SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
2001
Six minutes! Six minutes!”
The SEAL jumpmaster motioned to the aircrewman and the ramp of the C-130 slowly lowered, roaring like some giant mechanical beast.
It was mid-July in San Diego, and the sky outside the plane was a cloudless blue, just a few shades lighter than the Pacific Ocean, which stretched from the ramp of the aircraft to the horizon.
I was a Navy captain, the commodore of Naval Special Warfare Group One and in charge of all the SEALs on the West Coast. We were based out of the Naval Amphibious Base (NAB) Coronado, in California. NAB was a small man-made peninsula that jutted out into San Diego Bay and was by far the best place in the Navy to be stationed. Thirty minutes earlier, fifteen other SEALs and I had boarded the C-130 aircraft out of North Island Naval Air Station and were preparing for a freefall training jump over Brown Field, located just south of San Diego, on the Mexican border.
“Stand up!” came the next command.
The jumpers unhooked their seat belts, rose from the nylon benches, and turned and faced the ramp. The roar of the four Allison turboprops was deafening.
“Check equipment!” the jumpmaster yelled.
“Check equipment!” came the response from every jumper.
There was no one in front of me as I faced the rear of the aircraft, but the man behind me began to check my MT-1X freefall parachute to ensure the ripcord pin was properly in place and the automatic opening device was set to the right altitude.
Once the rigs were checked, starting at the end of the line, each man patted the jumper in front of him on the rear, indicating the rig was good to jump. As the last man in the line, I received a strong pat on the butt and announced to the jumpmaster that we were all good to go.
Returning to the ramp, the jumpmaster got to his knees and took one final look out the side of the aircraft. Communicating with the pilot, he aligned the C-130 along the right course to ensure that when the SEALs exited the aircraft at 12,999 feet we would be in the right position to reach the drop zone.
“One minute!”
“One minute!”
The jumpmaster motioned for me to move to the edge of the ramp. In a straight line behind me, the other jumpers fell into place. Approaching the ramp, I looked out over the terrain below me. From almost thirteen thousand feet I could see the sprawling city of Tijuana, Mexico, the border crossing leading to South San Diego, and the tall untended fields of grass. We were on a northbound heading and everything to the south came into view.
Under my breath, I began to sing, “Happy Anniversary, baby, got you on my miiiind,” over and over. It was one of those silly superstitions that started in Army jump school more than twenty-five years earlier. Before every jump, I sang the words, certain that they would keep me from harm. It had worked up until now. There must be some magic in those words.
The jumpmaster grabbed me by the front of my rig and pulled me to the very edge of the ramp. He looked me in the eye, smiled, and yelled, “Go, go, go!”
Thrusting my arms forward and tucking my legs beneath me, I dove off the back of the ramp, tipping over slightly before the prop blast and the speed of my descent began to level me out. The wind rushed by me, a loud whistling noise in my ear. My heart pounded and my breathing matched the beats in my chest. As I gained speed I pulled my arms parallel to my ears and allowed my legs to jut out a bit farther. My breathing began to slow. My pulse settled down.
At 12,500 feet, I was stable now. No drifting or spinning or tumbling. While many of the guys in the Teams were exceptional jumpers who could maneuver easily around the sky, I was not one of them. But I still loved jumping. There was something special about being untethered and falling through the air at 120 miles an hour while the earth below rushed up to meet you. It was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Skydiving was one of the great thrills of being a SEAL, and each time out of the aircraft was memorable.
As I looked out across the Pacific Ocean and the beautiful hills that surrounded South San Diego, I could tell today was another jump I would never forget.
Ten thousand feet.
The other freefallers began to come into view. We were all wearing standard green Navy flight suits, black Pro-Tec helmets, goggles, and on our back a 270-square-foot parachute with a smaller reserve chute capable of being deployed if the main chute failed.
