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Don’t move, don’t breathe, do not make a sound.
I think it was about then I understood
how utterly alone I was for the very first time. And the Taliban was hunting me. They were not
hunting for a SEAL platoon. They were hunting me alone. Despite my injuries, I knew I had to
reach deep. I was starting to lose track of time. But I stayed still. I actually did not move one inch
for eight hours.
As the time passed, I could see the Taliban guys right across the canyon, running up and down,
seemed like hundreds of them, plainly searching, scouring the mountain they knew so well,
looking for me. I had some feeling back in my legs, but I was bleeding real bad, and I was in a
lot of pain. I think the loss of blood may have started to make me feel light-headed.
Also, I was scared to death. It was the first time in my entire six-year career as a Navy SEAL I
had been really scared. At one point, late in the afternoon, I thought they were all leaving. Across
the canyon, the mountainside cleared, everyone running hard to the right, swarms of them, all
headed for the same place. At least that’s how it seemed to me across my narrow field of vision.
I now know where they were going. While I was lying there in my crevasse, I had no idea what
the hell was going on. But now I shall recount, to the best of my gathered knowledge, what
happened elsewhere on that saddest of afternoons, that most shocking massacre high in the
Hindu Kush, the worst disaster ever to befall the SEALs in any conflict in our more than forty-
year history.
The first thing to remember is that Mikey had succeeded in getting through to the quick reaction
force (QRF) in Asadabad, a couple of mountain ranges over from where I was still holding out.
That last call, the one on his cell phone that essentially cost him his life, was successful. From all
accounts, his haunting words —
My guys are dying out here...we need help
— ripped around our
base like a flash fire.
SEALs are dying!
That’s a five-alarm emergency that stops only just on the
north side of frenzy.
Lieutenant Commander Kristensen, our acting CO, sounded the alarm. It’s always a decision for
the QRF, to launch or not to launch. Eric took a billionth of a second to make it. I know the
vision of us four — his buddies, his friends and teammates, Mikey, Axe, Danny, and me,
fighting for our lives, hurt, possibly dead, surrounded by a huge fighting force of bloodthirsty
Afghan tribesmen — flashed through his mind as he summoned the boys to action stations.
And the vision of terrible loss stood stark before him as he roared down the phone, ordering the
men of 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), the fabled Night Stalkers, to get
the big army MH-47 helo ready, right there on the runway. It was the same one that had taken off
just before us on the previous day, the one we tracked in to our ops area.
Guys I’ve already introduced charged into position, desperate to help, cramming as much
ammunition as they could into their pouches, grabbing rifles and running for the Chinook, its
rotors already screaming. My SDV Team 1 guys were instantly there. Petty Officers James Suh
and Shane Patton reached the helo first. Then, scrambling aboard, came the massively built
Senior Chief Dan Healy, the man who had masterminded Operation Redwing, who apparently
looked as if he’d been shot as he left the barracks.
Then came the SEAL Team 10 guys, Lieutenant Mike McGreevy Jr. of New York, Chief
Jacques Fontan of New Orleans, Petty Officers First Class Jeff Lucas from Oregon and
JeffTaylor from West Virginia. Finally, still shouting that his boys needed every gun they could
get, came Lieutenant Commander Eric Kristensen, the man who knew perhaps better than
anyone that the eight SEALs in that helo were about to risk a lethal daytime insertion in a high
mountain pass, right into the jaws of an enemy that might outnumber them by dozens to one.
Kristensen knew he did not have to go. In fact, perhaps he should not have gone, stayed instead
at his post, central to control and command. Right then, we had the skipper in the QRF, which
was, at best, a bit unorthodox. But Eric Kristensen was a SEAL to his fingertips. And what he
knew above all else was that he had just heard a desperate cry for help. From his brothers, from a
man he knew well and trusted.
There was no way Eric was not going to answer that call. Nothing on God’s earth could have
persuaded him not to go. He must have known we were barely holding on, praying for help to
arrive. There were, after all, only four of us. And to everyone’s certain knowledge, there were a
minimum of a hundred Taliban.
Eric understood the stupendous nature of the risk, and he never blinked. Just grabbed his rifle
and ammunition and raced to board that aircraft, yelling at everyone else to hurry...
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