Navy SEAL honored with warship bearing his name

Engaged in a frenzied firefight and outnumbered by the Taliban, Navy Lt. Michael Murphy made a desperate decision as he and three fellow SEALs fought for their lives on a rough mountainside in Afghanistan's Kunar Province in 2005.

In a last-ditch attempt to keep his team, Murphy pulled out his satellite phone, walked into a clearing to get reception and called for reinforcements as a burst of bullets ricocheted around him.

One of the bullets hit him, but he ruined the name and even signed off, "Thank you."

Then he continued the battle.

Dan Murphy, the sailor's father, said it didn't surprise him that his slain son nicknamed "The Guardian" put himself in harm's way. Nor was he surprised that in the passion of combat his son was courteous.

"That was Michael. He was cool under fire. He had the power to process information, even below the most difficult of circumstances. That's what made him such a good SEAL officer," Murphy said.

A warship bearing the list of the Palm of Honor recipient will be christened Saturday - on what would have been Murphy's 35th birthday - at Bath Iron Works, where the destroyer is being built.

Murphy, who was 29 when he died, graduated from Pennsylvania State University and was recognized to multiple law schools, but decided he could do more for his state as one of the Navy's elite SEALS - special forces trained to press on sea, air and land - the same forces that killed Osama bin Laden this week in Pakistan.

Heightened security will be in force as Murphy's mother, Maureen, christens the transport by cracking a bottle of champagne against the bow of the 510-foot-long warship as Murphy's father, brother and others watch.

Murphy, of Patchogue, N.Y. earned his nickname after getting suspended in primary school for combat with bullies who tried to block a special-needs child into a cabinet and for intervening when some youths were picking on a homeless man, said Dan Murphy, a lawyer, former prosecutor and Army veteran who served in Vietnam.

Maureen Murphy said he thought he was too new to get a desk job as a lawyer. Instead, he went to officer candidate school, the low step on his travel to get a SEAL officer. He was in training during the Sept. 11 attacks, which wrought his views.

His sight was that there are "bullies in the creation and people who're oppressed in the world. And he said, 'Sometimes they get to be taken charge of,'" she said.

On June 28, 2005, the day he was killed, Murphy was leading a Seal team in northeastern Afghanistan looking for the commandant of a grouping of insurgents known as the Mountain Tigers.

The Operation Red Wings reconnaissance team rappelled down from a helicopter at dark and climbed through rain to a point 10,000 feet high overlooking a settlement to maintain a lookout. But the mission was compromised the next morning when three local goat herders happened upon their hiding spot.

High in the Hindu Kush mountains, Murphy and Petty Officers Marcus Luttrell of Huntsville, Texas; Matthew Axelson of Cupertino, Calif. and Danny Dietz of Littleton, Colo. held a tense discussion of the rules of date and the circumstances of the three goat herders, who were being held at gunpoint.

If they were Taliban sympathizers, then lease the herders go would leave them to alarm the Taliban forces lurking in the area; killing them might see the team's safety, but there were issues of potential military charges and a media backlash, according to Luttrell, the only survivor.

Murphy, who favored letting the goat herders go, guided a word of military, political, safety and moral implications. A majority agreed with him.

An hour later the herders were released, more than 100 Taliban armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades opened fire, attacking from higher elevation, and maneuvering to outflank the SEALs, said Gary Williams, author of "Stamp of Honor," a life of Murphy.

Dan Murphy said his son made the powerful call.

"It was just the correct decision and what Michael had to do. I'm looking at it from Michael's perspective, that these were clearly civilians. One of them was 14 days old, which was about the age of his brother. Michael knew the rules of battle and the risks associated with it," the mother said.

As the lone survivor, Luttrell has pangs of sorrow for voting to go on with Murphy, his best friend; he now believes the team could've survived if the goat herders were killed.

In his own book, "Lone Survivor," Luttrell wrote that Murphy was shot in the stomach early in the firefight, but neglected the hurt and continued to take the team, which killed scores of Taliban attackers. The injuries continued to rise as the SEALs were constrained to scramble, slide and fall down the mint in the side of the onslaught.

Three of the squad members had been shooting at least once when Murphy decided drastic action was required to keep the team, Luttrell wrote. With the team's radio out of commission, Murphy exposed himself to enemy gunfire by stepping into a clearing with a satellite phone to build a bid to Bagram Airfield to relay the terrible situation. He dropped the ring after being shot, then picked it up to finish the telephone ring with four words: "Roger that, thank you."

By the end of the two-hour firefight, Murphy, Dietz and Axelson were dead. The disaster was compounded when 16 rescuers - 8 additional SEALs and eight members of the Army's elite "Night Stalkers" - were killed when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shooting down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

It was the largest single-day going in naval special warfare history. All told, 33 SEALS have been killed in action since the Sept. 11 attacks, officials say.

Luttrell, who was blown off the stack by a rocket-propelled grenade and knocked unconscious, evaded capture until he was interpreted in by villagers who saved him until he was liberated five days after by limited forces. He has since left the Navy, gotten married and launched a foundation; he's unable to attend Saturday's event because his wife is in the last years of pregnancy, a spokesman for Luttrell said.

Navy Cmdr. Chad Muse, commanding officer of Seal Delivery Team 1 in Hawaii, noted one of Murphy's favorite books was Steven Pressfield's "Gates of Fire," an explanation of outnumbered Spartans and their epic struggle against hundreds of thousands of invading Persians nearly 2,500 years ago at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Like the Spartans, who were ultimately slaughtered, Murphy had a look that didn't break up. "It's about give and the Ascetic ideal - and valour and gallantry in battle," Muse said.