Текст книги "Lone survivor"

Автор книги: Marcus Luttrell

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Boy. It seemed like a hell of a task. But we were excited. This was what we joined for. In truth, we could hardly wait to get down there and get on with it. And in a sense, it was pretty simple. We somehow had to get out into those infamous mountain passes and put a stop to this clandestine infiltration of faceless tribal warriors making their way across the border, doggedly, silently, prepared to fight at the drop of a turban.

We knew their track record, and we knew they could move around the mountains very quickly. They had dominated those slopes, caves, and hideouts for centuries, turning them into impregnable military strongholds against all comers.

And they had already faced the SEALs in open combat up there, because the SEALs had been first in. They would be prepared, we knew that. But like all SEAL operational teams, we believed we were better than everyone else, so the goddamned Taliban had better watch it.

Danny, Shane, James, Axe, Mikey, and I. We were here on business, trained to the minute, armed to the teeth, all set to drive the armies of the Taliban and al Qaeda right back to where they came from, seize the leaders, and get rid of anyone too dangerous to live. And restore order to the mountains.

I was eight thousand miles from home, but I could e-mail my family and loved ones. I was a bit light on home comforts, but I had in my rucksack a DVD player and a DVD of my favorite movie, The Count of Monte Cristo, from the novel by Alexandre Dumas père. It’s always an inspiration to me, always raises my spirits to watch one brave, innocent man’s lonely fight against overpowering forces of evil in an unforgiving world.

That’s my kind of stuff. Backs to the wall. Never give in. Courage, risks, daring beyond compare. I never thought my own problems would very shortly mirror, albeit briefly, those of Edmond Dantès and the hopelessness of his years in the grim island fortress of Chateau d’If.

And I never thought those unforgettable words he carved with flintstones, into the granite walls of the cruelest of jails, would also provide me with hope; a forlorn hope, but hope nonetheless. During the peril of my own darkest hours, I thought of those words over and over, more times than I care to admit: God will give me justice.

3

A School for Warriors

It was pitch dark, and he was wearing sunglasses, wraparound, shiny black...“Most of you aren’t going to be here in a couple of months,” said Instructor Reno...“If you guys don’t start pulling together as a team, none of you will be here.”

The six SEALs from Bahrain landed in Bagram, in northeast Afghanistan, shortly after first light. I realize I have just spent two entire chapters essentially pointing out what a momentous event that was, our arrival to work with the elite mountain troops of the U.S. Army. It has occurred to me that you might be wondering why we thought we were so goddamned superior to everyone else, why we felt entitled to our own private brand of arrogance.

Not wishing to be haunted by anyone’s doubts about me and my teammates, I propose to explain right now, before we get moving, precisely why we felt this way about the world. It’s not some form of premature triumph, and it would be absurd to call it mere confidence. That would be like calling the Pacific wet.

It’s a higher form of consciousness, and I do not mean that to be pretentious. It’s been said that only the very rich understand the difference between themselves and the poor, and only the truly brilliant understand the difference between themselves and the relatively dumb.

Well, only men who have gone through what we went through can understand the difference between us and the rest. In the military, even the rest understand what it takes to scale the heights of combat excellence. And in my case, it started inauspiciously. Way down on the ranch, with Mom in tears, refusing to leave the house to see me go. March 7, 1999. I was twenty-three.

To say that I was not making amazing headway in my hometown would be an understatement. The reputation Morgan and I had was not assisting either of us. There were always guys showing up wondering how tough we really were. I guess my dad considered it a matter of time before one of us was faced with a low-flying pugilist and either hurt someone badly or got badly hurt himself. And so I decided to get out of town and join the U.S. Navy SEALs. Morgan thought it was a great idea, and he introduced me to a recruiting officer in a nearby town, Petty Officer First Class Beau Walsh. He steered me down to the military enlistment processing station in Houston; that’s navy recruitment.

Naturally, I told them immediately there was no need for me to attend boot camp. I was already way too advanced for that. Yessir, I’ll go straight to Coronado, where the big dogs eat. That’s what I’m all about, I’m a half-trained SEAL already.

They sent me directly to boot camp. I signed the papers and prepared to report for duty in a few days. As I left the ranch, it was not a real ceremony of departure, but everyone was there, including Beau Walsh and Billy Shelton. As previously stated, Mom caved in and retreated to the house, unable to witness the departure of her baby. That was me.

