Among Heroes: A U.S. Navy SEAL's True Story of Friendship, Heroism, and the Ultimate Sacrifice (21 page)

A few days after I got back to California, a throng of hundreds gathered on the beach in Encinitas and paddled out on surfboards. In the Hawaiian tradition of honoring a fallen friend or family member, flower leis were set adrift on the ocean. After a while we all repaired to the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which someone had donated for our venue. And it was a good thing we had a space that big, because people showed up from all over the world.

Glen himself had put it perfectly when he and his friends sat around a table for three in a tiny Filipino bar ten years earlier, almost to the day, grappling with the news of Dave Scott’s death: “We all signed up for this. It’s part of the fucking deal. So let’s not sit here feeling sorry for him. Let’s drink up and celebrate his life.”

Among everyone who knew Glen, his death hit my children especially hard. They knew that I had lost different friends over the years—but their beloved uncle Glen? It didn’t seem possible, and they were devastated. “It’s okay to be
sad,” I told them, and we sat and cried together. But I also explained that we shouldn’t feel sorry for Uncle Glen and others like him.

“Uncle Glen wouldn’t want us to feel sorry for him,” I said. “And here’s the thing: He died living life to the fullest, doing what he absolutely loved, what he was passionate about.”

How many of us can say that about our own lives?

It’s so easy to sacrifice or marginalize our dreams, often for reasons that seem so important at the time but reveal their trivial nature when we look back years later. Glen never did that.

“Life goes by in a blink,” I told my kids. “And here’s something Uncle Glen taught us—you should each live your own lives doing what you love. Abandon your dreams for no one.

“That’s the best way to honor Uncle Glen. Do your best to live the way he did.”

•   •   •

On October 24, 2012, two of Glen’s buddies and I took off from McClellan-Palomar Airport in the late afternoon in a little Piper Archer PA-28-180 I’d borrowed for the occasion. It was a clear, sunny day. Perfect. I piloted the plane down the coast at five hundred feet with a very slight tailwind, contacted San Diego International Airport over the La Jolla Cove, and requested a class B airspace clearance. Once through class B, I called the Navy tower at North Island and asked for a San Diego Bay arrival, bridge overfly, and clearance back up the coast by the Hotel Del Coronado and Point Loma at seven hundred feet.

We could hear the frustration in the controller’s voice as he tried to brush us off. I didn’t blame him: There were air ops ongoing in the area, and this was no time or place for some yahoos out for a joyride. But we were there on serious business, and once we explained our mission, the gent in the tower immediately granted us the access we needed. After holding over the Coronado Bridge for incoming H-60 helo traffic, we were cleared for a low flyby above the SEAL compound.

“Two minutes out,” I signaled to my companions.

I pulled the throttle back gradually and put us into a slight descent to lose a few hundred feet, then trimmed and set power for a hundred feet over water right along the beach, as the main BUD/S compound came into view.

The sun was just starting to set over the distant Pacific horizon as we blazed past the obstacle course and watched a class of fresh SEAL candidates shuffling onto the asphalt grinder for some grueling evolution with their combat-seasoned SEAL instructors. A handful of students looked skyward as they jogged by, doubtless having no idea what we were doing there. All they would have seen was one lone guy propping open the door of the Piper and a slight puff of smoke disappearing behind us, as we let some of our friend’s ashes loose over this place he held so dear.

See you on the other side,
Glen.

O
ne Saturday morning in early February 2013, I arrived at a gymnasium in Orange County to spend the day with some high school kids and their coaches. We were at a tournament, hosted by Nike, for the top-ranked high school basketball teams in the nation. A few former SEAL teammates and I had been invited to participate as part of a nonprofit initiative with my Red Circle Foundation and a twelve-year-old Virginia boy named Will Thomas.

When he heard the news about Extortion 17 being shot down back in 2011, Will was upset about it. He wanted to find a way to commemorate these guys and help their families, but had no idea how or even where to start. He decided he would build his project on something he loved and knew how to do: shoot baskets. Why not ask people to donate money for every basket he sank in these fallen heroes’ honor? His father pledged a penny a basket, just to kick things off. Word spread. Within days he’d sunk twenty thousand baskets and raised fifty thousand dollars. Will decided to keep the effort going, and by early 2013 he had brought his total close to a hundred thousand dollars.

When Will and his dad invited me and the Red Circle Foundation to come out to the high school tournament and give some teamwork talks to the coaches and players there, I was more than happy to say yes.

