Lone survivor: the eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL team 10 (46 page)

Mom predictably broke down at the sight of me, because I was still more than thirty pounds lighter than when she last saw me. And I guess I still looked pretty ill. I never told her about the goddamned typhoid-laden Pepsi bottle. A ton of people were there, from all around the neighborhood, to greet me.

I didn’t know at the time that these people had formed the bedrock of the five-day prayer vigil that had taken place on the property while I was missing. A vigil to which no one had been invited, and no one knew if anyone else would be there; a vigil born of pure friendship and concern, which started with such melancholy prophesies of doom and tenuous hopes, but ended on the sunlit uplands of answered prayers. I could scarcely believe it when I heard what had happened.

And yet, standing right before me, was the cast-iron evidence of the love those Texans must have had for me and for what I had tried to do on behalf of my country. It came in the form of a brand-new stone house standing across a new paved courtyard, maybe twenty feet from the main house. It was two floors high, with a wide, timbered upper deck around the bedrooms, which abutted a tall, stone-walled shower, custom-made for me. Inside, the house was perfectly decorated, carpeted, and furnished, with a big plasma television.

“How the hell did that get here?” I asked Mom. And what she then told me blew me away. It started with a visit, after the vigil had ended, from a marvelous Texan landowner called Scott Whitehead. He was just one of so many who came to see my parents and express his delight that I had been found. He’d never, by the way, met any of the family before.

And before he went, he explained he had a close friend who owned a construction company in Houston and wondered if there was anything Marcus might like when he came home.

Mom explained how I had always wanted a little space of my own where I could...well...chill, as the late Shane Patton would undoubtedly have expressed it. And perhaps a small extension off my lower-floor bedroom might be really nice. She was thinking rock-bottom price, and maybe she and Dad could manage that.

Next thing that happened, she said, two of the biggest trucks she’d ever seen came rolling into the drive, accompanied by a crane and a mechanical digger, a couple of architects, site engineers, and God knows what else. Then, Mom says, a team of around thirty guys, working twenty-four hours a day in shifts over three days, built me a house!

Scott Whitehead just said he was proud to have done a small favor for a very great Texan (Christ! He meant me, I think). And he still calls Mom every day, just to check we’re all okay.

Anyway, Morgan and I moved in, freeing up space for the stream of SEALs who still kept coming to see us. And I stayed home with the family, resting for two weeks, during which time Mom fought a fierce running battle with the Pepsi bottle bug, trying to get some weight on me.

Scott Whitehead’s boys had thought of everything. They even had the house phone wired up in my new residence, and the first call I received was a real surprise. I picked it up and a voice said, “Marcus, this is George Bush. I was forty-one.”

Jesus! This was the forty-first president of the United States. I knew that real quick. President Bush lives in Houston.

“Yessir,” I replied. “I very definitely know exactly who you are.”

“Well, I just called you to tell you how proud we all are of you. And my son’s real proud, and he wants you to know the United States of America is real proud of you, your gallantry, and your courage under fire.”

Hell, you could tell he was a military man, right off. I knew about his record, torpedo bomber pilot in the Pacific, World War II, shot down by the Japanese, Distinguished Flying Cross. The man who appointed General Colin Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Victor of the Gulf War.

Are you kidding! “I’m George, forty-one, calling you to let you know how proud we are of you!” That really broke me up. He told me if I needed anything, no matter what, “be sure to call me.” Then he gave me his phone number. How about that? Me, Marcus? I mean, Jesus, he didn’t have to do that. Are Texans the greatest people in the world or what? Maybe you don’t think so, but I bet you see my point.

I was thrilled President Bush had called. And I thanked him sincerely. I just told him at the end, “Anything shakes loose, sir, I’ll be sure to call. Yessir.”

By mid-August, still being in the U.S. Navy, I had to go back to Hawaii (SDV Team 1). During my two weeks there I had a visit from the chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mike Mullin, direct from the Pentagon.

He asked me to come over to the commanding officer’s office and promoted me right there on the spot, made me a Petty Officer First Class, no bullshit.

He’s the head of the U.S. Navy. And that was the greatest honor I had ever received. It was a moment I will never forget, just standing there in the presence of Admiral Mullin. He told me he was very proud of me. And it doesn’t get a whole lot bigger than that. I nearly cracked up.

Perhaps civilians might not appreciate why an honor like that means all the world to all of us; that sacred recognition that you have served your country well, that you have done your duty and somehow managed to live up to the highest possible expectations.

Even though it may seem like a strange ritual in a foreign tribe, kinda like
lokhay,
probably, I hope y’all get my drift.

Anyway, he asked me if there was anything he could do for me and I told him there was just one thing. I had with me the Texas patch I’d worn on my chest throughout my service in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda. This is the patch that bears the Lone Star. It was burned from the blast of that last RPG, and it was still blood-spattered, though I’d tried to get it cleaned. But I’d wrapped it in plastic, and you could see the Star of Texas clearly. And I asked Admiral Mullin if he could give it to the president of the United States.

He replied that he most certainly would and that he believed that President George W. Bush would be honored to have it.

“Would you like to send a brief letter to the president to accompany the battle patch?” Admiral Mullin asked me.

But I told him no. “I’d be grateful if you’d just give it to him, sir. President Bush is a Texan. He’ll understand.”

I had another request to make as well, but I restricted that to my immediate superiors. I wanted to go back to Bahrain and rejoin my guys from SDV Team 1 and ultimately bring them home at the conclusion of their tour of duty.

“I deployed with them, and I want to come back with them,” I said, and my very good friend Mario, the officer in charge of Alfa Platoon, considered this to be appropriate. And on September 12, 2005, I flew back to the Middle East, coming in to land at the U.S. air base on Muharraq Island, same place I’d left with Mikey, Axe, Shane, James, and Dan Healy, bound for Afghanistan, five months ago. I was the only one left.

