10
TO THE MEN WAITING ON THE GROUND, THE CLATTER of the Chinook's rotors in the distance sounded like a church choir. Leaving the engines running, Friel settled the Chinook on the ground about 75 feet from the broken bird. With the rotors at flat pitch, he handed the controls to his copilot before exiting the aircraft. Running up to Mack in the dark, the two men met with a hug. The crews and the MAKO 30 team set to work transferring the crashed helo's gear and weapons.
As they were about to leave, Mack thought it was proper and fitting for him to be the last person to leave the crash site. As he stood alone in the dark, however, images started running through his mind that disabused him of any notion of heroism—like in the movies, he thought, when right about now the last guy gets shot in the head and he slow-motions in a dying fall.
Suddenly terrified, he started running with his gear and his M-4 rifle, ducking his head to protect his eyes from the dust and sand of the rotor wash. He imagined what he looked like. He had watched the movie Black Hawk Down and the video of the guy doing what Mack was supposed to do, running to a helicopter, with his commanders watching on Predator feeds. I'd better do this right, he was thinking. Ten feet from the helo, he tripped and went down, knocking the wind out of himself. He staggered to his feet and boarded the aircraft. He put on a headset in front by the companionway into the cockpit, and sat down on the floor.
Jason Friel waited. Mack yelled at him, “Go! Go! Go!”
Friel yelled back, “Two of my guys are still over there, and I don't have commo with them.”
In a panic to get back in the air, Friel shot lasers and his cockpit crew aimed flashlight beams at the broken helo. The two crewmen were busy working to ensure that the helo was cleared of any gear that the enemy might carry away, and did not see the signals. Friel pulled power to reposition his Chinook closer. When the turbines roared, the two crewmen recognized the sound and ran off the ramp like their hair was on fire, screaming, “Don't leave us, don't leave us.”
On the floor of the helo, Mack said to himself, “God, please, I won't do bad again—just get me out of this.”