat out the door.
Mike took charge and led the team through the next door, but it was too late. Four insurgents with automatic weapons lay waiting. They opened up on full automatic, bullets flying everywhere. Mike was immediately hit in his Kevlar chest plate, with several rounds piercing his arms and legs. As the bursts from enemy fire continued, Mike’s M-4 rifle was cut from his body by an ensuing round and he crumpled to the floor, having sustained twenty-seven direct hits in a matter of seconds. Behind him three others were killed, including a young SEAL officer who sustained a single shot to the back of the head.
Lying on the floor, bleeding severely, Mike pulled his handgun from his holster and, one by one, killed the insurgents. And then, in classic Mike Day fashion, he got on his radio and called to the team outside to calmly let them know that the house was clear. Medics stabilized Mike at the scene, and within a day he was on his way to Landstuhl. At the time, no one knew whether or not he would survive.
As with so many of my other visits to the hospital, Georgeann had joined me. Peering through the window, we could see Mike lying on his back with the usual array of monitors and IVs protruding from his body. The nurse opened the door and cautioned us not to stay too long. Mike still had another surgery to undergo before they moved him back to the States.
As I entered the room, Mike perked up, raised his hand high in the air, and yelled loudly, “Hey, skipper! Great to see you!”
“Michael!” I boomed back at him at an equally high volume. “Are you lying down on the job again?”
“No sir! Just getting ready for the next fight!”
I shook my head and laughed.
As I got closer to Mike’s bedside I was stunned by what I saw. There was hardly any part of his body that didn’t have a bullet hole. Only his chest, where the Kevlar vest had protected him, was free of wounds.
I sat for about thirty minutes and listened to Mike’s story. As the minutes went by, I could see him struggling to stay awake. Finally, he looked me in the eye and said, “Sir, when do you think I can get back to the guys?”
Looking down at Mike’s tattered body and the colostomy bag plugged into his bowels, I knew the answer, but sometimes the truth wasn’t always the best response.
“As soon as you can kick my ass on the obstacle course, then you can get back to the guys,” I said.
Mike rolled his eyes and smiled. “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard.”
The morphine started to kick in and he slowly drifted off to sleep.
I look back on the hundreds of men and women I visited in the hospitals. Every single one of them—every single one of them—as
ked me the same basic question: When can I return to my unit? When can I be back with my fellow soldiers? When can I get back in the fight? No matter how battered their bodies, all they could think about were their friends, their colleagues, their comrades, still in harm’s way. Never once—never once—did I hear a soldier complain about their lot in life. Soldiers with missing legs, blinded soldiers, paralyzed soldiers, soldiers who would never lead a normal life again, and yet not one felt sorry for themselves.
Later that week, Mike was transferred back to the States. His injuries were too severe for him to get back in the fight, but that didn’t stop him from serving his fellow warriors. Today Mike helps veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. He gives back to the nation every chance he can. Over the years that followed, I would run the obstacle course every chance I could, knowing that one day Mike would show up to challenge me. I needed to be ready.
SERGEANT BRENDAN MARROCCO
As my security detail pulled up to the entrance of Walter Reed hospital in Washington, D.C., Sergeant Major Thompson stepped out from the main building and greeted me with a smile and a sharp salute. “Sir, good to have you back.”
“Thanks, Sergeant Major,” I said, shaking his hand. “Where is your brother, the other Sergeant Major Thompson?”
He smiled.
It was a running joke. The Thompson “twins” were the two senior enlisted men who provided patient advocacy for the special operations soldiers at Walter Reed. One was black, the other white. But, down deep, they were both Army green and damn proud of it.
“Sir, he’s down in the Advanced Training Center talking to our newest patients.”
The ATC was a remarkable thirty-one-thousand-square-foot facility that helped soldiers with amputated limbs get back to some sense of normalcy. It was equipped with a state-of-the-art prosthetic lab, the finest rehabilitation technology, and world-class doctors. But what really made it special were the soldiers who, under the most difficult of circumstances, bonded together as a unit, each soldier helping his or her brothers and sisters to heal. I loved to visit the ATC because it was like being on the grinder during morning SEAL calisthenics. Everyone harassed each other. They challenged one another. They wouldn’t let you feel sorry for yourself. Stop your whining. So you lost two legs. So what! Now you can get two new ones that will make you taller. Maybe then the women will notice you.
Sea Stories Page 26
