8
The ground shook. The very few trees swayed. The noise was worse than any blast all day...This was one gigantic Taliban effort to finish us. We hit the deck...to avoid the lethal flying debris, rock fragments and shrapnel.
Lieutenant Mike Murphy bellowed out the command, the third time he had done so in the battle. Same mountain. Same command. “Fall back! Axe and Marcus first!”
Again he really meant Fall off! And we were all getting real used to it. Axe and I sprinted for the edge, while Murph and Danny, tucked into the rocks, drew fire and covered our escape. I had no idea whether Danny could even move again, with all his wounds.
Lying right along the top of the cliff was a tree trunk with a kind of hollow underneath it, as if it had been washed out by the rains. Axe, who could think quicker on his feet than most people I’ve ever met, made straight for that hole because the tree trunk would give him cover as he plunged down to whatever the hell was over the goddamned cliff.
The slimly built Axe hit the ground like a javelin, skidded fast into the hollow, shot straight under the log, and out into space. I hit the ground like a Texas longhorn and came to a grinding halt, stuck fast under the log. Couldn’t go forward, couldn’t go back. Fuck me. Was this a bummer or what?
The Taliban had seen me by now. I was the only one they could see, and I heard a volley of bullets screaming around me. One shot smacked into the tree just to my right. The rest were hitting the dirt and sending up puffs of dust. I heaved at the log. I heaved with all my might, but I could not move that sucker. I was pinned down.
I was trying to look backward, wondering if Mikey had seen me and might try a rescue, when suddenly I saw the stark white smoke trail of an incoming RPG against the mountain. The RPG smashed into the tree trunk right next to me and exploded with a shattering blast as I tried frantically to turn away from it. I can’t tell what happened next, but it blew the goddamned trunk clean in half and shot me straight over the cliff.
I guess it was about fifteen feet down to where Axe was moving into firing position, and I landed close. Considering I’d just been blown over the ledge like a freakin’ human cannonball, I was pretty lucky to be still standing. And there right next to me on the ground was my rifle, placed there by the Hand of God Himself.
I reached down to pick it up and listened again for His voice. But this time there was no noise, just one brief second of silence in my mind, amid all the chaos and malevolence of this monstrous struggle for supremacy, apparently being conducted on behalf of His Holy Prophet Muhammad.
I was not sure whether either of them would have approved. I don’t know that much about Muhammad, but, by all that’s holy, I don’t think my own God wished me to die. If He had been indifferent to my plight, He surely would not have taken such good care of my gun, right? Because how on earth that was still with me, I will never know.
That rifle had so far fought three separate battles in three different places, been ripped out of my grasp twice, been blown over a cliff by a powerful grenade, fallen almost nine hundred feet down a mountain, and was still somehow right next to my outstretched hand. Fluke? Believe what you will. My own faith will remain forever unshaken.
Anyhow, I picked it up and moved back into the rocks where Axe was now picking up fire from the enemy. But he was well positioned and fighting back, blazing away on the left, the flank for which he’d fought so desperately for so long. Actually it had been about forty minutes, but it seemed like ten years, and we were both still going.
So, for that matter, were Mikey and Danny, and somehow they had both made the leap down here to the lower level, near the stream, where the Taliban assault was not quite so bad. Yet. We looked, by the way, shocking, especially Danny, who was covered head to toe in blood. Axe was okay but badly battered, and Mikey was soaked in blood from that stomach wound; not as bad as Danny, but not pretty.
When that grenade blew me over the cliff, it probably should have killed me, but the only new injury I had sustained was a broken nose, which I got when I hit the deck semiconscious. To be honest, it hurt like hell, along with my back, and I was bleeding all over my gear. However, I had not been seriously shot, as two of my team had.
Axe was holding the tribesmen off, leaning calmly on a rock, firing up the hill, the very picture of an elite warrior in combat. No panic, rock steady, firing accurately, conserving his ammunition, missing nothing. I was close to him in a similar stance, and we were both hitting them pretty good. One guy suddenly jumped up from nowhere a little above us, and I shot him dead, about thirty yards range.
But we were trapped again. There were still around eighty of these maniacs coming down at us, and that’s a heck of a lot of enemies. I’m not sure what their casualty rate was, because both Mikey and I estimated Sharmak had thrown 140 men minimum into this fight. Whatever, they were still there, and I was not sure how long Danny could keep going.
Mikey worked his way alongside me and said with vintage Murphy humor, “Man, this really sucks.”
I turned to face him and told him, “We’re gonna fucking die out here — if we’re not careful.”
“I know,” he replied.
And the battle raged on. The massed, wild gunfire of a very determined enemy against our more accurate, better-trained response, superior concentration, and war-fighting know-how. Once more, hundreds of bullets were ricocheting around our rocky surroundings. And once more, the Taliban went to the grenades, blasting the terrain around us to pieces. Jammed between rocks, we kept firing, but Danny was in all kinds of trouble, and I was afraid he might lose consciousness.
That was when they shot him again, right at the base of the neck. I watched in horror as Danny went down, this beautiful guy, husband of Patsy, a friend of mine for four years, a guy who had always been last away while we retreated, a guy who had provided our covering fire until he couldn’t stand anymore.
And now he lay on the ground, blood pouring from his five wounds. And I was supposed to be a fucking SEAL medic, and I could not do a damn thing for him without getting us all killed. I dropped my rifle and climbed over the rock, running across open ground to get to him. All right. All right. No hero bullshit. I was crying like a baby.
