No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL

CHAPTER 8 Shoot, Move, and Communicate Relationships

The dogs were keeping up a steady bark as we patrolled toward the compound.

I could hear them as soon as the sound of the helicopter’s engines faded. The first bark echoed through the valley as the team took our ritualistic piss after getting off our long helicopter ride. Seconds later, I heard a second one. By the time we were in patrol formation and started moving toward the target, it sounded like a choir of dogs alerting every farmer and fighter in the area to our presence.

I was now a veteran of eleven years in the SEALs and had been around long enough to become a team leader, and I was pretty well versed in the basic building blocks of operations. I no longer let standard human fears get in the way of making good decisions, and I knew communication and teamwork were the keys to success in combat.

That didn’t mean anything came easy.

We had flown up to Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan. The Germans and other Coalition forces had been in charge of the northern part of Afghanistan for years at this point. They conducted very few, if any, offensive operations in the area. They were focused much more on building roads, schools, and clinics. With no one chasing them out, enemy fighters had begun using the area as a safe haven. Hell, I wouldn’t want to leave the wire either, with a beer garden and several bars and clubs on base, but that was a different story.

We’d come up to northern Afghanistan after our intelligence analysts picked up a tip that a high-level Taliban commander was in the area. As the analysts continued the surveillance, we flew up to the area. We wanted to be close so we could launch once the operation got the green light.

We had no idea what the commander looked like, so the image of him on the briefing slide was just a silhouette.

Throughout the day, our analysts tracked the commander and watched via ISR as he moved from location to location, picking up fighters along the way. Finally, after the sun set, we observed the group move to what we call a bed-down location, usually a tree line or some defensible position where they would stop moving for the night and get some rest. It just so happened that the tree line they picked butted up against a large compound. It was standard practice for fighters to show up at a random civilian compound, demand to be fed, then, with full stomachs, fade into the tree line to sleep. With the thick vegetation of northern Afghanistan, it was easy for the fighters to simply patrol into the trees and hide from our drones flying overhead.

When the fighters arrived that afternoon, the drone pilots watched them go into the compound and then a few hours later disappear into the trees. From what we could see via ISR, the fighters never left the tree line. This didn’t mean they hadn’t moved through the trees and left the area. They were smart enough to know we had drones watching for them. The enemy would routinely move to multiple bed-down locations during the night.

In this case, the analysts were confident that the fighters hadn’t moved from the tree line, so we decided to launch on the mission.

Since I was a team leader, I had the internal radio net in one ear that allowed me to talk to my teammates and the command net in the other ear that allowed me to talk with the troop commander, troop chief, and any drones or aviation assets patrolling above.

“No movement,” the drone pilot said. “All the pax”—“pax” is shorthand for “people”—“are still in the tree line. It appears that the white station wagon is still in the same place.”

The Taliban commander and his group of fighters used the car and several dirt bikes to move between villages. If the car was still parked in the same location near the compound, we were confident the fighters weren’t far away.

The dogs barked for the entire seven-kilometer patrol. We were doing our best to be sneaky, and our snipers picked the best route in order to avoid the local villages. But after each step all I heard were the dogs. It definitely gave us all an uneasy feeling.

“These fucking dogs are killing me,” Steve said as we took a short break. “Do they always bark this much, or do they work for the Taliban?”

Steve was a fellow team leader and one of my best friends in the command. He was “country” strong, with a thick chest and arms. He had a bushy beard that covered his face. It made him look like a groundhog. We joked about it so much it became his nickname.

I met the Groundhog during S&T. From the first day, when asked to rate the top five and bottom five in the class, I always put Steve in my top five, and he always stood out as a leader in the class. I was lucky to get assigned to the same squadron as he did. We were assigned to different teams, but we basically grew up together in the command. He was on all of my deployments and training trips. Steve was the guy I went to when I had an idea and wanted some feedback. We almost always saw eye to eye, so when he would tell me he didn’t agree with something I was doing or had some advice for me, I always listened. His early advice was always the same.

“Take a wrap off, man,” he would tell me. “If you’re too emotional, no one is going to listen.”

But Steve was also a lot like me.

He and I almost got sent home from a deployment after we were critical of the tactics of one of our troop chiefs. The troop chief hadn’t asked for any guidance or input from any of the team leaders. He came up with a plan and refused to listen to the other leaders in the unit. The troop chief overheard us criticizing the plan. We were new to the command at this point and the troop chief didn’t take kindly to us “new guys” questioning his plan. He threatened to send us home from deployment, but our team leaders protected us.

