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

the main runway at 2300, exactly six days and four hours since Mikey, Axe,
Danny, and I had occupied this very same spot, lying here on this ground, staring
up at the distant snowcapped peaks, laughing, joking, always optimistic,
unaware of the trial by fire which awaited us high in those mountains. Less than
a week. It might have been a thousand years.
I was greeted by four doctors and all the help I could possibly need. There
was also a small group of nurses, at least one of whom knew me from my
volunteer work in the hospital. The others were stunned at the sight of me, but
this one nurse took one look at me standing at the top of the ramp and burst into
tears.
That’s how terrible I looked. I’d lost thirty-seven pounds, my face was
scoured from the crash down mountain one, my broken nose needed proper
setting, I was racked with pain from my leg, my smashed wrist hurt like hell and
so did my back, as it will when you’ve cracked three vertebrae. I’d lost God
knows how many pints of blood. I was white as a ghost, and I could hardly walk.
The nurse just cried out, “Oh, Marcus!” and turned away, sobbing. I declined
a stretcher and leaned on the doctor, ignoring the pain. But he knew. “Come on,
buddy,” he said. “Let’s get you on the stretcher.”
But again I shook my head. I’d had a shot of morphine, and I tried to stand
unassisted. I turned to the doc and looked him in the eye, and I told him, “I
walked on here, and I’m walking off, by myself. I’m hurt, but I’m still a SEAL,
and they haven’t finished me. I’m walking.”
The doctor just shook his head. He’d met a lot of guys like me before, and he
knew it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good arguing. I guess he understood the only
thought I had in my mind was What kind of a SEAL would it make me if they had
to help me off the plane? No sir. I won’t agree to that.
And so I entered my home base once more, moving very slowly down the
ramp under my own steam until I touched the ground. By this time, I noticed two
other nurses were in tears. And I remember thinking, Thank Christ Mom can’t
see me yet.
Right about then I think I caved in. The doctors and nurses ran forward to
help me and get me stretchered into a van and directly to a hospital bed. The
time for personal heroics had passed. I’d sucked up every goddamned thing this
fucking country could throw at me, I’d been through another Hell Week to the
tenth power, and now I was saved.
Actually, I felt particularly rough. The morphine was not as good as the
opium I’d been given. And every goddamned thing hurt. I was met formally by