Danny was saturated in blood, still conscious, still trying to fire his rifle at the enemy. But he was in a facedown position. I told him to take it easy while I turned him over. “C’mon, Dan, we’re gonna be all right.”
He nodded, and I knew he could not speak and would probably never speak again. What I really remember is, he would not let go of his rifle. I raised him by the shoulders and hauled him into an almost sitting position. Then, grasping him under the arms, I started to drag him backward, toward cover. And would you believe, that little iron man opened fire at the enemy once again, almost lying on his back, blasting away up the hill while I kept dragging.
We’d gone about eight yards when everything I dreaded came true. Here I was, just about defenseless, trying to walk backward, both hands full, when a Taliban fighter suddenly loomed up out of the rocks to our right. He was right on top of us, looking down, a smile on his face as he aimed that AK-47 straight at my head.
Neither of us saw him in time to return fire. I just said a quick prayer and stared back at him. Which was precisely when Axe banged two bullets right between his eyes, killed that tribesman stone dead instantly. I didn’t have time to thank him, because the grenades were still coming in, and I just kept trying to drag Danny to safety. And, like Axe, Danny kept firing.
I got him to the rock face just a few yards from Mikey. And it was clear the enemy had nearly managed to surround us for the fourth time today. We could tell by the direction of the gunfire and occasionally the RPGs. Danny was still alive and willing to fight, and Mikey was now fighting shoulder to shoulder with Axe, and they were inflicting heavy damage.
I still thought we had a chance of getting out, but once more the only option was down, toward that village and onto the flat ground. Fighting uphill, as we had been doing since this battle started, did, in the words of our mission officer, really suck.
I yelled out loudly, “Axe! Moving!” He had time to shout back, “Roger that!” before they shot him in the chest. I watched his rifle fall from his grasp. He slumped forward and slipped down the rock he’d been leaning on, all the way to the ground.
I absolutely froze. This could not be happening. Matt Axelson, a family fixture, Morgan’s best friend, a part of our lives. I started calling his name, irrationally, over and over. Privately I thought Danny was dying, and all I could see was a stain of blood gathering in the red dirt where Axe was slumped. For a brief moment I thought I might be losing it.
But then Axe reached for his rifle and got up. He leveled the weapon, got a hold of another magazine, shoved it into the breech, and opened fire again, blood pumping out of his chest. He held his same firing position, leaning against the rock. He showed the same attitude of solid Navy SEAL know-how, the same formidable steadiness, staring through his scope, those brilliant blue eyes of his scanning the terrain.
When Axe got up, it was the bravest thing I ever saw. Except for Danny. Except for Mikey, still commanding us after taking a bullet through his stomach so early in the battle.
And now Murph was masterminding a way down the escarpment. He had chosen the route and called up Axe to follow him down. And still the bullets were humming around us as the Taliban started their pursuit. Mikey and Axe were about seventy-five yards in front, and I was dragging Danny along while he did everything he could to help, trying to walk, trying to give us covering fire.
“It’s okay, Danny,” I kept saying. “We just need to catch up with the others. It’s gonna be all right.”
Right then a bullet caught him full in the upper part of his face. I heard it hit home, I turned to help him, and the blood from his head wound spilled over us both. I called out to him. But it was too late. He wasn’t fighting the terrible pain anymore. And he couldn’t hear me. Danny Dietz died right there in my arms. I don’t know how quickly hearts break, but that nearly broke mine.
And still the gunfire never abated. I dragged Danny off the open ground maybe five feet, and then I said good-bye to him. I lowered him down, and I had to leave him or else die out here with him. But I knew one thing for certain. I still had my rifle and I was not alone, and neither was Danny, a devout Roman Catholic. I left him with God.
And now I had to get back to help my team. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
To this day I have nightmares about it, a chilling dream where Danny’s still talking to me, and there’s blood everywhere, and I have to walk away and I don’t even know why. I always wake up in tears, and it will always haunt me, and it’s never going to go away.
And now I could hear Murph yelling to me. I grabbed my rifle, ducked down, slipped and fell off a rock, then started to run toward him and Axe while they provided heavy covering fire nonstop aimed at the Taliban’s rocky redoubt, maybe another forty yards back.
I reached the edge, ran almost blindly into a tree, bounced off, skidded down the slope, which was not very deep, and landed on my head right in the fucking stream. Like any good frogman, I was seriously pissed off because my boots got wet. I really hate that.
Finally I caught up with them. Axe was out of ammunition and I gave him a new magazine. Mikey wanted to know where Danny was, and I had to tell him that Danny had died. He was appalled, completely shocked, and so was Axe. Although Mikey would not say it, I knew he wanted to go back for the body. But we both knew there was no time and no reason. We had nowhere to take the remains of a fallen teammate, and we could not continue this firefight while carrying around a body.
Danny was dead. And strangely, I was the first to pull myself together. I said suddenly, “I’ll tell you what. We have to get down this goddamned mountain or we’ll all be dead.”
And as if to make up our minds for us, the Taliban were again closing in, trying to make that 360-degree movement around us. And they were doing it. Gunfire was coming in from underneath us now. We could see the tribesmen still swarming, and I tried to count them as I had been trying to do for almost an hour.