My destination was more than a thousand miles to the north, Navy Recruit Training Command (RTC) in Great Lakes, Illinois. And I can truthfully say, it was where I spent the most miserable eight weeks of my entire life. I had never even seen snow, and I arrived in the middle of the worst blizzard that boot camp had seen in eleven years. It was like sending a Zulu to the North Pole.

That wind and snow came howling in across Lake Michigan, blasting its way onto the western shore where we were situated, thirty-five miles north of Chicago. Right on the water. I could not believe the sheer misery of that freezing weather. The camp was a gigantic place, with hundreds of recruits trying to make that miraculous transformation from civilian to U.S. Navy sailor. It was a drastic metamorphosis, both mental and physical, and it would have been difficult enough in fine weather. But in that ice, snow, and wind, Jesus. Words fail me.

I’d never needed winter clothes, and I had none. I remember being extremely pleased when the navy issued everyone the right gear – thick socks, boots, dark blue trousers, shirts, sweaters, and coats. They told us how to fold and store everything, showed us how to make our bunks every morning. Without missing a beat, they put us straight into physical training, running, working out, marching, drilling, and many classes.

I didn’t have much trouble, and I excelled in the swimming pool. The requirements were to enter the water feetfirst from a minimum height of five feet, remain afloat for five minutes, and then swim fifty yards using any stroke. I could have done that in my sleep, especially without having to worry about the occasional alligator or water moccasin.

The running would not have been that bad in decent weather, but the campus was absolutely frigid, and the wind off the lake was cutting. A penguin would have had trouble out there. We ran through snow, marched through snow, and made our way to classes through snow.

In that first week, while we were trying to avoid freezing to death, they instilled in us three words which have been with me ever since. Honor, Courage, Commitment, the motto of the United States Navy, the core values that immediately became the ideals we all lived by. I can remember to this day an instructor telling us, “What you make of this experience here at Great Lakes is what will make you as a person.” He was right. I hope.

In the second week, they put us through the Confidence Course. This is designed to simulate emergency conditions in a U.S. Navy warship. They taught us to be sharp, self-reliant, and, above all, to make key decisions on which our lives and those of our shipmates might depend. That word: teamwork. It dominates and infiltrates every single aspect of life in the navy. In boot camp, they don’t just tell you, they indoctrinate you. Teamwork. It was the new driving force in all of our lives.

Week three, they put us on board a landbound training ship. Everything was hands-on training. We learned the name of nearly every working part of that ship. They taught us first aid techniques, signaling ship to ship with flags (semaphore). We spent a lot of time in the classroom, where we focused on navy customs and courtesies, the laws of armed conflict, shipboard communication, ship and aircraft identification, and basic seamanship.

All this was interspersed with physical training tests, sit-ups, sit-reaches, and push-ups. I was fine with all of those, but the one-and-a-half-mile run in that weather would have tested the stamina of a polar bear. They told us anyone who failed could come back and take it again. I decided I would rather run barefoot across the Arctic than take it again. Gave it my all. Passed, thank God.

During week four, we got our hands on some weaponry for the first time – the M16 rifle. I was pretty quick with that part of the course, especially on the live-fire range. After that, the navy concentrated on which path through the service everyone wanted to take. That was also easy for me. Navy SEALs. No bullshit, right?

The firefighting and shipboard damage-control course came next. And we all learned how to extinguish fires, escape smoke-filled compartments, open and close watertight doors, operate the oxygen breathing apparatus, and move fire hoses around. The last part was the worst – the Confidence Chamber. You get in there with your class and put on a gas mask. Then someone unleashes a tear-gas tablet, and you have to take off your mask, throw it in a trash can, and recite your full name and Social Security number.

Every single recruit who joins the navy has to endure that exercise. At the end, the instructors make it clear: you have what it takes. There’s a place in the navy for you.

The final task is called battle stations. Teams are presented with twelve situations, all of which have been addressed during the previous weeks. This is where they grade the recruits, individually and as teams. When you’ve completed this, the trainers present you with a U.S. Navy ball cap, and that tells the world you are now a sailor. You have proved you belong, proved you have the right stuff.