Off to my right, I saw a few of the better jumpers forming a four-way—four jumpers with arms linked, dropping together until the time to pull their ripcords. I envied them. Relative work, the ability to maneuver smoothly in the air, was something I had never mastered. Oh, I could link up with one or two others if they were in close proximity, but sailing across the sky to a specific point and stopping your relative motion on a dime—that was skydiving.
Six thousand feet.
Off to my right I could see one jumper below me. About two hundred feet away and five hundred feet down, he was spinning slightly counterclockwise, because his arms were not symmetrical and the force of the air was pushing him to the left.
To my other side were two jumpers. One was well off to my left, but the second SEAL was about a hundred feet away and two hundred feet down. Shifting my hands slightly, I maneuvered farther to the right to ensure I was out of his way. The spinning SEAL on my right had corrected his body position and was tracking away from me, preparing to open his chute.
Below me, the ocean seemed flat and tranquil. The air was clean and a little cool for a July day. The sun was bright but not blinding. It was just perfect.
Fifty-five hundred feet.
“Holy shit!”
Below me, the close-in SEAL was waving his arms, a signal that he was about to pull his ripcord. Our paths had converged in the sky and he was directly beneath me. Instantly, the pilot chute came off his back, jerking him upright as the main chute began to deploy. Throwing my arms to my side, I tried to track away from the man and his chute as we rocketed toward each other, his descent slowing while I still fell at 120 mph.
Suddenly I was enveloped by the light blue main canopy of the man below me. As his nylon parachute opened, it hit me with the force of a heavyweight boxer, sending me tumbling through the sky. Stunned by the initial impact of the deploying canopy, I struggled to understand what was happening. Although I had slid through the jumper’s opening parachute, I was now falling out of control, unaware of my altitude or whether I had been momentarily knocked unconscious.
Spinning head over heels, all I could see was ground, sky, ground, sky, ground, sky. Where was my altimeter? How much time before impact? Time to get stable? Screw it. Pull the ripcord. Pull the ripcord!
Grabbing the aluminum handle, I pulled hard and felt the pilot chute begin to deploy. Ground, sky, ground, sky, ground, sky. Springing off my back, the small chute wrapped around my legs, flapping against my ankle as I tried to shake it loose.
Ground, ground, ground. All I could see now was the ground, and it was rushing toward me. I was in a completely head-down angle, tangled in a mess of pilot chute, half-deployed main parachute, and risers. With each hundred feet I fell, I could feel the main chute slowly inching its way out of the pack, further encircling me with more nylon.
Craning my neck toward the sky, I could see that my legs were bound by two sets of risers, the long nylon straps that connected the main parachute to the harness on my back. One riser had wrapped around one leg, the other riser around the other leg. The main parachute was fully out of the backpack but hung up somewhere on my body.
As I struggled to break free of the entanglement, suddenly I felt the canopy lift off my body and begin to open. Looking toward my legs, I knew what was coming next.
“Mother…”
Within seconds, the canopy caught air. The two risers, one wrapped around each leg, suddenly and violently pulled apart, taking my legs with them. My pelvis separated instantly as the force of the opening ripped my lower torso. The thousand small muscles that connect the pelvis to the body were torn from their hinges.
My mouth dropped open and I let out a scream that could be heard in Mexico. Searing pain arched through my body, sending waves pulsating downward to my pelvis and upward to my head. Violent muscular convulsions racked my upper torso, shooting more pain through my arms and legs. Now, like an out-of-body experience, I became aware of my screaming and tried to control it, but the pain was too intense.
Still head down and falling too fast, I turned myself upright in the harness, relieving some of the pressure on my pelvis and back.
Fifteen hundred feet.
I had fallen more than four thousand feet before the parachute deployed. The good news: I had a full canopy over my head. The bad news: I was two miles from the drop zone, broken apart by the impact of the opening and heading into a field of eight-foot-high tomato stakes.
Shock was setting in. My breathing was erratic. My body was numb, but my mind was still clear. Looking over the tomato field, I found an area of tall grass that looked unencumbered by pointy sticks.