I thought there were now only about fifty, maybe sixty, but the bullets were still flying. The grenades were still coming in, blasting close, sending up dust clouds of smoke and dirt with flying bits of rock. There had never been a lull in the amount of ordnance the enemy was piling down on us.
Right now, again tucked low behind rocks, the three of us could look down and see the village one and a half miles distant, and it remained our objective.
Again I told Mikey, “If we can just make it down there and get some cover, we’ll take ’em all out on the flat ground.”
I knew we were not in great shape. But we were still SEALs. Nothing can ever take that away. We were still confident. And we were never going to surrender. If it came down to it, we would fight to the death with our knives against their guns.
“Fuck surrender,” said Mikey. And he had no need to explain further, either to Axe or me. Surrender would have been a disgrace to our community, like ringing the bell at the edge of the grinder and putting your helmet in the line. No one who had made it through this far, to this no-man’s-land in the Afghan mountains, would have dreamed of giving up.
Remember the philosophy of the U.S. Navy SEALs: “I will never quit...My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates...I am never out of the fight.”
Those words have sustained many brave men down the years. They were engraved upon the soul of every SEAL. And they were in the minds of all of us.
Mikey suddenly said, above the rage of the battle, “Remember, bro, we’re never out of it.”
I nodded tersely. “It’s only about another thousand yards to flat ground. If we can just get down there, we got a chance.”
Trouble was, we couldn’t get down there, at least not right then. Because once more we were pinned down. And we faced the same dilemma: the only escape was to go down, but our only defensive strategy was to go up. Once more, we had to get off this ground, away from the ricochets. Back up the left flank.
We were trying to fight the battle our way. But even though we were still going, we were battered half to death. I led the way back up the rocks, blasting away, shooting down anyone I could see. But they caught on to that real quick, and now they really unloaded on us, Russian-made rocket grenades. Coming straight down their right flank, our left.
The ground shook. The very few trees swayed. The noise was worse than any blast all day. Even the walls of this little canyon shook. The stream splashed over its banks. This was one gigantic Taliban effort to finish us. We hit the deck, jamming ourselves into our rocky crevasse, heads down to avoid the lethal flying debris, rock fragments and shrapnel. As before they did not kill anyone with this type of thunderous bombardment, and as before they waited till the dust had cleared and then opened fire again.
Above me I could see the tree line. It was not close, but it was nearer than the village. But the Taliban knew our objective, and as we tried to fight our way forward, they drove us back with sheer weight of fire.
We’d tried, against all the odds, and just could not make it. They’d knocked us back again. And we retreated down, making a long pathetic loop, back the way we’d come. But once more we landed up in a good spot, a sound defensive position, well protected by the rock face on either side. Again we tried to take the fight to them, picking our targets and driving them back, making some ground now toward the village.
They were up and screaming at us, yelling as the battle almost became close quarters. We yelled right back and kept firing. But there were still so many of them, and then they got into better position and shot Mikey Murphy through the chest.
He came toward me, asking if I could give him another magazine. And then I saw Axe stumbling toward me, his head pushed out, blood running down his face, bubbling out of the most shocking head wound.
“They shot me, bro,” he said. “The bastards shot me. Can you help me, Marcus?” What could I say? What could I do? I couldn’t help except by trying to fight off the enemy. And Axe was standing right in my line of fire.
I tried to help him get down behind a rock. And I turned to Mikey, who was obviously badly hurt now. “Can you move, buddy?” I asked him.
And he groped in his pocket for his mobile phone, the one we had dared not use because it would betray our position. And then Lieutenant Murphy walked out into the open ground. He walked until he was more or less in the center, gunfire all around him, and he sat on a small rock and began punching in the numbers to HQ.
I could hear him talking. “My men are taking heavy fire...we’re getting picked apart. My guys are dying out here...we need help.”
And right then Mikey took a bullet straight in the back. I saw the blood spurt from his chest. He slumped forward, dropping his phone and his rifle. But then he braced himself, grabbed them both, sat upright again, and once more put the phone to his ear.
I heard him speak again. “Roger that, sir. Thank you.” Then he stood up and staggered out to our bad position, the one guarding our left, and Mikey just started fighting again, firing at the enemy.
He was hitting them too, having made that one last desperate call to base, the one that might yet save us if they could send help in time, before we were overwhelmed.
Only I knew what Mikey had done. He’d understood we had only one realistic chance, and that was to call in help. He also knew there was only one place from which he could possibly make that cell phone work: out in the open, away from the cliff walls.
Knowing the risk, understanding the danger, in the full knowledge the phone call could cost him his life, Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy, son of Maureen, fiancé of the beautiful Heather, walked out into the firestorm.
His objective was clear: to make one last valiant attempt to save his two teammates. He made the call, made the connection. He reported our approximate position, the strength of our enemy, and how serious the situation was. When they shot him, I thought mortally, he kept talking.
Roger that, sir. Thank you. Will those words ever dim in my memory, even if I live to be a hundred? Will I ever forget them? Would you? And was there ever a greater SEAL team commander, an officer who fought to the last and, as perhaps his dying move, risked everything to save his remaining men?
I doubt there was ever anyone better than Mikey, cool under fire, always thinking, fearless about issuing the one-option command even if it was nearly impossible. And then the final, utterly heroic act. Not a gesture. An act of supreme valor. Lieutenant Mikey was a wonderful person and a very, very great SEAL officer. If they build a memorial to him as high as the Empire State Building, it won’t ever be high enough for me.
