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

enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every
remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates...I am never out of the
fight.”
Those words have sustained many brave men down the years. They were
engraved upon the soul of every SEAL. And they were in the minds of all of us.
Mikey suddenly said, above the rage of the battle, “Remember, bro, we’re
never out of it.”
I nodded tersely. “It’s only about another thousand yards to flat ground. If we
can just get down there, we got a chance.”
Trouble was, we couldn’t get down there, at least not right then. Because
once more we were pinned down. And we faced the same dilemma: the only
escape was to go down, but our only defensive strategy was to go up. Once
more, we had to get off this ground, away from the ricochets. Back up the left
flank.
We were trying to fight the battle our way. But even though we were still
going, we were battered half to death. I led the way back up the rocks, blasting
away, shooting down anyone I could see. But they caught on to that real quick,
and now they really unloaded on us, Russian-made rocket grenades. Coming
straight down their right flank, our left.
The ground shook. The very few trees swayed. The noise was worse than
any blast all day. Even the walls of this little canyon shook. The stream splashed
over its banks. This was one gigantic Taliban effort to finish us. We hit the deck,
jamming ourselves into our rocky crevasse, heads down to avoid the lethal flying
debris, rock fragments and shrapnel. As before they did not kill anyone with this
type of thunderous bombardment, and as before they waited till the dust had
cleared and then opened fire again.
Above me I could see the tree line. It was not close, but it was nearer than
the village. But the Taliban knew our objective, and as we tried to fight our way
forward, they drove us back with sheer weight of fire.
We’d tried, against all the odds, and just could not make it. They’d knocked
us back again. And we retreated down, making a long pathetic loop, back the
way we’d come. But once more we landed up in a good spot, a sound defensive
position, well protected by the rock face on either side. Again we tried to take
the fight to them, picking our targets and driving them back, making some
ground now toward the village.
They were up and screaming at us, yelling as the battle almost became close
quarters. We yelled right back and kept firing. But there were still so many of