The chute was inverted and the toggles that controlled the direction of flight were backward. Pulling hard on the left toggle, I maneuvered the square parachute toward the right, trying to set up for a landing. A small patch of tall grass looked inviting, but there was no way to know what was hidden beneath it. Too late. I was committed now.
Leveling the parachute for a short approach, I waited until I was just about ten feet off the ground and jerked downward on the two toggles simultaneously. The parachute flared upward, easing me onto my backside and sliding me gently into the soft field.
Well, I thought, laughing, I may be shitty in the air, but I do know how to land a parachute.
The pain was gone. Shock had set in. I was on my back with the parachute strung out behind me draped over the top of the tall grass.
“Oh, that’s not good,” I said, looking down at my pelvis. The bones were protruding off to one side, causing my jumpsuit to bulge awkwardly to the right. I couldn’t sit up. The muscles in my abdomen were no longer connected. I was unable to move in any direction.
“Shit.”
Looking around, I thought that no one knew where I was. The tall grass hid my location, and unless someone on the drop zone had noticed my descent, it could be an hour before they found me.
Strapped to my side was a Mark 13 flare, a signaling device that puts out a high-intensity flame that can be seen for miles. Great idea, except for one minor problem—I was in a field of tall dry grass. Oh, they would find me all right, but only after the fire department scraped my charred body from the tomatoes.
Minutes went by as I tried to think through my options.
“Billy! Billy Mac!”
I heard a voice in the distance.
“Over here! Over here!” I yelled.
Men were making their way through the tall grass.
“Billy!”
I knew the voice. It was Bill Reed—a hard-as-nails Vietnam vet who had been on the jump.
“Here!” My voice was fading.
They were circling my position.
“Billy!”
“Here…”
Through my fogged-up goggles, I could see the blond hair and stern face of Bill Reed.
“Billy. Are you all right?”
I didn’t let many men call me Billy, but I had great respect for Bill Reed and we had known each other for over twenty years.
“I think I’m broken up pretty bad, Bill.”
“We have an ambulance on the way,” Reed answered.
I nodded.
“Man, that must have been one hell of a landing.”
“It didn’t happen on the landing. It happened in the air.”
More men began to come into my view. Leaning over me was the drop zone corpsman.
“Sir, I’m Doc Smith. We have EMTs on the way. Can you tell me where you’re injured?”
Smith was a Navy SEAL corpsman. While not qualified MDs, the corpsmen in the Teams were great at trauma care.
“Pelvis, back, legs.”
Reaching into his kit bag, he pulled out a pair of large surgical scissors and began to cut my jumpsuit away from my body. Two other SEALs helped as Smith began to survey the extent of my injuries. At my feet, someone else was removing my boots.
In the distance I could hear the sound of the ambulance. Around me now there was a lot of activity, with Smith and Reed directing the action.
“Are you in pain?” Smith asked.
“No, Doc. I’m feeling okay.”
We both knew that was not a good sign.
“I can wiggle my toes,” I said with great joy. I knew that if my spine had been severed, I wouldn’t be able to feel my toes.
Doc didn’t smile.
“Holy shit,” came a muffled voice in the back.
My jumpsuit was off and the extent of my injury was now apparent to those around me.
“Commodore, we’re going to take your helmet and goggles off. Let me know if you’re in any pain,” Smith said.
“I got it, Doc,” came the voice of Steve Chamberlain, my command master chief. Chambo was my senior enlisted at Naval Special Warfare Group One and the finest enlisted man I had ever worked with. Personally tough, professionally demanding, and loyal beyond words, Chambo was always there for me.
Lifting my head, Chamberlain gently removed my helmet and goggles.
“Chambo.”
“Yes sir. I’m here.”
“Chambo. Call Georgeann and let her know I’m all right.”
“Yes sir. Will do.”
But I knew it was a request he couldn’t honor. There were procedures. Someone would contact Georgeann and let her know there had been an accident. But no one would give her my status until the real doctors had done their assessment.
