Lone survivor

I boarded the big C-130 for Bagram, back to my base. We touched down on the main runway at 2300, exactly six days and four hours since Mikey, Axe, Da

I was greeted by four doctors and all the help I could possibly need. There was also a small group of nurses, at least one of whom knew me from my volunteer work in the hospital. The others were stu

That’s how terrible I looked. I’d lost thirty-seven pounds, my face was scoured from the crash down mountain one, my broken nose needed proper setting, I was racked with pain from my leg, my smashed wrist hurt like hell and so did my back, as it will when you’ve cracked three vertebrae. I’d lost God knows how many pints of blood. I was white as a ghost, and I could hardly walk.

The nurse just cried out, “Oh, Marcus!” and turned away, sobbing. I declined a stretcher and leaned on the doctor, ignoring the pain. But he knew. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “Let’s get you on the stretcher.”

But again I shook my head. I’d had a shot of morphine, and I tried to stand unassisted. I turned to the doc and looked him in the eye, and I told him, “I walked on here, and I’m walking off, by myself. I’m hurt, but I’m still a SEAL, and they haven’t finished me. I’m walking.”

The doctor just shook his head. He’d met a lot of guys like me before, and he knew it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good arguing. I guess he understood the only thought I had in my mind was What kind of a SEAL would it make me if they had to help me off the plane? No sir. I won’t agree to that.

And so I entered my home base once more, moving very slowly down the ramp under my own steam until I touched the ground. By this time, I noticed two other nurses were in tears. And I remember thinking, Thank Christ Mom can’t see me yet.

Right about then I think I caved in. The doctors and nurses ran forward to help me and get me stretchered into a van and directly to a hospital bed. The time for personal heroics had passed. I’d sucked up every goddamned thing this fucking country could throw at me, I’d been through another Hell Week to the tenth power, and now I was saved.

Actually, I felt particularly rough. The morphine was not as good as the opium I’d been given. And every goddamned thing hurt. I was met formally by the SEAL skipper, Commander Kent Pero, who was accompanied by my doctor, Colonel Carl Dickens.

He came with me in the van, Commander Pero, a very high-ranking SEAL officer who had always remembered my first name, ever since the day we first met. He sat beside me, gripping my arm, asking me how I was. I recall telling him, “Yes, sir, I’m fine.”

But then I heard him say, “Marcus.” And he shook his head. And I noticed this immensely tough character, my boss’s boss, had tears streaming down his face, tears of relief, I think, that I was alive. It’s fu

And I found it overwhelming, and I broke down right there in the van, and when I pulled myself together, Commander Pero was asking me if there was anything I needed, because no matter what it was, he would get it.

“Yes, sir,” I replied, drying my eyes on the sheet. “Do you think I could get a cheeseburger?”

The moment I was secured in Bagram, they made news of my rescue available. I had been in the hands of the U.S. military for some hours, but I know the navy did not want anyone to start celebrating until I was well and truly safe.

The call went around the world like a guided missile: Bagram — Bahrain — SATCOM to SPECWARCOM, Coronado — direct phone link to the ranch.

The regular call had come in on time at around one that afternoon, and they were expecting another “no news” update at four. But now the phone rang at three. Early. And according to my dad, when Chief Gothro came outside and walked through the crowd to collect my mom, telling her there was a call from Coronado, she almost fainted. In her mind, there could be only one possible reason for the call, and that was the death of her little angel (that’s me).

Chief Gothro half carried her into the house, and when they arrived at the bedroom where the phone was installed, the first thing she saw was Morgan and my other brother, Scottie, with their arms around each other, sobbing uncontrollably. Everyone thought they knew the military. There could be only one reason for the early call. They’d found my body on the mountain.

Chief Gothro walked my mom to the phone and informed her that whatever it was, she had to face it. A voice came down the line and demanded, “Chief, is the family assembled?”

“Yessir.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Luttrell?”

“Yes,” whispered Mom.

“We got him, ma’am. We got Marcus. And he’s stable.”

Mom started to collapse right there on the bedroom floor. Scottie moved swiftly to save her from hitting it. Lieutenant JJ Jones bolted for the door, stood on the porch, and called for quiet. Then he shouted, “They got him, guys! Marcus has been rescued.”

They tell me the roar which erupted over those lonely pastures way down there in the back country of East Texas could have been heard in Houston, fifty-five miles away. Morgan says it wasn’t just your average roar. It was spontaneous. Deafening. Everyone together, top of their lungs, a pure outpouring of relief and joy for Mom and Dad and my family.

It signaled the conclusion of a five-day vigil in which a zillion prayers had been offered by God-fearing folk; they understood in that split second after the a

Immediately, they raised the flag, and the Stars and Stripes fluttered in the hot breeze. And then the SEALs linked arms with my family and my friends and my neighbors, people who they might never see again but to whom they were now irrevocably joined for all the days of their lives. Because no one, according to Mom, could ever forget that one brief moment they shared, that long-awaited moment of release, when fears and dreads were laid to rest.

I was alive. I guess that’s all it took. And all these amazing guys, with hearts as wide as the Texas prairies, burst suddenly into song: “God bless America, land that I love . . .”

That’s Mrs. Herzogg and her daughters; Billy Shelton; Chief Gothro; Mom and Dad; Morgan and Scottie; Lieutenant Andy Haffele and his wife, Kristina; Eric Rooney; Commander Jeff Bender; Daniel, the master sergeant; Lieutenant JJ Jones; and all the others I already mentioned. Five days and five nights, they’d waited for this. And here I was, safe in a hospital bed eight thousand miles away, thinking of them, as they were thinking of me.

Matter of fact, at the time I was just thinking of a smart-ass remark to make to Morgan, because they’d told me I was about to be patched through to my family, on the phone. I guessed Morgan would be there, and if I could come up with something sufficiently slick and nonchalant, he’d know for sure I was good. Of course, it wasn’t as important to talk to him as it was to speak to Mom. Morgan and I had been in touch all along, the way identical twins usually are.

Right around this time, I was assigned a minder, Petty Officer First Class Jeff Delapenta (SEAL Team 10), who would never leave my side. And remember, damn near everyone on the base wanted to come and have a chat. At least that’s how it seemed to me. But Jeff was having none of it. He stood guard over my room like a German shepherd, taking the view that I was very sick and needed peace and rest, and he, PO1 Jeff, was going to make good and sure I got it.