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

11
Reports of My Death
Greatly Exaggerated
He literally dragged me into a standing position, and then...He
was running and trying to make me keep up with him, and he
kept shouting, signaling, again and again: Taliban! Taliban are
here! In the village! Run, Dr. Marcus, for God’s sake, run!
Gulab had now become the principal figure in my life. He called the security
shots, made sure I had food and water, and was, in my mind, the link between us
and his father as the old man toiled through the mountains to Asadabad.
The Afghani policeman betrayed no sign of stress, but he did reveal to me
that a letter had been received earlier from the commander of the Taliban forces.
It was a written demand that the villagers of Sabray hand over the American
immediately.
The demand came from the rising officer of the Taliban army in the
northeast, the firebrand “Commodore Abdul,” right-hand man to Sharmak and a
character who plainly saw himself as some kind of Eastern Che Guevara. His
reputation was apparently growing as an ambush leader and as an officer who
was expert at bringing in new recruits through the passes.
I never knew, but it would not have surprised me to learn he had been in the
front line of the army that confronted the team on the ridge, though I have no
doubt the strategy was planned by the senior man, Sharmak, who had done so
much damage already.
They did not, however, faze Gulab. He and his father had replied that it made
no difference how bad the Taliban wanted the American, they were not going to
get him. When Gulab told me, he made a very distinct, brave, dismissive gesture.
And he spent some time trying to convey his personal position: They can’t