Mikey was still alive, and he carried on, holding the left. I stayed on the right, both of us firing carefully and accurately. I was still trying to reach slightly higher ground. But the depleted army of the Taliban was determined that I should not get it, and every time I tried to advance even a few yards, get even a few feet higher, they drove me back. Mikey too was still trying to climb higher, and he actually made it some of the way, into a rock strata above where I was standing. It was a good spot from which to attack, but defensively poor. And I knew this must surely be Mikey’s last stand.
Just then, Axe walked right by me in a kind of a daze, making only a marginal attempt at staying in the cover of the rocks. Then I saw the wound, the right side of his head almost blown away. I shouted, “Axe! Axe! C’mon, old buddy. Get down there, right down there.”
I was pointing at the one spot in the rocks we might find protection. And he tried to raise his hand, an act of confirmation that he’d heard me. But he couldn’t. And he kept walking, slowly, hunched forward, no longer clutching his rifle. He was down to just his pistol, but I knew he could not hold that, aim, and fire. At least he was headed for cover, even though no one could survive a head wound like that. I knew Axe was dying.
Mikey was still firing, but suddenly I heard him scream my name, the most bone-chilling primeval scream: “Help me, Marcus! Please help me!” He was my best friend in all the world, but he was thirty yards up the mountain, and I could not climb to him. I could hardly walk, and if I’d moved two yards out of my protected position, they would have hit me with a hundred bullets.
Nonetheless, I edged out around the rocks to try to give him covering fire, to force these bastards back, give him a breather until I could find a way to get up there without getting mowed down.
And all the time, he was screaming, calling out my name, begging me to help him live. And there was nothing I could do except die with him. Even then, with only a couple of magazines left, I still believed I could nail these fuckers in the turbans and somehow save him and Axe. I just wanted Mikey to stop screaming, for his agony to end.
But every few seconds, he cried out for me again. And every time it happened, I felt like I’d been stabbed. There were tears welling uncontrollably out of my eyes, not for the first time on this day. I would have done anything for Mikey, I’d have laid down my own life for him. But my death right here in this outcrop of rocks was not going to save him. If I could save him, it would be by staying alive.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the screaming stopped. There was silence for a few seconds, as if even these Taliban warriors understood that Mikey had died. I moved slightly forward and looked up there, in time to see four of them come down and fire several rounds into his fallen body.
The screaming had stopped. For everyone except me. I still hear Mikey, every night. I still hear that scream above all other things, even above the death of Danny Dietz. For several weeks I thought I might be losing my mind, because I could never push it aside. There were one or two frightening occasions when I heard it in broad daylight and found myself pressed against a wall, my hands covering my ears.
I always thought these kinds of psychiatric problems were suffered by other people, ordinary people, not by Navy SEALs. I now know the reality of them. I also doubt whether I will ever sleep through the night again.
Danny was dead. Mikey was now dead. And Axe was dying. Right now there were two of us, but only just. I resolved to walk down to where Axe was hiding and to die there with him. There was, I knew, unlikely to be a way out. There were still maybe fifty of the enemy, perhaps by now hunting only me.
It took me nearly ten minutes, firing back behind me sporadically to try to pin them down...just in case. I was firing on the wild chance that there was a shot at survival, that somehow Mikey’s phone call might yet have the guys up here in time for a last-ditch rescue.
When I reached Axe, he was sitting in a hollow, and he’d fixed a temporary bandage on the side of his head. I stared at him, wondering where those cool blue eyes of his had gone. The eyes in which I could now see my own reflection were blood black, the sockets filled from the terrible wound in his skull.
I smiled at him because I knew we would not walk this way again, at least not together, not on this earth. Axe did not have long. If he’d been in the finest hospital in North America, Axe would still not have had long. The life was ebbing out of him, and I could see this powerful super-athlete growing weaker by the second.
“Hey, man,” I said, “you’re all fucked up!” And I tried, pitifully, to fix the bandage.
“Marcus, they got us good, man.” He spoke with difficulty, as if trying to concentrate. And then he said, “You stay alive, Marcus. And tell Cindy I love her.”
Those were his last words. I just sat there, and that was where I planned to stay, right there with Axe so he wouldn’t be alone when the end came. I didn’t give a flying fuck what happened to me anymore. Quietly, I made my peace with God, and I thanked Him for protecting me and saving my rifle. Which, somehow, I still had. I never took my eyes off Axe, who was semiconscious but still breathing.
Along with the other two, Axe will always be a hero to me. Throughout this brief but brutal conflict, he’d fought like a wounded tiger. Like Audie Murphy, like Sergeant York. They shot away his body, crippled his brain but not his spirit. They never got that.
Matthew Gene Axelson, husband of Cindy, fired at the enemy until he could no longer hold his rifle. He was just past his twenty-ninth birthday. And in his dying moments, I never took my eyes off him. I don’t think he could hear me any longer. But his eyes were open, and we were still together, and I refused to allow him to die alone.
Right then, they must have seen us. Because one of those superpowerful Russian grenades came in, landed close, and blew me sideways, right out of the hollow, across the rough ground, and over the edge of the goddamned ravine. I lost consciousness before I hit the bottom, and when I came to, I was in a different hollow, and my first thought was I’d been blinded by the explosion, because I couldn’t see a thing.
