“You’re fuckin’ kidding me,” Bubba said.
“I hope I am,” I answered.
A week before we were rotated onto Iwo, Frank’s boat crews had mounted out to provide combat search and rescue for a large American air strike. Launched from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the air raid was supposed to be a multisquadron attack package, Intruders, Corsairs, and Tomcats delivering a six-pack of whoop-ass called an alpha strike. The entire complement of Eisenhower’s combat aircraft had been loaded with ordnance, launched, and flown toward Lebanon, ready to pummel the Shouf and Bekaa valley. But the air strike never happened. At the last minute Washington pulled the plug. The planes did a U-turn, dropped their bombs into the sea, and returned to the carrier. This aborted strike was the only retribution the Reagan administration was to attempt for the bombing of the marine barracks. The averted air strike was kept secret for years. Its effect on marine morale can probably be imagined.
When I entered the Flag Plot, the chief of staff informed me that there was going to be a second air strike, not American but French. Our gallant allies were going to cash in some chips. In retaliation for the Legion’s dead, Super Etendards off the aircraft carrier Marshal Foch were going to destroy the Hezbollah headquarters and training facilities east of Beirut. The French did not have special operations forces to retrieve downed aircrew and had asked for a SEAL Team to provide search-and-rescue capability.
“When are they going to make the hit?” I asked.
“Two hours,” came the answer.
Once again Giff’s attention to detail would pay off. The CSAR team had already received a warning order and had been briefed previously on the type of mission, general organization, weapons, uniform, and chain of command. The platoon’s standard operating procedures made the short-notice operation possible. As I was working out the communications plan, the boat crews were gearing up, inspecting weapons and equipment; they would be good to go when I returned to the briefing spaces to finalize the orders.
The French plan was audacious. The strike package, six Super Etendards, would launch from Foch, group into a tight formation, and head west, away from land and into the Mediterranean. Remaining in formation, the Etendards would drop under a hundred feet, pull a 180-degree turn, and close the coast. The target was to be approached from the north, the Etendards remaining in formation and flying “nap of the earth,” or treetop level—make that goat-top level—flying down canyons and valleys and using terrain, whenever possible, to shield the formation from radar.
All of this in broad daylight.
I’ll give them this, the French had balls, even if they did come from Yves Saint Laurent. I learned later that the strike package flew as low as fifty feet on the way to deliver their bombs.
The mission would not depend just on gutsy flying. The CSAR helicopter and the Etendards would be accompanied by a navy EA6B Prowler. The Prowler is the electronic-warfare version of the A-6 strike aircraft; it’s capable of spoofing enemy SAM and AAA radars. If everything went according to plan, the Prowler would blind the bad guys during the strike and any rescue attempt.
The weather was an issue. SEALs love bad weather, but pilots generally do not, especially when they’re flying low to the ground. It was still raining hard, but the French were confident they could operate under the ceiling. Better avionics would have helped; the American A-6 was born and bred for this sort of mission. We had the airplanes, but the French had the rocks. Designed in the 1970s, the Super Etendard was hardly state-of-the-art, but it was a capable aircraft. Etendards flown by the Argentineans sank H.M.S. Sheffield and M.V. Atlantic Conveyor during the Falklands War. The French were betting this one on pilot skill, navigational perfection, and Gallic chutzpah. And add the element of surprise. I am certain that no one anywhere was expecting an air strike in this weather.
It’s often said in the military that no good deed goes unpunished. After we had coordinated the CSAR mission, the French came back and asked if we could insert an element to put eyes on the target. They wanted a battle-damage assessment after the bombing run. Recon and surveillance was a different mission completely and would require us to get a hell of a lot closer than I’d have liked.
I checked the maps again. There was a ridge overlooking the Hezbollah compound, and behind it, closer to the coast, was a wadi into which I thought we could insert a team by fast rope. The intelligence estimate indicated Syrian army units in the vicinity of the target. There was also a Syrian armored brigade backing up Suq al Gharb, and the territory north and east was under their control. Hell, most of Lebanon was under their control.
