Saying goodbye was hard, but I tried to think of it as a word that had no permanence. It was more like a transitional phase we were going through.
This was in early March 2011, after we returned from Afghanistan. I’d have a few weeks of vacation, but then I’d be reassigned, as would Cairo. This was not unexpected. I’d been a dog handler through two deployments. It was time for me to go back to being a “shooter,” and it was time for Cairo to settle into a less hectic role.
He was close to six years old by this time and had served his country nobly through two long deployments and years of training. He had sustained serious injuries in the line of duty—injuries that no doubt still caused him some discomfort, even if you couldn’t really tell by looking at him. I felt like he had earned the right to settle into a more peaceful life at home. I figured that home, eventually, would be with me, but I also knew it was too soon for that to happen. Dog handlers in the military, as with dog handlers in law enforcement, often are given right of first refusal when their dogs’ service careers come to an end. Understandably, many dog handlers become quite attached to their dogs, and the dogs to them; certainly, this was the case with Cairo and me.
Cairo’s skill and demeanor worked against him in that regard. He was a reliable and likable dog and still relatively young and physically fit. The navy determined, not unreasonably, that Cairo still had much to offer. He would not be retired. Instead, he would become a spare dog, which was sort of like a late-career phase for a working dog. Instead of being deployed regularly for long periods of time, a spare dog spent most of his days at the kennel in Virginia, or on training exercises, but he was always available for long-term or short-term deployment. Spare dogs were generally a bit older, but still sound and seasoned. They were low-key and even tempered, which made it easy to assign them to a new handler or unit. Simply put, they were adaptable, so they could be easily substituted if another dog was wounded or killed or otherwise deemed unfit for duty.
Selfishly, I hoped he would be retired soon so that I could take him home. Practically speaking, though, this wasn’t the best idea. Since I was far from retirement age, and still in good health, I’d be traveling all the time and off on deployment for four to six months at a stretch. Someone else would have to look after Cairo while I was away. No, the spare dog gig was the right way to help Cairo ease into a less stressful life. He would spend more time at home and less time on deployment.
Unfortunately, that time would not be spent with me; I had to give him up. It was part of the job, and I understood the reasoning, but it hurt like hell to let him go. Softening the blow was the knowledge that he’d be in good hands, as the master-at-arms assigned to him was my good friend Angelo, who knew Cairo well and was one of the best dog handlers in the navy. Additionally, it was understood that when Cairo finally did retire—whether that was six months or six years down the road—I would have the option to adopt him.
I was still his handler.
I was his dad.
Over the course of the next month, I slowly distanced myself from Cairo. I’d stop by and see him once a week or so, if he wasn’t away on a training exercise. I’d take him for a walk or play with him, but the visits almost made it harder to deal with the separation. When my team was assigned to a dive training trip in Florida at the end of March, I was eager to get out of town. Being a canine handler was such an all-encompassing job that withdrawal symptoms were probably unavoidable, especially for someone who loved dogs and had the good fortune to work with a dog like Cairo. But that very same immersive quality is the reason a SEAL typically does only one or two deployments as a dog handler: he needs a break, and someone else deserves the opportunity.
The Florida trip was a bit of a working vacation, a chance to sharpen water skills that might have dulled somewhat after multiple successive deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, where dryland combat was the norm. Ocean training during the day was followed by relaxed evenings that included a few drinks and lots of good food. Nothing too crazy—just a way to unwind after a long winter deployment in the mountains of Afghanistan. We deserved it.
For two members of our squadron, however, the trip was cut short after only a few days; there were suddenly a pair of openings at the Military Freefall Jumpmaster Course in Arizona. I’m not sure about the selection process; I only know that I very quickly found myself in Arizona, at jumpmaster school, along with Nic Checque, one of my best friends. Like I said earlier, I wasn’t the greatest skydiver and didn’t really like it all that much, so I would have preferred to stay in beautiful South Florida. At the same time, getting certified as a free-fall jumpmaster could only help my career and make me a better SEAL. Anyway, it wasn’t like I had a choice.
