Honor and Betrayal : The Untold Story of the Navy Seals Who Captured the "Butcher of Fallujah"-and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured (9780306823091) (57 page)

And the Butcher of Fallujah, Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi?

The Iraqi authorities hanged him for murder.

EPILOGUE

F
or several months after the trials Matthew McCabe and Jonathan Keefe tried to pretend nothing had happened. They accepted new appointments to join Team 10 on deployment in Afghanistan. But in the twenty-first century, for the fighting man, this was a sinister place, where death lurked menacingly around every inch of the dirt-brown scrubland.

Insurgents, Taliban, and al-Qaeda were often unrecognizable. Friendly tribesmen turned out to be bitter enemies. Men whom the Americans had trained suddenly turned their weapons on their instructors. Nothing was what it seemed. The danger was never-ending. And US Navy SEALs needed to be always at the top of their game because they, above all others, were most often ordered into harm's way.

Matt and Jon realized at more or less the same time they were not able to produce their usual peak performance. Both men held platoon positions of immense responsibility. But that old hair-trigger reaction was missing—the lightning-fast instinct for danger, the sure and deadly aim-and-fire, the quivering antennae for the presence of an enemy, the instant grasp and communication of combat alertness.

The two SEALs shared a mortal fear that someone would get hurt or killed because of them. And both men strived to find once more that edge of combat readiness that sets a SEAL Platoon leader apart from all others. It was not a matter of fitness, as they both were tuned to a peak of physical strength and excellence.

In truth, neither of them knew precisely what it was. But something was gone. Those courts-martial had, somewhat insidiously, invaded
their Special Forces psyche. No two men ever tried harder to regain whatever it was they had lost. But they were somehow fighting for a lesser god.

And it was no use, because a flame deep within them had flickered. It had not died; after all, they were both supremely well trained and dedicated special operators. But it would never burn quite so brightly again.

Matt's determination to become a SEAL officer was missing. Jon's devotion to the cause was diminished. Those terrible months when they felt the US military had turned against them for no reason whatsoever had taken a grim toll.

Nothing was the same. Long before they embarked on the big Navy transporter to fly them home from Afghanistan, they both knew it was over. They were two young men in their midtwenties who needed to seek out a new beginning.

And they both allowed their US Navy contracts to run out without ever indicating they wished to re-sign for the fighting force they both still loved but could no longer serve at the supreme level they had always attained.

By the spring of 2013 they had left the Teams. And even in these testing economic times, new employment was not too difficult to find. Half the country remained appalled at what had happened to them, so many a helping hand was offered.

Matt moved to another part of the United States to begin a career in finance, aided by a major businessman who had been outraged by the court-martial of the young SEAL.

Like many SEALs, Jon considered a position with a security firm where his SEAL training was regarded as near priceless against an irritating and ruthless twenty-first-century enemy. But three months later he was still undecided.

It would be impossible to assess how great an effect those military trials had on the ambitions of other young Americans hoping to serve in the US Armed Forces. But there was an effect, and many elite personnel already serving began to look elsewhere, perhaps to a less harsh and less politically correct form of employment.

Others, who were directly involved in the long legal battle to prove the three SEALs' innocence, also experienced this sorrowful dying of the light. Lieutenant Jason, who on that night had stood shoulder to shoulder with Jon, blocking the rim of Al-Isawi's stronghold, was severely shaken by the Navy's action against his teammates and left the service to go to law school.

Carlton Milo Higbie IV, who some thought might end up as a SEAL commander, also quit to pursue a career as a political writer.

The superb Lieutenant Paul Threatt left the US Navy to set up a private practice dedicated to serving military service members. What happened to Jonathan Keefe affected him for a very long time. Threatt remained active in the Naval Reserves.

Lieutenant Guy Reschenthaler also resigned, returning to his native Pittsburgh to practice law and admitting, “I love the US Navy, and I cannot say anything against it. But I can also say that the court-martial of Sam Gonzales played a large part in my decision to leave the service.”

Lieutenant Kevin Shea, who had worked hundreds of hours with Lieutenant Kristen Anastos, preparing Matt's defense, also resigned from the Navy to become a New York police officer, working Westchester County north of the city and close to his picturesque hometown of Nyack on the Hudson River.

For Petty Officer Sam Gonzales, there was no life beyond his Trident. And he slipped back into his Team as though he had never left, still the dedicated and meticulous senior enlisted man, still a Navy SEAL to his fingertips.

Brian Westinson left the Navy and returned to California.

In July 2012 US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that President Obama had nominated Major General Charles T. Cleveland to be promoted to a three-star Lieutenant General, Commanding US Army Special Operations, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

George Washington was a lieutenant general. So were Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, and George Patton.