No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL (12 page)

My team kept an eye on the group of enemy fighters up ahead. Steve and one of the snipers moved into the tree line to help the dog. We could hear the man yelling as the dog tore into him. The yelling stopped after a few quick shots from the sniper’s suppressed HK416.

Steve came over the radio.

“Fellas, watch your step. We just stumbled across a fighter hiding in the ditch with an RPG and ready to fire,” he said.

The group of fighters we were chasing had dropped this guy off to ambush us as we passed. The dog found him and likely saved our lives in the process. These fighters weren’t
rookies. They weren’t running scared but instead attempting to set up on us.

“ISR, Alpha One,” I said. “Any movement from our group of fighters?”

“Alpha One, ISR,” the pilot said. “Negative. They are still in place and my sparkle is on.”

I saw Steve’s team get back on line and begin moving forward along the edge of the trees. I didn’t even need a radio call from Steve to know what he was thinking; I could simply tell from his body language. I responded by pushing my team farther out to the right flank to get a better flanking position. We were set up in a perfect “L” formation and would be able to hit the group of Taliban from both sides. The drone kept sparkling the fighters’ location. It was dark and there was no way they could see us.

Step-by-step we closed to one hundred and fifty yards. Our lasers now joined the drone’s.

They didn’t have a chance.

With a massive IR floodlight from the ISR drone, the figures were easily identifiable in our night vision goggles. All five fighters had settled into a small perimeter and were lying there on the lip of a ditch waiting for us to approach.

They didn’t know it yet, but it was too late for them. They couldn’t see us but we could see them. The first shots killed two. I saw them drop like they’d been pulled into the ground by a cable. I could see our lasers dance around them as fighter after fighter crumpled and disappeared into the ditch. One fighter opened up with his AK-47, spraying our direction, but
the rounds sailed well over our heads. The shooter went down in a heap after several rounds slammed into him.

The fight took only a few seconds and the outcome was never in doubt. We moved forward and searched all the enemy bodies, collecting all the weapons and blowing them in place. While we cleared the bodies and weapons, the rest of the SEALs and Rangers secured the initial target.

Once we were done, we patrolled back to the compound and then back to the helicopters.

Nothing we do is rocket science, but being able to work as a team is taught to us throughout our SEAL careers, and a key ingredient in our success. It was like a pickup basketball game, except we were focused on shooting, moving, and communicating.

There is no secret sauce. Every SEAL has gone through the same training, tested themselves in the same kind of extreme conditions, and typically trained together extensively to the point where we all wind up capable of doing the most basic tasks extraordinarily well. That gives us unshakeable confidence in each other. The relationship Steve and I had developed over years of working together meant we could handle almost any situation, and our trust is what allowed us to succeed even when the fight didn’t go as we planned. The importance we put on those close-knit relationships was the factor that most often tipped the needle from defeat to victory.

Follow Your Buddy

Accountability

It was
the night before the operation was going to launch when I got the call to come over to the joint operations center. It was 2007 and I was on my sixth deployment. Instead of working with my team and doing raids, I had been sent to work with other government agencies as a liaison.

I’d coordinate air support and help with the tactical plan. I’d also take responsibility for any prisoners that we would detain so they could be turned over to the appropriate Coalition military detention facility.

The relationships between the CIA, Special Forces, and the 82nd Airborne Division nearby were strained at best. The Special Forces team wanted to go out and patrol but didn’t have the money to pay the Afghan police unit they were training. In order to set up an ambush along a trail used by fighters to come across the border, we had to send up a CONOP, or concept of operations plan, indicating we were going out to train on “ambushes,” in order to get it approved.

At this point in the war, bureaucracy was slowing everything down. In order to get outside the wire, we’d first put together several PowerPoint slides explaining the operation.
The slides would have to be approved all the way up the chain of command, which could take several days.

A little over halfway into our deployment, I got a call from my squadron to report to a base in eastern Afghanistan. The message was loud and clear.

It was almost unheard of for them to call us in from our assignment. The rest of my squadron was spread all over Afghanistan doing the same mission. When word came to come back for a mission, I wasn’t upset. I enjoyed my mission, but I also liked the idea of getting back to being an assaulter with the rest of the team.

Once our squadron was reconstituted, we met in the main planning room. The briefs were held in a long, narrow room with handmade wooden benches running down the middle, like a church. At the front of the room were flat-screen TVs for PowerPoint presentations and to show us drone video or satellite photos. Maps of Afghanistan and the border area hung on one wall opposite wire diagrams showing key players in the various Taliban and al Qaeda networks we were targeting.

The room was packed full of people. It was standing room only. Up front, the squadron commander started the brief. A source had reported that he had seen Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, near Tora Bora. It was the same place U.S. forces almost captured him in 2001.