The jumpmaster course is a notoriously rigorous three-week program, during which students learn how not only to be better skydivers but also how to orchestrate a jump for an entire team. A skydiving insertion is technical and dangerous. Each individual must be highly trained and skilled; the exit itself is reliant on the experience and skill of the pilot, as well as the team member responsible for guiding everyone out of the aircraft at the appropriate time. It is a deeply choreographed maneuver; one mistake can be catastrophic for the entire team. Jumpmaster certification, therefore, is a big deal, and I was ready for the challenge.
But someone had other plans.
On the second day of school, I got a phone call from my assault team leader.
“Pack your gear, Cheese. We need you back in Virginia. Now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “I just got here.”
“Yeah, I know. Something’s come up. I can’t tell you anything else. Just get home.”
After nine years in the navy, I knew better than to pump him for more info. Shit happens. Plans change. You get an order, you follow it. Then you follow another one. In due time, more would be revealed. Hopefully, this would be something interesting.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll leave tonight.”
There was a pause.
“Hey, Cheese. One other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Pick up Cairo when you get here.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Got it.”
In a class of two dozen candidates, Nic and I were the only SEALs, so he wasn’t thrilled that I was leaving and he was staying behind, but he understood. Duty calls and all that. When he asked why I had been recalled to Virginia, I told Nic, quite honestly, “I have no idea. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.” In all honesty, I had trouble figuring out why I had been recalled and Nic hadn’t. I can say without hesitation that Nic was a better operator than I was. He was a total badass. The only logical explanation was that, for some reason, Cairo was needed. And I had been Cairo’s handler for a long time. We were a package deal.
I spent the next couple of hours packing my stuff and running around, trying to officially withdraw from jumpmaster school. This was much more challenging than you might imagine. The first person with whom I spoke seemed not just upset but incredulous.
“What do you mean you’re leaving? No one leaves Jumpmaster.”
“Well, sorry, sir. But something’s come up.”
“Something’s come up?” he repeated, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “After two days?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He shook his head disgustedly, then gave me the name of the person I would have to see to formally withdraw. I left one office, went to another, and was told to come back later. I knew what this meant; I was about to go down a rabbit hole of paperwork and protocol that could take hours, or even days, to complete. And I didn’t have the time to spare.
“You know what?” I said to the last person who gave me the runaround. “Call my boss.”
And with that, I was gone.
This wasn’t as severe a breach as it might sound. I mean, I did tell … someone … that I was leaving. He just wasn’t the right person. And I never put it in writing, which left the door wide open for Nic to have a little fun at my expense.
Nic and I had been close friends since BUD/S, and like a lot of SEAL friendships, ours was strengthened by a variety of factors, including shared discomfort, a commitment to the work we were doing, time spent together (his locker at the base in Virginia was right next to mine), and a frequently dark sense of humor. To put it bluntly, Nic and I had a long history of busting each other’s balls. We picked at each other’s apparent weaknesses (Nic didn’t have many, as far as I could tell; the guy was confident, smart, and ridiculously good-looking) and pranked each other mercilessly. There was never any malice; it was just the way we were.
Well, my departure made it easy for Nic to leave a little scar on my reputation. The next day, after I left, Nic went to class as usual. During roll call, the instructor noticed that the number of SEALs in attendance had been reduced by half.
“Where’s your friend?” he asked Nic.
Without missing a beat, Nic said, “He quit.”
The entire class stared at Nic as he sat there in silence, offering up not another shred of explanation. Although the jumpmaster course is difficult and graduation prestigious, SEALs had always fared well. SEALs don’t quit jumpmaster school. Hell, SEALs don’t quit anything!
Right?
“Yes, sir. He quit,” Nic repeated.
“Why?”
