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

This particular specialist was not having much trouble tracking me, probably
because I was leaving tracks like a wounded grizzly, scuffing up the ground and
bleeding like a stuck pig from both my forehead and my thigh all over the shale.
I moved carefully on my knees around the rock, now with my rifle raised,
and there was the Taliban spotter standing right in front of me, not ten feet away
— but he had not spotted me.
In that instant I fired, dropped him dead in his tracks. And the force of the
bullet knocked him backward, with blood pumping out of his chest. I think I got
him straight through the heart, and I heard him hit the deck. But simultaneously
right behind me I heard the soft footsteps of the chasing gunmen. I turned around
and there were two of them, just above me in the rocks. Searching. I had only
split seconds to work, because they were both on me, AKs raised. Fuck! I could
get one, but not both.
I went for one of my grenades, ripped out the pin, and threw it straight at
them. I think they got a couple of shots away but not in time to get me before I
plunged back behind the rock. This was up close and personal, not five feet
between us. I was just imploring the Lord to let my grenade explode, and it did,
blasting the two Afghans to smithereens, splitting rocks, sending up a sandstorm
of earth and sand. Me? I just kept my head well down and hoped to Christ there
were no more of them.
It was around this time I began to black out a little, not from the blast of the
grenade, just a general blacking-out situation. Everything was catching up with
me, and as I lay there waiting for the debris to stop falling out of the sky, I
started to feel pretty rotten, dizzy, unsure of myself, shaky. I think I hung around
down there behind the rock for a few minutes before I ventured out, still
crawling, trying to see if the other Taliban guys were following. But there was
nothing.
Obviously, I had to get away from here, because that explosion from the
grenade must have attracted some attention somewhere. I sat there for a few
more minutes, marveling at the silence, and pondered the world. And the
conclusion I reached was I needed to learn to fight all over again, not like a
Navy SEAL, but like a secretive Afghan mountain man. At least, if I planned to
stay alive.
The last hour had taught me a few major lessons, the main one being I must
gain the ability to fight alone, in direct contrast to everything I had ever been
taught. SEALs, as you now know, fight in teams, only in teams, each man
relying entirely on the others to do exactly the right thing. That’s how we do it,