No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL

CHAPTER 9 Follow Your Buddy Accountability

It was the night before the operation was going to launch when I got the call to come over to the joint operations center. It was 2007 and I was on my sixth deployment. Instead of working with my team and doing raids, I had been sent to work with other government agencies as a liaison.

I’d coordinate air support and help with the tactical plan. I’d also take responsibility for any prisoners that we would detain so they could be turned over to the appropriate Coalition military detention facility.

The relationships between the CIA, Special Forces, and the 82nd Airborne Division nearby were strained at best. The Special Forces team wanted to go out and patrol but didn’t have the money to pay the Afghan police unit they were training. In order to set up an ambush along a trail used by fighters to come across the border, we had to send up a CONOP, or concept of operations plan, indicating we were going out to train on “ambushes,” in order to get it approved.

At this point in the war, bureaucracy was slowing everything down. In order to get outside the wire, we’d first put together several PowerPoint slides explaining the operation. The slides would have to be approved all the way up the chain of command, which could take several days.

A little over halfway into our deployment, I got a call from my squadron to report to a base in eastern Afghanistan. The message was loud and clear.

It was almost unheard of for them to call us in from our assignment. The rest of my squadron was spread all over Afghanistan doing the same mission. When word came to come back for a mission, I wasn’t upset. I enjoyed my mission, but I also liked the idea of getting back to being an assaulter with the rest of the team.

Once our squadron was reconstituted, we met in the main planning room. The briefs were held in a long, narrow room with handmade wooden benches running down the middle, like a church. At the front of the room were flat-screen TVs for PowerPoint presentations and to show us drone video or satellite photos. Maps of Afghanistan and the border area hung on one wall opposite wire diagrams showing key players in the various Taliban and al Qaeda networks we were targeting.

The room was packed full of people. It was standing room only. Up front, the squadron commander started the brief. A source had reported that he had seen Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader, near Tora Bora. It was the same place U.S. forces almost captured him in 2001.

The Battle of Tora Bora started December 12, 2001, and lasted five days. It was believed Bin Laden was hiding in the mountains at Tora Bora, which is Pashto for “black cave.” He was suspected of being in a cave complex in the White Mountains, near the Khyber Pass. His headquarters was rumored to be a multistory complex equipped with hydroelectric power from mountain streams, hotel-like corridors, and room for a thousand fighters. The cave complex was definitely a historical safe haven for Afghan fighters, and the CIA had funded many of the improvements to the region during the 1980s to assist the mujahedeen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Troops during the battle in 2001 found massive weapons caches with Stinger missiles from the 1980s. U.S. and Afghan forces overran the Taliban and al Qaeda positions but failed to kill or capture Bin Laden at that time. He escaped to Pakistan. Now a CIA source said he was coming back to Afghanistan.

“They saw a tall man in flowing white robes in Tora Bora,” the commander said. “He was back to possibly make his final stand.”

I wasn’t that excited.

Something wasn’t right. The operation was based on a single human source that claimed to see a tall man in “flowing white robes.” Single-source intelligence rarely ended up being accurate and typically wasn’t enough on its own to convince us to launch on an operation.

With no other sources to confirm the report, we launched dozens of ISR drones into the area. They flew missions day and night over Tora Bora with no significant sightings. It’s funny because the intelligence folks and higher-level planners always seem to think that you can’t hear drones. The reality is you can. The drones fly in the middle of the mountains in Afghanistan and sound like a lawn mower circling above. In Afghanistan, that sound can mean only one thing, an American drone. Send in a couple dozen of them and anyone in the area is going to know someone is watching.

The mission was set to launch in a few days, but we were ready to go on the first night. We’d been at this for long enough that we didn’t need much notice. We were quick thinkers, and it didn’t require a long lead time to plan and execute a mission. But being ready quickly didn’t really matter because the operation kept getting delayed.

Day after day it was a new excuse.

“We’re waiting on B-1 bombers.”

