I stepped out of the aircraft and walked unaided to the bottom of the steps. Dr. Dickens met me and drove me back to the hospital. I stood there and listened for the C-130 to take off, to hear it roar off the runway and carry Mikey and Danny westward into the setting sun, a few miles closer to heaven.
And the words from a thousand memorial services flickered through my mind: “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.” Right here in bed in Bagram, Afghanistan, I was conducting my own military service for my two fallen buddies.
My new worry was Axe. Where was he? Surely he could not have lived? But the guys could not find him, and that was bad. I’d pinpointed that hollow where we both had rested and waited for death while the unseen Taliban rained fire down on us from behind the rocks and finally blew us both across the open ground to oblivion.
I’d survived, but I had not been shot five times like Axe. And I knew to the inch where he was last time I saw him. I talked to the guys again, and the SEAL command was not about to leave him up there. They were going in again, this time with more intel if possible, more searchers, and more local guidance.
I suggested they find the village elder from Sabray, if he was still in residence. Because he of all people could surely lead them to the dead SEAL. I learned right then from the intel guys that the gentleman I referred to was the headman of all the three villages we had observed. He was a man hugely revered in the Hindu Kush, because this is a culture that does not worship youth and cheap television celebrity. Those tribesmen treasure, above all things, knowledge, experience, and wisdom.
We did contact him immediately, and a few days later, the same old man, Gulab’s father, my protector, walked through the mountains again for maybe four or five miles. This time he was at the head of an American SEAL team, the Alfa Platoon, which contained many of my buddies, Mario, Corey, Garrett, Steve, Sean, Jim, and James. (No last names. Active special ops guys, right?)
There was also a group from Echo Platoon. All day they tramped over the steep mountainside, and they took extra water and food with them, in case it took longer. But this time they were not coming back without Axe. No sir. We never leave anyone alone.
The elder hardly spoke one word to them. But he walked directly to the exact place where the body of Matthew Gene Axelson was lying. His face had been blasted by close-range gunfire, in that quaint, old-fashioned way the Taliban have when they find a mortally wounded American. By the way, if anyone should dare to utter the words Geneva Convention while I’m writing this, I might more or less lose control.
Anyway, they found Axe, with the bullets the Taliban rifles had emptied into his face as he lay dying, just as they had done to Mikey. But Axe was in a different place from where I thought. I know we were both blown out of the hole by the RPG, because I went over the precipice. But Axe was a few hundred yards even farther away. No one quite knows how he got there.
Axe still had three magazines left for his pistol when the grenade hit us. But when they found him, he was on the last one. And that could mean only one thing: Axe must have fought on, recovering consciousness after the blast and going for those bastards again, firing maybe thirty more rounds at them; must have driven them mad. I guess that’s why, when he inevitably succumbed to his most shocking injuries, they had accorded him that barbaric tribal finale.
I used to think Audie Murphy was the ultimate American warrior. I’m not so sure about that. Not now. Not anymore. And it upsets me more than I can say, thinking what they did, in the end, to Mikey and Axe. It upsets Morgan so bad, no one can even mention Axe’s name without him having to leave the room. I guess you had to know him to understand that. There were not many like Matthew Axelson.
Well, by the time they brought Axe down, I was gone. They flew me out on the night of July 8, in a big military Boeing, the C-141, on a long journey to Germany. Jeff Delapenta accompanied me, never left my side once. And there I checked in to the regional medical center at the U.S. Air Force base at Landstuhl, up near the western border with France, about fifty-five miles southwest of Frankfurt.
I was there for about nine days, recovering and receiving treatment for my wounds and therapy for the healing bones in my back, shoulder, and wrist. But that Pepsi bottle bug wouldn’t budge from my stomach. It showed major resistance for long months and made it hard to regain my lost weight.
