Alpha by David Philipps

Author:David Philipps [Philipps, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2021-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

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“Fuck it,” Vriens said after Miller had told him about the meeting with Breisch. It was a few days later and they were sitting through another class on leadership. Vriens wanted to blow things up and didn’t care what the collateral damage was. “If they want to be shady and try to pretend nothing ever happened,” he told Miller, “we should just go straight to the commodore’s office. And if he doesn’t do anything, we can go to Fox News.”

Miller went to confront Alazzawi, who had been promoted to master chief. Miller still loved the SEAL Teams and wanted to give the system a chance to work. “Guys are running out of patience,” he told Alazzawi. “If you don’t do something, there’s a chance they’ll go to the media.”

Alazzawi snapped to attention. Don’t do that, don’t do that, he said. Frogmen were supposed to be covert. No need to come out in the open. There had to be another way that made everyone happy that didn’t involve a full-blown war crimes investigation. He would figure out a way. Look, make me a deal, he told Miller. Just hold off. I promise I’ll work this out.

Alazzawi talked to some of the top-ranking chiefs. A few days later, at the end of January, the SEAL command pulled Eddie from his job at Special Operations Urban Combat. Eddie was not amused. He went and found Alazzawi at the base in Coronado.

Why am I not working? he asked. Eddie had been talking about his badass combat deployment to whoever at Coronado would listen. When anyone mentioned the bad blood with Alpha, he dismissed it as just a bunch of whiny turds who couldn’t handle Gallagher-style warfare. If the other SEALs saw him suddenly get benched over Mosul, it wouldn’t look good.

Alazzawi tried to be direct. Look, he said, guys from Alpha are raising some disturbing accusations about deployment. It isn’t a good time for you to be an instructor in front of students.

That’s all bullshit, Eddie shot back. Whatever they’re saying, I can clear it.

“This isn’t about tactics. Guys are saying some serious shit about you. Like about a prisoner,” Alazzawi said.

Eddie let out a half laugh, as if to say, Is that it? He knew what they were referring to, he said, and that was bullshit, too. Eddie said he had been working on an ISIS captive and the guy had grabbed for his belt near his gun, so he had fucked him up.

There it was. Even if Eddie was saying it was self-defense, Eddie had just admitted he had killed the captive. Now Alazzawi had confirmation. And a confession. Eddie would have to be dealt with. Alazzawi got up to leave and said, “Hey, man, it’s your story, be able to tell it. Because at the end of the day that’s the allegation coming out on you.”

It’s all good, Eddie said. Don’t worry, I can clear it.

Later, when he texted a SEAL chief and longtime friend he sometimes talked trammies with, he was much less confident.

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