“I have no idea.”
I guess I had it coming. I should have found a way to circumvent the process and make sure that it was understood that I hadn’t quit; I had been recalled by my superiors for reasons that were not immediately made clear to me. Perfectly legitimate reason to leave, and one that was well beyond my control. Instead, I disappeared. For Nic, this was an opportunity to pull the mother of all pranks, a giant kick to the very soul of a SEAL: his reputation for toughness and endurance and fortitude.
Thanks a lot, Nic. Love you, too.
In our long and ongoing battle of practical jokes, this one made Nic the undisputed winner. I actually kind of admired him for it. As I said the next time I saw Nic, “You got me good, you little fucker.”
And I never did get even.
I flew overnight, arrived in Virginia the next morning, and drove straight to the kennel to pick up Cairo. I still had no clue as to why I had been recalled or why suddenly I had been reassigned to the role of dog handler after only about a month away from the job.
Nor did I care. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that something unique was about to happen. This, obviously, was a mission that required the services of a reliable working dog, and Cairo was about as reliable as they came. And I was Cairo’s handler.
It was hard to know why certain people were picked for certain assignments, especially those that appeared with very little advance notice. Sometimes people were unavailable; they had the right to turn down an assignment, especially if it conflicted with a serious personal matter or another professional obligation. Older guys, married, with kids and other responsibilities, were more likely to take a pass. That was okay. They’d earned the privilege, and everyone understood when it happened, although it didn’t happen that often. I was still young and single. Being a SEAL was my life. If this was a plum assignment, I wanted in. Didn’t matter what it was. And the fact that I would get to work again with Cairo only made it more appealing.
When I met him at the kennel that morning, Cairo bounced around like a puppy. I let him stand and put his paws on my chest. I held his paws in my hands and then gave him a big hug and hooked him up to a lead.
“Time to go to work, pal.”
Information came out in a trickle. I was accustomed to being told what I needed to know, when I needed to know it, but this was different. From the moment I was instructed to return to Virginia, I sensed an inordinate level of secrecy and caution. This continued when our squadron gathered in the team room at Dam Neck for the first official briefing.
There were approximately two dozen of us in the room when the master chief began his read-in (the sharing of details regarding a mission). This guy could break down an assignment quickly and flawlessly. If you had questions, he’d answer them without hesitation. Now, though, he seemed circumspect and anxious. He told us we were going to be part of an important and highly secretive mission. He didn’t say where the mission would take place. He didn’t tell us the objective of the mission or the reason behind it. He did say that our destination was some sort of military or terrorist operation that resembled the compounds we had all encountered many times in Afghanistan. He also said the insertion would be extremely challenging; because of its location and the need for a quick and quiet operation, we would be inserting directly above the target. Beyond that, he had nothing specific to offer. All questions, some of them quite basic and logical, were deflected.
“You’ll know more at the appropriate time,” he said.
He then told us that the members of the squadron selected for this assignment would be divided into four teams. Not surprisingly, Cairo and I were assigned to Team 4, which presumably would handle perimeter duties associated with the target. The first three teams would be assault teams. The person in charge of Team 4 was Rob O’Neill, a good friend of mine and one of the guys I admired most in the squadron. Rob was nearly a decade older than I was, with a ton of experience in high-profile deployments all over the world. I had enormous faith in his ability as a leader and as a fighter.
Actually, as I looked around the room, I realized what an awesome assemblage of talent and experience it was. Even though I didn’t know the details of the mission, I had a feeling that it was something special, and I was proud and excited to be a part of it. I had a few moments like this during my SEAL career—times when I felt lucky simply to be working alongside guys like Rob and Nic … and many others who will remain nameless since I want to respect their privacy. I’m not trying to be falsely humble. I had a great career, took part in a lot of important missions, and I’m proud of the things I accomplished. I came from a little town in Texas and made it all the way through the funnel and wound up on SEAL Team (redacted). It was a dream come true, and I worked my ass off to make it happen. That said, I know that my accomplishments and my career pale in comparison to those of many of the men with whom I served. That’s one of the things about being a SEAL—if you ever fall into the trap of thinking you’re hot shit, all you have to do is look at some of your teammates, and you’ll quickly realize how much you still have to learn.