The whine of the siren got closer and closer. I could hear the guys directing the ambulance through the tomato fields and to my location.
Soon I was strapped to a backboard and hoisted into the ambulance. Doc Smith jumped in beside me and we drove off bumping across the field until we hit a dirt road. Within a few minutes we were on the highway heading to Sharp Memorial Hospital in downtown San Diego.
The EMT wired me up to several machines and reached into his bag, drawing out a syringe.
“Sir, I’m going to give you some morphine for the pain.”
“No. No morphine,” I said.
“Sir, you don’t have to be tough. The pain must be excruciating. Let me give you a shot of morphine.”
“No. No morphine!”
Admittedly, I wasn’t in my right mind, but many years ago I read a spy novel in which the main character refuses morphine so he can feel the pain and not mask his injuries. Okay, I know it sounds stupid, but…
“Sir, I’m required to give you morphine unless you specifically tell me no. And you must tell me three times.”
“Okay.”
“Sir, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want morphine?”
“No.”
“Do you want morphine?”
“No.”
“Do you want morphine?”
“No.”
The EMT just shook his head.
Doc Smith leaned over. “Sir, are you sure?” He smiled.
“Yeah, Doc, I’m sure.”
Within twenty minutes we were pulling into the emergency entrance at Sharp Memorial. A flurry of activity ensued as doctors, nurses, and medics all surrounded me and began to move me into the ER. Secured onto the gurney and rolling through the halls of the hospital, all I could see was the acoustic tile of the ceilings and the occasional nurse who leaned over to ask me how I was.
Then a booming voice penetrated the sounds of the orchestrated chaos.
“Man, you look fucked up, Commodore!”
“Well, I have had better days,” I offered.
Lieutenant Mark Gould was a Navy surgeon who was assigned to Sharp to undergo additional training. A former Army Special Forces medic, Gould finished his Army enlistment, got his degree, joined the Navy, and received his medical degree from the military medical school in Maryland. Grabbing the clipboard at the bottom of the gurney, he walked briskly along with the crew that was wheeling me into the ER.
“What’s my status, Doc?”
“Well, it looks like you have a separated pelvis, back and legs are screwed up. The real concern is whether you have any internal injuries.”
I nodded.
“They’re going to roll you into the ER. Take some pictures and we’ll have a better idea of what to do after that.”
Inside the ER, the doctors began to administer a radioactive dye designed to identify internal damage. Suddenly, I began to lose consciousness. I could see the concern on Doc Gould’s face.
“You okay, sir?”
My breathing was erratic and I tried to settle it down. “I’m fading, Doc.”
A nurse unceremoniously pushed Gould out of the way and began to call my readings. “Blood pressure is dropping,” she announced loudly. “Pulse is dropping!”
I was having a bad reaction to the dye.
Grabbing my hand, she gently squeezed it and said, “Stay with me.” Above her surgical mask all I could see were her eyes. But they were good eyes: blue, middle-aged, mature, caring, professional. There was a certain confidence about her eyes that gave me comfort.
Gasping for breath, I tried to calm myself, but I could feel my mind slipping away.
“We’re losing him!” the blue-eyed nurse shouted.
“I need epinephrine now!”
Stay awake. Stay awake. Got to stay awake.
Masked faces came in and out of view.
“Stay with me, honey,” blue-eyes exhorted.
In my mind I nodded.
She patted me gently on the arm. “That’s right. Just stay with me.”
I’m not going anywhere, I thought. But maybe I was wrong.
“Come on!” she yelled. “He’s still dropping!”
She squeezed my hand tightly and I could see her eyes watching the monitor. “Come on. Come on,” she whispered to herself.
“Pressure’s coming back up,” someone yelled.
Her eyes never moved from the monitor, but she patted my hand gently as if trying to coax my blood pressure back to normal.
