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

about that...Marcus, I’ll go with you. Call it.”
I just stood there. I looked again at these sullen Afghan farmers. Not one of
them tried to say a word to us. They didn’t need to. Their glowering stares said
plenty. We didn’t have rope to bind them. Tying them up to give us more time to
establish a new position wasn’t an option.
I looked Mikey right in the eye, and I said, “We gotta let ’em go.”
It was the stupidest, most southern-fried, lamebrained decision I ever made
in my life. I must have been out of my mind. I had actually cast a vote which I
knew could sign our death warrant. I’d turned into a fucking liberal, a half-assed,
no-logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgment of a jackrabbit.
At least, that’s how I look back on those moments now. Probably not then,
but for nearly every waking hour of my life since. No night passes when I don’t
wake in a cold sweat thinking of those moments on that mountain. I’ll never get
over it. I cannot get over it. The deciding vote was mine, and it will haunt me till
they rest me in an East Texas grave.
Mikey nodded. “Okay,” he said, “I guess that’s two votes to one, Danny
abstains. We gotta let ’em go.”
I remember no one said anything. We could just hear the short staccato
sounds of the goats: ba-aaaa...baaa...baaa. And the tinkling of the little bells. It
provided a fitting background chorus to a decision which had been made in
fucking fairyland. Not on the battlefield where we, like it or not, most certainly
were.
Axe said again, “We’re not murderers. And we would not have been
murderers, whatever we’d done.”
Mikey was sympathetic to his view. He just said, “I know, Axe, I know,
buddy. But we just took a vote.”
I motioned for the three goatherds to get up, and I signaled them with my
rifle to go on their way. They never gave one nod or smile of gratitude. And they
surely knew we might very well have killed them. They turned toward the higher
ground behind us.
I can see them now. They put their hands behind their backs in that peculiar
Afghan way and broke into a very fast jog, up the steep gradient, the goats
around us now trotting along to join them. From somewhere, a skinny, mangy
brown dog appeared dolefully and joined the kid. That dog was a gruesome
Afghan reminder of my own robust chocolate Labrador, Emma, back home on
the ranch, always bursting with health and joy.
I guess that’s when I woke up and stopped worrying about the goddamned