Here’s one way to tell the story:
It was 30 minutes to launch. Chief had left the troop space an hour before to check in on preps. I ran over the map a few times on my lap top, ran through the check points on my sheet before I stuffed them into the small map bag I hung around my neck. One last check in with Voodoo. His advice: “Don’t fuck it up”. Which was what he always said. And then I was out. I started the slow walk down to the boys and the boats. In the distance I saw the flood lights pouring down on the trailers. A few steps more and I could hear Meg White’s solo drum beat. Seven Nation Army, a new song.
The boys were circled up around chief waiting for me. The boats were ready. The trucks were running. We ran through the check points one last time. We ran through the “departments”.
Comms: Check
Boats: Check
Weapons and Ammo: Check
Nav: Check
And so on. Like clockwork.
We did a comms check on radios and I grabbed my gear and climbed into the truck. The security force kid on watch asked me why all the lights and music. And if we were worried about giving the enemy a heads up that we were coming.
“Good.” I snorted back. And then I stuffed some Copenhagen in my jaw and wedged myself into the truck for the haul over the road to the creek.
———
That’s how the story gets told in the books or on the barstool.
Here’s another way to tell it:
The platoon leader’s order was fine. The op was mostly transit. Nothing too crazy but there was a lot of ground to cover. And we were bringing a lot of shit.
I knew we were leaving at 0200 so I tried to get some sleep with the rest of the team. I don’t sleep much though and I never sleep during the day. But I knew I needed to try. It was going to be a brutal haul over the dirt and mud just to get to the creek and if we were lucky we wouldn’t get stuck. If we did we were going to have to dig out again and we’d be delayed. We’d have to dump the boats in broad daylight in front of half the village. Fuck. What a mess.
Not even a few pages of Moby Dick could put me down. So I laid there in my cot for an hour or so just staring into the darkness.
The last op kept popping into my head. I’d run us out of fuel and we nearly got lost out there. The fuel was dirty and it wasn’t entirely my fault. But it was stupid to go that far without any support. And I don’t even know what would have happened if the boys hadn’t been able to strip the tank and get the zodiac up. And Jesus if the fucking zodiac had run out of gas 100 yards earlier, Jesus, the reef. Fuck. I have to watch the distance better.
No sleep for me. Too late for Ambian. It makes me all foggy anyway. So I went for a run, stuffed 2 MRE’s down and went over to my troop space to work through some emails. It was 6 hours to launch. 6 hours. A half a tin of Copenhagen. 4 cups of coffee and two red bulls. Around 11 I started to get tired. Can’t get tired. Going to be up for 36 hours maybe. That’s how this last one went. More Red Bulls. More Copenhagen. Check the map again. Check the tides. Run through the waypoints. Think through how we’d react to contact.
Before waypoint 1, Return to Base
Before waypoint 2, hunker down, fight it out call the QRF.
After waypoint 2, get to the water….
After that…fuck…who knows.
Back to the map. Back to the emails. Back to the PowerPoint. Try to call Annette. She’s at work. Maybe tomorrow.
2 hours to launch. Chief is up, someone to talk to.
30 Minutes to launch. I fucking hate this. I want it to be this time tomorrow. Jesus I hope I don’t get anyone killed. Did I say I fucking hate this? Don’t tell anyone you fucking hate this. You fucking love this. You were made for this. This is who you are.
Let’s fucking go.
———-
Activities like a special operations missions happen in metaphorical wind tunnels. The wind is the world around us and the cruel truth that entropy gets the best of us all eventually. The battle within is to believe we can stave it off for long enough to succeed. And by succeed we mean avoid some horrible fate.
Most of us exist outside that wind tunnel in the form of something close to a parachute. In order to get into the tunnel and get to the other side, we require a transformation of sorts. From parachute to bullet.
For some, it’s easier than others. And when you do it long enough, it’s gets hard not to just try to stay as a bullet. Outside the wind tunnel, the bullet has little use. It’s dangerous. So transform it must. There’s a cost to the transformation though. A human toll.
I’m thankful that Simone Biles has opened up the door to talk about it a bit.
If you think that Olympic Gymnastics is less pressure than special operations, than it’s likely you’ve not felt that sort of pressure. And you don’t know how high performing people work. And so maybe you sit this discussion out.
I could have used permission myself long ago to admit that the things I was doing over and over and over for years was hard in a way what was changing my brain chemistry. I thought it was just me.