Inserting a team that might itself need rescue—endangering more men and aircraft—was not mission-enhancing. The R&S team would be at greatest exposure, and I was willing to take the job only if it was possible to get in and out cleanly. Judging from the map, which is often not a good idea, it appeared that the terrain on three sides of the observation point was steep and heavily vegetated. The ridge was within visual range of the Hezbollah facility.
The target buildings were set apart in a wide part of the valley, so they would be easy to identify—again, according to the map. Provided the weather did not sock us in, I felt we could get a fair appraisal of bomb hits with binoculars.
Face it, you don’t stamp out the Rolling Stones by bombing their hotel rooms. This air strike had about it an element of payback, but the actual targets were not brick and mortar, they were human. The bombs were intended for Hezbollah leadership. After the hit, the R&S team would monitor the target; the National Reconnaissance Office would snap satellite photos; NSA would listen to the radio traffic; CIA would compile and analyze. These were all discrete bits of information, intel nuggets, to be factored into the puzzle.
Extracting the R&S element from the area after the strike would be the nub of the operation, what staff pukes call “a critical node.” As oxymoronic as this sounds, you can usually expect people to wake up after you hit them. The bad guys would certainly be stirred up, and I selected an extraction site downhill and to the west of the surveillance perch. The primary extract and a secondary location would be screened from the target by the mountains, and if the helicopter was prevented from reaching us by enemy action or weather, we could patrol west to the coast. It would be a long haul to the water, over twenty clicks, but topography and darkness would be on our side. If the recon element had to escape and evade, or E&E, it would be moving through mountainous, broken terrain at night and would be almost impossible to track. It was a decent plan, not perfect but good, and I told the French that I would insert a recon team if the visibility held. I would make that decision when we were airborne in the AO.
That left the question of who to put on the ground. Seven months of combat had taught me that men will not do anything their leader won’t do first. If the job was shitty, I generally did it myself, so I was going in on the recon, without question. Our maxim “One is none and two is one” holds for people as well as equipment. SEALs don’t operate solo, and I’d need a partner.
We had a total of eight operators in the two boat crews, barely enough to cover both parts of the expanded mission. Dave was my point man, my swim buddy, and I felt he was one of our best operators. He was the logical choice to take with me, but I had a problem.
Stan.
I wish I could tell you that I decided to take Stan on the recon, and that he carried out the mission, acquitted himself gallantly, and ended the tour basking in the esteem and pleasant regard of his teammates. That’s the way it works in the movies. It’s not the way it works in the broken-nose world of real combat. Although Stan was the ranking petty officer of his squad, I was not willing to leave him in command of the troops in the helo. Taking him with me wasn’t an option, either. I didn’t trust him to lead my men or save my ass on the ground if the mission went south. Stan was out.
If I was going to put myself on the R&S detachment, I needed someone to take charge in the air and be ready if the CSAR mission was required. I knew I coul
d count on Dave’s ability and judgment. I needed someone who could not only get the CSAR mission done but also decline the job if the situation went totally to shit.
Now you know why BUD/S is so difficult. One bed wetter, one unreliable person, twists a knot in the plan.
I returned to the berthing space. The guys were jocked up and ready to go. I briefed the operation quickly, updating them on the weather, target location, enemy forces, coordinating instructions, and command and signal. I placed Dave second in command and put him in charge of the element that would insert and carry out the rescue. That left the R&S mission. I explained the location chosen for the insertion, and told them that recovery of downed aircrew was a mission priority. If there was contact, the R&S element would be on its own. If they missed pickup, or if the AO became too hot, they would be expected to escape and evade to the coast for pickup. I said I needed a volunteer to spot the target with me. Every hand went up, including Stan’s.
“Okay, Bubba,” I said. “You’re on.”
