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

Right around this time, I was assigned a minder, Petty Officer First Class Jeff
Delapenta (SEAL Team 10), who would never leave my side. And remember,
damn near everyone on the base wanted to come and have a chat. At least that’s
how it seemed to me. But Jeff was having none of it. He stood guard over my
room like a German shepherd, taking the view that I was very sick and needed
peace and rest, and he, PO1 Jeff, was going to make good and sure I got it.
Doctors and nurses, fine. High-ranking SEAL commanders, well...okay, but
only just. Anyone else, forget it. Jeff Delapenta turned away generals! Told ’em I
was resting, could not be disturbed under any circumstances whatsoever. “Strict
orders from his doctors...Sir, it would be more than my career’s worth to allow
you to enter that room.”
I spoke privately to my family on the phone and refrained from mentioning
to Mom that I had now contracted some kind of Afghan mountain bacteria that
attacked my stomach like Montezuma’s revenge gets you in Mexico. I swear to
God, it came from that fucking Pepsi bottle. That sucker could have poisoned the
population of the Hindu Kush.
Didn’t stop me loving that first cheeseburger, though. And as soon as I was
rested, the real intensive debriefing began. It was right here that I learned, for the
first time, of the full ramifications of lokhay, that the people of Sabray were
indeed prepared to fight for me until no one was left alive. One of the intel guys
told me those details, which I had suspected but never knew for sure.
These debriefing meetings revealed sufficient data to pinpoint precisely
where the bodies of my guys were lying. And I found it really difficult. Just
staring down at the photographs, reliving, as no one could ever understand, the
place where my best buddy fell, torturing myself, wondering again if I could
have saved him. Could I have done more? That night, for the first time, I heard
Mikey scream.
On my third day in the hospital, the bodies of Mikey and Danny were
brought down from the mountains. They were unable to find Axe. I was told
this, and later that day I dressed, just in shirt and jeans, so Dr. Dickens could
drive me out for the Ramp Ceremony, one of the most sacred SEAL traditions, in
which we say a formal good-bye to a lost brother.
It was the first time anyone had seen me outside of my immediate entourage,
and they probably received a major shock. I was scrubbed and neat, but not
much like the Marcus they knew. And I was ill from my brutal encounter with
that goddamned Pepsi bottle.
The C-130 was parked on the runway, ramp down. There were around two