Reading up on the heroism of LT Michael Murphy brought me across this photo, taken of his team members. Before.
From left to right, we have STG2 Matthew Axelson, ITCS Daniel Healy, QM2 James Suh, HM2 Marcus Luttrell, MM2 Eric Patton and LT Murphy.
A sonar technician. An information systems technician senior chief. A quartermaster’s mate. A hospital corpsman. A machinist’s mate. Their lieutenant. SEALs, all, and Sailors. Hard men, exquisitely trained warriors, superb physical specimens, members of a team. Members of a brotherhood. Men who traded body armor for ammo, support for mobility, firepower for stealth. Men who fought for us in a far place. Who, having passed through a crucible in training agreed, explicitly or implicitly – does it really matter which? – that they would any of them lay down their lives for the other. And that if it came down to it, that they would all of them lie down together.
Someone hauled them out of where they had been, or stopped them en route to where they were going. The mid-day sun beat down. The air clear and sharp. Their flag fluttered in the background. They shuffled into place, the shutter snapped, the moment ended. It wasn’t a particularly artistic shot – the sun angle was wrong, the men unsmiling. There was nothing in it portentous.
The men walked on. In time, each of them probably thought that he’d look back on that photograph as a greatly older man with fondness and regret. A captured instant, an image of lost youth, the time when they were part of something important. Something bigger than themselves.
None of them went there thinking that they would die. All of them went there knowing that they might.
I don’t know what day it was when that picture was taken, that moment frozen in time, the instant before they trudged away, hard work to be done in a hard place. What I do know is that by the time the sun went down on the 28th of June, 2005, only one of these six would still be alive – Marcus Luttrell, blasted over a ridge by a rocket propelled grenade. Wounded, knocked unconscious, bypassed, left for dead, forgotten. Saved by a Pashtun tribesman, who – obedient to his own ancient customs – refused to deliver him up to the Taliban.
Eight additional SEALS and eight Army Night Stalkers died attempting a quick reaction force rescue. About thirty-five Taliban died assaulting LT Murphy’s four-man team. It was to be the largest single-day loss of US forces since Operation Enduring Freedom began, and the largest loss of Navy special warfare personnel since World War II.
They were brothers who fought hard, and died hard together. Some things don’t change.
- Go tell the Spartans,
Passerby,
That here, obedient to their laws,
We lie.
CAPT,
STG2 Axelsen will be memorialized here in the South Bay City of Cupertino, this coming Veterans’ Day.
http://www.cupertinoveteransmemorial.org/
Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter and Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command RADM Joseph Kernan will lead the dedication of the memorial.
http://www.community-newspapers.com/archives/cupertinocourier/20070919/news1.shtml
Our Valley has lost many great warriors. I’m very pleased that an “unlikely” city voted without exception to support this project, and that the public has opened its hearts to the project.
This park will be our hallowed ground.
God bless them all.
Yup, SEALs keep their original ratings. I mind a guy who was officially just a torpedoman, but did some other things, and gave me a paperback copy of an Aubrey-Maturin novel, published by Stein & Day. “It’s very realistic”, he said. “Better than Hornblower.”
He was a rather grumpy person, and would not talk much, except to people of similar experience.
Lex …
Wonderful photograph. Oh not, as you point out, technically wonderful. Wonderful in another way … as a portrait of rare great spirits assembled together before a mission. So — thank you for showing it.
I can’t help thinking that the real, true, noble ‘cream’ of America’s youth are gathered together in distant lands, defending those of us here at home, in groups like the one here pictured. And some of the best of them are lost to us, just as they are in every war.
We Texans can claim one of those heroes as our own — Marcus Luttrell, who was brought up on a ranch not too far from Houston where I live. He wrote a book, a very moving book, “Lone Survivor,” about those SEALs pictured here and their shared ordeal. Like his fellow SEAL Chuck Pfarrer’s wonderful memoir “Warrior Soul,” these books are a window for civilian Americans into the minds and hearts of our warriors. They may be tough to read, these books, but we feel impelled to do so, to share just a little bit of their suffering, and maybe understand them a little better.
It’s the least we can do.
Marianne Matthews
When I was stationed in England several years ago, I always made it a point to visit the graveyards of the fallen. I first came across this epitaph at a church cemetary in Peterborough. The gravestone was that of one of the many British who died. I later learned it was called the Kohima Epitaph:
“When You Go Home,
Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Your Tomorrow,
We Gave Our Today”
Applicable to any fallen soldier or the hero-sailors like those above.
In another time, in another place, long after the sun had set and the shadows lengthened as the fires in the long houses died back to embers, they would sing of such men. And the songs of these warriors would become legend.
We are poorer for having lost men such as Michael Murphy, Keith Axelson, Danny Dietz, James Suh, Daniel Healy, and Eric Patton. But surely as a Nation, and as humans, we are vastly richer that, for a time, they walked among us.
Fair winds, and following seas. God speed Gentlemen, and thank you. I pray that we are worthy of your sacrifice.
A good post for the 232nd birthday of the Navy. Let us remember them, and the many who went before us.
Rather than Thermopylae, when I look back on this ill fated mission marked by tremendous acts of heroism I think of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Grave of the Hundred Head”….
Despite the all the anthropology, veil lifing and purple fingers that’s what it’ll take. Color me Zane.
b2
b2, fine choice of Kipling, and Kipling was a man who knew this part of the world very well.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve held the door open for… similar forces… arms loaded with weapons, rotors turning and waiting for them, every one of them saying “Thank you, sir,” as they rushed through, and wondered if I was even worthy of holding the door for them. I’m not a praying man, but I prayed for every one of them. May God have mercy on each and every one.
break
SEALs now have a separate rating, SO.
Thanks, yet again, Lex. You write the best tributes on the ‘net, IMHO.
I read Luttrell’s book – it’s a harrowing and tough story to read but one that left me with an immense feeling of pride about these men and what they have done for all of us…
B
Agreed, Buck. Lex, I’ve been hoping you’d write something on these Warriors in light of the upcoming MOH presentation. Thank you for this unique take on the photo and the men.
Bryan, I had the same reaction to the book.
That book, that story stays with me. Haunts me you might say….
Breaks my heart and makes me so proud of the men and women who step up and fight for me that I could burst.
Beautiful post Lex.
If the EXIF data is correct, this picture was taken 10 days prior. 06/18/2005 2:19am to be exact, although based on the time of day of the photo I’d bet the camera was still set for pacific time zone. Probably one of the last photos taken the we as the public will ever see of them.
Haunting Indeed.
Agreed Bryan.