Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life (23 page)

This tidbit of info made us all stop in our tracks, literally. We made the call for the Apaches to interdict all targets due to ground troops in critical danger. I thought this was a good call; save our lives in light of the fact the enemy had struck our Pentagon and the twin towers, but, more to the point, we were in no position to do anything except kill the enemy. Enough said on that topic.

The mountains were now the enemy. They were a bit taller than the map had indicated, and punished us by funneling our movement toward the backside of the target area, not the front where we had hoped to start the assault. All this made for a little confusion as we scampered down a series of twelve-foot cliffs to get to the bottom of the mountain, where twelve buildings rested, all snug and warm.

We had arrived and now needed to do what we do best—go after the enemy in their safe havens. The platoons were separated per the plan: Echo platoon was on the right side, and Bravo platoon on the left. After final head counts and weapons checks, we called our silent air asset to scan the target area. Yes, you guessed it, three enemy with machine guns were waiting for us to show up. So, as Bravo platoon pressed our primary target buildings, Echo moved quickly to kill the enemy lying in wait. I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the suppressed weapons fire with no loud enemy automatic weapons fire in return. Interestingly enough, no communication over the radios was needed. We all knew what had
transpired. The general assault went rather well after that. This party was made in hell, to be sure.

W
HAT IT FELT LIKE TO BE THERE
!!!!

At 0200 hours, I was tired … dead tired. We had crossed two streams, my feet were wet, my damn sock had sunk down into my freakin’ left boot, and I could feel wet sand and dirt digging a hole in my left heel.
Typical
, I thought to myself as I looked through the green hue of my night vision goggles at my men scattered around the Target Set Point. This was our last opportunity to gather our thoughts and get one last update from the silent bird at 20,000 feet.

What the fuck is a forty-two-year-old man doing out here in the mountains of hell, surrounded by rubbery young killers who never felt pain?
I thought.

“Hey, Ridge Boss,” my point man nudged my left arm, which for some reason hurt, too. “I smell a cooking fire or something from compound one, and I can see two guys walking around inside. Can I shoot them?”

“Jesus, Nike, we haven’t even got the thing surrounded yet,” I whispered.

“Well, damn it, I won’t be in position to shoot them cause I will be first one to enter; I don’t want All Around to get them,” he pouted.

Youth
, I thought to myself.

Over the radio, the boss said, “OK, Chief. Take it.” Again, I must have some sort of Pavlovian response from years of training and saying words that call up an alert response, because for the next hour, I didn’t feel that heel being skinned, nor my arm, nor any other pain. We must have some silly hormone or something released to make our senses keen, too. When we started moving, the world slowed down and every detail and danger popped out, clear and distinct.

Off to my left, three of my men took positions to cover their side of the target, and four others moved right to cover, as well. I am always amazed how the men find the right angles and places to go to get after the enemy. As I watched All Around get into position as the assault force, with Nike moved to lead the primary entry, I moved up under him knowing full well Nike had pegged it, and All Around was going to either take them, if they were carrying weapons, or tell me there were two guys in there.
Time always slows way down for me; I could see how this was going to play out, and kept wondering WTF was taking everyone so long.

After what seemed an hour, but was only a minute and a half, I heard the lock snap, and simultaneously saw All Around’s feet slide to brace himself. I heard the safety click to fire and saw three flashes of his suppressed rounds leave the barrel.

Over comms, All Around said, “OK guys. You’re good to the first door on your right; after that, I have no idea.” In reply, Nike muttered, “Prick!”

I could hear the brushing of pants and the opening of several doors inside the compound. After about three minutes, the men left and right of the compound sorta faded toward building two, as Nike said, “Ridge Boss, we’re good. Coming out.”

