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

surrounded by more Taliban, all of them with AKs. I saw those guards come in
and then go out again. Some of the little creeps were right outside the window.
Anyway, the entire sprawl of the village of Sabray was surrounded by the
Taliban. Sarawa had told me so, and it beat me why I’d been left alone...unless
they knew...unless they were indoctrinated...unless I really was in the hands of
off-duty Taliban warriors.
But the guys at my bedside were not off duty. They were right on my case,
demanding to know why I was there, what the American planes were doing,
whether the United States was planning an attack on them, who was coming to
rescue me (good question, right?). I knew that right now discretion was, by a
long way, the better part of valor, because my objective was simply to try and
stay alive, not to get into a brawl with knife-wielding tribesmen or, worse, get
myself shot.
I kept telling them I was just a doctor, out here to help with our wounded. I
also told them a huge lie, that I had diabetes. I was not a member of the special
forces, and I needed water, which they ignored. The main trouble was, strangely,
my beard, because they knew the U.S. Army did not permit beards. Only the
U.S. Special Forces allows that.
I managed to persuade them I needed to go outside, and they gave me this
one single opportunity, one last desperate try to slip away. But I could not move
fast enough, and they just dragged me back inside, threw me on the ground, and
beat me even more seriously than they had before. Broke the bones in my wrist.
That hurt, and I’ve since needed two operations to correct it.
By now they had lit their lanterns, maybe three of them, and the room was
quite light. And their inquisition went on for maybe six hours. Yelling and
beating, yelling and kicking. They told me my buddies were all dead, told me
they’d already cut everyone’s head off and that I was next. They said they had
shot down an American helicopter, killed everyone. They were just full of
bravado, shouting, boasting they would in the end kill every American in their
country and then some...We will kill you all! Death to the Satan! Death to the
infidel!
They pointed out with huge glee that I was their main infidel and I had mere
moments to live. I took a sidelong glance at that iron bar, perhaps my last hope.
But I told them nothing, stuck to my guns, kept on telling them I was only a
doctor.
At one stage, one of the village kids came in, about seventeen years old. I
was pretty certain he had been in one of the groups I’d passed on the way down