But I came through it and finally left Germany for the four-thousand-mile ride back to the U.S.A. This time Lieutenant Clint Burk, my swim buddy in BUD/S, accompanied me, along with Dr. Dickens. Clint and I have been closest friends forever, and the journey passed pretty quickly. We traveled in a C-17 cargo plane, upstairs in first class...well, nearly. But in seats. It was great. And we touched down nine hours later in Maryland. Then the navy hitched a ride for us in a Gulfstream private jet owned by a senator.
And I guess I arrived back in some style to San Antonio Airport, Texas, which stands almost two hundred miles west of Houston, right along Route 10 and over the Colorado River. Back home I guess there had been some talk that I might be taken on to San Diego, but apparently Morgan just said, “You can forget all about that. He’s coming home, and we’re going to get him.”
They saddled up the family Suburban, Morgan and my kid brother, Scottie, plus the SEALs Lieutenant JJ, and JT. And they set off across the Lone Star State to collect the brother they had been told by the media was dead. I couldn’t believe it when I saw them all waiting there when my private jet landed.
There were a few tears from all of us. Just tears of happiness, I guess, because they had all lived with the darkest of threats, that we would not see one another ever again. I have to say the thought had also crossed my mind a few times as well.
But mostly I remember the laughter. “Jesus, you look awful,” said Morgan. “Mom’ll have a nervous breakdown when she sees you.” It reminded me of what I’d said to Axe when he’d been fatally wounded on the mountain — “Hey, man, you’re all fucked up.”
It’s just the way we talk to each other. Remember, Morgan was a SEAL, and his words, even to his twin brother, were tempered with humor, like all of our words among ourselves. One day it could be Morgan trapped on the mountain and me waiting for him, beside myself with worry and fear for his life. I recall he did tell me he loved me, though, and so did Scottie. And that meant a lot to me.
In the absence of Commander Pero, Scottie rustled up a bagful of cheeseburgers for the five-hour journey home, and we guffawed our way across Texas; me making light of my ordeal, telling ’em it wasn’t much really, none of them believing me. I guess it’s impossible to look as bad as I did when it wasn’t much really.
But we had some fun, and in the end, I told them a few of the bits that were on the serious side of horrendous. Morgan wept like a child when I told him about Axe. We all went pretty quiet while that was happening, because there were no words which could comfort him, nothing that could ever be said to ease his sadness. In my view, nothing ever will. Same with me and Mikey.
Eventually we ran into our little corner of East Texas. Everyone pulled together as we drove down that wide, red dirt road to the ranch, the home I thought I might never see again. Those big oaks still towered over the place, and Dad’s dogs came running out to meet us, barking like hell, with Emma unusually out in the lead, wagging her tail, as if she knew something the others didn’t.
Mom predictably broke down at the sight of me, because I was still more than thirty pounds lighter than when she last saw me. And I guess I still looked pretty ill. I never told her about the goddamned typhoid-laden Pepsi bottle. A ton of people were there, from all around the neighborhood, to greet me.
I didn’t know at the time that these people had formed the bedrock of the five-day prayer vigil that had taken place on the property while I was missing. A vigil to which no one had been invited, and no one knew if anyone else would be there; a vigil born of pure friendship and concern, which started with such melanc
holy prophesies of doom and tenuous hopes, but ended on the sunlit uplands of answered prayers. I could scarcely believe it when I heard what had happened.
And yet, standing right before me, was the cast-iron evidence of the love those Texans must have had for me and for what I had tried to do on behalf of my country. It came in the form of a brand-new stone house standing across a new paved courtyard, maybe twenty feet from the main house. It was two floors high, with a wide, timbered upper deck around the bedrooms, which abutted a tall, stone-walled shower, custom-made for me. Inside, the house was perfectly decorated, carpeted, and furnished, with a big plasma television.
“How the hell did that get here?” I asked Mom. And what she then told me blew me away. It started with a visit, after the vigil had ended, from a marvelous Texan landowner called Scott Whitehead. He was just one of so many who came to see my parents and express his delight that I had been found. He’d never, by the way, met any of the family before.
