Chapter 15: Dan's Miracle
This is the latest and FINAL chapter of The Ice Man, my book about the Navy SEAL platoon in Iraq that took the blame for a CIA homicide. The full book is available only to paid subscribers.
On April 22, 2023, I returned to Coronado for the first time in years. It was a warm spring day, which was welcome after an unusually wet winter. My route took me around the southern end of San Diego Bay through Imperial Beach, a gritty surfing community where many SEALs chose to live. The road then curved sharply north up the Silver Strand, the main north-south road through swanky Coronado with its beautiful seaside homes and oceanview high-rises. I passed Naval Special Warfare Command, the SEAL headquarters. I could see the dunes that generations of BUD/S trainees had trudged across while instructors shouted at them through bullhorns, urging them to quit. I could see the three-story obstacle course, every inch of which was familiar to Frogmen, who had run it too many times to count. A mile or so up the road, I turned off the road to attend a memorial to honor Dan Cerrillo.
A month earlier, Cerrillo had suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 50. The wounds of combat in Iraq ne…