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

but underneath he could be very funny and was a sweet-natured person. It was
not a great plan to upset him, though. Danny Dietz was a caged tiger and a great
Navy SEAL.
Now it seemed Redwing was again given the green light. The four-man team
was nailed down. The two snipers would be Axe and me; the two spotters,
Mikey and Danny. Command control, Mikey. Communications, Danny and me.
The final shoot-on-target, me or Axe, either one of us spotting, whichever way it
fell on the terrain.
The plan was to sit up there and hide above the place we believed Sharmak
was resident, if necessary for four days, probably not able to move more than a
foot, remaining deadly still in a deadly place — high in the hills.
At no time would we be anything but carefully concealed, watching these
heavily armed mountain men, who were lifelong experts on the local terrain,
awaiting our chance to gun down their leader. It doesn’t get a whole lot more
dangerous than that.
We were actually in the helicopter, dressed and organized, ready to leave,
“Redwing is a go,” when the mission was called off again. “Turn two!” It was
not so much that we’d lost track of Sharmak as the fact that the slippery little son
of a gun had turned up somewhere else.
We disembarked and wandered back to our quarters. We shed our heavy
packs and weapons, changed out of our combat gear, cleaned the camouflage
cream off our faces, and rejoined the human race. The break lasted for two
weeks, during which time we did a couple of minor missions up in the passes
and nearly got our heads blown off at least twice.
I surpassed myself once by nailing down one of the most dangerous terrorists
in northeast Afghanistan. I had POSIDENT, and I actually saw him make a break
for it on his own, riding a freakin’ bicycle along the track. I didn’t shoot him
because I did not wish to betray our position by opening fire or even moving. We
were expecting his complete camel train of high explosive to move along this
route anytime, and we wanted both him and his munitions. At least I didn’t
emulate the actions of a former colleague, who, according to SEAL folklore,
fired up the direct link and advised a cruising U.S. fighter/bomber of the GPS
position. Then he watched a five-hundred-pound bomb demolish the terrorist, his
camel, and everything within fifty yards of him. On this mission, we halted the
camel train and managed to capture the terrorist and unload the explosive
without resorting to such wild-and-woolly action.
Sorry, lefties. But, like we say back home in Texas, a man’s gotta do what a