However, after a few seconds, I gathered my wits and realized I was upside down in the freakin’ hole. I still had my eyesight and a few other working parts, but my left leg seemed paralyzed and, to a lesser degree, so was my right. It took me God knows how long to wriggle out onto flat ground and claw my way into the cover of a rock.
My ears were zinging, I guess from the blast of the grenade. I looked up and saw I had fallen a pretty good way down, but I was too disoriented to put a number on it. The main difference between now and when I’d been sitting with Axe was that the gunfire had ceased.
If they’d reached Axe, who could not possibly have lived through the blast, they might not have bothered to go on shooting. They obviously had not found me, and I would have been real hard to locate, upside down in the hole. But whatever, no one seemed to be looking. For the first time in maybe an hour and a half, I was apparently not being actively hunted.
Aside from being unable to stand, I had two other very serious problems. The first was the total loss of my pants. They’d been blown right off me. The second was the condition of my left leg, which I could scarcely feel but which was a horrific sight, bleeding profusely and full of shrapnel.
I had no bandages, nothing medical. I had been able to do nothing for my teammates, and I could do nothing for myself, except try to stay hidden. It was not a promising situation. I was damn sure I’d broken my back and probably my shoulder; I’d broken my nose, and my face was a total mess. I couldn’t stand up, never mind walk. At least one leg was wrecked, and maybe the other. I was paralyzed in both thighs, and the only way I could move was to belly crawl.
Unsurprisingly, I was dazed. And through this personal fog of war, there was yet one more miracle for me to recognize. Not two feet from where I was lying, half hidden by dirt and shale, well out of sight of my enemy, was my Mark 12 rifle, and I still had one and a half magazines left. I prayed before I grabbed it, because I thought it might be just a mirage and that when I tried to hold it...well, it might just disappear.
But it did not. And I felt the cold steel in the hot air as my fingers clasped it. I listened again for His voice. I prayed again, imploring Him for guidance. But there was no sound, and all I knew was that somehow I had to make it out to the right, where I’d be safe, at least for a while.
My God had not spoken again. But neither had He forsaken me. I knew that. For damned sure, I knew that.
I knew one other thing as well. For the first time, I was entirely alone. Here in these Taliban-controlled, hostile mountains, there was no earthly teammate for me, and my enemy was all around. Had they heeded the words of the goatherds? That there were four of us, and that right now they had only three bodies? Or did they assume I had been blown to pieces by the blast of the final Russian RPG?
I had no answer to those questions, only hope. With absolutely no one to turn to, no Mikey, no Axe, no Danny, I had to face the final battle by myself, maybe lonely, maybe desolate, maybe against formidable odds. But I was not giving up.
I had only one Teammate. And He moved, as ever, in mysterious ways. But I was a Christian, and He had somehow saved me from a thousand AK-47 bullets on this day. No one had shot me, which was well nigh beyond all comprehension.
And I still believed He did not wish me to die. And I would still try my best to uphold the honor of the United States Navy SEALs as I imagined they would have wished. No surrender. Fuck that.
When I judged I had fully gathered my senses and checked my watch, it was exactly 1342 local time. For a few minutes there was no gunfire, and I was beginning to assume they thought I was dead. Wrong, Marcus. The Taliban AKs opened up again, and suddenly there were bullets flying everywhere, all around, just like before.
My enemy was coming up on me from the lower levels and from both sides, firing rapidly but inaccurately. Their bullets were ripping into the earth and shale across a wide range, most of them, thank Christ, well away from me.
It was clear they thought I might be still alive but equally clear they had not yet located me. They were conducting a kind of recon by fire, trying to flush me out, blazing away right across the spectrum, hoping someone would finally hit me and finish me. Or better yet, that I would come out with my hands high so the murdering little bastards could cut my head off or indulge in one of their other attractive little idiosyncracies before telling that evil little television station al-Jazeera how they had conquered the infidels.
I think I’ve mentioned my view about surrender. I rammed another magazine into the breech of my miraculous rifle and somehow crawled over this little hill, through the hail of bullets, right into the side of the mountain. No one saw me. No one hit me. I wedged myself into a rocky crevasse with my legs sticking out into a clump of bushes.
There were huge rocks to both sides, protecting me. Overall I judged I was jammed into a fifteen-foot-wide ledge on the mountain. It was not a cave, not even a shallow cave, because it had a kind of open top way above me. Rocks and sand kept falling down on me as the Taliban warriors scrambled around above my position. But this crevasse provided sensational cover and camouflage. Even I realized I would be pretty hard to spot. They’d have to get real lucky, even with their latest policy of trying to flush me out with sheer volume of fire.
My line of vision was directly ahead. I realized I couldn’t move or change position, at least in broad daylight I couldn’t, and it was imperative I hide the blood which was leaking from my battered body. I took stock of my injuries. My left leg was still bleeding pretty bad, and I packed the wounds with mud. I had a big cut on my forehead, which I also packed with mud. Both legs were numb. I was not going anywhere. At least not for a while.
I had no medical kit, no maps, no compass. I had my bullets, and I had my gun, and I had a decent view off my mountain, straight ahead over the canyon to the next mountain. I had no pants, and no buddies, but no one could see me. I was wedged in tight, my back to the wall in every possible sense.
