Marcus luttrell

 
 
 

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6
 
 
’Bye, Dudes, Give ’Em Hell
 
The final call came — “Redwing is a go!” The landing controller was calling the shots...“One 
minute...Thirty seconds!...
Let’s go!
” The ramp was down...the gunner was ready with the M60 
machine gun...No moon...Danny went first, out into the dark. 
As day broke over the mighty sprawl of the U.S. base at Bagram in Afghanistan on that morning 
in March 2005, we checked into our bee hut and slept for a few hours before attending a general 
briefing. Dan Healy, Shane, James, Axe, Mikey, and I, the new arrivals from SDV Team 1, were 
immediately seconded to SEAL Team 10 out of Virginia Beach, led right now by the teak-hard 
Lieutenant Commander Eric Kristensen, standing in for the absent CO, who was on duty 
elsewhere. 
Eric was funny as hell, always one of the boys, so much so it might have impeded his progress 
through the higher ranks in later years. These days 75 percent of all SEALs have college degrees, 
and the line between officers and enlisted men is more blurred than it has ever been. But Eric 
was thirty-two and the son of an admiral from Virginia. Despite his sense of humor and his often 
wry look at higher authority, he was a very fine SEAL commander, and he presided over one of 
the best fighting platoons in the entire U.S. Navy. Team 10 was brilliantly trained for the kind of 
warfare we were now entering. Lieutenant Commander Kristensen had a couple of right-hand 
men, Luke Newbold and Master Chief Walters, very special guys. I can only say it was a 
pleasure to work with them. 
Our briefing, like everything associated with Team 10, was top of the line, a kind of grim 
educational lecture on what was happening up on the northwest frontier, which divides 
Afghanistan and Pakistan. The steep, stony mountain crevasses and cliffs, dust-colored, sinister 
places, were now alive with the burgeoning armies of the Taliban. Angry, resentful men, 
regrouping all along the unmarked high border, preparing to take back the holy Muslim country 
they believed the infidel Americans had stolen from them and then presented to a new, elected 
government. 
Up there, complex paths emerge and then disappear behind huge boulders and rocks. Every 
footstep that dislodges anything, a small rock, a pile of shale, seems like it might cause an 
earthshaking avalanche. Stealth, we were told, must be our watchword on the high, quiet slopes 
of the Hindu Kush. 
These paths, trodden down for centuries by warring tribesmen, were the very routes taken by the 
defeated Taliban and al Qaeda after the withering U.S. bombardment had all but annihilated 
them in 2001. We would find out all about them soon enough. 

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Within literally hours, we began our first mission. No one regarded us as rookies; we were all 
fully trained SEALs, ready for action, ready to get up there into those mountain passes and help 
slow the tide of armed warrior tribesmen moving back across the border from Pakistan. 
We flew by helicopter up into those passes, into the hills above a deep valley. We arrived, maybe 
twenty of us, including Dan, Shane, Axe, and Mikey, and fanned out around the mountain. Axe, 
Mikey, and James Suh (call sign Irish One) were positioned about one and a half miles from 
Chief Healy, Shane, and me (call sign Irish Three). 
This was a border hot spot, where multiple Taliban troop movements were taking place on a 
weekly, or even daily, basis. We expected to observe the Taliban way below us on that narrow, 
treacherous path through the mountains, moving along with their swaying camels, many of them 
loaded up with explosives, grenades, and God knows what else. 
I was walking with great caution. We had all been warned these glowering Afghanistan 
tribesmen would fight, and none of them were likely to be pushovers. I also knew that one false 
step, a dislodged rock, however small, would betray our positions. Those tribesmen had lived up 
here for centuries, and they had eyes like falcons. If they heard us or saw us, they would attack 
immediately. Our high command had left no doubt in our minds. This was dangerous stuff, but 
we had to stop the influx of armed terrorists. 
Carefully I moved along the ridge, occasionally stopping to scan the mountain pass with my 
binos. I was walking silently. Everything was clear in my mind. If a troop of wild tribesmen with 
camels and missiles came rolling into the pass, I must instantly whistle up reinforcements on the 
radio. If it was a lesser force, something we could deal with right here, we’d swoop and try to 
capture the leaders and take care of the rest by whatever means were necessary. 
Anyway, I continued my silent patrol, hunkered down behind a couple of huge boulders, and 
again scanned the pass. Nothing. I stepped out once more, into steep, barren, open country, and 
below me I suddenly saw three armed Afghanistan tribesmen. My brain raced. There was 
seventy yards between me and Shane. Do I open fire? How many more of them were there? 
Too late. They opened fire first, shooting uphill, and a volley of bullets from their AK-47s 
slammed into the rocks all around me. I hurled myself back behind the rocks, knowing Shane 
must have heard something. Then I stepped out and let ’em have it. I saw them retreat into cover. 
At least I’d pinned them down. 
But they came at me again, and again I returned fire. But right then, they unleashed two rocket-
propelled grenades (RPGs), and thank God I saw them coming. I dived for cover, but they blew 
out one of the boulders which had given me shelter. Now there were ricocheting bullets, dust, 
shrapnel, and flying rock particles everywhere. 
It felt like I was fighting a one-man war, and Christ knows how I avoided being hit. But 
suddenly, the echoes of the blast died away, and I could hear sporadic gunfire from these three 
maniacs. I waited quietly until I believed they had broken cover, and then I stepped out and hit 
the trigger again. I don’t know what or who I hit, but it suddenly went very quiet again. As if 

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nothing had happened. Welcome to Afghanistan, Marcus. 
This was one type of patrol, standing guard up there over the passes and trying to remain 
concealed. The other kind was a straight surveillance and reconnaissance mission (SR), where 
we were tasked with observing and photographing a village, looking for our target. It was always 
expected we would locate him since our intel was excellent, often with good photographs. And 
we were always in search of some sonofabitch in a turban who had for too long been indulging in 
his favorite pastime of blowing up U.S. Marines. 
On these sorties into the mountains, we were expected to pick out our quarry, either with high-
powered binoculars or the photo lens of one of our cameras, and then swoop down into the 
village and take him. If he was alone, that was always the primary plan of the SEALs: grab the 
target, get him back to base, and make him talk, tell us where the Taliban were gathered, locate 
for us the huge ammunition piles they had hidden in the mountains. 
That high explosive had only one use, to kill and maim U.S. troops, up there in support of the 
elected government. We found it well to remember those Taliban insurgents were the very same 
guys who sheltered and supported Osama bin Laden. We were also told, no ifs, ands, or buts, that