Lone Survivor-The Eyewitness Account of by Marcus Luttrell

Author:Marcus Luttrell [Luttrell, Marcus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

An Avalanche of Gunfire

Down the mountain, from every angle. Axe flanked left, trying to cut off the downward trail, firing nonstop. Mikey was blasting away...shouting,...“Marcus, no options now, buddy, kill ’em all!”

We edged back the way we had come, into the shadows cast by the last of the trees. It was not far back to waypoint 2, and we took a GPS reading right there. Mikey handed over navigational duties to Axe, and I groaned. Moving up and down these steep cliffs was really tough for me, but the streamlined, expert mountaineer Matthew Axelson could hop around like a fucking antelope. I reminded him of those two correlating facts, and all three of my teammates started laughing.

For some reason best known to our resident king of Trivial Pursuit, he led us off the high mountain ridge and down toward the valley which spread out from the elbow of the dogleg. It was as if he had decided to eliminate the dogleg entirely and take the straight line directly across to waypoint 3. Which was all fine and dandy, except it meant a one-mile walk going steeply downward, followed, inevitably, by a one-mile walk going steeply upward. That was the part I was not built for.

Nonetheless that was our new route. After about fifty yards I was struggling. I couldn’t keep up while going down, never mind up. They could hear me sliding and cursing in the rear, and I could hear Axe and Mikey laughing up front. And this was not a fitness problem. I was as fit as any of them, and I was not in any way out of breath. I was just too big to track a couple of mountain goats. Laws of nature, right?

Our path was inescapably zigzagged because Axe was always trying to find cover, stay out of the moonlight, as we grappled our way back up the cliff to waypoint 3. We reached the top approximately one hour before daylight. Our GPS numbers were correct, as planned back at home base. And right up there on top of this finger of pure granite, Mikey picked a spot where we could lay up.

He chose a position over the brow of the summit, maybe eighty feet down, right on the uppermost escarpment. There were trees, some of them close together, but directly beyond them was more barren land. We dropped our heavy loads, the four-mile journey complete, and tipped the grit and stones out of our boots. They always find a way in.

Medically, we were all okay, no injuries. But we were exhausted after our grueling seven-hour hike up and down this freakin’ mountain. Especially Mikey and me, because we both suffered from insomnia, particularly prepping for an operation like this, and we hadn’t slept the night before. Plus it was freezing cold, and we were still soaked to the skin even though the rain had stopped. So, for that matter, was everything we carried with us.

Danny had the radio up and he informed HQ, and any patrolling aircraft, that we were in position and good to go.

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