SEAL of Honor Read online

  A combat leader lives, and sometimes dies, by his ability to balance two often mutually exclusive duties: he must accomplish his mission and he must take care of his men. A great deal has been written about Operation Red Wings, and exactly what took place in those mountains on that fateful day we may never know. But we do know this: Mike Murphy did all in his power to accomplish his mission. When that became impossible, he did all in his power to take care of his men. In the face of impossible odds and mortally wounded, he fought and led until the moment he was killed. For those of us who have since learned of Michael Murphy’s courage in those last terrible hours, we marvel at such gallantry. For the Murphy family and the small community of Patchogue, New York, their unimaginable grief aside, he was simply one of their own, doing his duty in a manner that was consistent with how he was raised.

  —DICK COUCH

  SEAL (BUD/S) CLASS45

  UDT 22/SEAL TEAM ONE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A project of this magnitude cannot be accomplished by a single individual; while my name may appear on the cover, there are literally hundreds of individuals who made this effort possible. While many are named below, there are those critical individuals who provided firsthand accounts of much of the operational details whose names cannot be revealed due to the secretive or classified nature of their work. They know who they are. Anytime you begin to thank people, you run the risk of unintentionally omitting someone; therefore, I ask for their forgiveness.

  First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents, Richard and Charlene Williams, who instilled the virtues of hard work, patience, and persistence, as well as a near-sacred respect for our military personnel and veterans. To my wife, Tracy, and my children, Aaron, Lisa, Bryan, David, Daniel, and Stephen, and grandchildren, Chantress and Caden, thank you for allowing me time and freedom to both research and write this story and, most important, for keeping me grounded. Your sacrifices are no less important or appreciated. I hope my efforts make you as proud of me as I am of each of you. A special thank you to my stepson Stephen, our resident computer expert, for easing my frequent frustrations with a few keystrokes or a click of the mouse.

  The following individuals contributed in varying degrees to the success of this book. Whatever level of detail about and insight into the man Michael Murphy was that I may have brought to these pages would not have been possible without their contributions and support. They are the true authors.

  Family of Lieutenant Michael Murphy: Father Dan, mother Maureen and brother John ... it is very evident why and how Michael became the man he was. Thank you for your service, sacrifice, and willingness to share the most painful of life’s events with me and the world.

  Operation Red Wings: The families of Petty Officer Matthew Axelson, Petty Officer Danny Dietz, Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell, Senior Chief Dan Healy, Lieutenant Commander Erik Kristensen, Petty Officer James Suh, Petty Officer Shane Patton, Petty Officer Jeffrey Taylor, Petty Officer Jeffrey Lucas, Major Stephen Reich, Lieutenant Michael McGreevy, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chris Scherkenbach, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Cory Goodnature, Master Sergeant James W. “Tre” Ponder, Sergeant First Class Marcus Muralles, Staff Sergeant Shamus Goare, and Sergeant Kip Jacoby.

  United States Navy: Vice Admiral Eric Olson, Rear Admiral Joseph D. Kernan, Rear Admiral Edward Kristensen (ret.) and Mrs. Suzanne Kristensen, Lieutenant Jeff Widenhofer, Lieutenant Commander Tamsen Reese, and Lieutenant Leslie Lykins.

  Naval Special Warfare: Rear Admiral Edward Winters III, Rear Admiral Garry J. Bonelli, Captain Larry Lasky (ret.), Commander Gregory Geisen, Commander Todd DeGhetto, Commander Chad Muse, Lieutenant Commander Michael Martin (ret.), Lieutenant Andy Haffele (ret.), Lieutenant Nathan Potter, Ensign Chris Reed, and former Gunner’s Mate First Class Luke Barker. To all those individuals who must remain anonymous as they continue to defend freedom around the world, thank you, gentlemen, and Godspeed.

  United States Army, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment: Kimberly Tiscone, Major Myron Bradley, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chad Easter, and those heroic individuals who must remain anonymous as they continue to defend freedom around the world. Again, thank you, and Godspeed.

  Michael Murphy’s closest friends: The O’Callaghan family—Owen, Jimmie, Kerri, and Sean—Jimmy Emmerich, and Jay Keenan. Everyone should have the honor of friends like you.

