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

manicured beards, clean teeth, hands, and clothes. They were well fed and could
speak broken English. None of them was very big, maybe around five feet eight
on average, and they all wore those old Soviet leather belts, the ones with the red
star in the middle of the buckle. They wore Afghan clothes, but each one had a
different-colored vest. Every man carried a knife and a Russian pistol jammed
into his belt. Everything made in Moscow. Everything stolen.
There was nothing I could get my hands on to defend myself. I had no rifle,
no grenade, just my own personal badge of courage, the Lone Star of Texas on
my arm and chest. I needed some of that courage because these bastards laid into
me, kicking my left leg and punching my face and upper body, beating me to
hell.
I didn’t give that much of a shit. I can suck this kind of crap up, like I’ve
been trained. Anyway, they didn’t have a decent punch among them. Essentially
they were all very lucky boys, because in normal circumstances, I could have
thrown any one of them straight through the freakin’ window. My main worry
was they might decide to shoot me or tie me up and march me off somewhere,
maybe over the border to Pakistan, to film me and then cut off my head on
camera.
If I’d thought for one moment that was their intention, it would have been
bad news for all of us. I was hurt, but not so bad as I was making out, and I was
formulating a fallback plan. Up above me in the rafters, I could see a four-footlong
iron bar, just resting there. Could I get it if I stood up? Yes.
In a life-or-death situation, I’d grab that bar, carefully select the most violent
of them, and smash it right through him. He’d never get up again. Then I’d lay
into the front two, taking them entirely by surprise. At the same time, using the
bar, I’d ram the whole group into a corner, crushing them together, as per
standard SEAL combat strategy, making it impossible for anyone to draw down
on me, pull a knife, or get out.
I’d probably have to obliterate the skulls of another couple of them before
using one of those Russian pistols to finish anyone still alive. Could I have done
it? I think so. My buddies back in SEAL Team 10 would have been mighty
disappointed in me if I’d failed.
My absolute fallback position would have been to kill them all, grab their
weapons and ammunition, then barricade myself in the house until the
Americans came to get me.
The problem was, where would all this get me in the short term? What was
the point of being a bad-ass SEAL, the way some guys would be? The house was