We worked together for six years before both of us got our own team in the same troop. As team leaders, we worked in concert. I knew his moves and he knew mine. We’d been teammates so long that when the shooting started I always knew how he was reading a situation and how he and his team would react.

The SEAL community has a saying that each team member has to be able to “shoot, move, and communicate.” Being able to shoot means having the tactical skills needed to fire your gun safely and effectively. Moving refers to how you work as a team and how effectively and tactically you move around the battlefield. Communicating is all about speaking clearly and effectively so your teammates know what you’re doing. After years working so closely together, we could move and react almost seamlessly in a combat situation. We looked for SEALs who not only mastered those skills, but fit into our team. I never worried about guys on target. They knew what to do when the bullets started flying. My biggest leadership challenge was mentoring and teaching them what to do back in the team room.

I’ve sat in on the review board screening candidates for S&T. The oral interview process came after the physical fitness test—which I’d almost failed when I screened—and is probably the most nerve-wracking part of screening for S&T. It doesn’t take a lot of mental aptitude to run fast and do push-ups. That is more about will and preparation.

Most of the questions during the board were what-if scenarios that tested your integrity. The key was to have a reason for your actions and be able to logically explain the choice you made. One of the best questions was about range time. I was asked the question when I screened for S&T and in turn asked the question when it was my turn to sit as a member of the board.

“You’re not getting the range time you think you need to adequately prepare for a deployment,” the board would ask. “You want to do more shooting. Do you take some nine-millimeter rounds from work and go to the civilian range?”

I still remember my answer.

“Yes, absolutely,” I immediately blurted out, sitting in my dress uniform, a fresh shave and haircut, trying not to look nervous.

“Wouldn’t that be illegal?” one of the master chiefs on the board said.

“I’m not stealing them,” I said. “I am shooting the ammo. The logistics of my team make it difficult to train. I can’t check out my work gun and go to a work range because the closest range was at Camp Pendleton. It is over an hour drive away from where I work and is hardly ever available. Shooting those rounds is going to make me better at my job; besides, I would make sure to tell the guys that manage our ammo what I’m doing with them.”

Apparently that was the right answer. At the time, I wasn’t sure why. But after being in the command, I understood. It showed drive and initiative to go beyond the minimum training goals, both key ingredients for an S&T candidate. It was also a good example of how I would overcome an obstacle to better my skills and be an asset to the team. We wanted to see intrinsically motivated candidates who would go above and beyond to get the job done.

When I was on the board, I tried to get to know each candidate with an eye toward determining if he fit into the command’s culture because there was a chance one day he might be on my team.

“What do you bring to the table? Why should we select you to attend S&T?” I always asked during the interview.

The top answer was always “I’m a really hard worker,” followed by “I’m really good at CQB,” or close quarters battle, meaning they were good at clearing rooms.

“So fucking what?” was my response. Everybody in the command was a hard worker and good at CQB. I wanted the guys who exceed the minimums. The basics of the job are a given. I wanted the guy who asked himself every day the same question:

How do I become an asset to the team?

We wanted guys who were always pushing, the ones who did something more than the basic job description. Everyone in our organization did what was asked of them, but we wanted the SEALs who did what was asked and then went out and found more work to do. That was being an asset to the team.

Like everything in the SEALs, the only way to succeed was being all in, all the time. Unlike other units that select operators from throughout the service, candidates selected for S&T come only from the SEAL teams. Our similar backgrounds and the fact that every operator had to complete the exact same standards to get into the unit made our command a very close-knit place to work. These relationships are very important not only to morale and a good working environment, but in combat as well. Our close-knit teams allowed us to anticipate each other’s moves, which over time proved to be the difference between success and failure on target.

The dogs were still barking when we stopped at the edge of a big, muddy field opposite the compound and the tree line. I wished the dogs would shut up. Then again, I figured maybe the dogs always barked this much. Hopefully the enemy was deaf to them at this point.

