Read Lone survivor: the eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL team 10 for Free Online Page B

us out to do what 99.9 percent of the country would be terrified to undertake, they should get the hell out of the way and stay there.
    This entire business of modern war crimes, as identified by the liberal wings of politics and the media, began in Iraq and has been running downhill ever since. Everyone’s got to have his little hands in it, blathering on about the public’s right to know.
    Well, in the view of most Navy SEALs, the public does not have that right to know, not if it means placing our lives in unnecessary peril because someone in Washington is driving himself mad worrying about the human rights of some cold-hearted terrorist fanatic who would kill us as soon as look at us, as well as any other American at whom he could point that wonky old AK of his.
    If the public insists it has the right to know, which I very much doubt, perhaps the people should go and face for themselves armed terrorists hell-bent on killing every single American they can.
    I promise you, every insurgent, freedom fighter, and stray gunman in Iraq who we arrested knew the ropes, knew that the way out was to announce he had been tortured by the Americans, ill treated, or prevented from reading the Koran or eating his breakfast or watching the television. They all knew al-Jazeera, the Arab broadcasters, would pick it up, and it would be relayed to the U.S.A., where the liberal media would joyfully accuse all of us of being murderers or barbarians or something. Those terrorist organizations laugh at the U.S. media, and they know exactly how to use the system against us.
    I realize I am not being specific, and I have no intention of being so. But these broad brushstrokes are designed to show that the rules of engagement are a clear and present danger, frightening young soldiers, who have been placed in harm’s way by their government, into believing they may be charged with murder if they defend themselves too vigorously.
    I am not a political person, and as a Navy SEAL I am sworn to defend my country and carry out the wishes of my commander in chief, the president of the United States, whoever he may be, Republican or Democrat. I am a patriot; I fight for the U.S.A. and for my home state of Texas. I simply do not want to see some of the best young men in the country hesitating to join the elite branches of the U.S. Armed Services because they’re afraid they might be accused of war crimes by their own side, just for attacking the enemy.
    And I know one thing for certain. If I ever rounded a mountainside in Afghanistan and came face to face with Osama bin Laden, the man who masterminded the vicious, unprovoked attack on my country, killing 2,752 innocent American civilians in New York on 9/11, I’d shoot him dead, in cold blood.
    At which point, urged on by an outraged American media, the military would probably incarcerate me
under
the jail, never mind
in
it. And then I’d be charged with murder.
    Tell you what. I’d still shoot the sonofabitch.

 

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    Baby Seals...and Big Ole Gators

    I wrestled with one once and was pretty glad when that sucker decided he’d had enough and took off for calmer waters. But to this day my brother loves to wrestle alligators, just for fun.

    W e flew on, high over the southern reaches of the Gulf of Oman. We headed east-northeast for four hundred miles, forty-five thousand feet above the Arabian Sea. We crossed the sixty-first line of longitude in the small hours of the morning. That put us due south of the Iranian border seaport of Gavater, where the Pakistan frontier runs down to the ocean.
    Chief Healy snored quietly. Axe did a
New York Times
crossword. And the miracle was that Shane’s headset didn’t explode, as loud as his rock-and-roll music was playing.
    “Do you really need to play that shit at that volume, kiddo?”
    “It’s cool, man...dude, chill.”
    “Jesus Christ.”
    The C-130 roared on, heading slightly more northerly now, up toward the coast of Baluchistan, which stretches 470