I was lucky. I came to the team in my early twenties and was immediately surrounded by generous and talented mentors. I decided right away that I would be a sponge, sucking up as much information as possible. If I were fortunate enough to last, maybe someday I’d be one of the mentors.
For the better part of a week, we hung out in Virginia, discussing the mission in vague terms—there was a target within a compound somewhere, and our assignment was to remove or eliminate the target. Where? When? We didn’t know.
On Sunday, April 10, we packed our gear and drove to a training facility in North Carolina. Again, we didn’t know what to expect when we got there. But, naturally, when you have a week to pack your gear and discuss a mission shrouded in secrecy, there will be speculation. Given the clandestine nature of the mission—and what appeared to be an unprecedented level of confidentiality—it’s probably not surprising to know that the name of Osama bin Laden, the Al Queda leader who had masterminded the attacks of September 11, 2001, came up once or twice. Maybe, we thought, this is it. Maybe we’re finally going after this motherfucker.
For us and for the entire U.S. military, bin Laden was the white whale. Get bin Laden, it was reasoned, and you put a deep and lasting gash into his terrorist organization. It wouldn’t end the war—we all knew that—but his capture or death would at least be a measure of revenge for the deaths of nearly three thousand civilians who perished on 9/11. That was worth something. Simply put: bin Laden was the baddest of bad guys, and for almost a decade, he had been out there somehow eluding capture or execution, and we all wanted to take him down.
When you serve in Special Operations, though, you can’t get caught up in a single-minded pursuit. Every day brings a new mission, a new objective. You treat each with professionalism and clarity and even a certain emotional detachment, and then you move on. Regardless of what the objective of this mission might be, we would treat it no differently.
And yet … oh, how I hoped the rumors were true.
I was pretty pumped as I made the ninety-minute drive with Cairo to North Carolina. There, in a facility that was as unassuming as it was top secret—maybe that was the point—we were briefed by our commanding officer, Captain Perry “Pete” Van Hooser. In addition to the two dozen members of our squadron, there were several people in attendance whom I did not recognize. Some I presumed were navy brass; others, I would find out as the meeting went on, were U.S. intelligence officials. I’d sat through hundreds of mission briefings in my career, but this one was unique in terms of formality and attendance, and it didn’t take long to figure out why that was the case.
Captain Pete thanked us all for our time and then quickly revealed the true nature of our mission.
“We’re going after UBL,” he said.
UBL referred to Usama bin Laden. While he was commonly referred to as Osama in Western media, intelligence agencies like the CIA and FBI preferred the Romanization of his name: Usama. Didn’t matter to me. At the very sound of those initials, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I revealed no emotion whatsoever; nor did anyone else in the room. The mood was sober, professional. There was a weight to the proceedings that I had not previously encountered.
The briefing went on for several hours and was accompanied by a wealth of information. Months, if not years of intelligence work had apparently pinpointed bin Laden’s position to a large housing compound in Abbottabad, a city in eastern Pakistan. This was not shocking. While the war on terror had been staged mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, it had long been thought that bin Laden might be hiding out somewhere else, in a country sympathetic to the Al Queda mission. Pakistan was a logical answer—and in fact, there had been other Special Operations missions into Pakistan stemming from reports that bin Laden might be hiding there. Still, it had been many years since the intelligence community had a solid lead on bin Laden’s whereabouts, and it was astonishing to learn that he was not barricaded in an underground bunker or cave somewhere in the mountains but rather hiding in plain sight! Taking daily walks in a flowing white robe, circling the compound for hours at a time in a routine that earned him the nickname the Pacer.