We had a squad of Army Rangers and some Afghan commandos with us. They carried an assortment of weapons but for tonight’s mission had carried several of the larger and heavier MK 48 machine guns. The MK 48 fired a 7.62-caliber bullet and could be very effective providing covering fire into thick tree lines and foliage. We waited as the Rangers along with our Afghan commando unit slowly crept through the waist-deep grass of the field and settled into an overwatch or support-by-fire position. If we got into some shit, we would be able to call them up to provide suppressive fire with the big guns. Once they were set, our troop flanked to the far-right side of the open field and along the edge of the tree line toward the enemy position.

The field was muddy and it took us a while to slowly move around to the tree line. Irrigation ditches ran along the outside of the trees, creating a barrier. If we could get the jump on whoever was in the tree line, they’d be trapped between the ditch and us. I could hear the Ranger platoon commander on the radio as his men watched for fighters. They hadn’t spotted any movement, so we slowly entered the trees.

My team was in the middle. Steve’s team was ahead of me. It was pitch-black. Even with night vision, it was hard to navigate the tight path through the trees because the branches blocked any ambient light. Everyone walked carefully, trying hard not to make any noise.

We all knew that one false step could alert the fighters hiding nearby. I was practically walking on my tippy toes in an attempt to be light on my feet. I could see friendly infrared lasers slowly scanning the area ahead. Each operator had a laser on his gun. The IR flood acted like a flashlight and the small IR dot in the middle of that spotlight was where your bullets would hit. They were invisible to the naked eye, but those of us wearing night vision goggles could see the lasers. The lasers helped us see, especially in the thick tree line.

Less than fifty yards into the trees and off to my right side, I saw Walt tense up and freeze. I’d worked with Walt long enough to know by his body language that he had spotted something. He didn’t need to say a word. We all knew he had something in his sights.

Our entire force stopped in its tracks as Walt and another SEAL inched their way forward. I could see Walt wave us on as he continued to train his gun at the base of a large tree. As we got closer and moved past his position, I could see two fighters sound asleep on the ground. Their AK-47s were lying nearby. Trash was strewn all around the clearing. There were water bottles, cans of food, and bits of paper. Walt took a few steps deeper into the woods, his weapon at the ready. I saw his laser sight shining on the fighter’s chest. He and another SEAL stayed put and covered the sleeping Taliban. Even though we were all using suppressed weapons, Walt made the right call and just sat there watching them sleep, waiting to react if and when they woke up. He didn’t want to risk firing on them and making any noise that would wake up the rest of the Taliban.

Encountering the sleeping Taliban was both good news and bad news.

Good because the bad guys were definitely in the vicinity and hadn’t moved out of the area. But it was bad because we were walking into a firefight. We continued to move silently, careful not to wake the sleeping fighters. About thirty yards past the camp, I saw the driveway that led up to the compound where they had eaten dinner. There were the motorcycles and the white station wagon parked under a giant tree in front of the house.

Moving up the driveway, my team was mixed in with Steve’s team, minus Walt and another SEAL back with the Taliban sentries. There were five of us moving directly up the driveway toward the house. I glanced to the left and could read Steve’s body language. He was thinking the same thing I was. We were about to come face-to-face with the enemy. Steve was crouched down, with his HK416 shouldered and ready to fire. His IR laser scanned the dark trees directly ahead of me.

Steve and his machine gunner, armed with an MK 46 light machine gun, flanked to the left of my group as we began making our way up the driveway. My team kept walking toward the compound and the clump of tangled trees behind it. We knew the fighters didn’t have enough time to go far, nor would they venture out into the open for fear of being spotted by our drones. If they ran into the open, the Rangers set up on the edge of the field would spot them. If we were going to come into contact with the enemy, it would take place inside the tree line directly in front of us.

Near the top of the driveway, I saw a cluster of blankets and mats on the ground. The blankets were in a pile and looked like whoever was under them had gotten up quickly. There were multiple sleeping mats, at least five that I could see on my first glance. I didn’t bother to count because my mind was fixed on the coming fight.

“OK, shit, where are they?” I thought.

As soon as I spotted the mats, I stopped and began pointing them out to my team using my IR laser. Everyone froze as we started to scan the surrounding wood line. I could see my teammates’ IR lasers crisscrossing over the trees. I slowly tracked my laser across the dark tree line to our left when a head popped up in front of me and then disappeared. It was too fast to positively identify if it was a man, woman, or child.

