I was supposed to be with Mike on the mission that night but had been scratched off the list at the last minute. The operation was to track down the enemy fighters who had recently shot down another of our medevac choppers, killing all onboard. The pilot, twenty-eight-year-old Jen Harris, was a young marine from Massachusetts and a fellow Naval Academy graduate; she’d lived across the hall from me at the Academy. It was her last flight of her third deployment, only days before coming home. Captain Jennifer Harris was killed when the helicopter she was piloting was shot down by the insurgents that we were now going to hunt. There are coincidences in war that defy explanation, and this was one of them: My SEAL team’s mission was to capture or kill the people responsible for killing my college classmate. But I would be manning the radio that night back at the tactical operation center, rather than going on the hunt with Mike and the others.
A few hours into the mission, the reports began coming in: troops in contact, standard fare for SEAL missions, but minutes later the reports took on a more urgent tone. “Possible friendly KIAs, enemy KIAs, and multiple friendly WIAs.” A medevac was immediately launched to pick up our wounded. A KIA report puts in motion a chain of painful events for loved ones on the other side of the world.
The gravity of the situation soon became clear. We’d lost an Iraqi scout and a fellow SEAL, Clark Schwedler. Clark grew up not far from me in a small town in Michigan, and our extended families knew each other—another coincidence of war. Four insurgents had been shot dead, two were in custody, and six women and children were also secured. We had multiple wounded, including Chief Day. Mike had been shot numerous times, too many to comprehend, but he secured his men before evacuating himself directly from the gunfight to the medevac. After learning of the severity of Mike’s wounds and his need for immediate evacuation out of Iraq, I would be assigned to accompany him on his journey to the United States. I would also be the casualty assistance officer for Clark Schwedler.
Mike was flown from the gunfight directly to a Level 1 surgical ward in Baghdad; I arrived shortly after Mike’s initial surgery and before he went into his second one. He was full of bullet holes and had tubes running in and out of him. I called his wife, Brenda, who was in Virginia Beach shopping at Harris Teeter’s pharmacy. I told her that Mike had been wounded, that he was in surgery, and that I would have him call her when he was out. She was upset and told me, “Don’t let him die.”
After the second surgery, Mike and I were on the airport tarmac awaiting a flight to Germany. That’s when I made another call to his wife and handed Mike the phone. In a very controlled, strong, and “no big deal” tone of voice, he told her what had happened, that he’d be okay, and he’d see her soon. It was impressive; he was totally under control and spoke like he was calling to tell her that he was stuck in traffic and was going to be late for dinner.
After Mike’s second surgery in Baghdad, he was still in bad shape but stable enough to transport to Germany for more advanced medical treatment. Mike would be the last patient loaded on the C-17 aeromedical evacuation plane. It was a surreal scene that looked like something out of World War II: the plane was full of patients on Army green canvas litters, stacked high like they were in bunk beds. Medical staff wearing headsets scurried back and forth and up and down. In the rear of the plane, there were two operating rooms with full life support. We were loaded on last, directly into one of the OR ports, with a staff of two flight surgeons and two nurses assigned to us. I strapped in beside Mike. He was out of it, and I held his hand as we took off. Almost as soon as we got in the air, I could hear the other patients’ alarms going off. The medical staff was running around attending to different patients all over the plane. About ninety minutes into the flight, Mike turned ash gray and flatlined—the medical team pounced on him and worked frantically to bring him back to life. A couple minutes later, he began breathing and his skin color turned from gray to pink. Then, forty-five minutes later, his skin turned gray and he stopped breathing. The medical team went back to work—controlled, frantic, professional work—and they brought him back to this world. After that second incident, I thought for sure I was going to have to make the call to his wife to tell her Mike hadn’t survived the flight. After being revived a second time, Mike woke up and said, “Don’t leave. I’m cold. I’m cold.” I covered him up with another blanket and kept my hand on his chest. He would flatline and stabilize one more time before we landed in Germany.
News travels fast in the SEAL community. The SEALs who were on the mission had called their friends and recounted what happened once the dust had settled. I’m sure the medical teams who treated Mike in Iraq had relayed the unbelievable number of bullet holes they found in him to their colleagues working in Germany, and then those in Bethesda. Upon our arrival in Germany, nearly every active duty Navy SEAL knew that Mike had been badly wounded and that Clark had been killed.
Mike was rushed from the plane directly into surgery. He would have a total of three more operations in Germany. The medical teams in Baghdad, on the plane, and in Germany were amazing.
Mike was resting after his final surgery when there was a knock on the door. It opened and in walked Admiral William McRaven, a fellow SEAL, and his wife, Georgeann. At that time, he was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany and had driven four hours after he heard the news about Mike. He did not arrive as Admiral McRaven; he came as just another team guy, dressed in a polo shirt and khaki pants. He and Mike knew each other well from their SEAL Team 3 days back in San Diego during the ’90s, when McRaven had been Mike’s commanding officer. Mike and the future admiral had spent long hours training together. Admiral McRaven asked for details about what had happened and about Mike’s condition; he wanted to know about the standard of care. He asked about Clark, and then took inventory on me. I’m sure he saw that I was tired. He suggested that I join his wife for a bite to eat while he shared some time alone with Mike. It had been nearly twenty years since the two had served together, but Admiral McRaven still very much considered Mike a close teammate.
