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

well, and he’d lost it completely. This was a simulated scene from the Normandy
beaches, and it did induce a degree of panic, because no one knew what was
happening or what we were supposed to be doing besides hitting the deck.
The instructors knew this. They understood many of us would be at a low
ebb. Not me. I’m always up for this kind of stuff, and anyway I knew they
weren’t really trying to kill us. But the instructors understood this would not be
true of everyone, and they moved among us, imploring us to quit now while
there was still time.
“All you gotta do is ring that little bell up there.”
Lying there in the dark and confusion, freezing cold, soaked to the skin,
scared to stand up, I told one of them he could stick that little bell straight up his
ass, and I heard a loud roar of laughter. But I never said it again, and I never let
on it was me. Until now, that is. See that? Even in the chaos, I could still manage
the smart-ass remark.
By now we were in a state of maximum disorientation, just trying to stay on
the grinder with the others. The teamwork mantra had set in. I didn’t want to be
by myself. I wanted to be with my soaking wet teammates, whatever the hell it
was we were supposed to be doing.
Then I heard a voice announcing we were a man short. Then I heard another
voice, sharp and demanding. I don’t know who it was, but it was close to me and
it sounded like the Biggest Bossman, Joe Maguire, with a lot of authority. “What
do you mean? A man short? Get a count right now.”
They ordered us to our feet instantly, and we counted off one by one,
stopping at fifty-three. We were a man short. Holy shit! That’s bad, and very
serious. Even I understood that. A party was dispatched immediately to the
beach, and that’s where they found the missing trainee, splashing around out in
the surf.
Someone reported back to the grinder. And I heard our instructor snap, “Send
’em all into the surf. We’ll sort ’em out later.” And off we went again, running
hard to the beach, away from the gunfire, away from this madhouse, into the
freezing Pacific in what felt like the middle of the night. As so often, we were
too wet to worry, too cold to care.
But when we were finally summoned out of the surf, something new
happened. The whistles began blasting again, and this meant we had to crawl
toward the whistles all over again, but this time not on the smooth blacktop. This
time on the soft sand.
In moments we looked like sand beetles groping around the dunes. The