Free Operation Red Wings: The Untold Story Behind Lone Survivor (Kindle Single) (SOFREP) by Peter Nealen, SOFREP Page A

this led to a “hard compromise,” and a satellite phone call that would end a life.
    Only a little while after informing the Joint Operations Center (JOC) of their compromise, Murphy called the JOC by satellite phone to inform them that the team, consisting of himself, Hospital Corpsman Second Class Marcus Luttrell, Gunner’s Mate Second Class Danny Dietz, and Petty Officer Second Class Matthew Axelson, was under heavy fire and required the Quick Reaction Force (QRF). A QRF team is always on standby in these situations. That was the last anyone in the rear heard from the team.
    Marcus Luttrell has already told the story about what happened on that mountain. Some have called his account into question, but the indisputable fact is that he is the only one alive who knows what really happened there. No one who wasn’t there is in any position to say for certain what did or did not happen to him or his team. This is not the story of the compromise and firefight. This is the story of the effort to rescue him and retrieve the bodies of his comrades. It is the story of the largest Combat Rescue operation in the war up to that time, and the largest loss of life in U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) prior to the downing of Extortion 17 in 2011.
    All times are given in Zulu time. Local Afghan time is 4 hours 30 minutes ahead.

     
    Day 1: June 28
    It was about 1140Z. Two MH-47 Chinooks, call signs Turbine 32 and Turbine 33, were closing on the LZ (landing zone) near the base of Sawtalo Sar, the compromised team’s last known position. Two UH-60 Black Hawks and two AH-64 Apaches were flying cover, and Grip 21, a flight of two A-10 Warthogs, was circling above. Lieutenant Commander Erik Kristensen, commanding SEAL Team 10 and the four-man Special Reconnaissance (SR) team, was aboard Turbine 33, determined to lead the effort to get his SEALs back, in one piece if at all possible.
    The SEALs aboard both helos had been preparing to follow on the reporting from Murphy’s team. They had been hunting a particular anti-Coalition militia leader, known as either Ahmad Shah or Sharmak, who had killed a number of the marines of 2/3 (2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment), who were moving into Kunar Province in the Korengal and Pech valleys and had set up in an FOB (forward operating base) named Camp Blessing, after Jay Blessing, a Special Forces soldier killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) strike in the area in 2003. Initial intelligence had Shah leading between one hundred and three hundred fighters and boasting that he had a weapon that could bring down helicopters.
    The men aboard the helos, SEALs from both SEAL Team 10 out of Virginia Beach and SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 out of Pearl Harbor, had been preparing to go in the next night, clear the target villages where Ahmad Shah was believed to be, and then blow LZs for the marines of 2/3 to come in and do a more thorough sweep of the entire area. There were about five villages on their target list, most of them clinging to the steep sides of the mountains. Instead, they found themselves going in during daylight, trying to retrieve their teammates under fire on the mountain.
    Sawtalo Sar is the highest point on a ridgeline running between the Korengal and Shuryek valleys, roughly in the center of Kunar Province, a mountainous province in the northeast of Afghanistan. The Pech River runs across the end of the ridge to the north, with the Korengal and Shuryek rivers running into it. The valleys are dotted with small stone villages, surrounded by terraced fields. The heights are rocky alpine slopes, cloaked in thick coniferous woods.
    Turbine 33 took the lead, descending toward the chosen LZ, an open meadow surrounded by scrubby trees on the shoulder of Sawtalo Sar, about 650 meters from the summit of the mountain. In their haste to rescue the SR team, they pushed to the LZ ahead of their escort.
    As the big Chinook prepared to settle on the LZ, a white smoke trail was seen streaking up