No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL

by Mark Owen

Our only course of action was to blow the bombs in place. It was too dangerous to try to disarm them. The house was deserted and there would be no collateral damage. The other houses were too far away, meaning any women or children or other innocents in the area were safe.

  “Bombs away, ten seconds,” I heard our JTAC report over the radio.

  We passed the warning down the line. Lying as low as I could in the ditch, I wasn’t yet focused on how close we had all come to dying. All I could think about was how I really hoped the Ranger colonel learned his lesson.

  “Five seconds.”

  We were lying flat on our stomachs and trying to make ourselves as small as possible because we were still relatively close to the target. The unmistakable shriek of the A-10 engines grew louder. Even with my helmet on and my face buried as deep as I could get it in the ditch, the pitch-black night sky lit up as the compound exploded in a huge fireball. Seconds later, the explosion from two five-hundred-pound laser-guided bombs echoed back through the valley. Behind me, the A-10s banked and climbed as the thunder of the explosion faded.

  I started to rise from my position of cover when another fireball mushroomed out from what was left of the walls of the compound. The bomb rigged to kill us had cooked off, sending debris arcing out of the middle of the compound.

  Chunks of mud and rock landed with a “thunk” in the dirt around us. I slithered back into the ditch, trying to keep my head low. I felt something poke my thigh and I shifted my weight. At first I thought I’d rolled onto a sticker bush or thorn, but something was still sticking me in the leg. I inched up out of my position slowly and checked the ditch for a sticker bush, but there was nothing but dirt. I rubbed the spot where I was poked and felt it again.

  I slid my gloved hand into my pocket and pulled out a shard of shrapnel. It was no bigger than a dime. Shaped like a dagger, it had a jagged edge that was stabbing me in the leg. The metal was so hot that it had melted the foam earplugs that I always stowed in my left pocket. I rolled the shard of shrapnel between my fingers after it cooled. I had no idea how it got into my pocket, but I was damn lucky it wasn’t bigger or hadn’t been moving faster when it hit me.

  “That was some shit,” I heard a teammate say as we started to walk back to the landing zone. “I’d love to be there when the troop commander tells the colonel ‘I told you so.’”

  I felt the same way. We were all angry. The Ranger colonel should have trusted us to make an assessment. We should have delayed the operation for a day and collected more intelligence. We knew the targeted phone was on and not moving. Why did we need to rush to hit the compound? We call this “tactical patience,” and the Ranger colonel was obviously in short supply.

  The helicopter ride back was long. I could see my teammates seething in the seats around me. It was too loud to talk, but our body language gave away our anger. No one liked the mission from the start. We’d voiced our concerns, and they’d fallen on deaf ears. The officer who had ordered the raid had probably watched it from his desk back at a base hundreds of miles away, while we went into harm’s way.

  I have learned over and over again in the SEALs that trust is the bedrock of any relationship. Our commanders had to trust us to execute our mission, but on the flip side they needed to trust us when we saw something wrong. It has to flow both ways or it doesn’t work. I knew as I walked off the ramp of the helicopter, I’d never trust another order from this particular Ranger colonel.

  After the mission, we took a lot of time going over the concerns we had voiced before the mission. Of course, the Ranger commander wasn’t present. He was back at his headquarters in Bagram. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn from my younger days as a SEAL was to avoid becoming too emotional, even if we knew we were right. I remember several times during the AAR for that mission having to consciously tell myself to be calm as we talked through every aspect of the planning and actions on the objective.

  As we talked, I rolled the piece of shrapnel between my fingers. It was a reminder of more than my luck. It reminded me that we very easily could have been killed because an inexperienced Army colonel didn’t want to listen to his subject-matter experts.

  “So what the fuck are we going to do about this?” one of my teammates blurted out during the AAR.

  “Seriously, he could have killed us,” said another.

  Finally our troop chief spoke up.

  “OK, guys, I know we’re all pretty worked up right now,” the troop chief said. “We’re all very emotional, as we should be. But we’re going to collect up everyone’s lessons learned and sit on it for a day or two.”

  The troop chief was right; there was no reason to go running back to the Ranger colonel bitching and moaning about how he almost got us killed. Being too emotional only undercuts a message that would be more effective after we’d cooled down. It is unlikely he would have been receptive if we came back and complained in an unprofessional manner.

  Several days later, our troop commander had the pleasure of calling the Ranger colonel and explaining, in detail and as politely and coldly as he was capable of, why the decision he made to assault that target was ill advised. By waiting and taking the emotion out of it, the troop commander was able to get the point across. If nothing else was accomplished, it showed the colonel that he would always get our honest assessment of a mission, and it also showed that we could be trusted to make an accurate assessment of a target. This communication was a chance for our troop leadership to begin to build trust with the colonel. Of course, we were all still worked up and pissed, but this wasn’t our leadership’s first rodeo. I can remember being impressed that my troop chief and commander were so composed. They had already learned that running back with an emotional outburst wasn’t going to help anybody. Instead, their calm demeanor, honest feedback, and clear communication were vital to building trust. I was impressed how they treated the colonel the same way they treated the junior SEALs in the troop. This was a skill I would struggle to learn throughout my career, at least being able to be unemotional about it.

