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

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’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