They drove me out over the causeway, back to the American base up in the northeast corner of the country on the western outskirts of the capital city of Manama. We drove through the downtown area, through the places where people made it so plain they hated us, and this time I admit there was an edge of wari-ness in my soul. I knew now, firsthand, what jihadist hatred was.

I was reunited with my guys, and I stayed in Bahrain until late October. Then we all returned to Hawaii, while I prepared for another arduous journey, the one I had promised myself, promised my departed brothers in my prayers, and promised the families, whenever I could. I intended to see all the relatives and to explain what exemplary conduct all of their sons, husbands, and brothers had displayed on the front line of the battle against world terror.

I suppose, in a sense, I was filling in a part of me, which had missed seeing the outpouring of grief as, one by one, my teammates returned from Afghanistan. I had missed the funerals, which mostly took place before I returned. And the memorial services immaculately conducted by the navy for my fallen comrades.

For instance, the funeral of Lieutenant Mikey Murphy on Long Island, New York, was enormous. They closed down entire roads, busy roads. There were banners hanging across the highway on the Long Island Expressway in memory of a Navy SEAL who had paid the ultimate price in our assault on the warriors of al Qaeda.

There were police escorts for the cortege as thousands of ordinary people turned out to pay their last respects to a local son who had given everything for his country. And they did not even know a quarter of what he had given. Neither did anyone else. Except for me.

I was shown a picture of the service at the cemetery graveside. It was held in a slashing downpour of rain, everyone soaked, with the stone-faced Navy SEALs standing there in dress uniform, solemn, unflinching in the rainstorm, as they lowered Mikey into the endless silence of the grave.

Every one of the bodies was flown home accompanied by a SEAL escort who wore full uniform and stood guard over each coffin, which was draped in the Stars and Stripes. As I mentioned, even in death, we never leave anyone behind.

They closed Los Angeles International Airport for the arrival of James Suh’s plane. There were no arrivals and no takeoffs permitted while the aircraft was making its approach and landing. Nothing, until the escort had brought out the coffin and placed it in the hearse.

The State of Colorado damn near closed down for the arrival of the body of Danny Dietz, because the story of his heroism on the mountain had somehow been leaked to the press. But like the good citizens of Long Island, the people of Colorado never knew even a quarter of what that mighty warrior had done in the face of the enemy, on behalf of our nation.

They actually did close down the entire city of Chico, in northern California, when Axe came home. It’s a small town, situated around seventy-five miles north of Sacramento, with its own municipal airport. The escort was met by an honor guard which carried out the coffin in front of a huge crowd, and the funeral a day later stopped the entire place in its tracks, so serious were the traffic jams.

It was all just people trying to pay their last respects. The same everywhere. And I am left feeling that no matter how much the drip-drip-drip of hostility toward us is perpetuated by the liberal press, the American people simply do not believe it. They are rightly proud of the armed forces of the United States of America. They innately understand what we do. And no amount of poison about our alleged brutality, disregard of the Geneva Convention, and abuse of the human rights of terrorists is going to change what most people think.

I doubt any editor of any media outfit would get a reception like the SEALs earned, even though these combat troops had achieved their highest moments in the enforced privacy of the Hindu Kush. Perhaps the media offered the American public a poisoned chalice and then chugged it back themselves.

Some members of the media might think they can brainwash the public any time they like, but I know they can’t. Not here. Not in the United States of America.

Certainly on our long journey to visit the relatives, we were met only with warmth, friendship, and gratitude as representatives of the U.S. Navy. I think our presence in those scattered homes all over the country demonstrated once and for all that the memories of those beloved men will be forever treasured, not only by the families, but by the navy they served. Because the U.S. Navy cares enormously about these matters. Believe me, they really care.

The moment I suggested to my superiors that the remaining members of Alfa Platoon should make the journey, the navy offered their support and immediately agreed we should all go and that they would pay every last dollar the trip might cost.

We arrived back in San Diego and hired three SUVs. Then we drove up to Las Vegas to meet the family of my assistant Shane Patton, who died in the helicopter crash on the mountain. We arrived on Veterans Day. They made us guests of honor at the graveside for the memorial service. It was very upsetting for me. Shane’s dad had been a SEAL, and he understood how well I knew his son. I did the best I could.

Then we flew to New York to see Mikey’s mother and fiancée, and after that I went to Washington, D.C., to see the parents of Lieutenant Commander Eric Kristensen, our acting commanding officer, the veteran SEAL commanding officer who dropped everything that afternoon and rushed out to the helicopter, piling in with the guys, slamming a magazine into his rifle, and telling them Mikey needed every gun he could get. I think it was Eric to whom Mikey spoke when he made that last fateful phone call.

I told Admiral Kristensen, his father, that Eric would always be a hero to me, as he was to all of those who died with him on the mountain. Our CO was buried at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

We went to Arlington National Cemetery afterward to visit the graves of Lieutenant Mike McGreevy Jr. and Petty Officer First Class Jeff Lucas, of Corbett, Oregon. They both died in the helicopter and were laid to rest shoulder to shoulder in Arlington, as they had died in the Hindu Kush.

Next we flew back across the country to visit the huge family of Petty Officer James Suh. Everyone came to the cemetery to say a prayer for one of the most popular guys in the platoon.

Chief Dan Healy is buried in the military cemetery at Point Loma, San Diego, not far from Coronado. We all made the journey to northern California to see his family. Then we drove to Chico, and I told Axe’s wife, Cindy, how hard he had fought, what a hero he was, and how his final words to me were “tell Cindy I love her.”