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

perhaps, love our country and everything it stands for.
In the early weeks of our duties in Afghanistan, the fight went on. Platoons
of us went out night after night, trying to halt the insurgents creeping through the
mountain passes. Every time there was a full moon, we launched operations,
because that was really the only time we could get a sweep of light over the dark
mountains.
Following this lunar cycle, we’d send the helicopters up there to watch these
bearded fanatics squirting over the border into Afghanistan, and then we’d round
them up, the helos driving them like sheepdogs, watching them run for their
lives, straight toward us and the rest of the waiting U.S. troops for capture and
interrogation.
I realize it might seem strange that underwater specialists from SDV Team 1
should be groping around nine thousand feet above sea level. It is generally
accepted in the navy that the swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV), the
minisubmarine that brings us into our ops area, is the stealthiest vehicle in the
world. And it follows that the troops manning the world’s stealthiest vehicle are
the world’s sneakiest guys. That’s us, operating deep behind enemy lines,
observing and reporting, unnoticed, living on the edge of our nerves. And our
principal task is always to find the target and then call in the direct action guys.
That’s really what everyone wants to do, direct action, but it can’t be done
without the deadly business we conduct up there in those lonely peaks of the
Hindu Kush.
Lieutenant Commander Eric Kristensen was always aware of our value, and
in fact was a very good friend of mine. He used to name the operations for me. I
was a Texan, which, being as he was a Virginia gentleman, somehow amused the
life out of him. He thought I was some kind of cross between Billy the Kid and
Buffalo Bill, quick on the draw and Dang mah breeches! Never mind both those
cowboys were from way north of me, Kansas or somewhere. So far as Eric was
concerned, Texas and all points west and north of it represented the badlands,
lawless frontiers, Colt .44s, cattlemen and Red Indians.
Thus we were always flying out on Operation Longhorn or Operation Lone
Star. Naming the ops for his Texas boy really broke him up. The vast majority of
our missions were very quiet and involved strict surveillance of mountain passes
or villages. We were always trying to avoid gunfire as we photographed and then
swooped on our target. Invariably we were looking for the misfit, the one man in
the village who did not fit in, the hit man of the Taliban who was plainly not a
farmer.