The following week, I graduated, in my brand-new dress uniform. I remember passing the mirror and hardly recognizing myself. Standing tall, right there. There’s something about graduating from boot camp; I guess it’s mostly pride in yourself. But you also know a lot of people couldn’t have done it. Makes you feel pretty good. Especially someone like me, whose major accomplishment thus far had involved hurling some half-drunk cowboy out of an East Texas bar and into the street on his ear.

After I graduated, I flew immediately to San Diego, headed to Coronado Island and the navy amphibious base. I made my way there alone, a couple of weeks early, and spent my time organizing my uniforms, gear, and rooms, and trying to get into some sort of shape.

Most of us had lost a lot of condition at boot camp because the weather was so bad. You couldn’t just jog outside and go for a run because of the blizzards and the deep snow. Perhaps you remember that very brave guy who made the journey to the South Pole with the Royal Navy officer, Robert Falcon Scott, in 1912. He believed he was hindering the entire team because of his frostbite. Captain Oates was his name, and he crawled out into a raging blizzard one night with the immortal words, “I am going outside now. I may be gone for some time.”

They never found his body, and I have never forgotten reading his words. Guts-ball, right? Well, going outside at Great Lakes would have been a bit like that, and almost as brave. Unlike the gallant captain, we stayed by the heater.

And now we were going for runs along the beach, trying to get in shape for the first week of Indoctrination. That’s the two-week course known as Indoc, where the SEALs prepare you for the fabled BUD/S course (Basic Underwater Demolition/-SEALs). That one lasts for seven months and is a lot harder than Indoc. But if you can’t get through the initial pretraining endurance test, then you ought not to be in Coronado, and they don’t want you anyway.

The official navy literature about the reason for Indoc reads: “To physically, mentally and environmentally prepare qualified SEAL candidates to begin BUD/S training.” Generally speaking, the instructors do not turn on the pressure during Indoc. You’re only revving up for the upcoming trial by fire.

But they still make it very tough for everyone, officers and enlisted men alike. The SEAL programs make no distinction between commissioned officers coming in from the fleet and the rest of us. We’re all in it together, and the first thing they instill in you at Indoc is that you will live and train as a class, as a team. Sorry. Did I say instill in you? I meant, ram home with a jack-hammer. Teamwork. They slam that word at you every other minute. Teamwork. Teamwork. Teamwork.

This is also where you first understand the concept of a swim buddy, which in SEAL ethos is an absolutely gigantic deal. You work with your buddy as a team. You never separate, not even to go to the john. In IBS (that stands for “inflatable boat, small”) training, if one of you falls over the side into the freezing ocean, the other joins him. Immediately. In the pool, you are never more than an arm’s length away. Later on, in the BUD/S course proper, you can be failed out of hand, thrown out, for not staying close enough to your swim buddy.

This all comes back to that ironclad SEAL folklore – we never leave a man behind on the battlefield, dead or alive. No man is ever alone. Whatever the risk to the living, however deadly the opposing fire, SEALs will fight through the jaws of death to recover the remains of a fallen comrade. It’s a maxim that has survived since the SEALs were first formed in 1962, and it still applies today.

It’s a strange thing really, but it’s not designed to help widows and parents of lost men. It’s designed for the SEALs who actually do the fighting. There’s something about coming home, and we all want to achieve that, preferably alive. But there is a certain private horror about being killed and then left behind in a foreign land, no grave at home, no loved ones to visit your final resting place.

I know that sounds kind of nuts, but nonetheless, it’s true. Every one of us treasures that knowledge: No matter what, I will not be left behind, I will be taken home. We are all prepared to give everything. And in the end it does not seem too much to ask in return, since we fight, almost without exception, on the enemy’s ground, not our own.

That World War I English poet and serving soldier Rupert Brooke understood the Brits do not traditionally bring home their war dead. And he expressed it right: “If I should die, think only this of me: / That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is forever England.” There’s not a Navy SEAL anywhere in the world who does not understand those lines and why Brooke wrote them.

It’s a sacred promise to us from our high command. That’s why it gets drummed into us from the very first day in Coro-nado – you are not going to be alone. Ever. And you’re not going to leave your swim buddy alone.

