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

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 particular mass murderer
was right where we were going, somewhere.
Generally speaking, we were to grab our man in the village if he was
protected by, say, only four bodyguards. No problem. But if there were more of
them, some kind of Taliban garrison crawling with armed men, we were to call
for a proper fighting force to fly in and take care of the problem. Either way,
when we arrived, things ceased to look great for young Abdul the Bombmaker
measuring out his dynamite down there in Main Street, Mud Hut Central,
Northeast Afghanistan.
Our next mission was a huge operation, around fifty guys dropped into the
mountains, in the worst terrain you’ve ever seen. Well, maybe not if there are
any mountain goats or mountain lions among my readers, but it sure as hell was
the worst I’d ever seen. There were steep cliff faces, loose footing, sheer drops,
hardly any bushes or trees, nothing to grab, nowhere to take cover if necessary.
I have explained how supremely fit we were. We could all climb anything,
go anywhere. But — you’re not going to believe this — we took eight hours to
walk one and a half miles. Guys were falling down the goddamned mountain,
getting hurt, bad. It was hotter than a Texas griddle, and one of my buddies told
me later, “I’d have quit the teams just to get out of there.”
I know he didn’t mean it. But we all knew the feeling. We were tired,
frustrated, roped together in teams, crawling across the face of this dangerous
mountain with full rucksacks and rifles. To this day it remains the worst journey
of my life. And we weren’t even facing the enemy. It was so bad we made up a
song about it, which our resident expert banjo player put to the music of the
Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire”:
I fell into a hundred-foot ravine,
We went down, down, down, and busted up my spleen,
And it burned, burned, burned — that Ring of Fire . . .
Our dual targets on that next mission were two Afghan villages set into the
mountainside, one above the other. We had no clues which one harbored the
most Taliban forces, and it had been decided we needed to take them both at
gunpoint. No bullshit. The reason for this was a very young guy. We had terrific