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

mountains.
We saw it circling, far away from the slopes where I believed the main
Taliban and al Qaeda forces were camped. And then suddenly Gulab grabbed my
arm, hissing, “Marcus! Marcus! Taliban!”
I stared up at the escarpment and there in the darkness I could see white
lights, moving quickly, across the face of the mountain. “Taliban, Marcus!
Taliban!” I could tell Gulab was really uneasy, and I called over the army
captain and pointed out the danger.
We all reacted instantly. Gulab, who was unarmed, grabbed my rifle, and he
and two of his buddies helped me climb the wall and jump down the much
deeper drop on the other side. Several of the villagers ran like hell up the hill to
their rocky homes. Not Gulab. He took up position behind that wall, aiming my
sniper rifle straight at the enemy on the hillside.
The army comms guys moved into action, calling in the United States air
armada we knew was out there — fighter bombers and helicopters, ready to
attack that mountain if there was even a suggestion the Taliban might try to hit
the incoming rescue helo.
I considered it was obvious that they were planning one last offensive, one
last-ditch attempt to kill me. I grabbed a pair of NVGs and took up my position
as spotter behind the wall, trying to locate the mountain men, trying to nail them
once and for all.
We could still see the rescue helo way out in the distance when the U.S.
Armed Forces, who’d plainly had it up to their eyeballs with this fucking Ben
Sharmak, finally let it rip. They came howling across those pitch-black crevasses
and blasted the living hell out of those slopes: bombs, rockets, everything they
had. It was a storm of murderous explosive. No one could have lived out there.
The lights went out for the Taliban that night. All those little white beams,
their fires and lanterns — everything went out. And I just crouched there, calling
out the information to the comms guy next to me, identifying Taliban locations,
the stuff I’m trained to do. I was standing up now with a smile on my face,
watching my guys pulverize those little bastards who beat up my kids and killed
my teammates. Fuck ’em, right?
It was a grim smile, I admit, but these guys had chased me, tortured me,
pursued me, tried to kill me about four hundred times, blown me up, nearly
kidnapped me, threatened to execute me. And now my guys were sticking it
right to ’em. Beautiful. I saw a report confirming thirty-two Taliban and al
Qaeda died out there that night. Not enough.