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

Four SEALs, fighting for their lives, had made one final communication that we
were dying up here. Since then, there had been neither sight nor sound of the
four of us.
Militarily, there were several possibilities, the first being we were all now
dead. The second was we were all still alive. The third was there were survivors,
or at least a survivor, and they were somewhere on the loose, possibly wounded,
in steep country where there is almost no possibility of making a safe landing in
any aircraft.
I guess the last possibility was that we had been taken prisoners and that in
time there would be either a ransom note demanding an enormous cash payment
or a television film showing us first as prisoners and then being executed.
The last option was unlikely when the missing were Navy SEALs. We don’t
habitually get captured. Either we kill our enemy or our enemy kills us. SEALs
don’t put their hands up or wave white flags. Period. The command post knew
that back in Asadabad, or Bagram.
They would not have been expecting a communiqué from the Taliban saying
SEALs had been captured. There’s an old SEAL motto: Never assume a
frogman’s dead unless you find his body. Everyone knows that.
The most likely scenario, aside from all dead, was that one or more of the
Redwings was hurt, out of communication, and unable to make contact. The
problem was location. Where were we? How could we be found?
Plainly, the Taliban were not saying a thing; therefore, they had no prisoners.
Equally, the missing SEALs weren’t saying anything. Dead? Probably. Wounded
in action and still holding out in the mountains, out of contact? As the days went
by, this must have seemed increasingly less likely.
By now Gulab had told me that his father had departed to walk to Asadabad
alone. All my hopes rested in the soft tread of this powerful yet tiny old man.