  Trust is one of those tricky things that can’t be bought by rank or title. It has to be earned through trial and error, through shared experience, and through constant communication. The Ranger colonel had lost my trust in that mission and would definitely have to earn it back. Hopefully, through our leadership’s response and feedback he would now trust our troop next time we had an issue with an operation. Of course, the trust I had in Scott and in all of my teammates only grew stronger.

  CHAPTER 7

  After Action Review

  Communication

  I stifled a long yawn as I walked back to our ready room and took off my kit, which was soaked with dust and sweat. I was tired, having come down from the adrenaline of combat, and feeling the sting of missing the target.

  We gathered in the briefing room near our operations center in eastern Afghanistan. It was summer 2010. The heat was oppressive, requiring us to haul extra water on every mission. The good thing was I drank most of it, so by the time the mission ended my load was lighter.

  I could just make out the sun peeking over the mountains. It had been a long night and I knew tonight’s After Action Review, which we call the AAR for short, was going to be tough.

  We’d been tracking a Taliban commander just north of Khost. The valley was one of several sanctuaries where they cached weapons and explosives. We started tracking them via ISR, which is shorthand for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, which is what we call drones. When they finally stopped moving from village to village and settled into a network of compounds at the end of the valley, we launched.

  But after landing just out of RPG range of the compounds, we got several reports of squirters running from the target. We chased them for several hours, but the target got away. Back at the base, I knew there were going to be a lot of very direct questions about what the fuck happened and why the enemy had gotten
away. We want to do our job as clean and as perfect as we can, but the rules of engagement kept us boxed in and we lost our target. It was one thing to hit a dry hole, but this time we knew the guy was there and failed to kill or capture him. We don’t put our lives on the line to fail.

  Frankly, at the end of a long mission, when you’re fried, frustrated, and angry about failing, sitting down and talking it out is often the last thing you want to do. But I had seen the AAR work throughout my career and I knew it was a vital part of our culture.

  The AAR is one of the ways we fix mistakes. It was a time to ask questions and make sure we were doing the job right. AARs can get emotional, frustrating, long-winded, and even boring, but no matter what people think of them, they are absolutely critical.

  I thought we had made the right call given the situation on the ground and the rules of engagement. We’d all agreed that landing on the “Y” for this operation was the right choice, but we had obviously been wrong. No matter how bad egos might get bruised, it was important to explore every reason why our operation had failed. We needed to fix our failure, and the most important AARs are the hard ones. Imagine if the military hadn’t held an AAR after Operation Eagle Claw, the botched raid in 1980 to free the American hostages in Iran.

  The investigation that followed that failed operation pointed out gaps in the military mission planning, from a lack of cohesion between services to a need for better equipment. It was specifically because of that failure that ........ has become as successful as it is today.

  An AAR is a place where lessons are learned and policies are modified or scrapped, all with an eye toward making the team better. This type of dialogue ensures buy-in from both the top and bottom of the chain of command. The key is that we get as many players in the room as possible. The only way an AAR works is if everyone leaves their ego outside and comes in willing to take honest criticism.

  On the way into the meeting, I ran into my buddy Walt. No taller than my armpit, Walt was short, but his attitude, cocky with a swagger, compensated for it. He had a healthy dose of little-man syndrome and an inordinate amount of body hair. He was one of my best friends and always a straight shooter when it came to voicing his opinion.

  Walt was covered in mud from head to foot. The mud was so thick it was impossible to run a comb through his beard. I smiled when I saw him. He just shook his head, letting a small smirk crease his lips. I could make out his white teeth peeking out of the mound of matted hair tangled beneath his chin.

  “Not a fucking word,” he said. “That was bullshit. We need to figure this shit out. We can’t keep flying in and giving away our position. Especially if they aren’t going to let us drop bombs.”

  The Taliban commanders must have heard the rotor wash echoing off the valley walls a few minutes before we landed. It was like an early-warning system. When they heard helicopters, they ran.

  Walt and his teammates had tried to catch the fighters after they ran from the compounds but lost them in the mountains. As we walked into the briefing, everyone looked dejected, angry, and frustrated. No two SEALs in the room looked the same. We each wore different, usually mismatched uniforms; some operators wore beards; some had long hair. We all had a drink of some sort—coffee, water, Rip It energy drinks. This was going to be a long talk.

  Walt and I sat down in two of the chairs in the room. We were joined by one of Walt’s teammates, who wore a black Van Halen T-shirt instead of his camouflage shirt. The white Van Halen logo was bright and clean because it had been covered by his body armor. Like Walt, he was covered everywhere else with mud.

  “That’s a good look for you,” I said with a smile.

  He didn’t return the smile.