  Other individuals were invaluable in this effort. They include Captain Andrew “Drew” Bisset (ret.), who was the first to sign on in this effort back on May 7, 2008, and served as an excellent mentor and technical expert working tirelessly to bring me up to speed on the Navy and the SEALs in very short order. I want to extend a very special thank you to Captain Kent Paro. His tireless efforts in reviewing this manuscript and his near-photographic recall of details contributed immensely to the clarity of this work. Most appreciated was his demonstrated patience of Job when it came to working with me, a nonmilitary individual who possessed only the utmost respect for those in uniform and the deep desire to learn. Thank you seems so inadequate.

  Roger Froehlich, a staunch advocate for those who wear this nation’s uniforms, was and remains willing to do anything to advance this project; his belief, encouragement, and facility in putting me in contact with the right people at the right time saved time and frustration. At a time when he is increasingly consumed with family concerns, he remains a source of encouragement and strength.

  I would also like to thank former secretary of the navy Donald C. Winter, Vice Admiral Joseph Maguire, and Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations, whose staff provided support and encouragement that was extremely helpful in keeping this entire project within the Navy family, as well as Rick Russell and the staff at the Naval Institute Press, who demonstrated great patience while ushering an unknown author through the sometimes intimidating waters of the publishing world. Finally, a special thank you to legendary Hollywood actor Jon Voight for his tireless advocacy of and undying respect for our nation’s veterans and his words of encouragement and support.

  INTRODUCTION

  Why would a highly successful graduate from a prestigious university, having been accepted into law school, forgo a lucrative law career? What causes a twenty-two-year-old college graduate to work as a lifeguard and plumber’s assistant while waiting on an opportunity that may never materialize? How does one decide to ignore the advice of loving parents and set a course so demanding that less than 1 percent succeed? Who volunteers to put oneself through months of physical and mental pain and abuse for a position that only a few achieve? What is the source of the internal strength and moral courage that says, “I would rather die than quit”? Why would one deliberately step into a hail of gunfire?

  Although I never had the opportunity to meet Michael Patrick Murphy, it has been the privilege of a lifetime during the past months to get to know him through his parents, family, relatives, friends, teammates, and acquaintances, whose lives were made better for having known the young man known as “Murph” or “Mikey.”

  When this project started in March 2008, I believed then, and even more so today, that it is a compelling story of an all-American boy from a small town on New York’s Long Island who rose from obscurity to become one of this nation’s most revered heroes, whose actions are now memorialized for all time in our nation’s Hall of Heroes. The world came to know twenty-nine-year-old Navy SEAL lieutenant Michael P. Murphy for his legendary actions in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan on June 28, 2005, which resulted in his receiving posthumously the Medal of Honor from President George W. Bush on October 22, 2007.

  However, there is much more to his story. On those two dates, the world became aware of what family and friends had known for twenty-nine years: that Michael Patrick Murphy was an ordinary man with an extraordinary sense of duty, responsibility, and moral clarity. Such moral clarity and sense of duty had its roots in a God-fearing set of parents who sowed within him the seeds of greatness that granted him the wisdom and strength to answer a call tha
t few will ever receive.

  It was this call to service that drove him to study and work and prepare himself for that moment in time when character met circumstance in the eternal struggle of good versus evil in the world’s most forbidding terrain. While some may say that Michael chose to walk a path that he could have avoided, I suggest that he could no more have avoided his chosen path than deny the source of his moral clarity and courage. History is replete with those rare individuals who when called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice do so willingly.

  Inscribed in a Wheaton College classroom are the words “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Despite our modern culture’s obsession with winning and the rhetoric of subversion, was Michael Murphy’s young life wasted, or did he know and understand something that we haven’t yet figured out? Herein lies the real story. It is my sincere hope that my efforts have done justice to a calling faithfully answered, a duty justly upheld, and a life, while all too short, very well lived. Michael Patrick Murphy clearly had it figured out. He voluntarily gave up an earthly life he could not keep in exchange for an eternal life he cannot lose—demonstrating the wisdom many never achieve.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Knock on the Door

  You can almost see the blood run out of their body and their heart hit the floor. It’s not the blood as much as their soul. Something sinks. I’ve never seen that except when someone dies. And I’ve seen a lot of death.