After the surgeries in Germany, Mike was stable enough to fly to Bethesda, where he would undergo yet more surgeries. We boarded another flying hospital and made our way back to the United States. We were again loaded on last so that we would be the first ones off the plane. When we touched down in Maryland, an ambulance with a medical team was standing by to transport Mike to the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. I could tell Mike felt very awkward—he was accustomed to going first into gunfights, but almost no place else. He was the chief, the senior guy, the leader; his role was to take care of his guys, not have others take care of him. I could sense that being first off the plane and being taken by a waiting ambulance directly to the hospital while other severely wounded patients were waiting—some burned, others missing limbs—made him very uncomfortable. He had the same look on his face that he got right before he tore into someone. I suspect at that moment Chief Day was more uncomfortable with being first off the plane than he was about having a bunch of bullet holes in his body.
I accompanied Mike to the hospital while my wife drove Mike’s wife, Brenda, from Virginia Beach to Bethesda to meet us. I took a shower, changed my clothes, and left Mike in the care of the hospital staff and Brenda. I would go retrieve Clark Schwedler and transport him back to his hometown in Michigan, where I would join his family and friends in honoring his life.
I really don’t have any memory of being in the hospital in Landstuhl. Over the years, I’ve met up with people who say they visited me in Germany, but I don’t remember any of them. I was so out of it when Admiral McRaven visited. Twelve years later, he would fill in the blanks for me. He sent me a text that simply said: “Hey Mike—I wrote about you in my upcoming book.” Admiral McRaven’s first book, Make Your Bed, was based on a graduation speech he gave at the University of Texas. The book was an instant New York Times bestseller. His text message to me contained a section of his new book, Sea Stories, that was all about me. That book, too, would go on to become a bestseller.
I’ve learned that life has a mystical aspect to it. As a man of faith, I have felt the hand of God too many times not to know that it exists. But when you see his handiwork up close, when you examine all the possible outcomes and determine that only one outcome is possible—but then something else happens—that’s when you know there is more to life than meets the eye.
The nurse at the Landstuhl intensive care unit was almost speechless.
“I’ve been in nursing over twenty years,” she said. “And I’ve been here at Landstuhl for the past three years. I’ve seen some of the worst injuries of the war.” She started to tear up, but they were happy tears.
“I have never seen anyone shot up this bad.” She paused. “He’s got sixteen bullet holes in him”—she took a deep breath—“and he is going to be fine.”
I smiled and thanked her and her team for everything they had done to save my fellow SEAL. She looked at me, shook her head, and said, “We had nothing to do with it.”
I understood. Life is that way sometimes.
The man in the hospital room was Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike Day. Mike had served with me in SEAL Team Three. He was a character: a bit mouthy, in a funny Team-guy sort of way. Always had a joke, nothing seemed too serious, but he was a great SEAL operator and a good sailor. I had lost track of Mike after I left the West Coast. Now we were reunited in the worst of all possible situations. A hospital.
Peering through the window, we could see Mike lying on his back with the usual array of monitors and IVs protruding from his body. The nurse opened the door and cautioned us not to stay too long. Mike still had another surgery to undergo before they moved him back to the States.
As I entered the room, Mike perked up, raised his hand high in the air, and yelled loudly, “Hey, skipper! Great to see you!”
“Michael!” I boomed back at him at an equally high volume. “Are you lying down on the job again?”
“No sir! Just getting ready for the next fight!”
I shook my head and laughed.
As I got closer to Mike’s bedside I was stunned by what I saw. There was hardly any part of his body that didn’t have a bullet hole. Only his chest, where the Kevlar vest had protected him, was free of wounds.
I sat for about thirty minutes and listened to Mike’s story. As the minutes went by, I could see him struggling to stay awake. Finally, he looked me in the eye and said, “Sir, when do you think I can get back to the guys?”
Looking down at Mike’s tattered body and the colostomy bag plugged into his bowels, I knew the answer, but sometimes the truth wasn’t always the best response.
“As soon as you can kick my ass on the obstacle course, then you can get back to the guys,” I said.
Mike rolled his eyes and smiled. “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard.”
The morphine started to kick in and he slowly drifted off to sleep.
Later that week, Mike was transferred back to the States. His injuries were too severe for him to get back into the fight, but that didn’t stop him from serving his fellow warriors. Today Mike helps veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. He gives back to the nation every chance he can. Over the years that followed, I would run the obstacle course every chance I could, knowing that one day Mike would show up and challenge me. I needed to be ready.