I moved, with several others, quickly to building two, to find a twelve-foot wall surrounding the compound. Ladders were pushed up, and the men got eyes on the inside. The entry point was passed to the assault team. Two men stayed behind inside building one to set up a possible marshaling area for women and children, who were the usual suspects during the last ten missions we had conducted. So I moved from my position outside and picked up rear of the assault force, just in case I was needed inside. The compound turned out to be a twisted maze, so “Ridge Boss in,” was called. I have to admit: going into a compound when you know problems need to be solved, and solving will include, but isn’t limited to, shooting and fighting for life or death, is an awesome sensation.

The damned door to the huge compound was only three feet high, and eighteen inches wide. “Are you kidding me? Who builds shit like this,” I grumbled, bending over to squeeze through. And, for some reason, the inside was built like a labyrinth. I couldn’t see over the walls, each alleyway was three feet wide, and, after making what seemed eight right turns, I still had not found the assault team. Finally, after a bit of searching for the centaur, I turned the final corner and found four of my men looking down into a hole.

As I walked up to them, Nike laughed and said, “Well, Ridge Boss, at least two women climbed down there. What do you suggest?”

I said, “You four leave it, and move to building three.” I pressed my radio button and called, “LT, I need two to hold on a problem as we move to next target. And tell the two coming in to just follow the maze, it leads
to me.”

When I looked up, the four assaulters had moved away from the labyrinth and wisely chose to climb over the wall. Waiting always takes longer in my mind than in actual real time, so I stared, wondering what was down the hole. I even cracked a chem-light and threw it down, down, and down. “Oh for Christ’s sake, does that hole have a bottom?” When the two men arrived, we laughed about the maze, then I explained maybe two women had climbed down that rope into a bottomless pit. And, by the way, I assume a room is down there.

I made clear, “You will not, for any reason, climb down, throw a grenade, or cut the rope … period. Now, repeat that back to me, damn it.” They both looked at me like I had said something confusing, nothing was registering. “Hey, just stay here, OK?” I finally said.

By the time I climbed the wall and shimmied down the other side, our side of the target was secure. I told everyone to hold in position as we sorted out our next move. Even though I had worked with these men for two years or more, it is always a problem to really know exactly who you’re looking at through night vision. All the SEALs look the same, for God’s sake. After searching with my eyes, I found LT on a rock overlooking the target area. Now a reverse Pavlovian phenomenon kicked in, and I stumbled nimbly up the ridge to LT. The rush of pain in my heel, the sore lower back from carrying extra weight in body armor, and the oppressive tired feeling all surged through my body like a wave.

Finally reaching LT, I said, “LT, we have a problem. Although the buildings would be a great place to set up for the battle sure to come tomorrow, the damn hills look right into them. We will be sitting ducks for sure. We have a well Nike says two women climbed down. I left two of the boys there. We are going to wait for Echo to get done. But I can tell you these compounds are not our final overwatch positions.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” he said, frowning because he knew I had made a mistake in planning.

After another five minutes we heard over comms Echo’s boys were target secure and “No joy for tactical advantage in any compound.”

LT pushed out, “Leaders, Consolidate on C2.”

We located the C2 element about 100 yards to the rear, and when I stood up, I silently yelled, “Ouch. Ouch. Ouch,” with every step.

We all sat looking up at the mountains and out at the valley, and a sinking feeling really swept through me for some reason. SEALs hate to ask for “extract early.” Doing so is an unexpressed form of saying, “Pussy.” Many suggestions were made, such as, “Well, let’s continue clearing compounds until we find one further away from the mountains.” Another suggestion was to separate forces, and move some of us to high ground for some sort of tactical advantage. Finally, the only solution was doing both, once we secured a good compound in the valley floor.

Oh, my sinking feeling was ominous. My hands shook because I knew we had no way to get to all the high ground positions necessary to give us a tactical advantage—damn. The boys cleared the rest of the valley floor, only three more compounds. Again, the compounds themselves were perfect, but the high ground was now 700 yards away instead of 100 to 300 yards. I met up with the troop so the overall plan would be set. Bravo platoon would remain in the valley with one squad from Echo, and the other squad from Echo and C2 would press up the closest hill to get some sort of tactical advantage for the day of fighting to come.

