No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL Read online

  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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  Walt was going to be my swim buddy.

  I raced back to my room and got my stuff packed. The base was built to house about two hundred people, but in a week the population had grown to almost seven hundred. The chow hall was jammed every meal. There was no room. Hot showers became a commodity. At first, there was never any hot water; then there was no water at all. Then the toilets got stopped up.

  At night, we’d sit around the campfire at the center of our compound and laugh about how massive the mission had become. The operation alone was going to begin as a massive bombing campaign. More bombs were going to be dropped in Tora Bora than had been dropped in all of Afghanistan from the beginning of the war.

  “We could have been in and out of there already,” Walt told me one night. “All this commotion is only going to give away what we’re planning. Shit, I’ll be surprised if anybody is still in that mountain range. Lord knows if I heard drones flying above my house for the past week, I’d leave town.”

  All the commotion at our compound also attracted the attention of the Afghans who worked at the camp. It’s kind of hard to keep anything a secret when you have no less than fifty local Afghans working on your compound, pumping the shitters, filling the water barrels, and doing construction. There was no doubt in any of our minds that everybody knew who we were and that we were spinning up on something big.

  Plus, every day the mission was delayed, there was a better chance of it leaking. As we sat at the flight line waiting for our plane, Walt and I both had the same feeling about the mission. Our money was on a dry hole.

  “Here is what is going to happen,” I said finally. “They’ll land and spend a week hiking around the mountains. It’s a multimillion-dollar camping trip.”

  Walt agreed.

  “Sucks to be them,” he said. “At least our trip will be an adventure.”

  We were headed to another Central Asian country. On the way, we spent a night in the capital and then moved back toward the border. But at our first stop, the host country said Walt had to stay behind. They were going to allow only one of us to link up with their forces stationed along the border. Since I was senior in rank, it fell to me. I didn’t much like the idea of heading over the border without my swim buddy, but I didn’t have a choice.

  After spending another night in Peshawar, I headed out to the airport to catch a helicopter to a base across the border with Tora Bora. Instead of Walt, a CIA officer called Harvey and a communications tech from the unit now joined me. I met Harvey at the embassy. He was tall and thin and still kept his hair short in a Marine Corps flattop.

  A former artillery officer, he was sporting the CIA’s “go to war” uniform of 5.11 Tactical pants, a North Face polo shirt, and hiking boots. I’d worked with the agency before and I wanted to feel this guy out a little bit. We’d be “swim buddies” for the next week or so, but I wasn’t sure he understood the concept like I did.

  “So, man, what is your tasking?” I asked.

  Harvey shrugged.

  “Been up to this area before?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “I’ve been at the embassy for a while, but this is the first time in this part of the country.”

  “Great,” I thought, “another one fresh off the cocktail circuit.” This was the first time he would be this close to the actual war. Since I worked at the outstation, I’d spent a lot of time with the agency. They all seemed to have advanced degrees, but no common sense when it came to Afghanistan. They spent more time fighting each other. The agency, in my experience, was one big pissing contest.

  At the airport we sat on the tarmac and waited for our helicopter to show up. Keeping tight schedules and being on time was something the host country was definitely not used to.

  After several hours of sitting around, we were met by a gaggle of officers who ushered us into the most rundown Mi-17 cargo helicopter I’d ever seen. Built by the Russians, the Mi-17 didn’t have the sleek look of American helicopters. Instead, it looked like a fat insect with a bulbous body and a tail boom jutting out. Paint was peeling off the side, and the cabin deck was slick in places from oil or some other fluid. I found a spot on the floor near the back and hoped for the best.

  Harvey climbed in next to me, followed by the communications tech.

  The helicopter slowly came to life as we lifted off and climbed into the sky. I tried to relax and not focus on the hydraulic fluid leaking from the ceiling as we flew. Something else was wrong as well. The whole helicopter seemed to be tilted to the left. We weren’t even balanced correctly.

  The crew chief started to move boxes of meals ready to eat and Pelican cases and gear bags back and forth, trying to balance the helicopter. No matter how hard he tried, it never leveled out. Between moving boxes, he started brewing tea in a small electric pot. The first two cups went to the pilots, delivered on a small silver tray. The second
cups went to Harvey and me, again delivered on the same tray.

  I sipped tea and tried not to think about crashing. Next to me, Harvey sat silently and looked out the window. It was hard to talk over the engine noise.

  We landed at the base without incident. The officers were nervous once we arrived. When I tried to help unload the bags, the officers shooed me away and escorted me to a nearby truck. A captain greeted us. His skin was dark and weathered from the sun. A well-groomed mustache covered his lip.

  He seemed nervous and agitated.

  “It is better you stay in the truck,” he said. “My men will bring your things up to your area.”

  The convoy snaked its way from the airfield up a rutted road toward a bunch of buildings. The base looked nothing like ours in Afghanistan. It was wide open, with no walls, and sat in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains. We were located so close to Tora Bora that I could literally look at the mountains in the distance and see the bombs going off.

  The trucks stopped at a building concealed behind a fence. It was still on the base, but far enough away where we couldn’t be easily seen. While the communications tech set up all of the radios and computers, I found an empty room and started to unpack.

  The U-shaped building was made of concrete. Most of the rooms were empty. We each had a room with a bunk bed, but no mattress, just a box spring on a wire frame. Harvey came into my room.

  “They give you any sheets?” he asked, eyeballing my kit and rifle out on the bed.

  “Nope,” I said. “I’m just going to use my sleeping bag and the ground pad that I packed.”

  He looked annoyed and glanced back into the hallway and then back at me.

  “You think they have sheets for us?”

  A platoon of soldiers arrived to protect us. They lived in another house next door but kept soldiers posted on the roof and on roving patrols around our building twenty-four hours a day.

  I didn’t think they had sheets for him.