I suffered a minor setback in the early part of that summer when I was in Class 226. I managed to fall from about fifty feet up a climbing rope and really hurt my thigh. The instructor rushed up to me and demanded, “You want to quit?”

“Negative,” I responded.

“Then get right back up there,” he said. I climbed again, fell again, but somehow I kept going. The leg hurt like hell, but I kept training for another couple of weeks before the medics diagnosed a cracked femur! I was immediately on crutches but still hobbling along the beach and into the surf with the rest of them. Battle conditions, right?

Eventually, when the leg healed, I was put back and then joined BUD/S Class 228 in December for phase two. We lived in a small barracks right behind the BUD/S grinder. That’s the blacktop square where a succession of SEAL instructors have laid waste to thousands of hopes and dreams and driven men to within an inch of their lives.

Those instructors have watched men drop, watched them fail, watched them quit, and watched them quietly, with ice-cold, expressionless faces. That’s not heartless; it’s because they were only interested in the others, the ones who did not crack or quit. The ones who would rather die than quit. The ones with no quit in them.

It was only the first day of Indoc, and my little room was positioned right next to the showers. Showers, by the way, is a word so polite it’s damn near a euphemism. They were showers, okay, but not in the accepted, civilized sense. They were a whole lot closer to a goddamn car wash and were known as the decontamination unit. Someone cranked ’em up at around 0400, and the howl of compressed air and freezing cold pressurized water forcing its way through those pipes sounded like someone was trying to strangle a steam engine.

Jesus. First time I heard it, I thought we were under attack.

But I knew the drill: get into my canvas UDT swim trunks and then get under those ice-cold water jets. The shock was unbelievable, and to a man we hated it, and we hated it for as long as we were forced through it. The damn thing was actually designed to power wash our sand-covered gear when we returned from the beach. The shock was reduced somewhat then because everyone had just been in the Pacific Ocean. But right out of bed at four o’clock in the morning! Wow! That was beyond reason, and I can still hear the sound of those screaming, hissing water pipes.

Freezing cold and wet, we reported to the training pool to roll and stow the covers. Then, shortly before 0500, in the pitch dark, we lined up on the grinder and sat in rows, chest to back, very close, to conserve body heat. There were supposed to be 180 of us, but for various reasons there were only 164 of us assigned.

We had a class leader by now, Lieutenant David Ismay, a Naval Academy man and former Rhodes Scholar who’d had two years at sea and was now a qualified surface warfare officer. David was desperate to achieve his lifelong dream of becoming a SEAL. He had to do this right. Officers only got one shot at BUD/S. They were supposed to know better than to waste anyone’s time if they weren’t up to it.

The man we all awaited was our proctor. That’s the instructor assigned to guide us, teach us, torture us, observe us, and get rid of us, if necessary. He was Instructor Reno Alberto, a five-foot-six man-mountain of fitness, discipline, and intelligence. He was a ruthless, cruel, unrelenting taskmaster. And we all grew to love him for two reasons. He was scrupulously fair, and he wanted the best for us. You put out for Instructor Reno, he was just a super guy. You failed to give him your absolute best, he’d have you out of there and back to the fleet before you could say, “Aye, aye, sir.”

He arrived at 0500 sharp. And we’d have a ritual which was never broken. This was how it went:

“Feet!” shouted the class leader.

“Feet!” An echoing roar ripped into the still night air as nearly 164 of us responded and jumped to our feet, attempting to move into ranks.

“Instructor Ree-no!” called the class leader.

“Hooyah, Instructor Ree-no!” we bellowed as one voice.

Get used to that: hooyah. We don’t say yes, or right away, or thanks a lot, or understand and will comply. We say hooyah. It’s a BUD/S thing, and its origins are lost in antiquity. There’s so many explanations, I won’t even go there. Just so you know, that’s how students respond to an instructor, in greeting or command acceptance. Hooyah.

For some reason, Instructor Reno was the only one who was unfailingly addressed by his first name. All the others were Instructor Peterson or Matthews or Henderson. Only Reno Alberto insisted on being called by his first name. I always thought it was good they didn’t call him Fred or Spike. Reno sounded good on him.

