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

to defend that wounded man to the death. And not just the death of the principal
tribesman or family who made the original commitment for the giving of a pot.
It means the whole damned village.
Lokhay means the population of that village will fight to the last man, honorbound
to protect the individual they have invited in to share their hospitality.
And this is not something to have a chitchat about when things get rough. It’s not
a point of renegotiation. This is strictly nonnegotiable.
So while I was lying there thinking these cruel heartless bastards were just
going to leave me out here and let me die, they were in fact discussing a much
bigger, life-or-death issue. And the lives they were concerned with had nothing
to do with mine. This was Lokhay, boy, spelled with a big L. No bullshit.
For all I knew, they were deciding whether to put a bullet through my head
and save everyone a lot of trouble. But by now I was drifting off, half asleep,
half alert, and the distinction was minimal. Sarawa was still talking. Of course it
occurred to me that these men might be just like the goatherds, loyal spies for the
Taliban. They could easily take me in and then send their fastest messengers to
inform the local commanders they had me, and I could be picked up and
executed anytime they wanted.
I wished fervently this was not the case. And though I thought I understood
Sarawa was a nice guy, I couldn’t know the truth about him; no one could, not
under those circumstances. Anyway, there was nothing much I could do about it,
except maybe shoot them all, and a fat chance I would have had of getting away.
I could hardly move.
So I just waited for the verdict. I kept thinking, What would Morgan do? Is
there any way out of this? What’s the correct military decision? Do I have any
options? Not so you’d notice. My best chance of living was to try and befriend
Sarawa, try somehow to ingratiate myself with his friends.
Disjointed thoughts were blundering through my mind. What about all the
death there had been in these mountains? What if these guys had lost sons,
brothers, fathers, or cousins in the battle against the SEALs? How would they
feel about me, an armed, uniformed member of the U.S. military, staging various
gun battles, blowing Afghanis up on their very own tribal lands?
I obviously didn’t have any answers, nor could I know what they were
thinking. But it couldn’t be good. I knew that.
Sarawa came back. He sharply ordered two men to raise me up, one of them
under each of my arms to give me support, and lift me off the ground. He
ordered another to lift my legs.