As Nike and I walked away, he stopped me. Because our night vision was turned up, I could see his eyes. We looked at each other for a moment; no words were ever uttered. I had never before, and probably never will again, have a louder conversation.

Time was short at this point; we had tons of work to set up our sniper overwatch positions on top of the hill and in the compounds. This work seems to be the most arduous, and definitely makes everyone pissed. Filling sandbags, building the hides, filling more sandbags, and on and on and on. Once everyone was set, and the area somewhat secured, I noticed I was totally spent. I would normally be completely exhausted by this point in every operation due to spending the prior thirty hours planning and talking with the pilots and coordinating something or other. Now, I was even more exhausted due to the release of depression and stress before the mission. Getting shot at during landing didn’t help.

Yes, I know you are asking yourself how I could sleep in those conditions: impending combat, hot as hell, and many other reasons that seem important to people who have never seen sustained combat. Problem was, I was and am still to this day, someone who can fall asleep anywhere when I stop moving. So this was MY time—ol’ Ridge Boss gonna catch a
catnap, boys. Wake me at your own peril.

I actually looked forward to combat for that reason … good God, I can finally get some rest. Moreover, I needed to let my brain go, let thoughts wander to other things, other places, other people. Oddly enough, I noticed after the eighty-fifth combat operation, my thoughts would always go to connecting things: things that encouraged me.

My own Internal Dialogue was reshaped during my post-assault, thirty-minute reset time. Never, not once, did my mind go to thoughts of doom, fear, bad times, or bad events from the past. Most often my thoughts went to Stacy, lying in bed next to her, touching her skin, touching, well, other parts. I suppose such thoughts must have been a common thing for warriors over the millennia. Again, I got a sense the Spartans knew the power of a great woman, as well as the relationship between intimacy, sex, and the performance of a man in hell. They surely lived it, and I agree—Stacy, and her power over and in me, created space for the outlet of my other intimacies, like violence and the desire to live in the hell of combat year after year. She actually encouraged and reinforced this side of me.

I lay, tucked soundly into a corner, while the world, while hell, raged outside. I vaguely recall waking to the sounds of Nike snapping suppressed sniper shots at some sad enemy who surely thought he was being sneaky. Nike had an eye for where to look and when to shoot. As I was listening to the comms static in my headset and the sounds of Nike etching his symbol into the next enemy, I rolled over, stretched, and came back from the image of Stacy, naked, into the sights and sounds of hell.

If you have ever slept on a hard floor then you know that, although you may have slept, the marriage of the pressure of your body pushing against your arm, and the ground not yielding, results in the blood to your fingers and hands being cut off. On that morning, this was the case for me, so I rubbed the night’s weakness out, stretched my legs, feet, and back, and rose silently. I donned my helmet, grabbed my SCAR-H, and began my crawl over to look out the window and get some sort of visual understanding of what was going on. I hated to use the radio, because only important info should be passed, and stupid questions like, “Hey guys, what’s going on?” sorta throws off the whole situation.

After a time, I determined all was safe, so I moved out into the courtyard
and crossed to the ladder leading to the sniper position.

“Nike, what you have for me? Do you need anything?” I asked.

“No, we are good,” Nike replied.

“So tell me—what is going on out there in your field of view? Do we need to set a demo field or some claymores to protect any of your blind spots?” I encouraged him to answer.

“Actually, yes, come up and I will show you. Oh, and two dead guys are outside, so when you and EOD go out, see what they got on them,” he pronounced.

I scampered up the ladder, tucked myself up next to Nike, and surveyed the area, letting him speak until he was finished. Yep, we did have a blind spot to our front about 100 yards out. A nice place for some command-wired claymores and Bangalores we had made to look like tree branches. With that, EOD and a couple other of my men got what we needed and moved outside to set the trap.

The two dead guys were, well, dead, to be exact. Other than that, I had nothing to report except the dead were not enemy; they were from Chechnya, and they had comms and night vision devices as well as some military gear.