I eased myself into a relatively comfortable position, checked my rifle, and laid it down the length of my body, aiming outward. If enough of them discovered me, I guess I’d quickly be going to join Danny, Axe, and Mikey. But not before I’d killed a whole lot more of them. I was, I knew, in a perfect position for a stubborn, defensive military action, protected on all sides, vulnerable to a frontal assault only, and that would have to be by weight of numbers.
I could still hear gunfire, and it was growing closer. They were definitely coming this way. I just thought, Don’t move, don’t breathe, do not make a sound. I think it was about then I understood how utterly alone I was for the very first time. And the Taliban was hunting me. They were not hunting for a SEAL platoon. They were hunting me alone. Despite my injuries, I knew I had to reach deep. I was starting to lose track of time. But I stayed still. I actually did not move one inch for eight hours.
As the time passed, I could see the Taliban guys right across the canyon, running up and down, seemed like hundreds of them, plainly searching, scouring the mountain they knew so well, looking for me. I had some feeling back in my legs, but I was bleeding real bad, and I was in a lot of pain. I think the loss of blood may have started to make me feel light-headed.
Also, I was scared to death. It was the first time in my entire six-year career as a Navy SEAL I had been really scared. At one point, late in the afternoon, I thought they were all leaving. Across the canyon, the mountainside cleared, everyone running hard to the right, swarms of them, all headed for the same place. At least that’s how it seemed to me across my narrow field of vision.
I now know where they were going. While I was lying there in my crevasse, I had no idea what the hell was going on. But now I shall recount, to the best of my gathered knowledge, what happened elsewhere on that saddest of afternoons, that most shocking massacre high in the Hindu Kush, the worst disaster ever to befall the SEALs in any conflict in our more than forty-year history.
The first thing to remember is that Mikey had succeeded in getting through to the quick reaction force (QRF) in Asadabad, a couple of mountain ranges over from where I was still holding out. That last call, the one on his cell phone that essentially cost him his life, was successful. From all accounts, his haunting words — My guys are dying out here...we need help — ripped around our base like a flash fire. SEALs are dying! That’s a five-alarm emergency that stops only just on the north side of frenzy.
Lieutenant Commander Kristensen, our acting CO, sounded the alarm. It’s always a decision for the QRF, to launch or not to launch. Eric took a billionth of a second to make it. I know the vision of us four — his buddies, his friends and teammates, Mikey, Axe, Danny, and me, fighting for our lives, hurt, possibly dead, surrounded by a huge fighting force of bloodthirsty Afghan tribesmen — flashed through his mind as he summoned the boys to action stations.
And the vision of terrible loss stood stark before him as he roared down the phone, ordering the men of 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), the fabled Night Stalkers, to get the big army MH-47 helo ready, right there on the runway. It was the same one that had taken off just before us on the previous day, the one we tracked in to our ops area.
Guys I’ve already introduced charged into position, desperate to help, cramming as much ammunition as they could into their pouches, grabbing rifles and running for the Chinook, its rotors already screaming. My SDV Team 1 guys were instantly there. Petty Officers James Suh and Shane Patton reached the helo first. Then, scrambling aboard, came the massively built Senior Chief Dan Healy, the man who had masterminded Operation Redwing, who apparently looked as if he’d been shot as he left the barracks.
Then came the SEAL Team 10 guys, Lieutenant Mike McGreevy Jr. of New York, Chief Jacques Fontan of New Orleans, Petty Officers First Class Jeff Lucas from Oregon and JeffTaylor from West Virginia. Finally, still shouting that his boys needed every gun they could get, came Lieutenant Commander Eric Kristensen, the man who knew perhaps better than anyone that the eight SEALs in that helo were about to risk a lethal daytime insertion in a high mountain pass, right into the jaws of an enemy that might outnumber them by dozens to one.
Kristensen knew he did not have to go. In fact, perhaps he should not have gone, stayed instead at his post, central to control and command. Right then, we had the skipper in the QRF, which was, at best, a bit unorthodox. But Eric Kristensen was a SEAL to his fingertips. And what he knew above all else was that he had just heard a desperate cry for help. From his brothers, from a man he knew well and trusted.
There was no way Eric was not going to answer that call. Nothing on God’s earth could have persuaded him not to go. He must have known we were barely holding on, praying for help to arrive. There were, after all, only four of us. And to everyone’s certain knowledge, there were a minimum of a hundred Taliban.
Eric understood the stupendous nature of the risk, and he never blinked. Just grabbed his rifle and ammunition and raced to board that aircraft, yelling at everyone else to hurry...“Move it, guys! Let’s really move it!” That’s what he always said under pressure. Sure, he was a commanding officer, and a hell of a good one. But more than that, he was a SEAL, a part of that brotherhood forged in blood. Even more important, he was a man. And right now he was answering an urgent, despairing cry from the very heart of his own brotherhood. There was only one way Eric Kristensen was headed, straight up the mountain, guns blazing, command or no command.
Inside the MH-47, the men of 160th SOAR waited quietly, as they had done so many times before on these hair-raising air-rescue ops, often at night. They were led by a terrific man, Major Steve Reich of Connecticut, with Chief Warrant Officers Chris Scherkenbach of Jacksonville, Florida, and Corey J. Goodnature of Clarks Grove, Minnesota.
Master Sergeant James W. Ponder was there, with Sergeants First Class Marcus Muralles of Shelbyville, Indiana, and Mike Russell of Stafford, Virginia. Their group was completed by Staff Sergeant Shamus Goare of Danville, Ohio, and Sergeant Kip Jacoby of Pompano Beach, Florida. By any standards, it was a crack army fighting force.
