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

That type of thing. Nothing else. Not another sound to drift into the mountain
air. But suddenly I did hear a sound, which carried directly to the southwest side
of my felled tree. The unmistakable noise of soft footsteps right above me. Jesus
Christ! I was lucky I didn’t need to change my pants.
And just as suddenly, there was a guy, wearing a turban and carrying a
fucking ax. He jumped off the log, right over the top of me. I damn near fainted
with shock. I just wasn’t expecting it. I wheeled around, grabbed my rifle, and
pointed it straight at him, which I considered might at least discourage him from
beheading me. He was plainly more startled than I was, and he dropped the ax.
And then I saw the other Axe, standing up and aiming his rifle right at the
guy’s turban. “You must have seen him,” I snapped at him. “Why the hell didn’t
you tell me? He nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Just didn’t want to make any noise,” said Axe. “I drew a bead on him and
kept him in my sights until he reached your log. One false move, I’d have killed
him right there.”
I told the guy to siddown, against the log. And then something ridiculous
happened. About a hundred goats, all with little bells around their necks, came
trotting up the mountain, swarming all around the spot where we were now
standing. Then up over the hill came two more guys. All of us were now
surrounded by goats. And I motioned for them to join their colleague on the
ground against the log. That’s the Afghans, not the goats.
Finally, Mikey and Danny made their way up through the bleating herd and
saw immediately what was going on. Like me, they noted that one of the three
was just a kid, around fourteen years old. I tried to ask them if they were Taliban,
and they all shook their heads, the older men saying, in English, “No Taliban...no
Taliban.”
I gave the kid one of my power bars, and he scowled at me. Just put it down
on a rock next to him, with no thanks or nod of appreciation. The two adults
glared at us, making it obvious they disliked us intensely. Of course, they were
probably wondering what the hell we were doing wandering about their farm
with enough weapons and ammunition to conquer an entire Afghan province.
The question was, What did we do now? They were very obviously
goatherds, farmers from the high country. Or, as it states in the pages of the
Geneva Convention, unarmed civilians. The strictly correct military decision
would still be to kill them without further discussion, because we could not
know their intentions.
How could we know if they were affiliated with a Taliban militia group or