A Medal of Honor Recipient Through The Eyes of His Father

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. The 2013 film “Lone Survivor” tells the story of Operation Red Wings. The mission became one of the deadliest in our War on Terror. One of those chosen to lead this dangerous mission was Lieutenant Michael Murphy, who would give his life on that slope and become the first member of the Navy to receive the prestigious Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Here to tell his story is Kirk Higgins, Vice President of Content at the Bill of Rights Institute. Let’s get into the story.

So I might say that Michael Murphy was born to be a hero. Honor and service were part of his DNA. He was born in 1976 on Long Island, New York, and grew up in the village of Patchogue, near the island’s southern shore. His father, Daniel, was a wounded Vietnam War veteran who went on to serve as a prosecutor in Suffolk County, New York. Michael Murphy developed a reputation early on for protecting and serving others. In eighth grade, he confronted and stopped three bullies who were trying to shove a special needs student into a gym locker. He spent his summers as a lifeguard, keeping swimmers safe at Long Island Beaches. He was a standout student, too, graduating from Penn State University with honors degrees in political science and psychology. At this point, his life was at a crossroads. He had been admitted to several law schools and was considering a career as an attorney. Instead, he decided to pursue one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs in the United States military, becoming a Navy SEAL. He received an appointment to the U.S. Navy’s Officer Candidate School in late 2000. In January 2001, he began Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training, also known as BUDS, in Coronado, California. BUDS’ training is famously grueling. The attrition rate can be more than 80%, but Murphy made it, graduating with SEAL Class 236. At the beginning of 2005, he was deployed to Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, and it was during this deployment that he would demonstrate the courage and self-sacrifice for which he is still remembered. In the spring of 2005, U.S. intelligence was tracking the location of a Taliban leader who was responsible for the recent deaths of several U.S. Marines. Four Navy SEALs were dispatched to find the leader and radio in for a larger task force to capture or kill him. The mission was known as Operation Red Wings. On the evening of June 27, 2005, the small SEAL team climbed aboard a special operations helicopter and lifted off into the dark night sky, heading toward a destination near a spot about Afghanistan. At their landing zone, they roped 20 feet to the ground and hiked through the night over rocky terrain until they reached their assigned position. But there was a problem.

So we were watching the target, and all of a sudden, a pair of little brown legs jumped over the muzzle of my gun. Let me tell you, something got my attention fast. I didn’t hear this guy, and, seeing the biggest thing, was I didn’t smell him. When we get over there, our senses are so heightened, we pick up stuff that we normally wouldn’t while we’re over here. And, tell you, something got my attention. And as I came up with my rifle to engage, he turned around, looked at me, and had an axe in his hand. Well, what’s your natural reaction after somebody scares you? You get mad at them, right? The same thing happened to me. I’m a human being. I jumped over that log, subdued, and took that axe away from him. Had a big, long beard. If anybody has one of those and you want to get their attention, you grab him by it. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. So I rolled my fist up in his beard, and I walked back to where Danny was. I was like, “Get out the way! I got to interrogate this guy.” I was just trying to get his shade, actually. But that’s what. But all the mountains in Afghanistan they came up on, they came up on the woman we were sitting on. In their world, that’s in shell lock. God willed that, and our world is Murphy’s Law. We had Murphy with us, so bad stuff always happened to us. About that time, 70 or 80 goats came bebopping up the mountain. Every side of it changed the whole dynamic of the mission. And I know you’re wondering why, but listen, when those goats, they don’t wait on those shepherds. They go back up, follow that trail they’ve been following for 2,000 years, go back down to that village.

They show up without the shepherds.

The whole village comes back looking for them, make sure nothing bad happened to them, and if anything kind of feels uneasier out of place. That guy we’ve been chasing and got him in that village is gone. We ran through some other stuff, but eventually, I mean, every scenario you could think of: zip-tying everything, zip-tying the goats, all the ghost to goes. Like, I didn’t bring enough, and go to resilient. You zip-tie five of them together. They’re still going to wind up in that village with a zip-tie around the legs. And made in America? Where do you think that came from? So some other stuff came into play. And, bottom line is, though, you know, after, we’re not murderers, all right? There’s a few things in the military don’t play around with. That’s rate, revenge, and robbery. You can guarantee that we don’t mess around with that crap. So we cut them loose.

The SEALs let the herders go, but knew they had to move fast. There was a good chance they would alert the local Taliban fighters. Sure enough, the sealt was soon discovered by around 200 enemy fighters.