“The Rangers aren’t in place yet.”

“We’ve got Special Forces heading to the area with their Afghan units.”

The delays were coming from higher up. It seemed every general in Afghanistan wanted to be involved. Units from every service had been read in. Even the Army’s M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, which was built to shoot long-range missiles, got a part of the mission. It was on tap to shoot a barrage of rockets into the area to provide pre-assault fires a short time before the SEALs would fly in by helicopter.

With each delay, what we call the “good-idea fairy” gained momentum. Officers and planners started dreaming up crazy scenarios for us to deal with on the mission, and somehow it always meant more equipment to carry.

Besides the extra units, the FBI sent their DNA experts all the way from Washington. Someone had also spent thirty thousand dollars on a 3-D map of the valley. It showed up one day, only to sit in the back of the briefing room, unused. The only time we looked at it was to see exactly what a thirty-thousand-dollar map looked like.

After a few days of waiting, I was hanging out by the fire pit in the center of our camp. We were sitting around talking about all the madness that was transpiring around us when a buddy of mine walked up.

“Hey, man, has master chief tracked you down?” he said.

“Nope,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“Not sure, but I guess you aren’t going on the mission anymore and are being tasked to do something a bit different.”

My curiosity was up. I walked over to the operations center. As I walked inside the ops center there was a nonstop bustle of activity. There must have been twelve flat-screen TVs on the wall, all looking at a different area. I saw my master chief at his seat in the corner and made my way over to him.

“What you got, brother?” I said. “I hear you’re looking for me.”

“Something came up, and you and Walt are going to work with some folks and possibly help them conduct some targets,” the master chief said. “We got you a plane tonight. From there you’ll link up with your contact and make your way up to the border region near Tora Bora. We need you guys to coordinate blocking positions. If we get squirters, you guys can make sure he doesn’t get away again.”

“Am I bringing my kit?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Bring all your op gear.

“Since both you and Walt are JTACs you can help coordinate any air strikes as well as passing intel from the ISR to the soldiers on the ground.”

Walt was going to be my swim buddy, a technique taught to us at BUD/S. SEALs never go anywhere alone. From the first day on the beach during BUD/S, we are paired with a swim buddy. The Army uses the same principle, but they call them “battle buddies.” On missions overseas or training missions back in the States, your swim buddy always watches your back.

But the idea of having a swim buddy means a lot more than that. They have your best interests at heart and are not afraid to tell you the truth. Your swim buddy isn’t your boss or a subordinate. He is your peer. Swim buddies check your parachute, listen to your plans, and are usually the first people to tell you, “Fuck no, that’s stupid.”

Succeeding is much easier when you have someone else holding you accountable. Having swim buddies is a two-way street. Not only do you need to be honest and communicate; you have to listen. Otherwise, the message is lost. I learned over my career that my swim buddy was even more valuable as we negotiated the politics of the command. I needed a peer who would call me out.

Steve, Walt’s team leader, was my swim buddy for most of my career. We were in S&T together and grew up in the same squadron. We could speak honestly, and when he told me I was fucking up or getting too emotional about an issue, I listened.

You always want someone in your professional life who is going to be honest, who’s going to call you on your bullshit. But a swim buddy is a guy who not only will call you on your bullshit but will also without a doubt have your back when things get rough. They don’t disown you when you make a mistake. They don’t ever walk away from you when you need help. They are friends, mentors, and your last sanity check. You can trust them implicitly, and like in BUD/S, they are never that far away from you when the bullets start flying.

Walt was going to be my swim buddy.

I raced back to my room and got my stuff packed. The base was built to house about two hundred people, but in a week the population had grown to almost seven hundred. The chow hall was jammed every meal. There was no room. Hot showers became a commodity. At first, there was never any hot water; then there was no water at all. Then the toilets got stopped up.

At night, we’d sit around the campfire at the center of our compound and laugh about how massive the mission had become. The operation alone was going to begin as a massive bombing campaign. More bombs were going to be dropped in Tora Bora than had been dropped in all of Afghanistan from the beginning of the war.

