Lone Survivor Read online

  That oil money just washed right off, and people were making fortunes in anything that smacked of luxury, anything to feed the egos of the oil guys, who were spending and borrowing money at a rate never seen before or since.

  It wasn’t anything for banks to make loans of more than $100 million to oil explorers and producers. At one time there were 4,500 oil rigs running in the U.S.A., most of them in Texas. Credit? That was easy. Banks would lend you a million bucks without batting an eye.

  Listen, I was only a kid at the time, but my family and I lived through the trauma to come, and, boy, I’ve done some serious reading about it since. And in a way, I’m glad I lived through it, because it taught me to be careful, to earn my money and invest it, get it somewhere secure.

  And it taught me to think very carefully about the element of luck, when it’s running, and how to keep your life under control. I have long since worked out that when the crash came in Texas, its effects were magnified a thousandfold, because the guys in the oil industry sincerely believed money had nothing to do with luck. They thought their prosperity came from their own sheer brilliance.

  No one gave much consideration to the world oil market being controlled in the Middle East by Muslims. Everything that happened had its roots in Arabia, assisted by President Carter’s energy policy and the fact that when I was five years old the price per barrel of crude was $40.

  The crash, when it came, was caused by the oil embargo and the Iranian revolution, when the ayatollah took over from the shah. The key to it was geopolitical. And Texas could only stand and watch helplessly as the oil glut manifested itself and the price per barrel began to slide downward to an ultimate low of around $9.

  That was in 1986, when I was not quite ten. In the meantime, the giant First National Bank of Midland, Texas, collapsed, judged insolvent by government financial inspectors. That was one huge bank to go belly-up, and the ripple effect was statewide. An era of reckless spending and investing was over. Guys building palaces were forced to sell at a loss. You couldn’t give away a luxury boat, and Rolls-Royce dealers darned near went out of business.

  Along with the commercial giants felled by the oil crash went the horse farm of David and Holly Luttrell. Hard-running colts and mares, which Dad had valued at $35,000 to $40,000, were suddenly worth $5,000, less than they cost to raise. My family lost everything, including our house.

  But my dad’s a resilient man, tough and determined. And he fought back, with a smaller ranch and the tried-and-trusted techniques of horse raising he and Mom had always practiced. But it all went wrong again. The family wound up living with my grandfather, Morgan sleeping on the floor.

  My dad, who had always kept one foot in the petrochemical business ever since he came back from Vietnam, went back to work, and in a very short time he was on his feet, with a couple of huge deals. We moved out of Grandfather’s place into a grand four-story house, and the good times seemed to be back.

  Then some giant deal went south and we somehow lost it all again, moved back out to a kind of rural skid row. You see, my dad, though born over the border in Oklahoma, is a Texan in his soul. He was as brave as a lion when he was a navy gunner in Vietnam. And in Texas, real men don’t sit on their money. They get back out there, take risks, and when they hit it big, they just want to hit it bigger. My dad’s a real man.

  You could tell a lot about him just by the names he gave the ranches, big or small — Lone Star Farms, North Fork Ranch, Shootin’ Star. Like he always said, “I’d rather shoot for a star and hit a stump than shoot for a stump and miss.”

  I cannot describe how poor we were during the time Morgan and I were trying to get through college. I had four jobs to pay tuition and board and make my truck payment. I was the lifeguard in the college pool and I worked with Morgan on construction, landscaping, cutting grass, and yard work. In the evening I was a bouncer in a rough local bar full of redneck cowboys. And I was still starving, trying to feed myself on about twenty dollars a week.

  One time, I guess we were around twenty-one, Morgan snapped his leg playing baseball, sliding into second. When they got him to the hospital Morgan just told them we didn’t have any money. Eventually the surgeon agreed to operate and set the leg on some kind of long-term credit. But the anaesthetist would not administer anything to Morgan without payment.

