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

Even though it may seem like a strange ritual in a foreign tribe, kinda like
lokhay, probably, I hope y’all get my drift.
Anyway, he asked me if there was anything he could do for me and I told
him there was just one thing. I had with me the Texas patch I’d worn on my
chest throughout my service in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda.
This is the patch that bears the Lone Star. It was burned from the blast of that last
RPG, and it was still blood-spattered, though I’d tried to get it cleaned. But I’d
wrapped it in plastic, and you could see the Star of Texas clearly. And I asked
Admiral Mullin if he could give it to the president of the United States.
He replied that he most certainly would and that he believed that President
George W. Bush would be honored to have it.
“Would you like to send a brief letter to the president to accompany the
battle patch?” Admiral Mullin asked me.
But I told him no. “I’d be grateful if you’d just give it to him, sir. President
Bush is a Texan. He’ll understand.”
I had another request to make as well, but I restricted that to my immediate
superiors. I wanted to go back to Bahrain and rejoin my guys from SDV Team 1
and ultimately bring them home at the conclusion of their tour of duty.
“I deployed with them, and I want to come back with them,” I said, and my
very good friend Mario, the officer in charge of Alfa Platoon, considered this to
be appropriate. And on September 12, 2005, I flew back to the Middle East,
coming in to land at the U.S. air base on Muharraq Island, same place I’d left
with Mikey, Axe, Shane, James, and Dan Healy, bound for Afghanistan, five
months ago. I was the only one left.
They drove me out over the causeway, back to the American base up in the
northeast corner of the country on the western outskirts of the capital city of
Manama. We drove through the downtown area, through the places where people
made it so plain they hated us, and this time I admit there was an edge of wariness
in my soul. I knew now, firsthand, what jihadist hatred was.
I was reunited with my guys, and I stayed in Bahrain until late October. Then
we all returned to Hawaii, while I prepared for another arduous journey, the one
I had promised myself, promised my departed brothers in my prayers, and
promised the families, whenever I could. I intended to see all the relatives and to
explain what exemplary conduct all of their sons, husbands, and brothers had
displayed on the front line of the battle against world terror.
I suppose, in a sense, I was filling in a part of me, which had missed seeing
the outpouring of grief as, one by one, my teammates returned from