And before he went, he explained he had a close friend who owned a construction company in Houston and wondered if there was anything Marcus might like when he came home.
Mom explained how I had always wanted a little space of my own where I could...well...chill, as the late Shane Patton would undoubtedly have expressed it. And perhaps a small extension off my lower-floor bedroom might be really nice. She was thinking rock-bottom price, and maybe she and Dad could manage that.
Next thing that happened, she said, two of the biggest trucks she’d ever seen came rolling into the drive, accompanied by a crane and a mechanical digger, a couple of architects, site engineers, and God knows what else. Then, Mom says, a team of around thirty guys, working twenty-four hours a day in shifts over three days, built me a house!
Scott Whitehead just said he was proud to have done a small favor for a very great Texan (Christ! He meant me, I think). And he still calls Mom every day, just to check we’re all okay.
Anyway, Morgan and I moved in, freeing up space for the stream of SEALs who still kept coming to see us. And I stayed home with the family, resting for two weeks, during which time Mom fought a fierce running battle with the Pepsi bottle bug, trying to get some weight on me.
Scott Whitehead’s boys had thought of everything. They even had the house phone wired up in my new residence, and the first call I received was a real surprise. I picked it up and a voice said, “Marcus, this is George Bush. I was forty-one.”
Jesus! This was the forty-first president of the United States. I knew that real quick. President Bush lives in Houston.
“Yessir,” I replied. “I very definitely know exactly who you are.”
“Well, I just called you to tell you how proud we all are of you. And my son’s real proud, and he wants you to know the United States of America is real proud of you, your gallantry, and your courage under fire.”
Hell, you could tell he was a military man, right off. I knew about his record, torpedo bomber pilot in the Pacific, World War II, shot down by the Japanese, Distinguished Flying Cross. The man who appointed General Colin Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Victor of the Gulf War.
Are you kidding! “I’m George, forty-one, calling you to let you know how proud we are of you!” That really broke me up. He told me if I needed anything, no matter what, “be sure to call me.” Then he gave me his phone number. How about that? Me, Marcus? I mean, Jesus, he didn’t have to do that. Are Texans the greatest people in the world or what? Maybe you don’t think so, but I bet you see my point.
I was thrilled President Bush had called. And I thanked him sincerely. I just told him at the end, “Anything shakes loose, sir, I’ll be sure to call. Yessir.”
By mid-August, still being in the U.S. Navy, I had to go back to Hawaii (SDV Team 1). During my two weeks there I had a visit from the chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mike Mullin, direct from the Pentagon.
He asked me to come over to the commanding officer’s office and promoted me right there on the spot, made me a Petty Officer First Class, no bullshit.
He’s the head of the U.S. Navy. And that was the greatest honor I had ever received. It was a moment I will never forget, just standing there in the presence of Admiral Mullin. He told me he was very proud of me. And it doesn’t get a whole lot bigger than that. I nearly cracked up.
Perhaps civilians might not appreciate why an honor like that means all the world to all of us; that sacred recognition that you have served your country well, that you have done your duty and somehow managed to live up to the highest possible expectations.
Even though it may seem like a strange ritual in a foreign tribe, kinda like lokhay, probably, I hope y’all get my drift.
Anyway, he asked me if there was anything he could do for me and I told him there was just one thing. I had with me the Texas patch I’d worn on my chest throughout my service in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda. This is the patch that bears the Lone Star. It was burned from the blast of that last RPG, and it was still blood-spattered, though I’d tried to get it cleaned. But I’d wrapped it in plastic, and you could see the Star of Texas clearly. And I asked Admiral Mullin if he could give it to the president of the United States.
He replied that he most certainly would and that he believed that President George W. Bush would be honored to have it.
“Would you like to send a brief letter to the president to accompany the battle patch?” Admiral Mullin asked me.
But I told him no. “I’d be grateful if you’d just give it to him, sir. President Bush is a Texan. He’ll understand.”
