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

There was no way Eric was not going to answer that call. Nothing on God’s
earth could have persuaded him not to go. He must have known we were barely
holding on, praying for help to arrive. There were, after all, only four of us. And
to everyone’s certain knowledge, there were a minimum of a hundred Taliban.
Eric understood the stupendous nature of the risk, and he never blinked. Just
grabbed his rifle and ammunition and raced to board that aircraft, yelling at
everyone else to hurry...“Move it, guys! Let’s really move it!” That’s what he
always said under pressure. Sure, he was a commanding officer, and a hell of a
good one. But more than that, he was a SEAL, a part of that brotherhood forged
in blood. Even more important, he was a man. And right now he was answering
an urgent, despairing cry from the very heart of his own brotherhood. There was
only one way Eric Kristensen was headed, straight up the mountain, guns
blazing, command or no command.
Inside the MH-47, the men of 160th SOAR waited quietly, as they had done
so many times before on these hair-raising air-rescue ops, often at night. They
were led by a terrific man, Major Steve Reich of Connecticut, with Chief
Warrant Officers Chris Scherkenbach of Jacksonville, Florida, and Corey J.
Goodnature of Clarks Grove, Minnesota.
Master Sergeant James W. Ponder was there, with Sergeants First Class
Marcus Muralles of Shelbyville, Indiana, and Mike Russell of Stafford, Virginia.
Their group was completed by Staff Sergeant Shamus Goare of Danville, Ohio,
and Sergeant Kip Jacoby of Pompano Beach, Florida. By any standards, it was a
crack army fighting force.
The MH-47 took off and headed over the two mountain ranges. I guess it
seemed to take forever. Those kind of rescues always do. It came in to land at
just about the same spot we had fast-roped in at the start of the mission, around
five miles from where I was now positioned.
The plan was for the rescue team to rope it down just the same, and when the
“Thirty seconds!” call came, I guess the lead guys edged toward the stern ramp.
What no one knew was the Taliban had some kind of bunker back there, and as
the MH-47 tilted back for the insert and the ropes fell away for the climb-down,
the Taliban fired a rocket-propelled grenade straight through the open ramp.
It shot clean past the heads of the lead group and blew with a shattering blast
against the fuel tanks, turning the helo into an inferno, stern and midships.
Several of the guys were blown out and fell, some of them burning, to their
deaths, from around thirty feet. They smashed into the mountainside and
tumbled down. The impact was so violent, our search-and-rescue parties later