With the rules of engagement constantly changing and becoming more restrictive, I couldn’t shoot because I had no idea if what I’d seen was a fighter. The odds were definitely good that the head belonged to someone from the nearby bedrolls. If so, based on the sentries Walt had picked out, I was pretty sure he would be armed, but I couldn’t see a gun and we hadn’t been fired upon. Everything was right in front of me. These had to be bad guys. I’d already seen the car, motorcycles, and empty bedrolls and was pretty damn sure this was one of the guys we were looking for.

Without seeing any more activity, I keyed up my radio.

“Hey, guys, I’ve got some movement over here,” I whispered into the radio.

Just as I finished the radio call, a now very obvious enemy fighter stood up out of the ditch fifteen yards directly in front of us. As he stood up he began firing from a belt-fed PKM machine gun.

The muzzle flash looked like he was shooting a howitzer. A three-foot-long flame shot from the barrel as I fell backward and landed on my back. Everything in my night vision goggles exploded in a burst of light. Rounds tore overhead as the gunman fired wildly. The roar of the gun drowned out everything, including any thoughts I had about rules of engagement or what to do. I could see several of my teammates diving for cover. My body switched to survival mode. I had just pulled some Matrix-style bullet dodging and fallen backward onto my back. If I dove forward I’d land in the path of the bullets chewing up the ground around me. I just wanted to get as low as I possibly could, as fast as I possibly could. We were completely pinned down, with zero cover. It would be only a matter of seconds until the rounds from the PKM began tearing my team apart.

I jammed my rifle between my legs and started shooting back toward the enemy. I could feel the spent cartridges hit against my thigh. I wasn’t aiming through my EOTech and couldn’t see where my IR laser was pointed. Front sight focus was out the window as I fired rounds at the target by feel alone. This time, I was spraying and praying. My teammates were also firing back. We needed to get some rounds back toward the fighter as quickly as possible.

Machine gun rounds slammed into the ground around us. Tracers buzzed by my face, slamming into trees and shrubs all around my team. Had any one of us stood up, we would have immediately been shot. The Taliban fighter was having trouble aiming the machine gun as it kicked up and down in his arms. But with each passing second, he was wrestling it under control.

All of a sudden I began hearing something a short distance to my left. It was the sweet sound of an MK46 machine gun. We typically shoot six- to eight-round bursts to conserve ammo and to help control the accuracy. But these weren’t short bursts. Steve’s gunner wasn’t letting up on the trigger. He let fly one super-long continuous burst. He and Steve were about ten yards to our left and had a perfect angle on the enemy position. I could see his tracer rounds sending bits of wood and bark flying into the air as he walked the rounds directly on top of the enemy position.

The enemy fire completely died at this point, but the Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) gunner and Steve were still providing covering fire. My team peeled back away from the PKM.

“Go,” I yelled to a pair of my teammates while I continued to fire. Another member of my team stayed to help me cover the first pair.

After the first teammates bounded back a short distance, they found a safer position. It was my turn to move. I rolled onto my side and jumped up, careful to stay as low as I could. I was sure it would be only a moment before the PKM began firing again. This was our one chance to get out of the direct line of fire. Sprinting down the driveway, I slid to a stop just past my teammates. I leveled my rifle and started to fire in an attempt to provide covering fire for my teammates.

“Set,” I yelled. “Go, go.”

With all my guys back at the edge of the field and behind cover, we turned and provided as much covering fire as we could so Steve and his gunner could sprint to safety. The gunner had emptied an entire two-hundred-round box in one pull of the trigger. As he and Steve ran past me, I could see the gunner reloading his machine gun while in a dead sprint.

Once Steve and the gunner made it back, the troop chief cleared the Ranger platoon hot. They opened fire with heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, and small arms. It was impossible to hear anything over the roar of the guns. The Rangers were laying down a wall of bullets. I took a quick glance back toward where we had just been and saw trees exploding into kindling.

The troop chief and troop commander were huddled nearby working the radios.

“Get head counts and let me know we’re all up,” the troop commander said.

It was the team leaders’ responsibility to make sure we all had one hundred percent accountability of all our guys. We certainly weren’t going to leave anybody behind. I walked back to the line where my team had set up.

“Hell yeah,” said one of my teammates.

I could just make out a smirk under his night vision goggles.

“Yeah, dude, what the fuck?” I said.

I don’t think I could form a complete intelligent sentence if I wanted to. I had other things on my mind and knew I needed to get a head count before our JTAC could start dropping bombs. If we’d left a guy wounded back in the line of fire, we weren’t going to be able to call in air support until we went back and got him. Luckily, everyone had made it back to the line.

