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

hundred military personnel in attendance when the Humvees arrived bearing the
two coffins, each draped with the American flag. And all of them snapped to
attention, instantly, no commands, as the SEALs stepped forward to claim their
brothers.
Very slowly, with immense dignity, they lifted the coffins high, and then
carried the bodies of Mikey and Danny the fifty yards to the ramp of the aircraft.
I positioned myself right at the back and watched as the guys carefully bore
my buddies on their first steps back to the United States. A thousand memories
stood before me, as I guess they would have done to anyone who’d been at
Murphy’s Ridge.
Danny, crashing down the mountain, his right thumb blown off, still firing,
shot again and again and again, rising up as I dragged him away, rising up to aim
his rifle at the enemy once more, still firing, still defiant, a warrior to his last
breath. And here he comes in that polished wood coffin.
Out in front was the coffin that carried Mikey Murphy, our officer, who had
walked out into the firestorm to make that last call on his cell phone, the one that
placed him in mortal danger, the one chance, he believed, to save us.
Gunned down by the Taliban, right through the back, blood pouring out of
his chest, his phone in the dust, and he still picked it up. “Roger that, sir. Thank
you.” Was anyone ever braver than that? I remember being awestruck at the way
he somehow stood up and walked toward me, tall and erect, and carried right on
firing until they finally blew half his head away. “Marcus, this really sucks.”
He was right then. And he was still right at this moment. It did suck. As they
carried Mikey to the plane, I tried to think of an epitaph for my greatest buddy,
and I could only come up with some poem written by the Australian Banjo
Paterson, I guess for one of his heroes, as Mikey was mine:
He was hard and tough and wiry — just the sort that won’t say die —
There was courage in his quick, impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
That was Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy precisely. You can trust me on
that. I lived with him, trained with him, fought with him, laughed with him, and
damn near died with him. Every word of that poem was inscribed for him.
And now they were carrying him past the crowd, past me, and suddenly my