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

Prologue
Would this ever become easier? House to house, freeway to freeway, state to
state? Not so far. And here I was again, behind the wheel of a hired SUV, driving
along another Main Street, past the shops and the gas station, this time in a
windswept little town on Long Island, New York, South Shore, down by the long
Atlantic beaches. Winter was coming. The skies were platinum. The whitecaps
rolled in beneath dark, lowering clouds. So utterly appropriate, because this time
was going to be worse than the others. A whole lot worse.
I found my landmark, the local post office, pulled in behind the building, and
parked. We all stepped out of the vehicle, into a chill November day, the remains
of the fall leaves swirling around our feet. No one wanted to lead the way, none
of the five guys who accompanied me, and for a few moments we just stood
there, like a group of mailmen on their break.
I knew where to go. The house was just a few yards down the street. And in
a sense, I’d been there before — in Southern California, northern California, and
Nevada. In the next few days, I still had to visit Washington and Virginia Beach.
And so many things would always be precisely the same.
There would be the familiar devastated sadness, the kind of pain that wells
up when young men are cut down in their prime. The same hollow feeling in
each of the homes. The same uncontrollable tears. The same feeling of
desolation, of brave people trying to be brave, lives which had uniformly been
shot to pieces. Inconsolable. Sorrowful.
As before, I was the bearer of the terrible news, as if no one knew the truth
until I arrived, so many weeks and months after so many funerals. And for me,
this small gathering in Patchogue, Long Island, was going to be the worst.
I tried to get a hold of myself. But again in my mind I heard that terrible,
terrible scream, the same one that awakens me, bullying its way into my solitary
dreams, night after night, the confirmation of guilt. The endless guilt of the
survivor.