I keyed my radio.

“Alpha is up,” I said.

“Charlie is up,” Steve said over the radio.

I held my breath as each team checked in over the radio with their status. In my mind there was no way in hell everyone got away uninjured. The fighters had gotten the first rounds off at us. They had a head start and with the PKM firing six hundred and fifty to seven hundred and fifty rounds a minute, someone must have been hit.

All the reports came in clean. No one was injured. We didn’t have to be good all the time. Sometimes it was better to be lucky. And so far our luck was holding.

Steve and his gunner had saved our lives. We all saw the same situation unfolding and he knew where my team was going to be and put his team in place to support us. If it weren’t for Steve’s team and the close bond we shared, there is no doubt we would have taken casualties. He instinctively knew what to do based off the terrain and our immediate reaction to the enemy fire. We thought the same way. We knew each other’s position without thinking about it.

Think of a pickup basketball game out on the playground, but imagine that game being played by NBA players. No one is on the sideline diagramming plays with a chalkboard. They are individually great athletes and they can read off of each other to make amazing plays. We were doing the same thing, just not on the court and certainly not for the same paychecks.

“Stand by for CAS,” I heard over the radio.

The JTAC was on the radio calling in Close Air Support. Fighters overhead started to circle, preparing for a bombing run.

“Three minutes,” the troop chief said.

If there were any fighters left in the trees, they had three minutes to clear out before the bombs started to fall. I made sure my team had cover and waited for the strikes.

I hunkered down in a small ditch and waited for the whistling noise the bomb makes just before it detonates. Then I saw the bright flash lighting up the sky seconds before the thunderous crack of the explosion. I could make out the trees and compound in silhouette against the explosion as dirt and debris landed on us.

“Cleared hot for immediate re-attack,” I heard over the radio. “Three minutes out.”

The impact of the bombs in the tree line definitely made me happy that I wasn’t on the receiving end. As each bomb impacted the ground and exploded, I could feel the shock wave thumping the terrain. It felt like a giant smashing his fists into the ground.

After the second bombing run, I met with the troop commander, troop chief, and other team leaders.

“We’re going to clear out the tree line,” the troop chief said. “Let me know when your teams are ready to roll.”

A mix of guys from my team and Steve’s team got up out of the ditch and prepared to move back up the driveway. We set up on a line and cautiously patrolled back into the tree line. As I got closer, the tree line looked like how I imagine a World War I battlefield would look. Craters where bombs had landed still smoldered. Charred trees shorn in half stood like broken teeth. A layer of smoke hung over everything. All of the trees were burning, creating a blinding green blur in our night vision goggles and making it almost impossible to see anything clearly.

Halfway up the driveway, I could see the area where we had taken the initial contact. It didn’t look anything like it had looked a few minutes prior. The bombs had chewed up the thicket of trees, leaving just a smoking hole. Up ahead, I could make out the silhouette of something life-size lying in a small ditch. I held my rifle on the object as I approached. Moving closer, I saw it was one of the fighters. His body was badly burned. His clothes were still smoldering. I could see where shrapnel had cut through his long, baggy shirt. A chest rack hung from his torso. Another badly burned body was lying nearby.

We continued clearing through the burned-up tree line, stepping over pieces of debris and moving around the large craters left by the blast. I was about to pull my team back and start searching the compound and camp for any additional fighters or intelligence when the drone pilots circling above came over the radio.

“We have multiple movers one hundred and fifty meters to the west,” the pilot said.

Six fighters had popped out of the tree line after the last bombing run. They must have been the luckiest six Taliban in the world. They somehow survived our initial firefight, the Rangers’ heavy-weapons barrage, and now two bombing runs.

As the radio call came through, I looked over and saw Steve and his team to my left. We were both thinking the same thing. There was no way these guys were going to get away.

“Alpha Team has it,” I said over the radio to the troop chief. Immediately following me on the radio Steve chimed in.

“Charlie Team has it.”

Our troop chief paused for a second.

“Roger that,” he said. “Alpha and Charlie, take control of ISR and the AC-130 gunship and let me know if you need anything else.”

I checked in with the drone over the radio.

“ISR, this is Alpha One,” I said. “I have an element of eight and one dog moving west at this time. Please advise with enemy numbers and position.”