The Battle of Tora Bora started December 12, 2001, and lasted five days. It was believed Bin Laden was hiding in the mountains at Tora Bora, which is Pashto for “black cave.” He
was suspected of being in a cave complex in the White Mountains, near the Khyber Pass. His headquarters was rumored to be a multistory complex equipped with hydroelectric power from mountain streams, hotel-like corridors, and room for a thousand fighters. The cave complex was definitely a historical safe haven for Afghan fighters, and the CIA had funded many of the improvements to the region during the 1980s to assist the mujahedeen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Troops during the battle in 2001 found massive weapons caches with Stinger missiles from the 1980s. U.S. and Afghan forces overran the Taliban and al Qaeda positions but failed to kill or capture Bin Laden at that time. He escaped to Pakistan. Now a CIA source said he was coming back to Afghanistan.

“They saw a tall man in flowing white robes in Tora Bora,” the commander said. “He was back to possibly make his final stand.”

I wasn’t that excited.

Something wasn’t right. The operation was based on a single human source that claimed to see a tall man in “flowing white robes.” Single-source intelligence rarely ended up being accurate and typically wasn’t enough on its own to convince us to launch on an operation.

With no other sources to confirm the report, we launched dozens of ISR drones into the area. They flew missions day and night over Tora Bora with no significant sightings. It’s funny because the intelligence folks and higher-level planners always seem to think that you can’t hear drones. The reality is
you can. The drones fly in the middle of the mountains in Afghanistan and sound like a lawn mower circling above. In Afghanistan, that sound can mean only one thing, an American drone. Send in a couple dozen of them and anyone in the area is going to know someone is watching.

The mission was set to launch in a few days, but we were ready to go on the first night. We’d been at this for long enough that we didn’t need much notice. We were quick thinkers, and it didn’t require a long lead time to plan and execute a mission. But being ready quickly didn’t really matter because the operation kept getting delayed.

Day after day it was a new excuse.

“We’re waiting on B-1 bombers.”

“The Rangers aren’t in place yet.”

“We’ve got Special Forces heading to the area with their Afghan units.”

The delays were coming from higher up. It seemed every general in Afghanistan wanted to be involved. Units from every service had been read in. Even the Army’s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, which was built to shoot long-range missiles, got a part of the mission. It was on tap to shoot a barrage of rockets into the area to provide pre-assault fires a short time before the SEALs would fly in by helicopter.

With each delay, what we call the “good-idea fairy” gained momentum. Officers and planners started dreaming up crazy scenarios for us to deal with on the mission, and somehow it always meant more equipment to carry.

Besides the extra units, the FBI sent their DNA experts all
the way from Washington. Someone had also spent thirty thousand dollars on a 3-D map of the valley. It showed up one day, only to sit in the back of the briefing room, unused. The only time we looked at it was to see exactly what a thirty-thousand-dollar map looked like.

After a few days of waiting, I was hanging out by the fire pit in the center of our camp. We were sitting around talking about all the madness that was transpiring around us when a buddy of mine walked up.

“Hey, man, has master chief tracked you down?” he said.

“Nope,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“Not sure, but I guess you aren’t going on the mission anymore and are being tasked to do something a bit different.”

My curiosity was up. I walked over to the operations center. As I walked inside the ops center there was a nonstop bustle of activity. There must have been twelve flat-screen TVs on the wall, all looking at a different area. I saw my master chief at his seat in the corner and made my way over to him.

“What you got, brother?” I said. “I hear you’re looking for me.”

“Something came up, and you and Walt are going to work with some folks and possibly help them conduct some targets,” the master chief said. “We got you a plane tonight. From there you’ll link up with your contact and make your way up to the border region near Tora Bora. We need you guys to coordinate blocking positions. If we get squirters, you guys can make sure he doesn’t get away again.”

“Am I bringing my kit?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Bring all your op gear.

“Since both you and Walt are JTACs you can help coordinate any air strikes as well as passing intel from the ISR to the soldiers on the ground.”

Walt was going to be my swim buddy, a technique taught to us at BUD/S. SEALs never go anywhere alone. From the first day on the beach during BUD/S, we are paired with a swim buddy. The Army uses the same principle, but they call them “battle buddies.” On missions overseas or training missions back in the States, your swim buddy always watches your back.

But the idea of having a swim buddy means a lot more than that. They have your best interests at heart and are not afraid to tell you the truth. Your swim buddy isn’t your boss or a subordinate. He is your peer. Swim buddies check your parachute, listen to your plans, and are usually the first people to tell you, “Fuck no, that’s stupid.”

Succeeding is much easier when you have someone else holding you accountable. Having swim buddies is a two-way street. Not only do you need to be honest and communicate; you have to listen. Otherwise, the message is lost. I learned over my career that my swim buddy was even more valuable as we negotiated the politics of the command. I needed a peer who would call me out.

Steve, Walt’s team leader, was my swim buddy for most of my career. We were in S&T together and grew up in the same squadron. We could speak honestly, and when he told me I was fucking up or getting too emotional about an issue, I listened.

You always want someone in your professional life who is
going to be honest, who’s going to call you on your bullshit. But a swim buddy is a guy who not only will call you on your bullshit but will also without a doubt have your back when things get rough. They don’t disown you when you make a mistake. They don’t ever walk away from you when you need help. They are friends, mentors, and your last sanity check. You can trust them implicitly, and like in BUD/S, they are never that far away from you when the bullets start flying.

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