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

senior commanders came over and told me it would be fitting for me to stand
right by the ramp. So I moved forward and stood as rigidly to attention as my
back would allow.
The chaplain moved up the ramp, and as the coffins moved forward, he
began his homily. I know it was not a funeral, not the one their families would
attend back home in the States. This was our funeral, the moment when we, his
other family, all serving overseas together, would say our final good-byes to two
very great men. The voice of the priest, out there on the edge of the aircraft hold,
was soft. He stood there speaking in praise of their lives and asking one last
favor from God — “To let perpetual light shine upon them . . .”
I watched as around seventy people, SEALs, Rangers, and Green Berets,
filed forward and walked slowly into the aircraft, paused, saluted with the
greatest solemnity, and then disembarked. I stayed on the ground until last of all.
And then I too walked slowly forward up the ramp, to the place where the
coffins rested.
Inside, beyond the SEAL escort to the coffins, I saw a very hard combat
veteran, Petty Officer Ben Saunders, one of Danny’s closest friends, weeping
uncontrollably. Ben was a tough mountain boy from West Virginia, expert
tracker and climber, kind of spiritual about the wild lands. And now he was
pressed against the bulkhead, too upset to leave, too broken up to go down the
steps. (He was SDV Team 2, same as Danny.)
I knelt down by the coffins and said my good-bye to Danny. Then I turned to
the one that contained Mikey, and I put my arms around it, and I think I said,
“I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.” I don’t really remember it very clearly. But I
remember how I felt. I remember not knowing what to do. I remember thinking
how Mikey’s remains would soon be taken away, and how some people would
forget him, and others would remember him slightly, and a few would remember
him well and, I know, with affection.
But the death of Mikey would affect no one as it would affect me. No one
would miss him in the way that I would. And feel his pain, and hear his scream.
No one would encounter Mikey in the small hours, in their worst nightmares, as
I would. And still care about him, and still wonder if they had done enough for
him. As I do.
I stepped out of the aircraft and walked unaided to the bottom of the steps.
Dr. Dickens met me and drove me back to the hospital. I stood there and listened
for the C-130 to take off, to hear it roar off the runway and carry Mikey and
Danny westward into the setting sun, a few miles closer to heaven.