Lone Survivor_ The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 ( PDFDrive )

back into the water for another period, I forget how long. Maybe five, ten
minutes. But time had ceased to matter, and now the instructors knew we were
right on the edge, and they came around with mugs of hot chicken broth. I was
shaking so much I could hardly hold the cup.
But nothing ever tasted better. I seem to remember someone else quit, but
hell, I was almost out of it. I wouldn’t have known if Captain Maguire had quit.
All I knew was, there were half as many still going as there had been at the start
of Hell Week. The hour was growing later, and this thing was not over yet. We
still had five boats in action, and the instructors reshuffled the crews and ordered
us to paddle over to Turners Field, the eastern extension of the base.
There they made us run around a long loop, carrying the boat on our heads,
and then they made us race without it. This was followed by another long period
in the water, at the end of which this member of the crew of boat one, a toughas-nails
Texan (I thought), cracked up with what felt like appendicitis. Whatever
it was, I was absolutely unreachable. I didn’t even know my name, and I had to
be taken away by ambulance and revived at the medical center.
When I regained consciousness, I got straight out of bed and came back. I
would not discuss quitting. I remember the instructors congratulating me on my
new warm, dry clothes and then sending me straight back into the surf. “Better
get wet and sandy. Just in case you forget what we’re doing here.”
Starting at around 0200, we spent the rest of the night running around the
base with the goddamned boat on our heads. They released us for breakfast at
0500, and Tuesday proceeded much like Monday. No sleep, freezing cold, and
tired to distraction. We completed a three-mile paddle up to North Island and
back, at which time it was late in the evening and we’d been up for more than
sixty hours.
The injury list grew longer: cuts, sprains, blisters, bruises, pulled muscles,
and maybe three cases of pneumonia. We worked through the night, making one
long six-mile paddle, and reported for breakfast again at 0500 on Wednesday.
We’d had no sleep for three days, but no one else quit.
And all through the morning we kept going, swim-paddle-swim, then a run
along the beach. We carried the boat to chow at noon, and then they sent us to go
sleep. We’d have one hour and forty-five minutes in the tent. We had thirty-six
guys left.
Trouble was, some of them could not sleep. I was one. The medical staff
tried to help the wounded get back into the fray. Tendons and hips seemed to be
the main problems, but guys needed muscle-stretching exercises to keep them