  None of us wanted to risk death only to fail. If we were going to do our jobs, we had to find a way to work within the rules of engagement because the Taliban knew the rules, too, and used them against us. The Taliban knew that if they dropped their guns and ran that we couldn’t just shoot them. They knew if they blended in with the civilian population they could slip away. If it were just a matter of dropping bombs or shooting the guys we knew were bad, the war would have been much easier. That being said, that’s not what we’re about, and none of us were about to shoot unarmed people. Besides, if we even remotely got out of line, what seemed like thirty different lawyers all working for the officers up the food chain would tell us all about it.

  Shit, by my last deployment we were barely even allowed to enter a structure or building in Afghanistan without prior approval from higher up. It made fighting the war almost impossible.

  Walt and I were some of the last ones into the AAR. Before it started, I took a minute to focus and calm down. I let the frustration of watching the fighters escape bleed away. Emotion had no place in an AAR. It got in the way of good communication. I took two deep breaths and pushed the thoughts of failure out of my mind. I’d become adept at compartmentalizing things, and I knew I needed a clear head for this conversation.

  Taped to the side of the tent wall was a poster-size piece of paper with the checklist for the AAR.

  Mission Planning

  Infil

  Actions on the Objective

  TQ [Tactical Questioning]

  Exfil

  Comms [Communications]

  Intel

  HQ

  Each of us took turns talking about our role in the mission. As a team leader, I would start by speaking for my team, and my guys would jump in if they had something to add. Everyone was not only free to talk, but encouraged to speak up.

  The troop chief started things off by going over the mission planning. From there, we started talking through each part of the operation, starting with the infil. We came in on two CH-47 helicopters, using the infil strategy called “flying to the Y.”

  Flying to the Y had been no different than previous missions. The radio exploded with chatter about squirters as soon as we started to land. I was right behind my point man as we dashed off the ramp, peeling to the far-right flank of our formation to get a good angle on the compounds.

  Over the radio, I heard Steve, Walt’s team leader, roger up to pursue the fighters. They followed the drone’s laser marker past the buildings and into the hills. I waited for the word to start the assault toward the compounds. Individual teams immediately started peeling off to take flanking positions and provide a base of fire.

  “OK,” said the troop chief over the radio. “Let’s take it.”

  We started toward the target. I saw other teams and Afghan commandos disappear into a maze of compounds. My team surrounded one building and stopped. We set up at the door and tried the latch. It was unlocked. The point man pushed the door open.

  The house was pitch-black, but we could see pretty well with our night vision goggles. The house had one main room with a kitchen in one corner. The place was deserted. There were no fighters. No weapons. No explosives. Nothing.

  Outside, I saw a few Afghan commandos standing guard over some women and children. Over the radio, Steve was still racing after the fleeing fighters. I could see the drone’s laser tracking the Taliban fighters far up the hill. Well behind them were Steve and his team. I could see the IR strobes on their helmets blinking. They were cutting a zigzag up the hill trying to catch up.

  “That sucks,” I said to a teammate watching them with me. “That looks miserable. Hope they catch ’em.”

  Over the radio, Steve was asking for close air support. He wanted the AC-130 gunship to open fire, but he couldn’t get approval. Finally, after more than an hour chasing the fighters up the side of the mountain and deeper into unknown territory, the troop commander and troop chief called the mission. There was no use in continuing to pursue the fighters, especially since our team wasn’t gaining any ground on them and they weren’t getting approval to drop bombs.

  The troop commander called for exfil and the first helicopter landed near t
he network of compounds. We walked up the ramp and slumped into the orange jump seats. Seconds later, I could feel the helicopter lift off and head back to the base.

  The other helicopter headed for Steve’s team, including Walt. They were too far away to walk back and we didn’t have the time to sit and wait as they scaled back down the mountain. These were not rolling hills either. We were talking mountains, ones with snowcaps in the winter. A helicopter exfil at Steve’s location wasn’t going to be easy.

  Steve and his team needed one hand on the mountain at all times as they waited for the helicopter to arrive. The twin-rotor CH-47 helicopter couldn’t land, so the pilot from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flew past the cliff, stopped in a hover, and slowly backed the open ramp to the edge of the rocks. The rotors were within a few feet of the rock face. The 160th pilots were the best in the world. Only these pilots could have pulled this type of exfil off. Steve’s team watched the pilots back the bus-size helicopter to the cliff face. The downdraft from the spinning rotor blades kicked up dirt and debris that showered the SEALs with rocks and coated their uniforms in mud.

  The pilots maneuvered the helicopter’s ramp to within a few feet of the cliff. One by one, Steve and his team jumped from the rocks to the ramp.

  “Man, you guys would still be making your way down that mountain if the pilots hadn’t pulled off that exfil,” I said to Walt as he described leaping for the ramp.

  “We were getting blasted by rocks for at least five minutes,” Walt said. “I’m not sure what would have been worse, the walk back down the mountain or the welts I have all over my body.”

  “Maybe the Van Halen shirt jinxed you,” one of the other SEALs said.

  “Yeah, Walt, maybe the weight of your mud-covered beard slowed you down,” I said.

  It was funny to us because we weren’t the ones who had to climb the mountain. We were having a good laugh about Steve and his team, but they weren’t enjoying the joke. They’d tried their best to get the fighters and felt let down when the air strikes weren’t approved.