The teams paired off and started playing their games. One by one, my two friends and I started giving talks to different groups as they cycled through the room that had been set aside for the purpose. It was a long day, and a gratifying one. These kids were very talented players. Many of them had full-ride scholarships to good colleges; a few were likely on their way to the NBA. And these weren’t just top players; they were amazing kids: well behaved, sharp, respectful. When we got to the Q&A sessions they didn’t ask the kinds of questions you expect from kids—“Was it hard to become a SEAL?” “What’s it like to be a sniper?” “Did you ever kill anyone?” “What was the longest shot you ever took?”—and instead asked thoughtful questions about how they could become better players, how to foster stronger teamwork, and what were the most important elements to becoming excellent performers. It was impressive. These were some great coaches, and they weren’t just coaching ball; they were teaching these teenagers how to become outstanding young men. For my two friends and me, it was a satisfying thing to see.

At the end of the day, after we’d given our last talk, Tony, the representative from Nike, came over to talk with me. “Hey, Brandon,” he said, “there’s one team we sponsored that didn’t get a chance to hear from you yet, because their game is running late. You guys are supposed to be on your way home already. I don’t want to impose. But they’re a great group and their coach would really appreciate the chance for
them to hear from you guys. Is there any way you’d be able to come over to their locker room and talk to them for a few minutes?”

“Of course,” I said.

I walked with Tony to the gym where this group was playing and watched the end of the game, then waited while the team filed off into their locker room. I headed over there and stood outside the door for a moment. I was just about to open it and walk in when my phone buzzed. It was a text message from Melanie Luttrell, Marcus’s wife:

Terrible news
Please call Marcus ASAP

A few seconds later I got a second text, this one from a SEAL buddy in Texas.

Chris Kyle has been shot to death in Texas.

My eyes closed and I felt myself slump against the wall.

Not again. Not another one. Not Chris.

I gradually became aware of the muffled chorus of teenage voices, shouting and laughing and talking on the other side of the wall that was now holding me up. Young men in postgame locker room mode, exuberant, excited, their lives ahead of them. Waiting for me to come in and give them some inspiring words to end the day. Nobody else knew yet what had happened, not even my two SEAL buddies. How could I possibly face these kids? What could I tell them?

Someone else has got to do this
, I thought
. Not me.

•   •   •

I’d known Chris Kyle for more than a decade, but it was only in the last few years that we’d become friends as part of the small and tight-knit club of SEALs-turned-authors—which is less glamorous and a lot more problematic than it might sound. The common experiences that those of us in that group bond around have less to do with fame and media exposure and more to do with how much misunderstanding and heat we take from our own community.

There’s a widespread sense in the Spec Ops community (though somewhat less so in the SEALs) that we are supposed to keep our mouths shut about everything pertaining to our service. It’s like the first rule of Fight Club:
You do not talk about Fight Club
. But ever since September 11, 2001, the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community has been propelled into the international spotlight by political grandstanding along with our own community’s leadership, who have a long history of cooperating with Hollywood directors and celebrities. I believe the proximity of Coronado to Hollywood has probably played a significant role in all the attention. (Would you rather visit Fort Bragg in North Carolina or the Naval Amphibious Base in southern California? I rest my case.)

This newfound status is a media minefield. NSW is no longer a private community, and that is a painful reality for many of the guys I know or who have an association within the SEAL fraternity. It’s a SEAL gold rush for journalists, the entertainment industry, the tactical industry, and others in a mad dash to cash in with no real regard for the community’s long-term health and welfare.

Because of that new celebrity, it’s even more crucial that SEALs examine how they conduct themselves in the public eye
and on social media. An especially disturbing trend has been former operators violating the confidentiality/nondisclosure agreements associated with secret and top secret clearances. When guys cross this line they are not only breaking the law, they are also sacrificing their own integrity and hurting the community. “Will what I’m about to do reflect positively on the SEAL community?” is a mantra I carry with me at all times, and a question I ask before every media appearance. It’s a question I think guys in the community need to take to heart.

I knew back in 2009 that the moment I appeared on CNN I would become a target for major criticism. I’ve been “read on” to confidential programs and it has always been crystal clear to me that these can never be discussed without approval through proper channels. I have always been 100 percent committed to keeping my integrity around protecting classified information I’ve been trusted with. Nevertheless, I knew that plenty of SEALs would peg me as selling out the Trident, some guy on an ego trip who violated the unwritten rule that Spec Ops guys stay out of the spotlight. I was prepared to deal with whatever bullshit or peer-group blowback followed, and despite the rocks that were hurled my way (yes, they came, and plenty of them), I had no regrets. I’ve never claimed to represent the entire SEAL community, but I have no problem contributing subject-matter expertise and weighing in on matters of national security and foreign policy, especially since running a media company has now become my second career. I’m incredibly proud of our veteran writing team at SOFREP.com. We’ve broken some big stories that the major media outlets couldn’t touch (or were scared to), and
the guys on the site do a tremendous job of keeping independent journalism and thought alive. I still contribute to the site often myself.