“We could have been in and out of there already,” Walt told me one night. “All this commotion is only going to give away what we’re planning. Shit, I’ll be surprised if anybody is still in that mountain range. Lord knows if I heard drones flying above my house for the past week, I’d leave town.”

All the commotion at our compound also attracted the attention of the Afghans who worked at the camp. It’s kind of hard to keep anything a secret when you have no less than fifty local Afghans working on your compound, pumping the shitters, filling the water barrels, and doing construction. There was no doubt in any of our minds that everybody knew who we were and that we were spinning up on something big.

Plus, every day the mission was delayed, there was a better chance of it leaking. As we sat at the flight line waiting for our plane, Walt and I both had the same feeling about the mission. Our money was on a dry hole.

“Here is what is going to happen,” I said finally. “They’ll land and spend a week hiking around the mountains. It’s a multimillion-dollar camping trip.”

Walt agreed.

“Sucks to be them,” he said. “At least our trip will be an adventure.”

We were headed to another Central Asian country. On the way, we spent a night in the capital and then moved back toward the border. But at our first stop, the host country said Walt had to stay behind. They were going to allow only one of us to link up with their forces stationed along the border. Since I was senior in rank, it fell to me. I didn’t much like the idea of heading over the border without my swim buddy, but I didn’t have a choice.

After spending another night in Peshawar, I headed out to the airport to catch a helicopter to a base across the border with Tora Bora. Instead of Walt, a CIA officer called Harvey and a communications tech from the unit now joined me. I met Harvey at the embassy. He was tall and thin and still kept his hair short in a Marine Corps flattop.

A former artillery officer, he was sporting the CIA’s “go to war” uniform of 5.11 Tactical pants, a North Face polo shirt, and hiking boots. I’d worked with the agency before and I wanted to feel this guy out a little bit. We’d be “swim buddies” for the next week or so, but I wasn’t sure he understood the concept like I did.

“So, man, what is your tasking?” I asked.

Harvey shrugged.

“Been up to this area before?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. “I’ve been at the embassy for a while, but this is the first time in this part of the country.”

“Great,” I thought, “another one fresh off the cocktail circuit.” This was the first time he would be this close to the actual war. Since I worked at the outstation, I’d spent a lot of time with the agency. They all seemed to have advanced degrees, but no common sense when it came to Afghanistan. They spent more time fighting each other. The agency, in my experience, was one big pissing contest.

At the airport we sat on the tarmac and waited for our helicopter to show up. Keeping tight schedules and being on time was something the host country was definitely not used to.

After several hours of sitting around, we were met by a gaggle of officers who ushered us into the most rundown Mi-17 cargo helicopter I’d ever seen. Built by the Russians, the Mi-17 didn’t have the sleek look of American helicopters. Instead, it looked like a fat insect with a bulbous body and a tail boom jutting out. Paint was peeling off the side, and the cabin deck was slick in places from oil or some other fluid. I found a spot on the floor near the back and hoped for the best.

Harvey climbed in next to me, followed by the communications tech.

The helicopter slowly came to life as we lifted off and climbed into the sky. I tried to relax and not focus on the hydraulic fluid leaking from the ceiling as we flew. Something else was wrong as well. The whole helicopter seemed to be tilted to the left. We weren’t even balanced correctly.

The crew chief started to move boxes of meals ready to eat and Pelican cases and gear bags back and forth, trying to balance the helicopter. No matter how hard he tried, it never leveled out. Between moving boxes, he started brewing tea in a small electric pot. The first two cups went to the pilots, delivered on a small silver tray. The second cups went to Harvey and me, again delivered on the same tray.

I sipped tea and tried not to think about crashing. Next to me, Harvey sat silently and looked out the window. It was hard to talk over the engine noise.