The MH-47 took off and headed over the two mountain ranges. I guess it seemed to take forever. Those kind of rescues always do. It came in to land at just about the same spot we had fast-roped in at the start of the mission, around five miles from where I was now positioned.
The plan was for the rescue team to rope it down just the same, and when the “Thirty seconds!” call came, I guess the lead guys edged toward the stern ramp. What no one knew was the Taliban had some kind of bunker back there, and as the MH-47 tilted back for the insert and the ropes fell away for the climb-down, the Taliban fired a rocket-propelled grenade straight through the open ramp.
It shot clean past the heads of the lead group and blew with a shattering blast against the fuel tanks, turning the helo into an inferno, stern and midships. Several of the guys were blown out and fell, some of them burning, to their deaths, from around thirty feet. They smashed into the mountainside and tumbled down. The impact was so violent, our search-and-rescue parties later found gun barrels snapped in half among the bodies.
The helicopter pilot fought for control, unaware of the carnage behind him but certainly aware of the raging fires around and above him. Of course, there was nothing he could do. The big MH-47 just fell out of the sky and crashed with thunderous impact onto the mountainside, swayed, and then rolled with brutal force over and over, smashing itself to pieces on a long two-hundred-yard downward trail to extinction.
There was nothing left except scattered debris when our guys finally got up there to investigate. And, of course, no survivors. My close SDV Team 1 buddies James, Chief Dan, and young Shane were all gone. It was as well I did not know this as I lay there in my crevasse. I’m not sure I could have coped with it. It was nothing less than a massacre. Weeks later I broke down when I saw the photographs, mostly because it was me they were all trying to rescue.
As I explained, at the time I knew nothing of this. I only knew something had happened that had caused a lot of Taliban to get very obviously excited. And soon I could see U.S. aircraft flying right along the canyon in front of me, A-10s and AH-64 Apache helicopters. Some of them were so close I could see the pilots.
I pulled my PRC-148 radio out of my pouch and tried to make contact. But I could not speak. My throat was full of dirt, my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth, and I had no water. I was totally unable to transmit. But I knew I was in contact because I could hear the aircrew talking. So I fired up my emergency distress beacon on the radio and transmitted that.
They picked it up. I know they did because I could hear them plainly. “Hey, you getting that beacon?” “Yeah, we got it...but no further information.” Then they just flew off, over to my right, where I now know the MH-47 had gone down.
The trouble was, the Taliban steal those radios if they can, and they often used them to lure the U.S. helicopters down. I was unaware of this at the time, but now it’s obvious to me, the American pilots were extremely jumpy about trying to put down in response to a U.S. beacon because they did not know who the hell was aiming that beacon, and they might get shot down.
Which would have been, anyway, little comfort to me, lying there on the mountainside only half alive, bleeding to death and unable to walk. And now it was growing dark, and I was plainly running out of options. I guessed my only chance was to attract the attention of one of the pilots who were still flying down my canyon at pretty regular intervals.
My radio headset had been ripped away during my fall down the mountain, but I still had the wires. And I somehow rigged up two of my chem lights, which glow when you break them in half, and fixed them to the defunct radio wires. And then I whirled this homemade slingshot around my head in a kind of luminous buzz saw the first moment I saw a helicopter in the area.
I also had an infrared strobe light that I could fire up, and I had the laser from my rifle, which I took off and aimed at the regular U.S. flyby. Jesus Christ! I was a living, breathing distress signal. There’s got to be someone watching these mountains. Someone’s got to see me. I was using this procedure only when I actually saw a helicopter. And soon my optimism turned to outright gloom. No one was paying attention. From where I was lying, it looked like I’d been abandoned for dead.
By now, with the sun declining behind the mountains, I had almost all of the feeling back in my legs. And this gave me hope that I might be able to walk, although I knew the pain might be a bit fierce. I was getting dangerously thirsty. I could not get the clogged dust and dirt out of my throat. It was all I could do to breathe, never mind speak. I had to find water, and I had to get the hell out of this death trap. But not until the veil of darkness fell over these mountains.
I knew I had to get myself out, first to water and then to safety, because it sure as hell didn’t look like anyone was going to find me. I remember Axe’s final words. They still rang clearly in my mind: “You stay alive, Marcus. And tell Cindy I love her.” For Axe, and for Danny, and above all for Mikey, I knew I must stay alive.
I saw the last, long rays of the mountain sun cast their gigantic shadows through the canyon before me. And just as certainly, I saw the glint of the silver barrel of an AK-47 right across from me, dead ahead, on the far cliff face, maybe 150 yards. It caught the rays of the dying sun twice, which suggested the sonofabitch who was holding it was making a sweep across the wall of my mountain, right past the crevasse inside of which I was still lying motionless.
And now I could see the tribesman in question. He was just standing there, his shirtsleeves rolled up, wearing a blue and white checkered vest, holding his rifle in the familiar low-slung grip of the Afghans, a split second short of raising it to the firing position. The only conclusion was he was looking for me.
I did not know how many of his buddies were within shouting range. But I did know if he got a clear sight across that canyon and somehow spotted me, I was essentially history. He could hardly miss, and he kept staring across, but he did not raise his rifle. Yet.
