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

number on it. The main difference between now and when I’d been sitting with
Axe was that the gunfire had ceased.
If they’d reached Axe, who could not possibly have lived through the blast,
they might not have bothered to go on shooting. They obviously had not found
me, and I would have been real hard to locate, upside down in the hole. But
whatever, no one seemed to be looking. For the first time in maybe an hour and a
half, I was apparently not being actively hunted.
Aside from being unable to stand, I had two other very serious problems.
The first was the total loss of my pants. They’d been blown right off me. The
second was the condition of my left leg, which I could scarcely feel but which
was a horrific sight, bleeding profusely and full of shrapnel.
I had no bandages, nothing medical. I had been able to do nothing for my
teammates, and I could do nothing for myself, except try to stay hidden. It was
not a promising situation. I was damn sure I’d broken my back and probably my
shoulder; I’d broken my nose, and my face was a total mess. I couldn’t stand up,
never mind walk. At least one leg was wrecked, and maybe the other. I was
paralyzed in both thighs, and the only way I could move was to belly crawl.
Unsurprisingly, I was dazed. And through this personal fog of war, there was
yet one more miracle for me to recognize. Not two feet from where I was lying,
half hidden by dirt and shale, well out of sight of my enemy, was my Mark 12
rifle, and I still had one and a half magazines left. I prayed before I grabbed it,
because I thought it might be just a mirage and that when I tried to hold it...well,
it might just disappear.
But it did not. And I felt the cold steel in the hot air as my fingers clasped it.
I listened again for His voice. I prayed again, imploring Him for guidance. But
there was no sound, and all I knew was that somehow I had to make it out to the
right, where I’d be safe, at least for a while.
My God had not spoken again. But neither had He forsaken me. I knew that.
For damned sure, I knew that.
I knew one other thing as well. For the first time, I was entirely alone. Here
in these Taliban-controlled, hostile mountains, there was no earthly teammate for
me, and my enemy was all around. Had they heeded the words of the goatherds?
That there were four of us, and that right now they had only three bodies? Or did
they assume I had been blown to pieces by the blast of the final Russian RPG?
I had no answer to those questions, only hope. With absolutely no one to turn
to, no Mikey, no Axe, no Danny, I had to face the final battle by myself, maybe
lonely, maybe desolate, maybe against formidable odds. But I was not giving up.