Mark Owen: No Hero

This was my thirteenth combat deployment. I had years of my life spent operating in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world. This was no longer “theory” or “training.” For the first time in my career, I felt like I’d achieved my goal of becoming the SEAL operator that I’d dreamed about as a teenager in Alaska.

Years of training had led me to this level. No SEAL I ever worked with was content being average. We’d learned teamwork in BUD/S and we were experts in our individual tactical skills. After more than ten years at war, our skills were at their peak. We’d shot millions of rounds, blown thousands of pounds of explosives, and trained and fought in every situation and environment. We could spin up on an operation on a moment’s notice, no matter how complex. Mission planning was simple because we’d done it hundreds of times. We trusted each other and could almost read each other’s minds on target.

Even thoughthe command had given us a few days off after returning from the mission, I still found myself back at work. I needed to get back to the same routine as I’d had in past deployments.

I wanted to control something. It was comforting to pull up to the building, go to my cage, unpack all my gear, and zone out for a bit. I really wanted some solitude.

I’d never felt anxiety after a mission. I was always able to handle the stress, but now it was messing with me. I wasn’t sleeping. I was on edge. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I was even dodging calls from my family.

I heard a buddy who was also on the raid open up his cage just down the aisle from mine. The cage area was pretty quiet, so I gave it a second and walked over. He had his gear out and was doing the same thing I had been doing, attempting to hide in his work. He was slowly putting his gear away but looked up when I walked into his cage.

“Hey, bro,” I said. “What are you up to?”

“Not much, figured I’d clean up some of my gear,” he said.

I could see the thick circles under his eyes. He looked tired. The command is a tough place. To an extent, we’re a pack of wolves. A group of alpha males taught to never show weakness. I’d known this guy for years and we’d been in some pretty shitty situations together. I trusted him with my life, but admitting weakness was something else entirely.

“Can I ask you a quick question?” I said softly.

“Sure, what you got?” he said.

“Are you sleeping?” I said in almost a whisper.

He continued to unpack his bags, and after a long pause he looked back up at me.

“Nope,” he said.

He shook his head when he said it and then turned away.

“Me neither,” I said. “I haven’t gotten more than an hour since we got back.”

That was the single deepest conversation I ever had about combat stress.

I’ve been through shooting courses. I can go rock climbing, ride a dirt bike, drive a boat, and handle explosives. The government spent millions of dollars training me to fight in the jungle, arctic, and desert. I took language courses and I can parachute at night and land right on target. But I’ve never been trained to handle the stress of combat. We spent months learning how to be SEALs and hours of every day keeping those skills sharp, but we got no formal training dealing with any of the emotional stuff.

Before I joined the SEALs, I wondered if I would actually be able to pull the trigger. Could I defend myself? I only really thought about it before I became a SEAL because once I was on missions I didn’t have time to think about it. I was in my three-foot world.

Everything I did overseas was considered work. I snuck into people’s houses while they were sleeping. If I caught them with a gun, I killed them, just like all the guys in the command. I’ve been in massive gunfights and I’d put guys down without thinking about it. I don’t regret my actions in combat. Everything I did overseas was done to protect the guys to my left and right, and my country. I obeyed the rules of engagement and never targeted innocents.

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t fuck with me. To this day, if you ask Phil about “the cat,” he’ll tell this story of a 2006 mission in Iraq.

The unmanned drone flying over the target reported seeing a half dozen men sleeping outside. It was summer in Iraq, and even at night it was too hot to stay inside without air conditioners. The village was really just a cluster of about ten squat, adobe-style houses. I didn’t see any power lines coming into the village as we patrolled, so we expected people to be sleeping outside.

We closed slowly on the village just before three in the morning. Since we’d gotten off the helicopter two hours before, it had been a long march to the village. The desert was flat and wide open and it was hard to see the horizon, even with my night vision goggles down. The village could have been on the moon. Nothing surrounded it for miles except sand and rocks. Above me, the stars were thick and bright. Now, close to the houses, the march was one slow step at a time.

It was 2006 and we’d been fighting in Iraq for three years. My troop was working in western Iraq. A tip brought us to the village. ISR spotted fighters and we spun up. The whole process was pretty simple by this point. We were doing it every day. Find, fix, and finish.

It was hot and I could feel the sweat pooling around my back where my body armor stopped. The troop chief gave the word and we moved into a large “L”-shaped formation and started to close on the village.

The base, or bottom, of the “L” was going to set up just outside of the village and, if needed, provide a base of fire and cover our movement. The vertical part of the “L” was going to move through the village searching for fighters. I was in the second group.

On the radio net in my ear, I heard updates from the other assault teams. I knew that circling above us and just outside of audible range, we had drones to give us eyes in the sky and an AC-130 to cover us in case we needed immediate close air support. I scanned over to where the drones reported seeing the sleepers. I could make out about ten bedrolls.

A pair of men stood, scanning the desert. They weren’t talking, or at least it didn’t appear so. It looked like they were straining to see into the blackness of the desert night.

Did they hear something?

I was sure they couldn’t see us. Maybe they heard the AC-130 above. Finally, one man moved over to where the others were still sleeping and began waking them up. His partner never stopped scanning the open desert. I could see the others getting up, slowly, and start looking around.

While the others got moving, the pair of men walked toward the nearest house. The others eventually followed. None of the men had guns so we couldn’t open fire, but it was definitely suspicious to see a large group of men sleeping on the outskirts of the village. Where were all the women and kids?

The group was halfway to a house on the edge of the village when they stopped. The entire group turned and started to walk back to their bedrolls. We were about two hundred meters away and I could see every one of the men clear as day in my night vision.

When they got back to their bedrolls, I could see them grabbing AK-47s, RPGs, and even a belt-fed PKM machine gun. Multiple IR lasers popped on and zeroed in on the chests of the fighters as our snipers went to work. Seconds later, three of the enemy dropped. The others panicked and started running back toward the village. Suppressed rounds continued to pour in on them.