I had another request to make as well, but I restricted that to my immediate superiors. I wanted to go back to Bahrain and rejoin my guys from SDV Team 1 and ultimately bring them home at the conclusion of their tour of duty.
“I deployed with them, and I want to come back with them,” I said, and my very good friend Mario, the officer in charge of Alfa Platoon, considered this to be appropriate. And on September 12, 2005, I flew back to the Middle East, coming in to land at the U.S. air base on Muharraq Island, same place I’d left with Mikey, Axe, Shane, James, and Dan Healy, bound for Afghanistan, five months ago. I was the only one left.
They drove me out over the causeway, back to the American base up in the northeast corner of the country on the western outskirts of the capital city of Manama. We drove through the downtown area, through the places where people made it so plain they hated us, and this time I admit there was an edge of wari-ness in my soul. I knew now, firsthand, what jihadist hatred was.
I was reunited with my guys, and I stayed in Bahrain until late October. Then we all returned to Hawaii, while I prepared for another arduous journey, the one I had promised myself, promised my departed brothers in my prayers, and promised the families, whenever I could. I intended to see all the relatives and to explain what exemplary conduct all of their sons, husbands, and brothers had displayed on the front line of the battle against world terror.
I suppose, in a sense, I was filling in a part of me, which had missed seeing the outpouring of grief as, one by one, my teammates returned from Afghanistan. I had missed the funerals, which mostly took place before I returned. And the memorial services immaculately conducted by the navy for my fallen comrades.
For instance, the funeral of Lieutenant Mikey Murphy on Long Island, New York, was enormous. They closed down entire roads, busy roads. There were banners hanging across the highway on the Long Island Expressway in memory of a Navy SEAL who had paid the ultimate price in our assault on the warriors of al Qaeda.
There were police escorts for the cortege as thousands of ordinary people turned out to pay their last respects to a local son who had given everything for his country. And they did not even know a quarter of what he had given. Neither did anyone else. Except for me.
I was shown a picture of the service at the cemetery graveside. It was held in a slashing downpour of rain, everyone soaked, with the stone-faced Navy SEALs standing there in dress uniform, solemn, unflinching in the rains
torm, as they lowered Mikey into the endless silence of the grave.
Every one of the bodies was flown home accompanied by a SEAL escort who wore full uniform and stood guard over each coffin, which was draped in the Stars and Stripes. As I mentioned, even in death, we never leave anyone behind.
They closed Los Angeles International Airport for the arrival of James Suh’s plane. There were no arrivals and no takeoffs permitted while the aircraft was making its approach and landing. Nothing, until the escort had brought out the coffin and placed it in the hearse.
The State of Colorado damn near closed down for the arrival of the body of Danny Dietz, because the story of his heroism on the mountain had somehow been leaked to the press. But like the good citizens of Long Island, the people of Colorado never knew even a quarter of what that mighty warrior had done in the face of the enemy, on behalf of our nation.
They actually did close down the entire city of Chico, in northern California, when Axe came home. It’s a small town, situated around seventy-five miles north of Sacramento, with its own municipal airport. The escort was met by an honor guard which carried out the coffin in front of a huge crowd, and the funeral a day later stopped the entire place in its tracks, so serious were the traffic jams.
It was all just people trying to pay their last respects. The same everywhere. And I am left feeling that no matter how much the drip-drip-drip of hostility toward us is perpetuated by the liberal press, the American people simply do not believe it. They are rightly proud of the armed forces of the United States of America. They innately understand what we do. And no amount of poison about our alleged brutality, disregard of the Geneva Convention, and abuse of the human rights of terrorists is going to change what most people think.
I doubt any editor of any media outfit would get a reception like the SEALs earned, even though these combat troops had achieved their highest moments in the enforced privacy of the Hindu Kush. Perhaps the media offered the American public a poisoned chalice and then chugged it back themselves.