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The Sole Survivor
The service members who helped rescue Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell, below, in Afghanistan in 2005 were, from left, Master Sgt. Mike Cusick, Staff Sgt. Chris Piercecchi, Staff Sgt. Ben Peterson, Staff Sgt. Joshua Donnelley, Master Sgt. Josh Appel, Tech. Sgt. John Davis, Tech. Sgt. Jason Burger, Lt. David Gonzales, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Macrander, Master Sgt. Brett Konczal, Maj. Jeff "Spanky" Peterson and Maj. John Phalon. The other members of Luttrell's four-man team were killed by Taliban fighters.
(Courtesy Of Josh Appel)
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Help came thundering over the ridgeline in a Chinook carrying 16 rescuers. But at 4:05 p.m., as the helicopter approached, the Taliban fighters fired an RPG. No one survived.
"It was deathly quiet," Luttrell recalled. He crawled away, dragging his legs, leaving a bloody trail. The country song "American Soldier" looped through his mind. Round and round, in dizzying circles, whirled the words "I'll bear that cross with honor."
News of a Crash
In southwestern Afghanistan, at the Kandahar air field, Maj. Jeff Peterson, 39, sat in the briefing room with his feet up on the table, watching the puppet movie "Team America: World Police."
Peterson was a full-time Air Force reservist from Arizona, known as Spanky because he resembles the scamp from "The Little Rascals." He was passing a six-week stint with other reservists he called "old farts." In three days they would head home, leaving behind the smell of burning sewage and the sound of giant camel spiders crunching mouse bones.
Someone flipped on the television news. A Chinook had crashed up north.
Peterson flew an HH-60 for the 305th Rescue Squadron. Motto: "Anytime, anywhere." Their rescues had been minor. "An Afghani kid with a blown-up hand or a soldier with a blown-up knee," Peterson recalled in an interview at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.
That was okay with him. Twelve men, including Peterson's best friend, had died during training in a midair collision in 1998. The accident, he said, "took the wind out of my life sails." He just wanted to serve and get back to his wife, Penny, and their four small boys.
Peterson is dimply, 5 feet 8, and describes himself with a smile as "an idiot. A full-on, certified idiot." He almost flunked out of flight school because he kept getting airsick. While the other pilots downed lasagna, he nibbled saltines. He had trouble in survival training because they had to slaughter rabbits: "I didn't want to kill the bunny."
Peterson dealt with stress by joking, singing "Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood" songs on missions: It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Now, with the news of the Chinook crash, the tension in the Kandahar briefing room amped up as a call came over the radio. Bagram needed them. Peterson grabbed his helmet and a three-day pack. He asked himself, "What is this about?"
Encounter With a Villager
The Seal wondered whether he was dying -- if not from the bullet that had pierced his thigh, then surely of thirst. "I was licking sweat off my arms," Luttrell recalled. "I tried to drink my urine."
Crawling through the night, as Spanky Peterson's HH-60 flew overhead with other search helicopters, he made it to a pool of water. When he lifted his head, he saw an Afghan. He reached for his rifle.