We landed at the base without incident. The officers were nervous once we arrived. When I tried to help unload the bags, the officers shooed me away and escorted me to a nearby truck. A captain greeted us. His skin was dark and weathered from the sun. A well-groomed mustache covered his lip.

He seemed nervous and agitated.

“It is better you stay in the truck,” he said. “My men will bring your things up to your area.”

The convoy snaked its way from the airfield up a rutted road toward a bunch of buildings. The base looked nothing like ours in Afghanistan. It was wide open, with no walls, and sat in the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains. We were located so close to Tora Bora that I could literally look at the mountains in the distance and see the bombs going off.

The trucks stopped at a building concealed behind a fence. It was still on the base, but far enough away where we couldn’t be easily seen. While the communications tech set up all of the radios and computers, I found an empty room and started to unpack.

The U-shaped building was made of concrete. Most of the rooms were empty. We each had a room with a bunk bed, but no mattress, just a box spring on a wire frame. Harvey came into my room.

“They give you any sheets?” he asked, eyeballing my kit and rifle out on the bed.

“Nope,” I said. “I’m just going to use my sleeping bag and the ground pad that I packed.”

He looked annoyed and glanced back into the hallway and then back at me.

“You think they have sheets for us?”

A platoon of soldiers arrived to protect us. They lived in another house next door but kept soldiers posted on the roof and on roving patrols around our building twenty-four hours a day.

I didn’t think they had sheets for him.

“Doubt it,” I said. “But you can ask.”

He left and returned about a half hour later. He had a set of sheets in his hands.

“They have sheets if you want some,” he said. “They had to go around the base and find them. They’re kind of rough.”

There was no way I was going to ask for sheets. As Harvey’s swim buddy, I probably should have squared him away, but I think I was taken aback by how inconsiderate he was acting. He seemed to think the soldiers were there to cater to us. We were the visitors and should have been content with whatever they gave us. I knew full well that we weren’t going to be living in the Four Seasons. I packed accordingly and didn’t plan on making a fuss. My new swim buddy was already coming across as the ugly American.

It quickly became clear that the mission was out of Harvey’s comfort zone. This was not what he’d been trained to do. He seemed more interested in being comfortable and didn’t seem too focused on the objective. My goal was to build a relationship with the soldiers so if and when we saw squirters attempting to escape the upcoming bombing campaign, I could leverage that relationship and hopefully they would allow me to go out on the operation with them.

That night, I joined the soldiers for dinner. We had a chicken stew with flatbread and several platters of fresh vegetables. We sat around a blanket, our shoes off, and ate with our hands. Some of the soldiers spoke English and we spent the dinner talking about the area and how years ago, it had been a beautiful vacation spot. It was now Taliban controlled and no longer safe.

Harvey was also invited to dinner, but declined and sat in his room eating an MRE. He showed up after dinner looking for some sugar for his coffee. The only sugar we had was raw, which he reluctantly stirred into his cup.

“I like granulated better. Can you get me some of that type of sugar?” he asked the officer in charge of our guards.

He wasn’t making many friends, and by the third day, you could see how much the host country’s officers disliked him. If he wasn’t in the makeshift operations center, he was in his room. At night, he used to wear a pair of short running shorts that barely covered his groin and a tank top that exposed his slender, pasty white arms. It was amazing how bad he was at building rapport.

None of this was rocket science.

The Army Special Forces get extensive training in dealing with local nationals, but this was all new to me too. Then again, I think my growing up in an Alaskan Eskimo village had something to do with my own attitude. I was comfortable dealing with a foreign culture. It was no different than making friends in school or at work. Just be yourself, be open, and be a good houseguest.

For a guy who worked for an agency tasked with winning over sources and building rapport with the locals, Harvey didn’t have a clue. At every turn, he offended our hosts. From the sheets to the sugar to the tank top, he damaged every bridge I tried to build.

