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

to the quick reaction force (QRF) in Asadabad, a couple of mountain ranges over
from where I was still holding out. That last call, the one on his cell phone that
essentially cost him his life, was successful. From all accounts, his haunting
words — My guys are dying out here...we need help — ripped around our base
like a flash fire. SEALs are dying! That’s a five-alarm emergency that stops only
just on the north side of frenzy.
Lieutenant Commander Kristensen, our acting CO, sounded the alarm. It’s
always a decision for the QRF, to launch or not to launch. Eric took a billionth of
a second to make it. I know the vision of us four — his buddies, his friends and
teammates, Mikey, Axe, Danny, and me, fighting for our lives, hurt, possibly
dead, surrounded by a huge fighting force of bloodthirsty Afghan tribesmen —
flashed through his mind as he summoned the boys to action stations.
And the vision of terrible loss stood stark before him as he roared down the
phone, ordering the men of 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment
(SOAR), the fabled Night Stalkers, to get the big army MH-47 helo ready, right
there on the runway. It was the same one that had taken off just before us on the
previous day, the one we tracked in to our ops area.
Guys I’ve already introduced charged into position, desperate to help,
cramming as much ammunition as they could into their pouches, grabbing rifles
and running for the Chinook, its rotors already screaming. My SDV Team 1 guys
were instantly there. Petty Officers James Suh and Shane Patton reached the helo
first. Then, scrambling aboard, came the massively built Senior Chief Dan
Healy, the man who had masterminded Operation Redwing, who apparently
looked as if he’d been shot as he left the barracks.
Then came the SEAL Team 10 guys, Lieutenant Mike McGreevy Jr. of New
York, Chief Jacques Fontan of New Orleans, Petty Officers First Class Jeff
Lucas from Oregon and JeffTaylor from West Virginia. Finally, still shouting that
his boys needed every gun they could get, came Lieutenant Commander Eric
Kristensen, the man who knew perhaps better than anyone that the eight SEALs
in that helo were about to risk a lethal daytime insertion in a high mountain pass,
right into the jaws of an enemy that might outnumber them by dozens to one.
Kristensen knew he did not have to go. In fact, perhaps he should not have
gone, stayed instead at his post, central to control and command. Right then, we
had the skipper in the QRF, which was, at best, a bit unorthodox. But Eric
Kristensen was a SEAL to his fingertips. And what he knew above all else was
that he had just heard a desperate cry for help. From his brothers, from a man he
knew well and trusted.