Like the decision to go pulic as a television news commentator, the decision to publish a book about my experiences was a choice made with the full understanding that I would catch some hell for doing it. We’re not talking about mild, gentlemanly disapproval here. There are guys in the Spec Ops community who resent the hell out of the guys from Spec Ops—like Chris, Marcus, and me—who’ve had the audacity to publish memoirs.

So let’s put the record straight on this one, right here and now: I don’t apologize for a single word. In fact, I plan to keep writing. It’s been highly therapeutic, my own PTSD drug of choice. And I’ll take the side effects of writing over prescription drugs any day. I also think that those of us who have served have a perspective to offer that people won’t get any other way. Special Operations is
not
Fight Club—it’s an element of the United States Department of Defense. I think it’s useful to give society a glimpse behind the Spec Ops curtain, not to disclose secrets but to convey a sense of who these sheepdogs are who give their lives protecting good citizens from the wolves of the world. And I think it’s important that of all the books written about war and the Spec Ops community, at least a few are written by the people who have actually been there.

Of all the first-person SEAL accounts of the last few years, Marcus Luttrell’s has by far been the most visible. What most people in the reading public don’t realize is that Marcus has taken a
lot
of shit for writing
Lone Survivor
. What even fewer know—in fact, even most people in the Spec
Ops community, including 99 percent of his critics, don’t know this—is that writing the damn thing in the first place was not Marcus’s idea at all. The U.S. Navy
asked
him to write up his experiences into a book. He told me that, in fact, he was talked into it.

It’s not hard to see why. For one thing, it’s an incredible story, and it probably gave him much-needed closure to put it to paper. What’s more, it’s an even greater recruiting tool for the next generation of an all-volunteer active military. As I said, JT Tumilson’s decision to become a SEAL came at age fifteen, when he read
Rogue Warrior
. Reading that same book was what solidified my own decision. For Dave Scott it was seeing the flick
Navy SEALs
at sixteen. How many kids are in the Special Operations pipeline right now because they were inspired by Marcus’s story?

For me, the impulse to write
The Red Circle
came from watching Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” video on YouTube and later reading his amazing book. I was moved by Professor Pausch’s dedication to his family and the fact that he would pour so many of his precious last hours on earth into leaving a written record of what he’d learned about life for his three children. I had three children, too. Reading Pausch’s book, I realized that I wanted them to know what their dad had gone through during those early years, what he was doing all that time he wasn’t home with them, and why the sacrifices we all made mattered.

For Chris Kyle the situation was much as it was for Marcus: He had an amazing story that was begging to be told. At first, Chris told me, he was very resistant to the idea, but eventually he relented. “It got to the point where it was obvious somebody was going to write the damn thing,” he told
me. “I figured it might as well be me. Otherwise they’d probably just screw it up.”

When his book
American Sniper
came out in January 2012, it became an instant sensation and has remained on the
New York Times
bestseller list ever since.

I saw him the following January at the 2013 SHOT Show in Vegas, where I introduced him to my good friend and fellow aviator Billy Tosheff. When I went up to Chris at the shooting range he gave me a big man-hug. I still have a picture of the two of us standing there together, that big goofy Texas grin on his face. You can see in the picture just how tall he is. I am not a short guy (five-ten), but standing next to Chris I look like a midget. As always, it was a blast to get together and spend a little time with him.

We never saw each other again.

Less than three weeks later I was standing slack against a high school gymnasium wall, gripping my iPhone and trying to grasp the news that Chris was gone, slain
by a suffering vet he was trying to help
. I tried to wrap my mind around that. I’m still trying.

Chris Kyle: another hero, another name etched onto my soul.

There is the unimaginable tragedy of those who never return from their service, men like Matt Axelson, Chris Campbell, Heath Robinson, and JT Tumilson, and the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and children they leave behind.

Then there is the complicated toll it takes on those who
do
return.

For someone who’s been in combat, everyday life in America, the life most of us take for granted as “normal,” is
a very strange world to come back to. The adrenaline of living on the edge becomes the new norm, and the men you serve with become your new adopted family. It’s a hard thing to describe, but well portrayed by the Jeremy Renner character in the 2008 movie
The
Hurt Locker
and his constant craving to be back in the
zone
.

I’ve been fortunate; in my case the transition to civilian life was not too difficult. I’ve been spared some of the uglier demons that can suck guys down the dark rabbit hole. I’ve seen the hell of addiction and how it can destroy good people, even on active duty. In my teens, when I was living on my own on the docks of southern California, I saw how easy it would be to turn to drugs, like some guys I ran with. By the time I was seventeen I knew I had to get out of there, which was in part what led me to the Navy. As I said, I was fortunate: That particular downward spiral never tugged at me too hard, not while on active duty or even after getting out of the service, something I probably owe in large part to having a circle of solid friends, my kids to anchor me, and mentors I could always talk to.