Harvey was making it impossible for me to build rapport. Even though I had a good relationship with the soldiers, when Harvey walked into the room the mood changed. The soldiers became stiff and formal. Their body language gave away their disdain for him. He wasn’t accountable at all for his actions. Harvey was thinking about only himself, and not the mission. And by doing that—having that mind-set, which is the antithesis of the SEAL philosophy—he jeopardized the success of the mission. In his community there was very little teamwork, which to me was alien because the team was the bedrock of the SEAL community. At this point in my career, I’d worked only on kick-ass teams. Shit, even when I worked with the Polish GROM during Operation Iraqi Freedom my first deployment, they fit in perfectly with our SEAL platoons. I assumed that everyone was like we were.

I also knew if my teammates forced any fighters across the border, there was no way they were going to allow me to tag along. At this point I wasn’t even sure I’d want to go into the field with Harvey as my swim buddy. I missed Walt.

With the mission under way on the Afghan side of the border, I sat in our small command center and scanned all the ISR feeds. Based off the radio traffic and what I was seeing on my screens, nobody seemed to be moving in my direction. For that matter, nobody seemed to be moving in the Tora Bora region altogether.

My squadron assaulted onto the top of the deserted Tora Bora mountain range the day after I left. They set up at a patrol base. From there, they started to search the area. The FBI’s DNA expert arrived on the third wave of helicopters and promptly got altitude sickness. She had to be medevaced out twelve hours later. So much for that good-idea fairy.

A couple of times during the mission, I’d have to call in the officers after one of the Predators saw a large group of men with guns moving along the border, only to be told the group was part of the host nation’s forces. One time, the Predators spotted what looked like a camp near the border. I could make out tents and several men with guns walking around the area. They didn’t appear to be in uniform, but after an investigation with our host, he reported that it was just a border checkpoint.

After several days with little to no activity and the operation starting to wind down, the PakMil sent word back to the embassy that they didn’t want us there anymore. The next day, Harvey and I packed our gear and climbed aboard the same ratty MI-17 helicopter. Over a cup of tea, I watched the mountains slip by as the helicopter—still cockeyed—flew us back to the capital, where I met back up with Walt. We were both frustrated and ready to go back to some real work.

I told Walt what happened with Harvey. It dawned on both of us just how lucky we were to be in the unit where your swim buddy would take his shirt off his back for you. There was no AAR between Harvey and me, and no chance for us to discuss lessons learned. He wasn’t interested in being a good teammate and I never felt like he had my back. I was happy that I’d never see him again

We boarded a plane to fly back to Afghanistan. Walt and I were flying back with a half dozen other diplomats and soldiers. Just as I settled into my seat, the door opened and the young State Department staffer who took us to the plane climbed back onboard.

He’d set up the flight, but now he looked pale and nervous. Right behind him were several customs officials with AK-47s. From what I could gather, they wanted to know who was on the plane and the State Department staffer didn’t have any answers. The staffer was no older than twenty-five and probably hadn’t been in the country more than a few months.

Walt and I had our guns, explosives, and all our operations gear in our bags. As ordered, we’d brought everything we’d need to go into the field.

“Leave all your stuff,” the staffer said to everybody. “They told me the plane can leave, but only if you all get off. You all have to get off the plane right away.”

I could see the stress on his face. The staffer kept looking back at the officials. Something was really wrong. I glanced over at the guards. They looked angry.

As the others got up to leave, Walt and I ditched our pistols by hiding them in our bags and followed the staffer. Outside on the tarmac, a guard shoved his rifle in my face and started to scream at the group. I held up my hands and smiled. It felt strange to be without my pistol. It wasn’t like I was going to start fighting customs inspectors, but the weapon was a security blanket for me. I felt naked without it. I could see Walt sizing up the guards and assessing the situation. He was always the little guy with the big personality.

A few years before, I invited Walt out to SHOT Show, a shooting trade show in Las Vegas. We’d usually go out there to meet with vendors and see what kinds of new guns and gear were available on the market that we might be able to use.