The drone pilot got us oriented and we quickly moved our two teams into position and started to patrol toward the enemy location. The dog handler pushed his combat dog out front. I could see it searching the ground for a scent. On the radio, we were getting reports from the ISR.

“Alpha One this is ISR,” the drone pilot said. “We have multiple movers that are located at the southwest corner of an open field roughly five hundred meters to your west.”

“Roger, ISR, please sparkle,” I said.

The drone’s sensor operator fired an infrared laser, like a giant laser pointer, at the fighters’ location. Under our night vision, it looked like a giant finger pointing to the fighters’ exact location. It was something out of a video game.

Once we broke out of the trees, we slowed way down. The tree line opened into a large field with a small levee and a thicket of trees running along the south end.

I watched our dog handler let his dog off the leash and push him ahead of the group along the edge of the trees. Steve’s team moved on a line perpendicular to the trees. I noticed Steve’s team was again taking a wide arc to my left, covering our flank.

I pushed my team farther to the right, hoping to get a better angle on the fighters. We didn’t have the Rangers with us. It was up to the two assault teams. If we got into contact now, we would have two teams in position to open fire.

I stayed focused on the “sparkle.” It hadn’t moved since we cleared the tree line, which was good. But I wanted to close with the fighters before they could set up a defense. My hope was the fighters were trying to hide and not fight.

I checked to my left and right. My team was spread out and silently moving across the field. I glanced to my left over toward Steve’s team and happened to notice our dog—nicknamed the hair missile—dive into the thicket of trees. The dog disappeared and then I heard a man let out a scream. The dog had locked onto the scent of a fighter and now I could hear its snarls and the man’s screams.

My team kept an eye on the group of enemy fighters up ahead. Steve and one of the snipers moved into the tree line to help the dog. We could hear the man yelling as the dog tore into him. The yelling stopped after a few quick shots from the sniper’s suppressed HK416.

Steve came over the radio.

“Fellas, watch your step. We just stumbled across a fighter hiding in the ditch with an RPG and ready to fire,” he said.

The group of fighters we were chasing had dropped this guy off to ambush us as we passed. The dog found him and likely saved our lives in the process. These fighters weren’t rookies. They weren’t running scared but instead attempting to set up on us.

“ISR, Alpha One,” I said. “Any movement from our group of fighters?”

“Alpha One, ISR,” the pilot said. “Negative. They are still in place and my sparkle is on.”

I saw Steve’s team get back on line and begin moving forward along the edge of the trees. I didn’t even need a radio call from Steve to know what he was thinking; I could simply tell from his body language. I responded by pushing my team farther out to the right flank to get a better flanking position. We were set up in a perfect “L” formation and would be able to hit the group of Taliban from both sides. The drone kept sparkling the fighters’ location. It was dark and there was no way they could see us.

Step-by-step we closed to one hundred and fifty yards. Our lasers now joined the drone’s.

They didn’t have a chance.

With a massive IR floodlight from the ISR drone, the figures were easily identifiable in our night vision goggles. All five fighters had settled into a small perimeter and were lying there on the lip of a ditch waiting for us to approach.

They didn’t know it yet, but it was too late for them. They couldn’t see us but we could see them. The first shots killed two. I saw them drop like they’d been pulled into the ground by a cable. I could see our lasers dance around them as fighter after fighter crumpled and disappeared into the ditch. One fighter opened up with his AK-47, spraying our direction, but the rounds sailed well over our heads. The shooter went down in a heap after several rounds slammed into him.

The fight took only a few seconds and the outcome was never in doubt. We moved forward and searched all the enemy bodies, collecting all the weapons and blowing them in place. While we cleared the bodies and weapons, the rest of the SEALs and Rangers secured the initial target.

Once we were done, we patrolled back to the compound and then back to the helicopters.

Nothing we do is rocket science, but being able to work as a team is taught to us throughout our SEAL careers, and a key ingredient in our success. It was like a pickup basketball game, except we were focused on shooting, moving, and communicating.

There is no secret sauce. Every SEAL has gone through the same training, tested themselves in the same kind of extreme conditions, and typically trained together extensively to the point where we all wind up capable of doing the most basic tasks extraordinarily well. That gives us unshakeable confidence in each other. The relationship Steve and I had developed over years of working together meant we could handle almost any situation, and our trust is what allowed us to succeed even when the fight didn’t go as we planned. The importance we put on those close-knit relationships was the factor that most often tipped the needle from defeat to victory.