After a few minutes she leaned over and gave my hand a good squeeze. “Okay, honey, you’re going to be fine,” she said. “You did good.” She smiled, the surgical mask lifting high on her cheekbones.
My breathing was slowly returning to normal. It seemed like several minutes passed before blue-eyes came back into view.
“Okay, dear. We’re going to give you something to help you sleep.”
“No!” I protested. “I don’t want to sleep!”
The mind does funny things when your body is torn apart. Sleep meant death. I was certain of it. No morphine. No sleep. I needed to be awake. Feel the pain. Stay conscious.
“It’s okay. We’re not going to operate on you right now. But we need to do some scans and make sure you’re not bleeding inside. It will be easier if you’re asleep.”
“No,” I repeated. “I’m okay.”
Blue-eyes shook her head and left my view. I could hear her talking with Gould. Moments later she returned.
“Okay, sir. We’re going to keep you conscious, but if you get too irritated or can’t deal with the pain we’re going to have to put you under.”
“I understand.”
The imposing face of Doc Gould popped back into view. “You’re going to make them think all SEALs are fucking superhuman.”
“No, just afraid of losing control, Doc.”
“All right, Commodore. We’re going for a ride.”
Over the course of the next hour I was X-rayed, scanned, probed, and then wheeled back into the ICU. Blue-eyes had removed my neck brace and I could see more of what was around me now.
Through the glass window, Georgeann, my son John, a college freshman now, and my good friend and fellow SEAL Joe Maguire huddled outside waiting to hear from the attending physician. A few minutes later Joe entered the room.
Joe and I had known each other for twenty years, since our early days in the Philippines. He, his wife, Kathy, and their two children, Daniel and Catherine, were our closest friends. Joe had broken his back during a fast-rope accident many years earlier. Georgeann and I had been the first to the hospital then. This is what good friends do.
Joe was always upbeat, never lacking a joke or a good story to make one feel better. “Man, what some guys will do to get out of work!”
“Yeah, I was getting a little tired of the daily staff meetings.”
“You doing okay?”
“I don’t know. What did the doc tell you?”
“Not sure I’m supposed to tell you just yet.”
Joe looked around the room and then whispered, “You’re pretty screwed up, but the good news is there is no internal damage and your spine is okay.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“Your pelvis is separated by about five inches. All of the muscles in your abdomen and legs have been separated from the bone and your back is slightly fractured.”
“No big deal, then.” I laughed.
“Naw, you’ll be fine,” Joe said without conviction.
Outside I could see the doctors conferring with Georgeann. She nodded stoically as they gave her the news. “Of course,” the doctor mouthed as Georgeann asked if she could see me.
Georgeann and John entered the room and came to the gurney. John, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, who would later go on to get his PhD in theoretical physics, was our brilliant child. But he also had a very sensitive side and I could see that as much as he wanted to approach my accident as something to study—logically, scientifically—it was hard when it was his dad lying in the ER.
“Hey, Dad. How you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” I smiled. “Really, no big deal. Look, I can wiggle my toes.”
John cocked his head and furrowed his brow as he thought about my statement. He seemed to immediately understand the connection between my toes and my well-being. He forced a smile and touched me on the shoulder.
Georgeann moved beside me and held my hand. Her fingers fit perfectly between mine. To me there was nothing in the world more comforting than holding her hand. She kissed me on the forehead.
“Are you in much pain?” she asked.
“No, no. I feel fine,” I lied.
“Well, the doctor says they may try to operate tomorrow.”
“Sure, sure. They’ll patch me up and I’ll be out of here in no time.”
She nodded, trying to maintain her composure.
Being the wife of a Team guy was never easy. It took a certain kind of woman to say, “I do.” SEALs were overseas constantly, gone for months at a time. Every day was filled with anxious moments—wondering if and when we would return home. Every man who was married for long knew who was the toughest member of the family—and it wasn’t us.
