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

And the words from a thousand memorial services flickered through my
mind: “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of
the sun and in the morning We will remember them.” Right here in bed in
Bagram, Afghanistan, I was conducting my own military service for my two
fallen buddies.
My new worry was Axe. Where was he? Surely he could not have lived? But
the guys could not find him, and that was bad. I’d pinpointed that hollow where
we both had rested and waited for death while the unseen Taliban rained fire
down on us from behind the rocks and finally blew us both across the open
ground to oblivion.
I’d survived, but I had not been shot five times like Axe. And I knew to the
inch where he was last time I saw him. I talked to the guys again, and the SEAL
command was not about to leave him up there. They were going in again, this
time with more intel if possible, more searchers, and more local guidance.
I suggested they find the village elder from Sabray, if he was still in
residence. Because he of all people could surely lead them to the dead SEAL. I
learned right then from the intel guys that the gentleman I referred to was the
headman of all the three villages we had observed. He was a man hugely revered
in the Hindu Kush, because this is a culture that does not worship youth and
cheap television celebrity. Those tribesmen treasure, above all things,
knowledge, experience, and wisdom.
We did contact him immediately, and a few days later, the same old man,
Gulab’s father, my protector, walked through the mountains again for maybe
four or five miles. This time he was at the head of an American SEAL team, the
Alfa Platoon, which contained many of my buddies, Mario, Corey, Garrett,
Steve, Sean, Jim, and James. (No last names. Active special ops guys, right?)
There was also a group from Echo Platoon. All day they tramped over the
steep mountainside, and they took extra water and food with them, in case it took
longer. But this time they were not coming back without Axe. No sir. We never
leave anyone alone.
The elder hardly spoke one word to them. But he walked directly to the exact
place where the body of Matthew Gene Axelson was lying. His face had been
blasted by close-range gunfire, in that quaint, old-fashioned way the Taliban
have when they find a mortally wounded American. By the way, if anyone
should dare to utter the words Geneva Convention while I’m writing this, I might
more or less lose control.
Anyway, they found Axe, with the bullets the Taliban rifles had emptied into