Free Among Heroes: A U.S. Navy SEAL's True Story of Friendship, Heroism, and the Ultimate Sacrifice by Brandon Webb

group.
    Meanwhile Delta, Dave’s platoon, stayed behind in Guam, where Dave was stuck doing boring tasks for his CO—while barely fifteen hundred miles away his buddies were engaged (albeit indirectly) in fighting terrorists. So much for mastering Tagalog. It must have driven Dave stir-crazy.
    One quiet Saturday in October, Mike Ritland, Shane, Glen, and the others were all called into their OIC’s hotel room in the Philippines. “Hey,” the OIC said, his face a blank. “I’ve got something I need to tell you guys.”
    Back in Guam, Dave had gone BASE jumping—not off Two Lovers Point, but at Orote Point, a remote location out on the westernmost tip of the island, not far from the naval base there. Just like the balcony at Two Lovers, it was a four-hundred-foot drop from a lush green cliff straight down to the ocean’s surface.
    Based on the evidence, and knowing how Dave operated, it was not hard to reconstruct what had happened. He would have made a thorough study of the elevation, the tide and currents, the wind, and every factor affecting the jump. Once fully prepared, he hurled himself off the cliff and into the open air. The jump was perfect. Pulling himself out of the surf, he gathered his chute and started back up the path leading up the face of the cliff. And then something ridiculous happened. Something so out of character that if Dave had been standing nearby watching himself, he would have had a field day busting his own balls: He slipped and fell from the path. The fall fractured his skull; by the time they found him, he was gone.
    It was October 12, two years to the day since the bombing of the USS
Cole
.
    Back in the Philippines, Mike, Shane, and Glen filed out of their OIC’s room in shock, no one saying a word. They were all thinking the same thing.
No fucking way. Not Dave. Not possible. This did
not
happen.
One by one they all made their way back to their rooms. A few minutes later they rejoined and went outside for a run. Mike still remembers thatrun: nothing but the sounds of hard breathing and feet slapping the ground to underscore the deepening silence, each man alone in his own thoughts.
    Later the three went out to a place they knew and had a few drinks together. Sitting around the table in that little Filipino bar, no one said a word, the silence stretching out beneath the dull hum of a slow ceiling fan. Then Glen gripped his shot glass of tequila and hoisted it into the air.
    “To Dave,” he said. Nobody else moved. Glen looked at Shane, then at Mike.
    “Look,” he said, “I know we’re all hurting. But we all signed up for this. Dave wasn’t on the job, technically speaking—but it’s all the same thing. It’s part of the fucking deal. So let’s not sit here feeling sorry for him. He wouldn’t want that. And none of us would want that, either, if we were in his shoes. Dave was a hell of a guy. Let’s drink up and celebrate his life.”
    Glen’s impromptu speech began pulling the other two out of their funk. They all drank to Dave and started recounting his exploits, which were legion.
    Although I wasn’t there with them at the time, I heard about the scene later from Mike Ritland, and Glen’s words struck deep. They would come back to me, and strike even deeper, exactly ten years later.
    •   •   •
    Kat flew home to be present when they buried Dave at Arlington with military honors, two weeks after his death. Bob Harward, our CO, gave a tribute to Dave, and spoke the traditional words that all veterans know: “Mrs. Scott, on behalf of the president of the United States, a grateful nation,and a proud Navy, this flag is presented as a token of our appreciation for the honorable and faithful service rendered by your loved one to his country and the Navy.”
    Mike, Shane, and Glen wanted badly to fly back to the States to be there for the funeral, and Kat lobbied for permission for them to come, but it didn’t happen. Mike and his wife were close friends with Dave