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

When we’re patrolling those mountains, trying everything we know to stop
the Taliban regrouping, striving to find and arrest the top commanders and
explosive experts, we are always surrounded by a well-armed, hostile enemy
whose avowed intention is to kill us all. That’s behind enemy lines. Trust me.
And we’ll go there. All day. Every day. We’ll do what we’re supposed to do,
to the letter, or die in the attempt. On behalf of the U.S.A. But don’t tell us who
we can attack. That ought to be up to us, the military. And if the liberal media
and political community cannot accept that sometimes the wrong people get
killed in war, then I can only suggest they first grow up and then serve a short
stint up in the Hindu Kush. They probably would not survive.
The truth is, any government that thinks war is somehow fair and subject to
rules like a baseball game probably should not get into one. Because nothing’s
fair in war, and occasionally the wrong people do get killed. It’s been happening
for about a million years. Faced with the murderous cutthroats of the Taliban, we
are not fighting under the rules of Geneva IV Article 4. We are fighting under the
rules of Article 223.556mm — that’s the caliber and bullet gauge of our M4
rifle. And if those numbers don’t look good, try Article .762mm, that’s what the
stolen Russian Kalashnikovs fire at us, usually in deadly, heavy volleys.
In the global war on terror, we have rules, and our opponents use them
against us. We try to be reasonable; they will stop at nothing. They will stoop to
any form of base warfare: torture, beheading, mutilation. Attacks on innocent
civilians, women and children, car bombs, suicide bombers, anything the hell
they can think of. They’re right up there with the monsters of history.
And I ask myself, Who’s prepared to go furthest to win this war? Answer:
they are. They’ll willingly die to get their enemy. They will take it to the limit,
any time, any place, whatever it takes. And they don’t have rules of engagement.
Thus we have an extra element of fear and danger when we go into combat
against the Taliban or al Qaeda — the fear of our own, the fear of what our own
navy judge advocate general might rule against us, the fear of the American
media and their unfortunate effect on American politicians. We all harbor fears
about untrained, half-educated journalists who only want a good story to justify
their salaries and expense accounts. Don’t think it’s just me. We all detest them,
partly for their lack of judgment, mostly because of their ignorance and toecurling
opportunism. The first minute an armed conflict turns into a media war,
the news becomes someone’s opinion, not hard truths. When the media gets
involved, in the United States, that’s a war you’ve got a damned good chance of
losing, because the restrictions on us are immediately amplified, and that’s