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

And all the time, he was screaming, calling out my name, begging me to help
him live. And there was nothing I could do except die with him. Even then, with
only a couple of magazines left, I still believed I could nail these fuckers in the
turbans and somehow save him and Axe. I just wanted Mikey to stop screaming,
for his agony to end.
But every few seconds, he cried out for me again. And every time it
happened, I felt like I’d been stabbed. There were tears welling uncontrollably
out of my eyes, not for the first time on this day. I would have done anything for
Mikey, I’d have laid down my own life for him. But my death right here in this
outcrop of rocks was not going to save him. If I could save him, it would be by
staying alive.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the screaming stopped. There was silence
for a few seconds, as if even these Taliban warriors understood that Mikey had
died. I moved slightly forward and looked up there, in time to see four of them
come down and fire several rounds into his fallen body.
The screaming had stopped. For everyone except me. I still hear Mikey,
every night. I still hear that scream above all other things, even above the death
of Danny Dietz. For several weeks I thought I might be losing my mind, because
I could never push it aside. There were one or two frightening occasions when I
heard it in broad daylight and found myself pressed against a wall, my hands
covering my ears.
I always thought these kinds of psychiatric problems were suffered by other
people, ordinary people, not by Navy SEALs. I now know the reality of them. I
also doubt whether I will ever sleep through the night again.
Danny was dead. Mikey was now dead. And Axe was dying. Right now
there were two of us, but only just. I resolved to walk down to where Axe was
hiding and to die there with him. There was, I knew, unlikely to be a way out.
There were still maybe fifty of the enemy, perhaps by now hunting only me.
It took me nearly ten minutes, firing back behind me sporadically to try to
pin them down...just in case. I was firing on the wild chance that there was a shot
at survival, that somehow Mikey’s phone call might yet have the guys up here in
time for a last-ditch rescue.
When I reached Axe, he was sitting in a hollow, and he’d fixed a temporary
bandage on the side of his head. I stared at him, wondering where those cool
blue eyes of his had gone. The eyes in which I could now see my own reflection
were blood black, the sockets filled from the terrible wound in his skull.
I smiled at him because I knew we would not walk this way again, at least