Oh, right above me was a tree—a big tree, bigger than the rest of them. And all of a sudden, I see a shroud and an AK muzzle peek around the tree. All right, I throw my weapon on fire. He kind of pulls his head back around. Can hear him talking and setting up. Out of my peripheral, I could see them all moving around and everything like that. I looked under my armpit of Mikey as I got on the clock. We’re fixing and get it on.

There was a heavy exchange of gunfire, but it seemed like every Taliban fighter that fell, a new one took his place.

Small arms fire and belt-fed stuff. No rockets yet, no mortars yet, or anything in that. It was so loud. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, and Danny and Mikey, you could understand a word I was saying.

The SEAL team was surrounded and forced to make a desperate decision. They dove off a cliff to escape.

We pinballed through this grove with trees for about 200 yards. I landed on my back, and I broke my back in multiple places, broke my pelvis. And Mikey landed on his face. I remember he crushed his face pretty bad, because when he sat up to look at me, it was, you know, all bloody, or whatever. He turned around. Well, that’s when they hit us with the rockets and the mortars, and the world just kind of started blowing up around us. Well, that’s it: it was time to go to work.

As Luttrell later wrote, Murphy, quote, “was ignoring his wound and fighting like a SEAL officer.” “Shit: uncompromising, steady, hard-eyed, and professional.” They spread out into firing positions, but were given no time to rest as the assault continued.

At no point in time that it was any had bought my teammates afraid of anything. At no point in time to anybody stall in the door, so to speak. They didn’t kind of back up and say, “Hey, I don’t want to be in this.” It was, “Hey, this is what we’re here to do. Let’s do this.”

By this time, they had been fighting for about 40 minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. Murphy wanted to get his men to safety and ordered them down another beam.

I broke my nose real bad, showed it through my face, actually, and I bit my tongue in half and I swallowed it, and that totally incapacitated me. I was on all fours. I mean, like I was trying to throw that thing up. Man. I finally got it up.

At this point, Murphy turned to Luttrell to bolster his courage and said, quote, “Remember, bro, we’re never out of it.” The fierce firefight raged on, but the SEALs were helplessly outnumbered. Axelson was shot in the head but continued to fire his rifle. Murphy, still bleeding and suffering several wounds, knew something had to be done. In a moment of extraordinary bravery, he turned to a last resort to help himself and his men.

In the movie, they kind of portrayed this the right way, but except for one piece: that’s where we were separated. He didn’t die alone, and all my guys that got killed, I was right there. Mikey was out on his boulder, out in the middle of the fatal funnel—no cover, no nothing—on our satellite phone. Forgot he had had that. He took two rounds to the chest. It’s funny, like a top dropped him on his face. Has bothered me so bad. I mean, Danny was dead, and the acts was dying, and Mikey had just been hit. I thought he was dead. I slowed my weapon, tried to crawl up to him and couldn’t make it.

He took out a mobile phone that these SEALs only used in extreme situations, as it revealed the location and had to be used in the open. He walked through heavy gunfire to sit on a rock and contacted headquarters. He dialed the number and yelled to be heard. “My men are taking fire. We’re getting picked apart. My guys are dying out here. We need help.” Then he was shot in the back. Miraculously, he finished the call.

He sat up with his rifle, finished a phone call off, took around, straightened the spine, dropped him on his face. Well, he sat up again. I was waving my hands, and then one fire my weapon. I was just waving my hands. All I wanted him to do is come down to me. I was like, “Just get down here to me! I’ll carry you out of here, man. I’ll get us out of here.” And he went left. I lost sight of him behind his rock embankment. I heard his weapon go off. A lot of gunfire in there. Then he started screaming for help. He’s like, “I need help up here, man, I need help!”

Moments later, he was killed by 4 Taliban fighters. Michael Murphy died heroically trying to save his men, and he was not alone. 16 American soldiers gave their lives when their helicopter was shot down trying to reach Murphy and his men. Luttrell was the only survivor of Murphy’s four-man SEAL team. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2007. A Navy destroyer bears his name. In fitness, fanatics regularly engage in a grueling exercise regiment he created, known as the Murph Challenge. Luttrell wrote, “Was there ever a greater SEAL Team Commander? An officer who fought to the last and, as perhaps his dying move, risked everything to save his remaining men, not a gesture, an act of supreme valor. Lieutenant Mikey was a wonderful person and a very, very great officer. If they ever built a memorial to him as high as the Empire State Building, it won’t ever be high enough for me.”

The story of Lieutenant Michael Murphy, here on Our American Stories.