There was no guarantee that the Pacer was in fact bin Laden, but the intelligence officials at the briefing seemed confident. He was well over six feet tall and lean, with a long gray beard. He looked very much like bin Laden. He behaved in the manner of someone important, never taking part in the work of others in the compound, which sprawled like nothing else in the neighborhood. There were walls ranging from roughly ten to twenty feet in height surrounding the compound, which was comprised of a large three-story house, a small guesthouse, and other smaller structures that were likely used for housing animals.
The preparation that went into this briefing was impressive, to say the least, as was the intelligence accumulated. We depended on great intelligence to get our job done, and this was an example of what could be accomplished with a combination of advanced technology and dogged determination. Here, right in front of us, were high-resolution photographs of Osama bin Laden’s home. We knew where he was. All we had to do now was remove him.
As the briefing progressed, we were told of other options that had been discussed and discarded. The “softest” and most diplomatic approach would have been to inform the Pakistani government and try to convince them to either hand over bin Laden or join U.S. forces on a multinational mission. Given the fact that Pakistan had long been considered sympathetic to Al Queda, this seemed like a terrible idea. An air strike might have been effective, but the explosive power required to guarantee success was so great that it would have leveled not just the compound or even the accompanying neighborhood but most of the city of Abbottabad.
Good luck selling that one to the White House … or most of the world.
Nope, the only answer was a surgical strike. Send in a Special Operations unit, breach the compound, and extract UBL—dead or alive. It was a challenging, dangerous mission, one with a significant likelihood of casualties on the America side. It also was the mission of a lifetime. I couldn’t believe we were getting this opportunity!
My enthusiasm did not wane even as the briefing dragged on and the risks were laid out in graphic fashion: one of our choppers being shot down by RPGs; heavy resistance within the compound; the high probability that the entire place was rigged with explosives and that even if we did manage to breach the compound and find our target, we’d all be blown to bits. That was fine with me. I mean, I didn’t have a death wish or anything like that—no one wants to get shot or killed—but as long as we got bin Laden, I was okay with anything else that might happen.
In all candor, one of my first thoughts while listening to the briefing was, Well, guess I won’t be coming home from this one.
My second thought was, But as long we get this asshole, I’m good with it.
The mission, we were told, had been given the name Operation Neptune Spear. The reason this name had been chosen was because Neptune’s spear is a trident, and a trident is part of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare insignia. The trident, as every SEAL knows, is a three-pronged spear. Each prong of the trident represents a portion of the operational capacity of the SEALs: sea, air, land.
So Operation Neptune Spear it was.
Made sense to me.
We spent most of the next week in North Carolina, training intensely from sunup until deep into the night. There were long briefing sessions in which we went over details of the mission; more importantly, we physically rehearsed the entire mission, over and over, using a full-sized model of the compound that had been constructed on-site. When I first saw this thing, I was blown away. SEAL training often included rehearsal, but the sessions were almost always theoretical in nature. On deployment, we would get detailed information, but typically our first exposure to a target was the afternoon of the operation. Video and photos are nice, but the value of practicing an operation on a full-scale replica of a target cannot be overstated. It was reassuring to know that someone, maybe everyone—the navy, the CIA, the White House—understood the magnitude of this mission and would spare no expense in providing us with everything we needed to do the job right.
It should be noted, however, that the model allowed us to train on exterior tactics only: the approach, insertion, and setup, as well as—we hoped—a successful extraction. Intelligence could only speculate as to the interior layout of the buildings. But that was okay. We knew from experience that a floor plan was as likely to mess you up as it was to help. Even the best satellite or drone photos would not provide a foolproof interior layout, so the best you could do was guess, or use intuition based on previous experience with similar structures. If you studied and memorized a floor plan and then found something entirely different when you got inside, it could prove so disorienting that the mission was compromised. Better to just go with the flow.
