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

them it was against my religion! I thus tackled that hard, awful bread bone dry.
But I was grateful, and I tried to make that clear. Hell, I could have been dead up
the mountain. But for them, I would have been.
And now once again I was alone. I stared around me, looking for the first
time at my surroundings. A thick, loose-woven Afghan carpet covered the floor,
and colored cushions were placed against the wall. There were carved hanging
ornaments but no pictures. There was glass in the windows, and below this
house I could see others had thatched roofs. They were definitely skilled builders
up here, but I was uncertain where the raw materials came from, the rocks, glass,
and straw.
Inside my room there was one very large, locked wooden box. In there, I
learned, were the most valued possessions of every member of the household.
And there was not much. Trust me on that. But what they had they seemed
prepared to share with me.
I’d been given a couple of blankets, and as the night drew in, I discovered
why. The temperature plummeted from the searing heat of the day straight into
the thirties.
I noticed there was also an old iron woodstove in one corner of the room,
where I later learned they baked bread every day. The system up here is for the
two main houses, like this one, to do the baking for everyone, and the bread is
then distributed. I lay there wondering where all the smoke went when they lit
the stove, since there was no chimney. But that was a discovery yet to come.
Answer: nowhere. That wood smoke stayed right in my bedroom.
I drifted into a half sleep, my wounds still throbbing but thankfully not
becoming infected. Hooyah, Sarawa! Right?
The door to my new residence was quite thick but ill fitting. It would keep
out the wind and the rain, but the guys had to give it a mighty shove to open it.
I’d already noticed that, and I knew no one could enter the room without waking
me, so I had no need to sleep on high alert.
What happened next, however, took me by surprise. The door gave way to a
kick that shattered the silence. I opened my eyes in time to see eight armed
Taliban fighters come barging into the room. The first one came straight over to
my cot and slapped me across the face with all his force. That really pissed me
off, and he was a very lucky boy that I could not move and was effectively a
prisoner. If he’d even thought about putting his hands on me when I was fit, I’d
have ripped his fucking head off. Little prick.
I knew they were Taliban because of their appearance, very clean cut,