was coiled in someone’s gas mask. As soon as I saw the picture, my stomach flipped. I had no idea where the Staff had been before Phil snagged it, and now it could have been in my gas mask. The same mask I spent hours in that day. I tried to see if the mask in question was mine, but the picture was shot so tightly it was impossible to tell. In that minute, the Staff of Power was in everybody’s mask, and no one was going to take a chance.
I followed the crowd down to supply and traded in my mask for a new one. Again, the Staff of Power was missing in action for a few months.
There was always food in the kitchen, and guys used to bring in massive jugs of pretzels and other snacks from Costco. One day a bin of animal crackers appeared in the team room. Handful by handful, the crackers started to disappear. You’d see guys eating the crackers as they walked from the kitchen to their cages or out to the ranges.
Soon enough, about halfway through the jug we found another Polaroid picture. This time, the Staff of Power was jammed into the middle of the bin with animal crackers piled up around the shaft.
To this day, I still can’t eat animal crackers.
I have no idea if Phil was the culprit. I know he was the one who found it, but to date the Staff of Power is unaccounted for.
CHAPTER 6
The only thing Phil loved more than a good prank was parachuting. As my team leader, Phil had a passion that drove our team to air operations, in particular High Altitude, High Opening (HAHO) jumps. The technique offered the best and most stealthy way to infiltrate a target. During a HAHO jump, you exit the aircraft, open your parachute a few seconds later, and fly your canopy to the landing zone.
I got my free-fall qualification at Team Five, but it wasn’t until I got to DEVGRU that I truly mastered the art of jumping.
Let me be clear, at first jumping out of an airplane scared me.
There is something unnatural about walking to the edge of the ramp and jumping out. Not only did it scare me, I hated it at first. I was the guy sucking down oxygen on the ride up. After every jump, when I was back on the ground, I loved it. But the next morning, I’d sweat it all over again. By forcing myself to do it over and over, eventually it became easier. Just like in BUD/S, quitting wasn’t an option and jumping was a big part of our job, so it was something I learned to love.
While I was with Delta on my 2005 deployment to Iraq, Phil successfully led a HAHO jump in Afghanistan. We always trained for this type of mission but I never thought I’d do one for real. Since I’d joined the command, I rotated between Iraq and Afghanistan, deployment after deployment. Things had fallen into a pattern of deployments, training, and standby. There were so many missions they started to blur together. We were rapidly gaining combat experience with each deployment. The command as a whole continually refined its tactics and had become even more combat effective.
In 2009, we finally got something different.
I was on personal leave, waiting for a commercial flight back to Virginia Beach, when I saw the breaking news bulletin flash across the TV screen in the airport. The
Sitting in the airport, I wondered if we were going to get the call. Getting personal time off was a huge feat since my squadron was on standby and could be called to deploy anywhere in the world with an hour’s notice.
Watching the TV at the airport, I could see the orange lifeboat bobbing in the surf. Nearby was the gray- hulled USS
“You watching the news?” he said.
“Yeah. Just saw it,” I said.
“Where you at?”
At this point, I was the most senior member of my team besides my team leader.
“I am at the airport,” I said. “I am literally waiting for my flight.”
“OK, good,” Phil said. “Get back as soon as you can.”
Instantly, I could feel my mind racing. The plane couldn’t fly fast enough. This mission was a once-in-a- lifetime chance. I didn’t want to miss it.
Boarding a plane is frustrating enough when you’re not in a rush. I watched as folks meandered to their seats or fussed with the overhead bins. I pleaded with them in my head to hurry. The sooner we took off, the faster I could get back to work. Plus, I knew once I was airborne I’d be in a communications blackout. There was no way to contact me if they got the word to go. For all I knew, as the flight attendant sealed the doors to my plane, I was getting the recall notice telling me I had one hour to get to the command, and by the time we landed the team would be gone.
Putting my headphones in, I tried to zone out but I couldn’t. Five steps from the gate after we landed in Virginia I was on the phone.
“Hey, what’s up?” I said when Phil picked up.
It was well after eight at night, since I’d come from the West Coast.
“Still here,” he said. “Come into work tomorrow early and I will get you up to speed. Planning is underway. But we’re waiting for D.C. to make a decision.”
The next morning, I was at work early. Phil met me in the squadron room. We sat down at the conference room table.
“We’ve got one hostage,” Phil said. “Four pirates. They want two million dollars for him.”
“Nothing like knowing exactly what you’re worth,” I said.
“I’d ask for more,” Phil said. “A couple of million seems a bit light, unless you ask my ex-wife.”
“Where are they going?” I asked.
“They want to link up with their buddies and try and get Phillips to a camp or a mother ship,” Phil said. “So, we’ve got to be ready to do a ship takedown or go over the beach and take out one of the camps.”
We’d spent years preparing for either mission.
“We’ve already got a handful of guys on the
“How long do we have before they make shore?” I asked.
“They don’t want to make landfall where they are now because of some tribal issues,” Phil said. “Their tribe is a little farther south so they can’t make landfall for another two days, so hopefully we have a timeline to work against.”
I asked about the recall.
“No recall, but it’s being discussed,” Phil said.
“Why haven’t we heard anything yet?” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense that it takes this long to make a decision.”
“Dude, it’s Washington,” he said. “Does anything make sense?”
A day later, we finally got a page recalling us. Most of us were already at the command. Our gear was packed and ready.