  No one’s tougher than my brother. And he eventually said, “Fine. I don’t need anaesthetic. Set the leg without it. I can take the pain.” The surgeon was aghast and told Morgan he could not possibly have such an operation without anaesthesia. But Morgan stuck to his guns. “Doc, I don’t have any money. Fix my leg and I’ll handle the pain.”

  No one was crazy about that, especially the surgeon. But then Jason Miller, a college buddy of Morgan’s, turned up, saw that he was in absolute agony, and gave him every last dollar of his savings to pay the anaesthetist. At which point they put Morgan back together.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. When we were young, working the horses, my dad was very, very tough on us. He considered that good grades were everything, bad ones were simply unacceptable. I once got a C in conduct, and he beat me with a saddle girth. I know he was doing it for our own good, trying to instill discipline in his sons, which would serve them well in later life.

  But he ruled our lives with an iron fist. He would tell us: “One day I’m not gonna be here. Then it’s gonna be you two, by yourselves, and I want you to understand how rough and unfair this world is. I want you both prepared for whatever the hell might come your way.”

  He tolerated nothing. Disobedience was out of the question. Rudeness was damn near a hanging offense. There was no leeway. He insisted on politeness and hard work. And he didn’t let up even when we were all broke. Dad was the son of an Arkansas woodsman, another amazingly tough character, and he brought that stand-on-your-own-feet ruggedness into our lives at the earliest opportunity.

  We were always out in the woods, in rough country in the East Texas pines, the red oaks, and the sweet gum trees. Dad taught us to shoot straight at the age of seven, bought us a .22 rifle, a Nylon 66. We could hit a moving Miller High Life beer can from 150 yards. Now that’s redneck stuff, right? Redneck kids in redneck country, learning life’s skills.

  He taught us how to survive out there. What you could eat and what you couldn’t. He showed us how to build a shelter, taught us how to fish. He even taught us how to rope and kill a wild boar: drop a couple of long loops around his neck and pull, then hope to hell he doesn’t charge straight at you! I still know how to butcher and roast one.

  At home, on any of the ranches, Dad showed us how to plant and grow corn and potatoes, vegetables and carrots. A lot of times when we were really poor we just about lived on that. Looking back, it was important training for a couple of farm boys.

  But perhaps most important of all, he taught us to swim. Dad himself was an all-American swimmer and this really mattered to him. He was superb in the water and he made me that good. In almost everything, Morgan is naturally better than I am. He’s very gifted as a runner, a fighter, a marksman, a navigator on land or water. He always sails through his exams, whereas I have to slog it out, studying, practicing, trying to be first man in and last man out. Morgan does not have to strive.

  He was honor man after his SEAL BUD/S class, voted for by his peers. I knew he would be before he even started. There’s only one discipline at which he can’t beat me. I’m faster in the water, and I have the edge underwater. He knows it, though he might not admit it.

  There was a huge lake near where we lived, and that’s where Dad trained us. All through the long Texas summers we were out there, swimming, racing, diving, practicing. We were just like fish, the way Dad wanted it.

  He spent months teaching us to dive, deep, first on our own, then with our scuba gear on. We were good, and people would pay us to try and retrieve keys and valuables thrown into deep water. Of course, Dad considered this might be too easy, and he stipulated we only got paid if we found the c
orrect object.

  During this time we had the occasional brush with passing alligators, but one of my great Texas friends, Tray Baker, showed us how to deal with them. I wrestled with one once and was pretty glad when that sucker decided he’d had enough and took off for calmer waters. But to this day my brother loves to wrestle alligators, just for fun. He is, of course, crazy. But we sometimes take an old flat-bottomed boat fishing in the lake, and one of those big ole gators will come sliding up alongside the boat.

  Morgan makes a quick assessment — Nostrils about eight or nine inches from his eyes, so he’s eight or nine feet long. Morgan executes a ramrod-straight low-angled dive right on top of the gator, clamping its jaws shut with his fists, then he twists it and turns it, gets on its back, all the while holding those huge jaws tight shut and laughing at the panic-stricken beast of the deep.

