Read Online Service: A Navy SEAL at War by Marcus Luttrell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Marcus Luttrell
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service? Mike Monsoor is the answer.
4
Into the Hornet’s Nest
O n Saturday, October 14, 2006, I went to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego to jump onto a bird headed for the Sandbox. An Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III airlifter was waiting for us. Sixteen months ago, they’d flown me home in a plane like this one. Now at long last it was time to return to the war. The commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Admiral Joseph Maguire, was there to see us off.
Everyone has his reasons for serving. Sometimes the reasons we often give to people are kind of flip—“I can’t do anything else”—maybe because the real reason is beyond words. It’s not just the thrill of shooting automatic weapons and blowing things up; my reasons are deep in my heart. I can’t tell you how much the sight of the flag means to me, or the heritage of the military men who came before me. It’s about this country, and its people. Mostly now it’s about the company of my teammates, those men whose values track mine and whom I would die to save.
The memories of my service alongside these great men runs deep. When I tasted the cold air in the aircraft’s cavernous fuselage and felt the power of its engines hauling us aloft, and I caught my first sight of the distant peaks of the Rockies, I had alittle moment of déjà vu. I remembered an op we had done in 2005, right before Redwing.
Up there in the Hindu Kush, three of us—Dan Healy, Shane Patton, and I—had loaded into a Chinook helicopter with two other recon teams and risen through the clouds toward a snowcapped mountain. After a short flight, we landed and found ourselves on the nose of a promontory maybe two miles from the border with Pakistan. Once the helo inserted us, we quickly began building our hides.
I remember the commanding views we had, six thousand feet above sea level—an unbroken curve of horizon in three directions. Taliban insurgents were set up in these mountains, working over an Army forward operating base (FOB) near the border with rockets and artillery. Our mission was L&E—locate and eliminate. We were supposed to take them down. Our radio call sign was Irish 3.
From my vantage point on the end of a long, narrow ridgeline in the clouds, I could see the Army FOB to my west. To the east, I could see a cluster of primitive buildings, well camouflaged as natural features of the land, stone built into stone. We kept an eye on things, watching every side for signs of enemy movement. Every now and then we stretched our legs a little and went to check on each other.
It was on the third day that we finally found them. A barrage of rockets came raining down toward the American base. The enemy was beyond our reach, so we did the next best thing: Shane radioed the grid coordinates to the Army’s artillery guys and waited. We saw the impact of the Army artillery hitting the mountainside, then its muffled thud. From down in the valley came the delayed
thrump
of the muzzle blast. Shane passeddown corrections until the big guns weren’t missing their marks anymore. At a distance we saw insurgents running on mountain trails and a train of camels slugging along behind. Let them all die.
Tired of the same damn rock sticking up my backside, I stood up, removed my helmet and body armor, and went looking for Senior Chief Healy. Walking through a cut in the rocky ridge that resembled a bowling alley, then passing through a wooded area, then through another bowling alley, I found him holed up in brush and trees on the side of a cliff. I told him about the houses and the men I’d seen. Normally when we were set up on a recon mission there was no small talk and little or no movement. Any comms were done over the radio. It was good to make some conversation in the vast, lonely silence.
Senior chiefs, however, will only carry it on for so long before it’s time to get back to work. “Okay, Luttrell,” Healy told me. “Back to your rock.”
“Check,” I
4
Into the Hornet’s Nest
O n Saturday, October 14, 2006, I went to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego to jump onto a bird headed for the Sandbox. An Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster III airlifter was waiting for us. Sixteen months ago, they’d flown me home in a plane like this one. Now at long last it was time to return to the war. The commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Admiral Joseph Maguire, was there to see us off.
Everyone has his reasons for serving. Sometimes the reasons we often give to people are kind of flip—“I can’t do anything else”—maybe because the real reason is beyond words. It’s not just the thrill of shooting automatic weapons and blowing things up; my reasons are deep in my heart. I can’t tell you how much the sight of the flag means to me, or the heritage of the military men who came before me. It’s about this country, and its people. Mostly now it’s about the company of my teammates, those men whose values track mine and whom I would die to save.
The memories of my service alongside these great men runs deep. When I tasted the cold air in the aircraft’s cavernous fuselage and felt the power of its engines hauling us aloft, and I caught my first sight of the distant peaks of the Rockies, I had alittle moment of déjà vu. I remembered an op we had done in 2005, right before Redwing.
Up there in the Hindu Kush, three of us—Dan Healy, Shane Patton, and I—had loaded into a Chinook helicopter with two other recon teams and risen through the clouds toward a snowcapped mountain. After a short flight, we landed and found ourselves on the nose of a promontory maybe two miles from the border with Pakistan. Once the helo inserted us, we quickly began building our hides.
I remember the commanding views we had, six thousand feet above sea level—an unbroken curve of horizon in three directions. Taliban insurgents were set up in these mountains, working over an Army forward operating base (FOB) near the border with rockets and artillery. Our mission was L&E—locate and eliminate. We were supposed to take them down. Our radio call sign was Irish 3.
From my vantage point on the end of a long, narrow ridgeline in the clouds, I could see the Army FOB to my west. To the east, I could see a cluster of primitive buildings, well camouflaged as natural features of the land, stone built into stone. We kept an eye on things, watching every side for signs of enemy movement. Every now and then we stretched our legs a little and went to check on each other.
It was on the third day that we finally found them. A barrage of rockets came raining down toward the American base. The enemy was beyond our reach, so we did the next best thing: Shane radioed the grid coordinates to the Army’s artillery guys and waited. We saw the impact of the Army artillery hitting the mountainside, then its muffled thud. From down in the valley came the delayed
thrump
of the muzzle blast. Shane passeddown corrections until the big guns weren’t missing their marks anymore. At a distance we saw insurgents running on mountain trails and a train of camels slugging along behind. Let them all die.
Tired of the same damn rock sticking up my backside, I stood up, removed my helmet and body armor, and went looking for Senior Chief Healy. Walking through a cut in the rocky ridge that resembled a bowling alley, then passing through a wooded area, then through another bowling alley, I found him holed up in brush and trees on the side of a cliff. I told him about the houses and the men I’d seen. Normally when we were set up on a recon mission there was no small talk and little or no movement. Any comms were done over the radio. It was good to make some conversation in the vast, lonely silence.
Senior chiefs, however, will only carry it on for so long before it’s time to get back to work. “Okay, Luttrell,” Healy told me. “Back to your rock.”
“Check,” I
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