SEAL Team 6 and a Man Left for Dead: A Grainy Picture of Valor

After reading about John Chapman, I wondered how many times someone was left for dead, but we're only unconscious. War is Hell, and things happen in war that cannot be explained, especially in the heat of battle. The man I helped rescue in Bon Song valley, was left for dead, until one of his team members saw him moving. After all, he had been shot nine times. Two team members ran out to get him and they were shot. He had run out in the opening to get his BC, who was with them to get a medal. He ended up getting eight men shot, and when he popped the wrong color smoke, ARA unloaded on him, blowing off his leg, below the knee. His leg bone was sticking out from his knee down. He was bleeding terribly and I tied a tourniquet around a piece of meat hanging down. Anyway, my buddy Connie was shot nine times, and after they realized he was alive, they worked desperately to keep him alive. He told me he had passed over twice, and if we didn't get him he was going to die. I'm happy to say all nine soldiers lived.

Britt Slabinski could hear the bullets ricochet off the rocks in the darkness. It was the first firefight for his six-man reconnaissance unit from SEAL Team 6, and it was outnumbered, outgunned and taking casualties on an Afghan mountaintop.