A big CH-53E was turning on spot two as we exited the greenroom and walked across the flight deck. The bird was completing fueling as we approached, purple-shirted deck apes dragging away the hose that had pumped three thousand gallons aboard the machine that would take us on this last op. We walked into the hot downwash of the rotors, the smell of JP-5 wafting over us. The Sea Stallion was a marine bird, diverted from an administrative flight around the squadron and directed by the air boss to return to Iwo and take on fuel. The 53’s crew had no idea what was about to go down. Undertaking the happy business of ferrying passengers and mail, the pilots had forgotten that their ship was the CSAR contingency bird this afternoon. Like everyone else in the squadron, they had gotten up in the morning thinking that in two days they would be headed home. They were fat, dumb, and happy. The happy part would soon be over.
From the cockpit, the copilot looked up as the boat crews walked toward the helo. He saw the weapons, bandoleers of ammo, parachutes, fast ropes, and eight SEALs decked out in Czech and East German cammies, kufiyahs, and green face paint. His jaw fell. The pilot watched us come on with a look of bewilderment: Oh, shit, not now. Not today. We’re short.
The lads climbed aboard and into the aft compartment. They quickly set about attaching the parachute static line and rigging the fast rope. I ducked onto the flight deck, slipped on a headset, and leaned forward to talk to the pilots. They were both Annapolis classmates of Frank’s, good sticks who’d gotten us into and out of a couple of hot places.
“Shit, Chuck,” the pilot said as he turned around in his seat. “What’s going on?”
“CSAR,” I answered. “The French are launching an air strike in forty-five minutes.”
“The French?”
“Are we shutting down for a briefing?” the copilot asked.
Neither of them looked ecstatic when I said, “I’m going to brief you now.”
I laid out the plan. I will never forget the crew chief’s expression when I unfolded the map to show them where the R&S element was to be inserted. Unfolded it, and unfolded it, and unfolded it. I pointed to a ridge and to the Hezbollah compound, deep, deep, deep in booger-eater country.
“In there?”
“In there.”
We were wheels up in three minutes and on our way. It was still raining, but the cloud ceiling had lifted. We flew directly to the R&S insert point. On the radio, Iwo reported that the Etendards had launched from Foch, starting their roundabout approach to the target. The Prowler was in position and jamming the Syrians on all frequencies. We were a go.
For only the second time in the tour, I had butterflies in my stomach. Not butterflies, fucking bats. We had briefed the op as well as possible in the time allowed, but we had not rehearsed. There were a lot of moving parts, a lashed-up communications plan, shitty weather, and worst of all, it was daylight. This was a short-fused op, and a lot of things could go wrong. Small oversights would be compounded by the enemy, the weather, and Mr. Murphy. This whole thing swung on standard operating procedures and the experience and discernment of the lads. If anything, the speed of the op served to calm me. What was winding me up was that this would be our last one. Everyone sweats the last op of a tour. I had finally come to grips with the idea that I might actually live through seven months in Lebanon, and I was edgy. Not edgy, exactly—let’s just say I was safety-oriented.
As we flew toward the coast, I reminded Dave to play it conservatively, to put men on the ground only if he could be reasonably sure of grabbing the pilot and getting away. Don’t needlessly jeopardize the men and the helo, I told him. He understood. We conducted a radio check, I reviewed the primary and secondary extract points and gave a drop-dead time of four hours for each. If we hadn’t made the secondary extraction point in eight hours, we would be expected to make it to the coast.
I looked around the cabin. I may have been sweating the load, but the lads were not. They were kicked back, dozing in their seats, or tapping their feet as their personality types dictated. Stan was staring at the deck and looked off the back ramp of the helo as my eyes passed over him.
The crew chief leaned in to us and told me we were three minutes out from the R&S insert. Bubba and I stood up, and the crew chief lifted the hatch in the center of the cargo compartment, the “hell hole.” Bubba and I walked over to the fast rope attached directly above it. One hundred and twenty feet of fast rope was coiled like a thick green python at our feet. We pulled on our gloves, and the pitch of the rotors changed, the big helicopter shuddering and the blades thumping as it pitched nose-high and came to a hover over the insert point.
