W e collapsed back to Shark Base.
As soon as we got there, I shed my gear and put my back against the wall, then slowly lowered myself to the ground.
Tears started flowing from my eyes.
I thought Ryan was dead. Actually, he was still alive, if just barely. The docs worked like hell to save him. Ryan would eventually be medevac’d out of Iraq. His wounds were severe—he’d never see again, not only out of the eye that had been hit but the other as well. It was a miracle that he lived.
But at that moment at base, I was sure he was dead. I knew it in my stomach, in my heart, in every part of me. I’d put him in the spot where he got hit. It was my fault he’d been shot.
A hundred kills? Two hundred? More? What did they mean if my brother was dead?
Why hadn’t I put myself there? Why hadn’t I been standing there? I could have gotten the bastard—I could have saved my boy.
I was in a dark hole. Deep down.
How long I stayed there, head buried, tears flowing, I have no idea.
“Hey,” said a voice above me, finally.
I looked up. It was Tony, my chief.
“You wanna go get some payback?” he asked.
“Fuck yeah I do!” I jumped to my feet.
A few guys weren’t sure whether we should go or not. We talked about it, and planned out the mission.
I didn’t hardly have time for it, though. I just wanted blood for my guy.
Marc
T he intel put the bad guys in a house not too far from where Ryan had been hit. A couple of Bradleys drove us over to a field near the house. I was in a second vehicle; some of the other guys had already gone into the house by the time we arrived.
As soon as the ramp dropped on our Bradley, bullets started flying. I ran to join the others; and found them stacking to go up the stairs to the second floor. We were huddled together, facing downward, waiting to move up.
Marc Lee was at the lead, above us on the steps. He turned, glancing out a window on the staircase. As he did, he saw something and opened his mouth to shout a warning.
He never got the words out. In that split second, a bullet passed right through his open mouth and flew out the back of his head. He dropped down in a pile on the steps.
We’d been set up. There was a savage on the roof of the house next door, looking down at the window from the roof there.
Training took over.
I scrambled up the steps, stepping over Marc’s body. I sent a hail of bullets through the window, flushing the neighboring roof. So did my teammates.
One of us got the insurgent. We didn’t stop to figure out who it was. We went on up to the roof, looking for more of our ambushers.
Dauber, meanwhile, stopped to check Marc. He was hurt pretty bad; Dauber knew there was no hope.
T he tank captain came and got us. They were engaged the whole way, driving in under heavy contact. He brought two tanks and four Bradleys, and they went Winchester, firing all their ammo. It was shit-hot, a fierce hail of lead covering our retreat.
On the way back, I looked out the port on the back ramp of my Bradley. All I could see was black smoke and ruined buildings. They’d suckered us, and their entire neighborhood had paid the price.
F or some reason, most of us thought Marc was going to live; we thought Ryan was going to die. It wasn’t until we got back to camp that we heard their fates were reversed.
Having lost two guys in the space of a few hours, our officers and Tony decided it was time for us to take a break. We went back to Shark Base and stood down. (Standing down means you’re out of action and unavailable for combat. In some ways, it’s like an official timeout to assess or reassess what you’re doing.)
It was August: hot, bloody, and black.
Taya:
Chris broke down when he called me with the news. I hadn’t heard anything about it until he called, and it took me by surprise.
I felt grateful that it wasn’t him, yet incredibly sad that it was any of them.
I tried to be as quiet as possible as he talked. I wanted just to listen. There have been very few times in his life, if ever, that I’ve seen Chris in that much pain.
There was nothing I could do, aside from telling his relatives for him.
We sat on the phone for a long time.
A few days later, I went to the funeral at the cemetery overlooking San Diego Bay.
It was so sad. There were so many young guys, so many young families…. It was emotional to be at other SEAL funerals, but this was even more so.
You feel so bad, you cannot imagine their pain. You pray for them and you thank God for your husband being spared. You thank God you are not the one in the front row.
People who’ve heard this story tell me my description gets bare, and my voice faraway. They say I use less words to describe what happened, give less detail, than I usually do.
I’m not conscious of it. The memory of losing my two boys burns hot and deep. To me, it’s as vivid as what is happening around me at this very moment. To me, it’s as deep and fresh a wound as if those bullets came into my own flesh this very moment.
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