  —MAJOR STEVE BECK, Casualty Assistance Calls Officer (CACO), United States Marine Corps, quoted in Jim Sheeler, Final Salute

  Tuesday, June 28, 2005, Kunar Province, Afghanistan

  Phase one of Operation Red Wings was only hours old as midday approached. (Note: the operation has been referred to by others as Red Wing or Redwing, but the official military name is Red Wings.) High in the rugged Hindu Kush region in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, the twenty-nine-year-old team leader, Lieutenant Michael Murphy, USN, and three other members of SEAL Team Ten spent the morning taking turns maintaining a vigilant watch on the village complex situated just west of Asadabad, in the Korangal Valley—a hotbed of Taliban and al-Qaeda activity. It was also the known hideout of Mullah Ahmad Shah, a Taliban fighter who aspired for greater recognition and leader of a group of insurgents known as the Mountain Tigers. Under his direction, they were responsible for inflicting numerous casualties on American forces operating in the area. The latest intelligence reports confirmed that as many as two hundred militants were in the valley ready to fight under the direction of Shah. Murphy and his teammates, Petty Officer Second Class Matthew Axelson, Petty Officer Second Class Danny Dietz, and Petty Officer Second Class Marcus Luttrell, had clear orders: observe the settlement in an effort to confirm the location of Shah, then call in a surgical strike to eliminate him. Things, however, began to go wrong very quickly. Around noon, three goat herders stumbled upon the team’s concealed location. They were quickly captured, but their presence resulted in a dilemma for Murphy and the others, whose options were limited. They could kill the goat herders and compromise the mission, or they could let them go and hope they did not give away their location. They chose to let them go, abandoned their original positions, and continued their mission.

  An hour later, the crackle of AK-47s and the roar of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) erupted on the mountainside. The men of SEAL Team Ten were under attack.

  Tuesday, June 28, 2005, Patchogue, New York

  Half a world away, Michael’s mother, Maureen Murphy, was asleep in her Long Island home when the battle was joined. She awoke on the morning of June 28 feeling ill, placed a call to the local title company where she worked as an account clerk, and took a sick day. Although she did not usually watch much television, she found it a welcome distraction from the heavy traffic noise outside on a hot and humid June day. By the afternoon, the first reports that American servicemen had come under intense, heavy fire on a remote mountain in Afghanistan began to trickle out through the media. Few specifics were known, but it was widely reported that a helicopter had been shot down during an effort to rescue beleaguered soldiers on the ground. Although the story grabbed Maureen’s attention, she kept saying to herself, “Nah. Couldn’t be,” when she considered the possibility of her son being involved. It was understandable, since she did not know Michael was in Afghanistan. She was not alone. No one without an operational need to know knew where he was.

  For Dan Murphy, Michael’s father, it was just another day. After a mentally stressful workday, the fifty-eight-year-old decorated and partially disabled Vietnam veteran, attorney, and former Suffolk County prosecutor was looking forward to an evening with his fiancée, Karen, her daughter, Kristen, and John Murphy, Michael’s eighteen-year-old brother. As they made their way to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway for the evening performance of Beauty and the Beast, he was not worried about the news that broke that day. Michael, he believed, was in Iraq.

  Wednesday, June 29, 2005, Long Island, New York

  After a day of rest, Maureen returned to work. Almost from the moment she arrived at the office around 8:00 AM, coworkers began to ask anxiously if she was aware of the news reports about American soldiers who had come under heavy fire in Afghanistan. Like them, however, she only knew what she had heard in the news the day before. Throughout the day, though, more and more details continued to emerge. News outlets confirmed that an unknown number of Navy SEALs had been killed and that a rescue helicopter attempting to reach them had been shot down, killing all sixteen on board. Maureen later admitted that with each passing report her concern for Michael grew, and around the office everyone focused on the news with each updated broadcast. As well-meaning and concerned friends and coworkers continued to bring her attention to the unfolding events in Afghanistan, she tried to stay focused on her duties, but increased calls and reports on the local and national news channels made her efforts nearly impossible.