I pushed my AK-47 behind my back, checking that the safety was up against the charging handle and that the shoulder strap was fastened tight. The deck of the helicopter settled, and Bubba and I held the rope, stacking our hands one above another like kids playing “who’s up” on a baseball bat. Through the open hell hole I could see the ground below; I kicked the pile of rope out the hatch, and it uncoiled as it fell a hundred feet. I made sure the end of the rope was on the ground. It was—just barely—and I nodded to Bubba. “GO!” He slid down the rope.
Dave patted me on the leg as I straddled the hatch. “Remember,” he said, “safety is paramount.” It was a standard SEAL Team jab, a bullshit nugget of staff-puke phraseology, one used in every briefing when we were preparing to do something dangerous. It made me smile.
I dropped through the hatch and slid down the rope, feeling the thick green hawser hot on my hands through a pair of leather and Nomex gloves. As I cleared the bottom of the helicopter, the rotor wash swept raindrops up and into me. Ninety-mile-an-hour gusts slammed water drops against my legs like tossed gravel and spun me in a helix around the rope as I slid down. The gusts swirled, and I squinted.
Ten stories below me, Bubba was already on the ground. The rope had come down short of the promontory. Bubba had landed on a steep slope and fallen to the left onto his knees. Still clutching the end of the rope for balance, he looked up at me descending. As I got closer to the ground, I tightened my grip on the fast rope, slowing my descent and increasing the burn factor on my gloves. In the last twenty feet of the run, I could smell burning leather. I landed next to Bubba, somehow managing to keep my balance on the muddy slope. I flashed a thumbs-up at Dave. The rope was quickly hauled back aboard through the hellhole, and the big helicopter nosed down, gathered speed, and flew off toward the safety of the coast.
We were in.
As the helicopter flew away, the sound of the rotors reverberated and faded down the canyon. There had not been time to do a series of false insertions, standard procedure for depositing a recon element, and I hoped the echoing noise would confuse anyone who might try to figure out where we’d landed.
The slope beneath our feet was muddy and much steeper than it had looked from the air. It was still raining—misting, actually—and we pulled ourselves up on hands and knees toward the ridge. Our fists closed over bushes and roots as we crawled the 45-d
egree slope, kicking into the steep pitch with the toes of our boots, chunking out steps like glacier climbers. The ridge above us was shrouded in wet gray cloud. We made for the top of the wadi, climbing fifty or sixty feet to the ridgeline in about five minutes. At the top the clouds blew onto us, misty, cold, and bleak. I pulled the kufiyah up around my neck, and Bubba followed me down the other side. The terrain on the reverse side of the ridge was less steep, and the concealment of the cloud was comforting, but we needed to get below the clouds if we were to get eyes on the Hezbollah compound.
I looked at my watch. Fifteen minutes remained until the Etendards would be on target. We scuffed downslope through waist-high brush. Finally, the cloud lifted around us. The sun peeked through, encircled by a rainbow, as the bank of rain was swirled up and over the back of the mountain.
Just below the clouds, we emerged onto a dirt road. It was a washed-out track, really, scratched into the slope and hardly passable. It did not appear on my map, and a twang of worry gripped me. I was fairly certain we’d inserted in the right place, only slightly below where I had planned. We’d climbed up and over, the terrain matching expectations, and I could see the valley spread out under the cloudy sky. But there wasn’t supposed to be a road.
All navigation is theory. You follow rules, take fixes, and make guesses. You never know exactly where you are until you get to a place you know. Navigation is the art of reconciling maps to reality, and I was pretty sure we were in the right place. We had to be. It was the goddamn road that was in the wrong place.
The road that wasn’t supposed to be here meandered down to our right and hairpinned away into the valley. We crossed the dirt track in a place where several small boulders had tumbled across it, careful to wipe out our boot prints with a piece of brush. We settled into a large clump of juniper between the hairpins. We tucked into cover, Bubba pulling the boughs over us.
Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL Page 28