When he walked onto the grinder that morning, we could tell we were in the presence of a major man. As I mentioned, it was pitch dark and he was wearing sunglasses, wraparound, shiny black. It seemed he never took them off, night or day. Actually, one time I did catch him without them, and as soon as he saw me, he reached into his pocket and immediately put ’em on again.

I think it was because he never wanted us to see the expression in his eyes. Beneath that stern, relentless exterior, he was a superintelligent man – and he could not have failed to be amused at the daily Attila the Hun act he put on for us. But he never wanted us to see the amusement in his eyes, and that was why he never showed them.

On this dark, slightly misty morning he stood with his arms folded and gazed at the training pool. Then he turned back to us and stared hard.

We had no idea what to expect. And Instructor Reno said without expression, “Drop.”

“Drop!” we roared back. And we all struggled down to the concrete and assumed a position for push-ups, arms extended, bodies outstretched, rigid.

“Push ’em out,” said Reno.

“Push-ups,” snapped the class leader.

“Push-ups,” we responded.

“Down.”

“One.”

“Down.”

“Two.”

We counted out every one of the twenty push-ups in the set then returned to the rest position, arms outstretched. The class leader called out, “Instructor Ree-no.”

“Hooyah, Instructor Ree-no,” we roared.

He ignored us. Then said quietly, “Push ’em out.” As he did twice more, at which point he left us with muscles on fire in the straight-arm, outstretched rest position. He actually left us there for almost five minutes, and everyone’s arms were throbbing. Eighty push-ups and now this new kind of agony, which ended only when he said, very slowly, very quietly, “Recover.”

We all yelled, “Feet!” in response, and somehow we stood up without falling over. Then David Ismay called out the wrong number of men present. Not his fault. Someone had simply vanished. Reno was onto young Dave in a flash. I don’t quite remember what he said, but his phrase contained the loud pronunciation of the word wrong.

And he ordered Lieutenant Ismay and our leading petty officer student, “Drop, and push ’em out.” I remember that first day like it happened this week. We sat and watched Dave complete his push-ups. And when they’d done it, damn near exhausted, they called out, “Hooyah, Instructor Reno!”

“Push ’em out,” said Reno softly. And, somehow, they set off on twenty more repetitions of this killer discipline. Finally they finished, doubtless wondering, like the rest of us, what the hell they had let themselves in for. But I bet they never called out the wrong number of men present ever again.

I now understand that SEAL ethos – every officer, commissioned or noncommissioned, must know the whereabouts of every single one of his men. No mistakes. At that early stage in our training, our class leader, David Ismay, did not know. Reno, who’d only been with us for about fifteen minutes, did.

Again, he surveyed his kingdom and then spoke flatly. “Most of you aren’t going to be here in a couple of months,” said Instructor Reno. And, as if blaming each and every one of us individually for the wrong head count, he added, “If you guys don’t start pulling together as a team, none of you will be here.”

He then told us we were again about to take the basic BUD/S screening test. I graphically recall him reminding us we’d all passed it once in order to make it this far. “If you can’t pass it again this morning,” he added, “you’ll be back in the fleet as soon as we can ship you out.”

At this stage, no one was feeling...well...wanted. In fact, we were beginning to feel abandoned in this world-renowned military coliseum – a coliseum where someone was about to bring on the lions. Before us was the five-point screening test:

1. A 500-yard swim, breaststroke or sidestroke, in 12 minutes, 30 seconds

2. A minimum of 42 push-ups in 2 minutes

3. A minimum of 50 sit-ups in 2 minutes

4. A minimum of 6 dead-hang pull-ups

5. A 1.5-mile run in 11 minutes, 30 seconds, done while wearing boots and long pants

Only one guy failed to complete. In fact, most of us did markedly better than we had the first time. I recall I managed close to eighty push-ups and a hundred sit-ups. I guess the apparition of Billy Shelton was standing hard by my shoulder, trying to frighten the life out of me and ready to throw me out of the navy if I blew it.

More important, Instructor Reno was watching us with eyes like a fighter jet’s radar. He told me several months later he knew I was putting out for him. Made up his mind about me right then and there. Told me he’d never changed it either. Good decision. I give it everything. On time. Every time. Might not always be good enough, but it’s always my very best shot.

