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

Omar Bradley? MacArthur? Would they have made the ice-cold military
decision to execute these cats because they posed a clear and present danger to
their men?
If these Afghans blew the whistle on us, we might all be killed, right out here
on this rocky, burning-hot promontory, thousands and thousands of miles from
home, light-years from help. The potential force against us was too great. To let
these guys go on their way was military suicide.
All we knew was Sharmak had between 80 and 200 armed men. I remember
taking the middle number, 140, and asking myself how I liked the odds of 140 to
4. That’s 35 to 1. Not much. I looked at Mikey and told him, “Murph, we gotta
get some advice.”
We both turned to Danny, who had fired up the comms system and was
valiantly trying to get through to HQ. We could see him becoming very
frustrated, like all comms operators do when they cannot get a connection. He
kept trying, and we were rapidly coming to the conclusion the goddamned radio
was up the creek.
“That thing need new batteries?” I asked him.
“No. It’s fine, but they won’t fucking answer me.”
The minutes went by. The goatherds sat still, Axe and Murph with their rifles
aimed straight at them, Danny acting like he could have thrown the comms
system over the goddamned cliff.
“They won’t answer,” he said through gritted teeth. “I don’t know why. It’s
like no one’s there.”
“There must be someone there,” said Murph, and I could hear the anxiety in
his voice.
“Well, there isn’t,” said Danny.
“Murphy’s god-awful law,” I said. “Not you, Mikey, that other prick, the god
of screwups.”
No one laughed. Not even me. And the dull realization dawned on us: we
were on our own and had to make our own decision.
Mike Murphy said quietly, “We’ve got three options. We plainly don’t want
to shoot these guys because of the noise. So, number one, we could just kill them
quietly and hurl the bodies over the edge. That’s probably a thousand-foot drop.
Number two is we kill them right here, cover ’em up as best we can with rocks
and dirt.
“Either way we get the hell out and say nothing. Not even when the story
comes out about the murdered Afghan goatherds. And some fucking headline