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

illuminated the sky beyond our immediate range of hills, and that was just about
the creepiest sight you’ve ever seen, like the wicked witch of the Kush was
about to come hurtling through the sky on a broomstick.
Lightning out in front, naked and violent, is one thing. But similar bolts
hidden from view, turning the heavens into a weird, electric blue, made a
landscape like this look unearthly, enormous black summits, stark against the
universe. It was a forbidding sight for a wounded warrior more used to the great
flat plains of Texas.
But slowly I became used to it and finally fell into a deep sleep flat out on
the floor. Our departure time of 2300 came and went and still the rain lashed
down. Midnight came, and with it, a new calendar date, Sunday, July 3, which
this year would be the midpoint of the Fourth of July weekend, a time for
celebration all over the U.S.A., at least in most parts, except for those in
profound mourning for the lost special forces.
While I was sitting out the storm, the mood back home on the ranch, according
to Mom, was very depressed. I had been missing in action for five days. The
throng gathered in our front yard now numbered almost three hundred. They had
never left, but the crowd was growing very solemn.
There was still a police cordon around the property. The local sheriffs had
been joined by the judges, and the state police were busy providing personal
escorts in the form of cruisers to accompany the SEALs on their twice-daily
training runs, front and rear.
Attending the daily prayers were local firemen, construction men, ranchers,
bookstore owners, engineers, mechanics, teachers, two charter-boat fishing
captains. There were salesmen, mortgage brokers, lawyers from Houston, and
local attorneys. All of them fighting off my demise in the best way they knew
how.
Mom says the whole place was lit up all night by the lights from the
automobiles. Someone had brought in portacabins, and there seemed little point
in people going anywhere. Not until they knew whether I was still alive.
According to Mom, they separated into groups, one offering prayers every hour,
others singing hymns, others drinking beers. Local ladies who had known
Morgan and me all our lives were unable to hold back their tears. All of them
were in attendance for only one reason, to comfort my parents if the worst
should be announced.
I don’t know that much about other states, because my experience in