In some ways, every mission, every insertion, was a combination of choreography and improvisation. I likened it to playing pickup basketball with a group of guys you know well. Read and react: “You go this way, I’ll go that way.” There was a basic outline for the mission, and everyone had a role that was understood not only by that person but by his teammates, as well. Within that basic framework of knowledge and trust, there was always a bit of freelancing. And while we had more intelligence than usual on this one, I had no doubt that once we were on the ground, something unexpected would happen and we would have to respond accordingly.
But I had faith in my teammates. I knew they would absolutely crush it just like they always did.
Cairo was deeply involved in most of the rehearsals and performed like the pro he was—with one notable exception. And, again, this was my fault.
We were rehearsing a breach of one of the compound gates, using live explosives. Since Cairo wasn’t needed for the breach, I had left him in the parking lot, in the backseat of a navy-issued Chevy Suburban. When I say backseat, I mean loose in the vehicle. I had gotten used to doing this with Cairo over the years. If I went somewhere and left him in the car for a few minutes, I’d rarely bother putting him in his kennel; he could generally be trusted to chill out in the car until I returned. In fact, if there was some reason he wanted to get out, he was more likely to cause trouble when he was locked in his kennel.
We used to call him Houdini, a nickname earned after multiple Kennel escapes. This is going to sound like fiction, but I swear it’s true; Cairo learned how to squeeze his foreleg through the front grate and use his paw to lift the latch on the kennel. If for some reason that didn’t work, he would use his teeth and his legs to twist the front grate until eventually he created enough of a gap to squeeze through.
Anyway, on this particular night, Cairo was loose in the Suburban when the breaching and explosions began. I didn’t think anything of it until we were through with the exercise and got back to the SUV. Inside, Cairo was bouncing around, panting and whining. He was also covered with tufts of white fabric that made it look like he’d been out in a snowstorm. In fact, he’d been creating a storm of a different type in the car, ripping the padded headrests off their foundations and shredding them to bits.
“Cairo!” I yelled as I opened the door.
He jumped into my arms and then fell to the ground and began running around like crazy. I quickly got him leashed up and took him for a short walk—at least he hadn’t peed or pooped in the car. I wasn’t really mad at Cairo. He was my responsibility, after all, and I had left him unattended. I should have known better. My bad, all the way.
“You know not to do that again, right?” Rob said to me.
I did, of course. Leaving Cairo in the car unattended while explosives rocked the surrounding area was unfair. I do not think he was frightened by the blasts. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was just excited and confused. See, to Cairo, explosions and gunfire were a signal to begin work. Dog training is based on a foundation of stimulus and reward. To Cairo, the sound of combat was a stimulus. The reward, which he had earned time and again, was the opportunity to fight and bite. To seek out a bad guy and engage. I can only imagine how confusing it would have been for him to hear those blasts and not be able to do anything about it. So, after that, I crated him at all times during any training exercise in which he was not an active participant.
Better safe than sorry.
We left North Carolina the following weekend and traveled straight to another training facility in the Southwest, this one designed to mimic not just the mission but the geography and climate in which it would take place. We trained at altitude in the desert. Over and over, we boarded helicopters, flew a distance approximate to that of flying from Jalalabad to Abbottabad, and fast-roped out of helicopters. Cairo made every exit with me.
By the end of the week, we had the insertion down cold. In all honesty, it was not that complicated a mission. We had performed similar ops a hundred or more times in the past. What made this unique, and uniquely lethal, was the fact that we were going after the highest-profile target in SEAL history; indeed, one of the highest-profile targets in military history. This significantly raised the ante in terms of both importance and risk. Fuck this one up, and the fallout would be felt for years, both from a military and a public relations standpoint.
And we’d probably all be killed.
Tactically, though, it was, on the surface, no more intricate or problematic than many other missions.
