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

they shot him, I thought mortally, he kept talking.
Roger that, sir. Thank you. Will those words ever dim in my memory, even if
I live to be a hundred? Will I ever forget them? Would you? And was there ever
a greater SEAL team commander, an officer who fought to the last and, as
perhaps his dying move, risked everything to save his remaining men?
I doubt there was ever anyone better than Mikey, cool under fire, always
thinking, fearless about issuing the one-option command even if it was nearly
impossible. And then the final, utterly heroic act. Not a gesture. An act of
supreme valor. Lieutenant Mikey was a wonderful person and a very, very great
SEAL officer. If they build a memorial to him as high as the Empire State
Building, it won’t ever be high enough for me.
Mikey was still alive, and he carried on, holding the left. I stayed on the
right, both of us firing carefully and accurately. I was still trying to reach slightly
higher ground. But the depleted army of the Taliban was determined that I
should not get it, and every time I tried to advance even a few yards, get even a
few feet higher, they drove me back. Mikey too was still trying to climb higher,
and he actually made it some of the way, into a rock strata above where I was
standing. It was a good spot from which to attack, but defensively poor. And I
knew this must surely be Mikey’s last stand.
Just then, Axe walked right by me in a kind of a daze, making only a
marginal attempt at staying in the cover of the rocks. Then I saw the wound, the
right side of his head almost blown away. I shouted, “Axe! Axe! C’mon, old
buddy. Get down there, right down there.”
I was pointing at the one spot in the rocks we might find protection. And he
tried to raise his hand, an act of confirmation that he’d heard me. But he
couldn’t. And he kept walking, slowly, hunched forward, no longer clutching his
rifle. He was down to just his pistol, but I knew he could not hold that, aim, and
fire. At least he was headed for cover, even though no one could survive a head
wound like that. I knew Axe was dying.
Mikey was still firing, but suddenly I heard him scream my name, the most
bone-chilling primeval scream: “Help me, Marcus! Please help me!” He was my
best friend in all the world, but he was thirty yards up the mountain, and I could
not climb to him. I could hardly walk, and if I’d moved two yards out of my
protected position, they would have hit me with a hundred bullets.
Nonetheless, I edged out around the rocks to try to give him covering fire, to
force these bastards back, give him a breather until I could find a way to get up
there without getting mowed down.