Looking back, I’m not sure that early test showed very much. There were a lot of heavily muscled, bodybuilding types who looked pretty ferocious. I remember they were among the very first to go, because they just couldn’t hack it. Their legs and upper bodies were just too heavy.

The SEALs do place a premium on brute strength, but there’s an even bigger premium on speed. That’s speed through the water, speed over the ground, and speed of thought. There’s no prizes for a gleaming set of well-oiled muscles in Coronado. Bulk just makes you slow, especially in soft sand, and that’s what we had to tackle every day of our lives, mile after mile.

On this first morning of Class 226, we immediately learned another value peculiar to BUD/S. We don’t stroll, walk, or even jog. We run. We actually run like hell. Everywhere. All day. Remember that great Tom Hanks line in A League of Their Own, “There’s no crying in baseball”? Well, we have a line in Coronado: There’s no walking in BUD/S.

Our first encounter with this cruel and heartless rule came when it was time for breakfast. The chow hall was a mile away, so we had to run two miles – there and back – for a plate of toast, eggs, and bacon. Same for lunch. Same for dinner. For anyone mathematically challenged, that’s six miles every day just to find something to eat, nothing to do with our regular daily training runs, which often added up to another eight miles.

That morning we ran in formation all the way across the naval amphibious base to the Special Warfare Center. And there Instructor Reno, after about a thousand push-ups and God knows what else, finally had us seated and paying attention in a manner which satisfied him. This was not easy, because he had eyes like a sea eagle and some kind of a high-flying business degree from USC. He knew precisely what was required, and he missed nothing.

And right here I needed to remember a lesson drummed into me from an early age by Billy Shelton: when a special forces commander makes even a slight reference to an issue that may be helpful, listen and then do it. Even if it was an aside, not a proper command, maybe even starting with I think it might be a good idea . . .

Always pay attention and then carry out the task, no matter how minor it may seem. Billy’s point was that these SF instructors were looking for the best, and it might be only small things that separate guys who are very good from guys who are absolutely excellent, outstanding. “Listen, Marcus,” Billy told me, “always listen, and always jump all over anything your instructor tells you. Get out in front. Fast. Then make sure you stay there.”

Well, that morning, Instructor Reno pulled himself up to his full height of about fifteen feet, in my eyes, and told us he wanted to talk to us briefly, and we better pay attention. “Better yet, take notes.”

I was into my zipper bag instantly, getting hold of a dry notebook and a couple of pencils, the lesson of Billy Shelton ringing in my ears: even an aside, even a suggestion, do it.

I looked around the room, and a few others were doing the same as I was, but not everyone, by no means everyone. Some of them just sat there gazing at Instructor Reno, who suddenly said, mildly, “How many of you have pencil and paper?”

I stuck my hand up, along with the other guys who had them. And suddenly there was a look like a storm cloud on Reno’s face.

“Drop! All of you!” he bellowed. And there was an unbelievable commotion as chairs were scraped back and we all hit the floor in the straight-arm rest position. “Push ’em out!” he snapped. And we made the twenty then were left in the rest position.

He stared at us and said, “Listen. You were told to have a pencil and paper with you at all times. So why don’t you? Why the hell don’t you!”

The room went stone silent. Reno glared. And since I was not able to write while I was prostrate on the floor supporting myself with the palms of my hands, I can’t say verbatim the exact words he said, but I bet I can come damn close.

“This is a school for warriors, understand? This is the most serious business there is. And if you don’t want to do it, then get the hell out right now.”

Christ. He was not joking, and I just hoped to hell he knew who had pencil and paper and who didn’t. Months later I reminded him of that day and asked him. “Of course I knew,” he said, adjusting his sunglasses. “It was your first test. I had the names of the guys who paid attention written down before you’d done your first twenty. And I still remember you were on that list.”

Anyway, that first morning, we did another couple of sets of push-ups and somehow gasped out a loud Hooyah, Instructor Reno! And then he let us sit down again.

What followed was probably the most stern lecture in SEAL ethos and ethics I’ve ever attended. I did take notes, and I recall everything he told us, and I’ll try to relate it as I believe Reno would wish.

“This is high-risk training. And we define that as anywhere there is potential for serious injury or loss of life. Any of you see anything unsafe, or any situation where you may be in unnecessary danger, speak up immediately. We do not like mistakes, understand me?”