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

slipped, and got my foot in there. That caused huge laughter up there in the dead
of night, everyone trying not to explode. Wasn’t funny to me, however.
The next week it was much worse. We were all in the pitch dark, creeping
through this very rough ground, trying to set up a surveillance point above a very
small cluster of huts and goats. We could not see a thing without NVGs (nightvision
goggles), and suddenly I slipped into a gaping hole.
I dared not yell. But I knew I was on my way down, and I shuddered to think
where I was going to land. I just rammed my right arm rigid straight up, holding
on tight to the rifle, and crashed straight into the village head. I went right under,
vaguely hearing my teammates hiss, “Look out! Luttrell just found the shitter
again!”
Never has there been that much suppressed laughter on an Afghan mission.
But it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I could have given typhoid to
the entire Bagram base. I was freezing cold but I cheerfully jumped into a river
in full combat gear just to get washed off.
Sometimes there was real trouble on those border post checkpoints, and we
occasionally had to load up the Humvees and transport about eighteen guys out
there and then walk for miles. The problem was, the Pakistani government has
obvious sympathy with the Taliban, and as a result leaves the border area in the
northeast uncontrolled. Pakistan has decreed its authorities can operate on
tarmac roads and then for twenty meters on either side of the road. Beyond that,
anything goes, so the Taliban fighters simply swerve off the road and enter
Afghanistan over the ancient pathways. They come and go as they please, the
way they always have, unless we prevent them. Many of them only want to
come in and rustle cattle, which we do not bother with. However, the Taliban
know this, and they move around disguised as cattle farmers, and we most
certainly do bother with that. And those little camel trains laden with high
explosive, they really get our attention.
And every single time, we came under attack. The slightest noise, any
betrayal of our position, someone would open fire on us, often from the Pakistan
side of the border, where we could not go. So we moved stealthily, gathered our
photographs, grabbed the ringleaders, stayed in touch with base, and whistled up
reinforcements whenever we needed help.
It was the considered opinion of our commanders that the key to winning
was intel, identifying the bombmakers, finding their supplies, and smashing the
Taliban arsenal before they could use it. But it was never easy. Our enemy was
brutal, implacable, with no discernible concern about time or life. As long as it