  After a few minutes they both get fed up with it, and Morgan lets it go. I always think this is the most dangerous part. But I never saw a gator who felt like having another go at Morgan. They always just turn around and swim away from the area. He only misjudged it once, and his hand bears a line of alligator-teeth scars.

  You know, I think Dad always wanted us to be Navy SEALs. He was forever telling us about those elite warriors, the stuff they did and what they stood for. In his opinion they were all that is best in the American male — courage, patriotism, strength, determination, refusal to accept defeat, brains, expertise in all that they did. All through our young lives he told us about those guys. And over the years, it sunk in, I suppose. Morgan and I both made it.

  I was about twelve when I realized beyond doubt that I was going to become a Navy SEAL. And I knew a lot more about it than most kids of my age. I understood the brutality of the training, the level of fitness required, and the need for super skills in the water. I thought I would be able to handle that. Dad had told us of the importance of marksmanship, and I knew I could do that.

  SEALs need to be at home in rough country, able to survive, live in the jungle if necessary. We were already good at that. By the age of twelve, Morgan and I were like a couple of wild animals, at home in the great outdoors, at home with a fishing pole and gun, easily able to live off the land.

  But deep down I knew there was something more required to make it into the world’s top combat teams. And that was a level of fitness and strength that could only be attained by those who actively sought it. Nothing just happens. You always have to strive.

  In our part of East Texas, there are a lot of past and present special forces guys, quiet, understated iron men, most of them unsung heroes except among their families. But they don’t serve in the U.S. Armed Forces for personal recognition or glory.

  They do it because deep in their granite souls they feel a slight shiver when they see Old Glory fluttering above them on the parade square. The hairs on the backs of their necks stand up when these men hear the national anthem of the United States. When the president walks out to the strains of a U.S. military band’s “Hail to the Chief,” there’s a moment of solemnity for each and every one of them — for our president, our country, and what our country has meant to the world and the many people who never had a chance without America.

  These men of the special forces have had other options in their lives, other paths, easier paths they could have taken. But they took the hardest path, that narrow causeway that is not for the sunshine patriot. They took the one for the supreme patriot, the one that may require them to lay down their lives for the United States of America. The one that is suitable only for those who want to serve their country so bad, nothing else matters.

  That’s probably not fashionable in our celebrity-obsessed modern world. But special forces guys don’t give a damn about that either. I guess you have to know them to understand them. And even then it’s not easy, because most of them are shy, rather than taciturn, and getting any of them to say anything self-congratulatory is close to impossible. They are of course aware of a higher calling, because they are sworn to defend this country and to fight its battles. And when the drum sounds, they’re going to come out fighting.

  And when it does sound, the hearts of a thousand loved ones miss a beat, and the guys know this as well as anyone. But for them, duty and commitment are stronger than anyone’s aching heart. And those highly trained warriors automatically pick up their rifles and ammunition and go forward to obey the wishes of their commander in chief.

  General Douglas MacArthur once warned the cadets of West Point that if they should become the first to allow the Long Gray Line to fail, “a million ghosts in olive drab, brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words, Duty, Honor, and Country.” No need for ghosts in the U.S. Navy SEALs. Those words are engraved upon our hearts.

  And many such men way down there in East Texas were willing to give up their time for absolutely no reward to show kids what it takes to become a SEAL, a Ranger, or a Green Beret. The one we all knew about was a former Green Beret sergeant who lived close by. His name was Billy Shelton, and if he ever sees this, he’ll probably die of embarrassment, seeing his name in print on the subject of valor.

  Billy had a glittering army career in combat with the Green Berets in Vietnam and, later, serving on a government SWAT team. He was one of the toughest men I ever met, and one afternoon just before my fifteenth birthday, I plucked up my courage and went to his house to ask if he could train me to become a Navy SEAL. He was eating his lunch at the time, came to the door still chewing. He was a bull of a man, rippling muscles, fair skin, not carrying one ounce of fat. To my eyes he looked like he could have choke slammed a rhino.