  Early that same afternoon, Dan was reviewing cases in his office, where he was the chief legal assistant to State Supreme Court justice Peter Fox Cohalan. Immersed in work and away from a television, he was unaware of the new details of the fight that began to emerge. Still, his thoughts repeatedly drifted to his oldest son, Michael. He adamantly believed that he was in Iraq, based on a picture he had received from Michael on Father’s Day via e-mail. Michael and his team were wearing light-colored desert fatigues, each holding their weapons. Michael was wearing his characteristic Oakley sunglasses and his large digital chrome and black watch. “It must be Iraq,” he told himself.

  John was also unaware of the new details in this unfolding story. He spent the afternoon with Karen and her daughter, Kristen, at the Holtsville town pool. As he sat in the sun and looked around, he recalled seeing the lifeguards at their stations while a feeling of dread came over him as he thought about his older brother Michael and his safety. The feeling was intense for several minutes, and though it gradually subsided, it never completely went away. Having never experienced such a feeling, he remained uneasy for the rest of the day.

  Like Maureen, Heather Duggan, Michael’s fiancée, grew more and more concerned with each passing minute that afternoon and was glued to the news. When she heard the reports about an accident involving Navy SEALs in the mountains of Afghanistan, she called Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM) in Coronado, California. Michael had given her the number to call in case anything ever happened to him. After several calls and repeated requests, she was provided with no information because she was not listed as a next of kin or spouse. Frustrated and angry, Heather hung up. Had she been a member of the immediate family when she called, her worst fears may have been confirmed.

  While Heather called seeking information regarding Michael, the Navy was already sorting through the outcome of the engagement and making preparation to contact family members of the fallen and missing SEALs. Around midafternoon and deep in thought while walking in downtown Manhattan, Lieutenant Jeff Widenhofer’s cell phone
rang. It was the Navy’s Northeast Regional Casualty Assistance Calls Office at the Groton Naval Submarine Base in Groton, Connecticut, calling to inform him that he had been assigned a “casualty call.” Widenhofer was informed that Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy and the members of SEAL Team Ten were missing after they had been ambushed while conducting a reconnaissance mission in the mountains of Afghanistan. On top of that, a rescue helicopter containing eight Army Night Stalkers and eight Navy SEALs had been shot down, and all aboard were presumed to have been killed.

  Widenhofer, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a veteran of three Middle East deployments, had been assigned to the Office of Naval Science at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) in Kings Point on the North Shore of Long Island in June 2005. He was selected because he was only forty-five miles away from Patchogue. Already a difficult assignment, this casualty call was even more so because this one was his first. After making several phone calls, he learned he would not be acting alone while carrying out this responsibility. Commander Robert Coyle, command chaplain at the USMMA, and Lieutenant Commander Chad Muse, from Naval Special Warfare in California, would be accompanying him to the Murphy home.

  Wednesday, June 29, 2005, Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM), Coronado, California

  While the Murphys each went about their day, the action outside of Asadabad made the routine at NSW in California anything but normal. At his office at 5:30 AM, Commander Todd DeGhetto received a telephone call on an unsecured line. A helicopter had gone down in Afghanistan, he was told. Three of his men may well have been on it. About an hour later he received a secured call from Captain Tom Carlson, commodore, NSW Group Three, confirming the helicopter crash, the identities of those killed, and that three of his men were missing on the ground. Meanwhile, word had reached Captain Larry Lasky, assistant chief of staff for operations and planning at NAVSPECWARCOM, that Operation Red Wings had gone into a rescue posture, “with troops in contact with a numerically superior force.” He knew from early reports that the four-man SEAL unit had come under heavy attack with limited support, lost communications, and was possibly trying to escape or evade the enemy by rapidly descending sheer cliffs. A quick-reaction force (QRF) consisting of several helicopters had been mobilized in an effort to extract the team, but the Chinook 47E helicopter carrying the QRF had been destroyed by what appeared to be a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and the remaining helicopters were ordered to abort the mission. The reports were pieced together from videotape and digital photographs of the battle area and the helicopter crash site captured by an unmanned MQ-1 Predator.