The first day, I introduced him around to all the vendors. By the second day, my contacts were asking me where Walt was hanging out. At a bar after the show the third night, I found Walt holding court with executives from the National Rifle Association. He had a cigar in his mouth, and he was slapping backs and shaking hands like he was running for office.

But one look at the guards and I was sure his winning personality wasn’t going to help here. We were in a lot of trouble. We weren’t sure what was going on, but from the looks of it, we weren’t going to talk our way out of this one.

We were herded into a waiting room near the flight line. Walt sat down in the chair next to me. I could just make out his exasperated grimace through his beard. He kept his head down and his eyes low.

“This is bullshit,” he growled.

A couple of the diplomats and younger soldiers began showing signs of stress. They were beginning to get more and more upset. The State Department staffer who pulled us off the airplane wasn’t in the room, so to me that was a good sign. Hopefully he was working out whatever issues there were. I looked over our group and could tell that there were some very worried folks.

“Hey, guys, everyone just needs to relax. I’m sure this is being worked out right this second,” I said. “Let’s just all keep our mouths shut and wait to hear more.”

There were multiple guards armed with AK-47s standing in the room, and there was no doubt in my mind that they spoke English. They were not only guarding us, but also listening to everything we said, waiting for someone to slip up and say something they shouldn’t.

We sat in the room for almost an hour. The guards kept coming in and demanding our military ID cards or passports. Once they made copies of those, I guess, they wanted our driver’s licenses and any other documents we could produce.

Each time, I’d hold the document up, only to have it snatched out of my hand by the guard. He’d growl something at me in Urdu and march off. My mind was spinning. Why did they let the plane leave, but not us? What exactly were they looking for? Why were they harassing us? I started to wonder if I had diplomatic immunity.

Then the State Department staffer was back with the guards. No one looked happy, but the color had returned to the staffer’s face. Instead of that frazzled look, he now just looked tired.

“OK, we can go,” he said. “Head out to the van. They are going to let us go back to the embassy.”

As we passed, the guard’s scowl got more severe. Walt and I pulled the staffer aside in the van. We wanted to know what had happened as well as where our gear was. We never traveled without our weapons and kit, and it felt wrong to leave them behind.

“What’s the deal?” Walt said.

“I finally got to my boss at the embassy and he made some calls,” the staffer said. “The plane was allowed to leave, but your kit will have to meet you back in Afghanistan.”

“OK, so our kit is safe. Now, what the fuck was up with that entire situation?” I asked angrily.

The staffer was flustered again. He stammered out something about a mix-up. I turned and looked at Walt and could already tell that he was thinking the whole explanation was suspect.

“My money is on the fact that you fucked up and forgot to file the proper paperwork,” I said to the staffer.

He didn’t respond, but kept talking about getting us home.

“I’m going to need to work some angles, so it may be a few days before I can get you guys out and back to Afghanistan,” he said.

After lying low at the American Embassy for a few days, we were allowed to leave. Walt and I landed back in Afghanistan a week later and couldn’t have been happier. We both had gotten a healthy dose of what it’s like to work without a swim buddy, and neither one of us wanted to repeat it anytime soon. While I had endured living with a horrible version of a swim buddy, Walt had stayed at the American Embassy without one at all. He was left with no mission and no support. All he had to do was kill time. We were not only happy to be back and linked up together, but very appreciative of each other’s support.

When all was said and done, the Air Force essentially knocked the tops off a few of the Tora Bora Mountains and my teammates went on a weeklong camping trip. There was no sign of any man in flowing white robes. My money is still on the fact that the single-source intelligence was shit from the beginning. We’d never forget the “flowing white robes,” and from that point on, the term became slang for a mission that was all fucked up from the start.

I’d remember the mission for another reason too. Working without trust, solid communication, and the ability to pull your partner aside and give him or her your honest opinion—and get honest feedback in return—was tough for me. Good, bad, or otherwise, your swim buddy is there to protect you, encourage you, give advice, call you on your shit, and most importantly be there when you need help.