  I made my hesitant request. And he just looked me up and down and said, “Right here. Four, tomorrow afternoon.” Then he shut the door in my face. I was a bit young at the time, but the phrase I was groping for was No bullshit, right?

  Now, everyone in the area knew that Billy trained kids for the special forces. And when he had a group of us running down the street, cars driving by would blow their horns and cheer us on.

  He always ignored that, and he showed us no mercy. Our program included running with heavy concrete blocks on our shoulders. When Billy thought we were strong enough, we stepped up the pace, running with rubber tires, which felt like they’d just come off the space shuttle or at least that big ole tractor out back.

  Billy did not hold an exercise class; he operated a full preSEAL training program for teenagers. Over the years he had us in the gym pumping iron, hauling the torture machine, the ergometer, pounding the roads, driving our bodies, sweating and straining.

  Morgan and I were terrified of him. I used to have nightmares when we were due to report to him the next morning, because he drove us without mercy, never mind our extreme youth. We were in a class of maybe a dozen guys, all midteens.

  “I’m gonna break you down, mentally and physically,” he yelled at us. “Break you down, hear me? Then I’m gonna build you right back up, as one fighting unit — so your mind and body are one. Understand me? I’m gonna put you through more pain than you’ve ever been in.”

  Right about then, half the class ran for their lives rather than face this bulldog, this ex–Texas Tech tailback who could run like a Mack truck going downhill. He had the support of a local high school, which allowed him to use their gym free of charge to train future special forces from our part of the world.

  “I’m not your friend,” he’d shout. “Not right here in this gym. I’m here to get you right — fit, trained, and ready for the SEALs, or the Berets, or the Rangers. I’m not getting one dime from anyone to do this. And that’s why you’re gonna do it right, just so you don’t waste my time.

  “Because if any one of you fails to make the grade in the special forces, it will not be because you were too weak. Because that would mean I’d failed, and I’m gonna make sure that cannot happen, because right here, failure’s not an option. I’m gonna get you right. All of you. Understand?”

 
He’d take us on twelve-mile runs, hauling the concrete blocks till we nearly collapsed. Guys would have blood on the backs of their heads from the chafing. And he never took his eyes off us, never tolerated idleness or lack of concentration. He just made us grind it out, taking it to the limit. Every time.

  That’s what built my strength, gave me my basis. That’s how I learned the fitness creed of the SEALs. Billy was extremely proud of that; proud to pass on his knowledge.

  And he asked only for undying devotion to the cause, the discipline of a samurai warrior, and lungs like a pair of bagpipes. He was absolutely relentless, and he really loved Morgan and me, two of only six survivors in the class.

  Once, when I came back from a tour of duty in Iraq, I went to see him after a couple of weeks’ easy living and Mom’s cooking, and he threw me out of the gym!

  “You’re a goddamned fat, pitiful excuse for a SEAL, and I can’t stand to look at you!” he yelled. “Get out of my sight!” Holy shit! I was out of there, ran down the stairs, and didn’t dare go back until I’d dropped eight pounds. No one around here argues with Billy Shelton.

  The other skill I needed was still to come. No Navy SEAL can operate without a high level of expertise in unarmed combat. Billy told me I’d need to take martial-arts classes as soon as possible. And so I found a teacher to work with. All through my grade school and college career, I studied and learned that strange, rather mystical Asian skill. I worked at it for many years instead of becoming involved in other sports. And I attained all of my goals.

  Morgan says the real truth is I don’t know my own strength and should be avoided at all times.

  By any standards, I had a head start in becoming a Navy SEAL. I was made aware of the task at a young age, and I had two strong engines driving me forward: my dad and Billy Shelton. Everything I learned beyond the schoolroom, down from my early years, seems to have directed me to Coronado. At least, looking back now it seems that way.