Joe stood by quietly as John, Georgeann, and I made small talk to convince us that everything was in fact going to be all right. Later that night, my two other children, Bill, the oldest, and Kelly, who was ten at the time, showed up at my bedside. Bill, always the caring older brother, made sure Kelly was not too upset and good-naturedly ribbed me about the accident’s effect on my basketball game. Kelly, with tears rolling down her cheeks, didn’t want to leave my bedside as they rolled me off to another room.
Hours later Doc Gould showed up to discuss my options.
“Sir, I have a friend in L.A. who is the best back guy in the nation. He thinks that we will need to plate you in the front and run a long screw across your backside to stabilize the pelvis.”
“Okay,” I said. It sounded good, but what the hell did I know?
“Now…” Doc paused. “There is some risk here.”
Doc thought for a second, as if to decide whether to outline the full extent of the procedure.
“That screw will be placed very near your spine. Obviously, if the doctor makes a mistake inserting the screw, it could have serious implications.”
I took a deep breath.
“But,” Doc continued, “this guy is the best, and if we can get that screw in place the chances that you will have a full recovery are much better.”
A full recovery? I hadn’t thought about it until that moment. What if I couldn’t be a SEAL anymore? What if the damage was so bad that I couldn’t run or jump out of airplanes or scuba dive? What if my career was over and I was the only one who didn’t realize it?
No, that was not going to happen! As long as I could wiggle my toes (again that fixation), I was going to stay a SEAL.
“Let’s do it, Doc.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
That evening, the doctor arrived from L.A. My confidence waned momentarily when he appeared to be no more than twenty-five years old. As it turned out, he was a bit of a surgeon savant, and the next morning he managed to pin me and plate me back together with great success.
After recovery, the first visitor I had was Moki Martin. Moki, a Vietnam-era SEAL and one of my SEAL instructors, had been in a bicycle accident years earlier. The head-on collision with another cyclist left him paralyzed from the waist down, with limited use of his arms. In a wheelchair now, Moki was one of the most inspirational men I knew.
He rolled up beside my bed, reached out, and grabbed my hand. “Well, clearly I need to give you some parachute lessons.”
“Clearly,” I replied, laughing.
“I talked with Gould. He said you’re going to be okay, but it could be a long recovery.”
“No sweat. I didn’t have anything on my calendar for the next year.”
He moved his wheelchair closer so we could be eye to eye. “Bill, never forget that you’re a SEAL. You got to this point in your life because you’re tough. I watched you go through training. You were tough then. You’re tough now. You’ll get through this just fine. But no matter what happens.” He paused. “Don’t ring the bell.”
Don’t ring the bell. Don’t ring the bell. It was the call to continue no matter what obstacles lay ahead. No man wearing a SEAL Trident ever rang the bell. Ringing the bell was for those who couldn’t make it. Ringing the bell was for those who weren’t up to the challenge of SEAL training. Ringing the bell was an admittance of defeat. Moki Martin never rang the bell. I wouldn’t either.
For a week after the operation I struggled with “Sundowners Syndrome”—hallucinating wildly, screaming at night, fighting the nurses, and unable to maintain any sense of sanity. Finally I told my military doctors that I had to escape the hospital. I truly feared for my long-term sanity.
After a contentious discussion with the hospital staff, they reluctantly agreed to let me go as long as the military doctors promised to check up on me throughout the day. That night the ambulance took me back to my house at the Naval Amphibious Base. My command surgeon had equipped the living room with a hospital bed.
For the first week, my military doctors were checking on me every several hours. As my sanity returned and my health got better, Georgeann took on the nursing duties. Every day she gave me a series of shots to keep my blood from clotting. She changed my bedpan, cleaned my surgical wounds, checked my vitals, fed me, and, most important, told me everything was going to be okay. I believed her, even if she didn’t believe it herself.
As the days went by dozens of well-wishers came from all around to check up on me. Within three weeks, I was able to sit in a wheelchair, and even attended a traditional SEAL gala event, much to the dismay of my doctor—who was not invited on grounds that he would prevent me from drinking.
