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

They had been referring to the village of Monagee, in the district of
Manrogai, where I knew the U.S. military had some kind of an outpost. But it
was out of the question right now. I couldn’t get there or anywhere else until my
leg improved. Nonetheless, the goatherds had some good information about the
terrain and the distances to various villages and U.S. bases. These guys walk
around the mountains for a living. Local knowledge. That’s key to every serving
SEAL, especially one who was planning a kind of soft jailbreak, like me.
With the goatherds, I was able to work out that from the scene of the original
battlefield where the others died, on that terrible night of June 28 I had traveled
around seven miles, four walking, three crawling. Seven miles! Wow! I couldn’t
believe that. But these herders knew their land. And they, like everyone else,
knew all about the Battle for Murphy’s Ridge, where it had been fought and the
very bad losses sustained by the Taliban...“You shoot, Dr. Marcus? You shoot?”
Me? Shoot? Never. I’m just a wandering doctor trying to look after my
patients. But I was real proud of traveling seven miles over the mountain in my
beat-up condition after the battle.
I took my ballpoint pen and marked distances, drew maps, made diagrams of
the mountains on my right thigh. When that got a little crowded, I had to use my
left. (Shit! That hurt. That really hurt!)
At noon the kids came back for prayers, bringing with them several adults,
clearly eager to meet the new American convert, no longer an infidel. We prayed
together to Allah, kneeling — painfully, in my case — on the floor. After which
we all shook hands, and I think they welcomed me to their prayers. Never told
’em, of course, I slipped in a quick one to my own God while I was at it,
respectfully wondering, if it was all right with Him, whether I could get my rifle
back anytime soon.
They all came back for afternoon prayers at 1700, and again at sunset. The
little kids, my first friends, had to leave for bed right after that, but I remember
they all came and hugged me before they left, and, not having mastered “Goodbye”
or “Good night” yet, they repeated their first American phrase again and
again as they left the room: “Hello, Dr. Marcus.”
The older kids, the young teenagers, were allowed to stay and talk with me
for a while. Gulab helped them to communicate and we parted as friends. The
trouble was, I was getting sick now, and I was beginning to feel pretty ropy, not
just the pain of my wounds but kind of like flu, only a bit worse.
When the kids had finally left, I received a visit from the village elder
himself. He brought me bread, gave me fresh water, then sat down for maybe