The plan had been perfectly executed. The first clue the bad guys had
that SEALs were there was when their door blew in. We caught them
completely by surprise in a manner they had not expected. I made my
way to the rooftop of the target building, keyed up my radio, and called
Jocko, who was now with the blocking force outside: “Jocko, this is Leif.
Target secure.” I passed our proword for “we have the hostage.”
We had rescued the hostage alive and in one piece. We gave our Iraqi
soldiers all the credit. The positive strategic impact of our Iraqi partner
force successfully rescuing an Iraqi hostage was substantial. It served as
a big win for the fledging Iraqi security forces in liberating the local
populace from the brutality of the insurgency.
Best of all, none of our guys were hurt. We found no IEDs buried in
the yard or bunkered machine gun positions in the house, though
certainly the kidnappers had access to such weapons. We were lucky. But
we had also made our luck. We had maintained the element of surprise.
Our plan had worked like a charm, a testament to the solid mission
planning skills we had developed in Task Unit Bruiser. Having the
humility to lean on the expertise of the good U.S. Army major and his
Soldiers who lived and fought in this area for a full year had helped us
greatly in this success.
* * *Back in San Diego a year later, I served as a leadership instructor at our
SEAL basic training command. I used this very scenario for a leadership
decision-making exercise. To a classroom filled with newly promoted
SEAL platoon commanders and platoon chiefs, I set up the scenario:
Iraqi kid held hostage, known location, hostage rescue mission planned
and ready to go. “Just before launch,” I told them, “the intelligence