I remained worried that in spite of my quick recovery, weeks after the accident I was still in and out of a wheelchair. Occasionally I wheeled myself over to the office, which was minutes away from my house. One day, Admiral Eric Olson, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command and my boss, came by to talk about my future.
Olson was a Naval Academy graduate and one of the toughest SEALs I had ever known. He received the Silver Star for his actions in Mogadishu during the famed Black Hawk Down incident. He was a serious man, hard to read, but universally respected and admired by all the SEAL community. Olson would go on to be the first three-star and the first four-star SEAL in Navy history, but was now a one-star admiral. My fate rested in his hands.
Navy regulations required that an officer have a full medical examination after a serious accident. Subsequent to the examination, a Navy medical board must meet to determine the officer’s fitness to continue to serve. I knew that the board would never find me fit to continue as a Navy SEAL. I was barely fit to get out of bed.
“How are you feeling?” Olson asked.
“Great, sir! Just great!” I lied. It was getting to be a bad habit.
“Bill.” He hesitated. “You know that I’m required to have your record reviewed by a medical board.”
“Yes sir. I’m aware of that.”
Olson continued, “I called the Navy staff and they are okay with delaying your arrival at the Pentagon for a few weeks.”
Olson had personally arranged for my next assignment to be on the Navy staff. He was positioning me to make admiral, and he knew that a job in the Pentagon would get me some much-needed recognition with the Navy leadership.
“The problem is, if the med board doesn’t approve you for continued service, then the Navy is unlikely to accept you for the position in the Pentagon.”
“Yes sir. I understand,” I said, with a certain sense of resignation. “Sir, Bob Harward and I are scheduled to have our change of command next week. After that, I have a couple of weeks’ leave before I have to report to the Pentagon. If I can get out of my wheelchair and make the change of command on my crutches, is there any way we can waive the med board requirements?”
I was putting Olson in a tough position. There were rules to be followed. People to be notified. Forms to be filled out.
Olson nodded. “If you can do your change of command, on crutches, then I will see what I can do.”
A week later, dressed in my finest “choker” white uniform, I stepped out of the military sedan, grabbed my crutches, and hobbled my way to the outdoor stage. With a band playing, flags flying, and bells ringing, I passed command of the West Coast SEALs to Captain Bob Harward. As per tradition, we both turned and saluted the senior officer, Admiral Eric Olson. By then I knew that the paperwork had never made it to Washington. Rarely had a salute to a senior officer come with more appreciation.
That evening I returned to my house and collapsed back into my bed. I knew that the road ahead was going to be long and painful. I would need a lot of rest in order to get strong again. Admiral Olson had graciously granted me thirty days’ leave to help with my rehab. The extra leave delayed my arrival at the Pentagon by a few weeks, but the Navy staff never complained and never questioned the reason.
Thirty days later, as I lay in my living room, Georgeann and I watched in horror as American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 struck the World Trade Center towers. Moments later, pictures of the Pentagon, smoke pouring out of the E-Ring, came across the screen. Georgeann looked at me, but we never said a word—only a silent prayer for the families who had lost loved ones in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
Within a few days, my orders to the Pentagon had been changed. I would now join retired General Wayne A. Downing in the Office of Combatting Terrorism, a newly formed directorate on the National Security Council staff. Our job was coordinating the counterterrorism activities of the nation. The two years that followed gave me time to fully recuperate. By October 2003, I was in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the casualties mounted and my daily routine involved visits to the combat hospital, I never forgot the kindness of those who helped me through the tough times after my accident. Not a week went by without some wounded soldier pleading with me to keep them in special operations. They didn’t need that second leg. They could see fine out of just one eye. They shot better with a prosthetic hand.
But as the commander I had a job to do. There were rules to be followed. People to be notified. Forms to be filled out. I had to follow the regulations. But somehow my damn staff kept losing the paperwork.
One of these days, I need to check into that…