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

a medium-sized man but immensely muscular; he looked like he could walk
straight through a wall without breaking stride. But you could see he had a sense
of humor, and he was not averse to telling us we were doing okay. Sweet of him,
right? Half of us were hanging in there by willpower alone.
And we needed all the willpower we had, because in a few moments we
were preparing to take the boats into the water again. I have never forgotten that
surf drill on that first day because Chief Taylor made us paddle the boats out
backward, facing aft. When we returned through the surf to the beach, we faced
aft again, but now we were paddling forward.
When we first started, the journey out beyond the breakers seemed
impossible to do while facing the beach and holding the oar so awkwardly, but
we got better. And somehow we got it done. But not before all kinds of chaos
had broken out. We capsized, flipped over, crashed backward trying to drive
head-on into a big wave. And there was a lot of spluttering and coughing when
we attempted Chief Taylor’s finale, which was to dump boat, right it again, stow
the oars correctly, and then swim the boat back in through the surf and onto the
beach.
Before we left, we were taken through an exercise called surf observation, in
which two-man teams observe the condition of the sea and make a report. I paid
strict attention to this, which was good, since from now on, every morning at
0430, two of our number would go down to the water’s edge and come back to
make that report. Chief Taylor, smiling, as he was prone to do, dismissed us with
the words “And don’t screw up that report. I want no discrepancies about sea
conditions, or there’ll be hell to pay.”
We sharpened up our rooms that evening, and on day two were under way
with the normal morning grind of push-ups, running, and getting wet and sandy.
Our first classroom involved meeting our leading petty officer instructor, Chief
Bob Nielsen, another Gulf War veteran of several overseas deployments. He was
tall, slim for a SEAL, and, I thought, a bit sardonic. His words to us were packed
with meaning, edged with menace, but nonetheless optimistic.
He introduced himself and told us what he expected. As if we didn’t know.
Everything, right? Or die in the attempt. He gave us a slide presentation of every
aspect of first phase. Before the first picture had been taken off the screen, he
told us to forget all about trying to put one over on the instructors.
“Guys,” he said, “we’ve seen it all. You can try it on, if you like, but it won’t
do anyone any good. We’ll catch you, and when we do, watch out!”
I think everyone in the room made a mental note not to “try it on.” We all