I decided this was not a risk I was prepared to take. My own rifle was loaded and suppressed. There would be little noise to attract anyone else’s attention. And very carefully, hardly daring to breathe, I raised the Mark 12 into the firing position and drew down on the little man on the far ridge. He was bang in the crosshairs of my telescopic sight.
I squeezed the trigger and hit him straight between the eyes. I just had time to see the blood bloom out into the center of his forehead, and then I watched him topple over the edge, down into the canyon. He must have fallen two hundred feet, screaming with his dying breath all the way. I was not in any way moved, except to thank God there was one less.
Almost immediately two of his colleagues ran into the precise spot where he had been standing, directly across from me. They were dressed more or less the same, except for the different colors of their vests. They stood there staring down into the canyon where the first man had fallen. They both carried AKs, held in the firing position but not fully raised.
I thought they might just take off, but they stood there, now looking hard across the void which separated my mountain from theirs. From where I was, they seemed to be looking right at me, scanning the cliff face for any sign of movement. I knew they had no idea if their pal had been shot, simply fallen, or perhaps committed suicide.
However, I think option one was their instinct. And right now they were trying to find out precisely who had shot him. I remained motionless, but those little black eyes were looking straight at me, and I realized if they both opened fire at once on my rocky redoubt, the chances of an AK-47 bullet, or bullets, hitting me were good to excellent. They had to go. Both of them.
Once more, I slowly raised my rifle and drew a bead on an armed Taliban tribesman. My first shot killed the one on the right instantly, and I watched him tumble over the edge. The second one, understanding now there was an enemy at large, raised his gun and scanned the cliff face where I was still flat on my back.
I hit him straight in the chest, then I fired a second time in case he was still breathing and able to cry out. He fell forward without a sound and went to join his two buddies on the canyon floor. Which left me all alone and thus far undiscovered.
Just a few hours previously, Mikey Murphy and I had made a military judgment which cost three lives, the lives of some of the best SEALs I ever met. Lying here on my ledge, surrounded on all sides by hostile Taliban warriors, I could not afford another mistake. I’d somehow, by the grace of God, been spared from the consequences of the first one, made way up there on that granite outcrop which ought to be named for Mikey, our superb leader. The Battle for Murphy’s Ridge.
Every decision I made from now on would involve my own life or death. I needed to fight my way out, and I did not give a damn how many of the Taliban enemy I had to kill in order to achieve that. The key point was, I could not make another mistake. I could take no chances.
The far side of the canyon remained silent as the sun disappeared behind the high western peaks of the Hindu Kush. I figured the Taliban had probably split their search party in this particular area and that I’d gotten rid of one half. Out there, somewhere, in the deathly silence of the twilight, there would almost certainly be three more, looking for the one surviving American from that original four-man platoon that had inflicted such damage on their troops.
The friendly clatter of the U.S. Apaches had gone now. No one was looking for me. And by far my biggest problem was water. Aside from the fact I was still bleeding and couldn’t stand up, the thirst was becoming desperate. My tongue was still clogged with dust and dirt, and I still could not speak. I’d lost my water bottle on the mountain during the first crashing fall with Mikey, and it had now been nine hours since I’d had a drink.
Also I was still soaking wet from when I fell in the river. I understood I was very light-headed from loss of blood, but I still tried to concentrate. And the one conclusion I reached was that I had to stand up. If a couple of those Taliban came around that corner to my left, the only way to approach me, and they had any form of light, I’d be like a jackrabbit caught in someone’s headlights.
My redoubt had served me well, but I had to get out of it right now. When the bodies of those three guys were found at first light, this mountain would be swarming with Taliban. I dragged myself to my feet and stood there in my boxers in the freezing cold mountain air. I tested my right leg. Not too bad. Then I tested my left, and that hurt like the devil. I tried to brush some of the shale and dirt away from where I’d packed the wound, but the shards of the shrapnel were jutting out of my thigh, and every time I touched one, I nearly jumped through the ceiling. At least I would have, if there’d been one.
One of my main problems was I had no handle on the terrain. Of course I knew that the mountain reared up behind me and that I was trapped on the cliff face with no way to go except up. Which from where I stood, almost unable to hobble, was a seriously daunting task. I tested my left leg again, and at least it wasn’t worse.
But my back hurt like hell. I never realized how much pain three cracked vertebrae could inflict on a guy. Of course, I never realized I had three cracked vertebrae either. I could move my right shoulder despite a torn rotator cuff, which I also didn’t realize I had. And my broken nose throbbed a bit, which was kid’s stuff compared with the rest. I knew one side of my face was shredded by the fall down the mountain, and the big cut on my forehead was pretty sore.
But my overriding thought was my thirst. I was only slightly comforted by the closeness of several mountain streams up here. I had to find one, fast, both to clean my wounds and to drink. That way I had a shot at yelling through the radio and locating an American helicopter or fighter aircraft in the morning.
I gathered up my gear, radio, strobes, and laser and repacked them into my pouch. I checked my rifle, which had about twenty rounds left in the magazine, with a full magazine remaining in the harness I still wore across my chest.
Then I stepped out of my redoubt, into the absolute pitch black and deathly silence of the Hindu Kush. There was no moon, and it was just starting to rain, which meant there wasn’t going to be a moon in the foreseeable future.
I tested the leg again. It held my weight without giving way. I felt my direction around the huge rock which had been guarding my left flank all day. And then, with the smallest, most timid strides I had ever taken, I stepped out onto the mountain.