By the end of April, we had it down cold. We had rehearsed the insertion dozens of times—a luxury I personally had never been afforded prior to a mission—so we knew it by heart. Two Black Hawk helicopters would travel under cover of darkness from J-Bad to Abbottabad. My chopper included guys from two teams—one for perimeter security, and the other an assault team. The chopper would land outside the compound and drop off the perimeter team first. That included me, Cairo, Rob, an interpreter, a couple of snipers, and a gunner. Then our helicopter would hover over the main house, allowing the assault team to fast-rope to the roof. Eventually, the plan was modified slightly, with Rob joining the rooftop team to give us one more shooter on the main house.
My job was to help hold security outside the compound, perhaps against Al Queda forces, local law enforcement, or, more likely, from curious locals wondering what was going on in their neighborhood. We didn’t know whether the locals knew that bin Laden was in their midst, but it was certainly possible. Regardless, we had to protect the perimeter of the compound so that the assault teams could do their work inside. Additionally, if the initial assault turned up nothing, or at least if bin Laden appeared to be missing, I would bring Cairo inside to do a more intensive search. It seemed reasonable to think that the Al Queda leader would have more than a few hiding places within the compound.
Meanwhile, the other helicopter would hover over the courtyard within or just above the compound walls, at a spot somewhere between the main house and the guesthouse. There, assault team members would fast-rope out of the helicopter while snipers provided much-needed security from the chopper. Needless to say, this helo faced the most dangerous task, as it would be open to attack for as long as it took the assault team to exit. If there existed within the compound a modestly trained and equipped security force, the helicopter would be an easy mark for an RPG.
Again, though, we weren’t reinventing the wheel. If this sounds complicated and dangerous … well, yes, it was. But no more so than any number of missions we had successfully completed in the past. We had the advantage in terms of training, technology, intelligence, and weaponry. We had experience and the element of surprise—or, at least, we hoped we did. But there were things we didn’t know, couldn’t know, and those were the variables that pushed the mission into uncharted territory. It was not unreasonable to think that the most wanted terrorist in history would have some sort of heavily armed security force, even if our intelligence had indicated no such force existed at the compound. Also, there was a long history of terrorists going out with a bang when cornered. We expected to encounter suicide bombers within the compound; hell, we expected the entire place to be a suicide bomb. Finally, there was the possibility of interference not just from locals but from the Pakistani police or military, neither of which was likely to look favorably upon a U.S. military force flying unannounced beyond its borders. They could have accused us of attacking their country and retaliated accordingly. To say we would have been outnumbered would be an understatement.
And yet, as we neared the end of April and we received word that the White House was likely to approve the mission, I felt both confident and proud. When desert training ended and we all returned to Virginia, we were instructed to get our affairs in order. For me, that meant, among other things, making sure that my life insurance premiums were paid (the military offered us a good deal on a million-dollar policy) and that I had a current and fully binding will on record somewhere. Not that I had much to leave behind. I’m sure those last few days in April were especially tough on the married guys—saying goodbye to their wives and kids without being able to tell them why they seemed a little sadder than usual—but for me, it was just like going away on any other mission.
I did not call my mother before leaving. That was standard practice for me. For one thing, my mom did not hear very well, so phone calls were a challenge. Also, she worried too much as it was, and if I had called her this time, she would have suspected something was up. So I did what I usually did: I sent her a quick text and kept it short and simple.
I did call my father. That, too, was standard practice when I left on deployment. But this time felt different. Even though I’d been on my own for a long time and moved across the country, I still felt close to my dad. I wanted to say goodbye … just in case. It wasn’t a long conversation—they never were with my father. I told him I was deploying unexpectedly—there was something important going on, and I was part of it. I also told him I might not make it back. He knew better than to ask for specifics.
“Be careful, okay?” he said.
“I will,” I replied. “And, Dad?”
“Yes, boy?”
“I love you.”
There was a long pause before he responded. I can only imagine what he was thinking.
“I love you, too.”