The Ranger Way

Chapter Two

BE WILLING TO SACRIFICE

If you know me as "Tanto," you probably know that I was part of the CIA Annex security team that responded to the terrorist attack on the US Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. Our team of six were all former military special operators, and we used everything we had to fight back against the enemy for more than thirteen hours. You probably became familiar with our ordeal from the extensive media coverage that followed or the book 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi, written by Mitchell Zuckoff and the five surviving members of our team.

But before I became known as Tanto, the private security contractor, I was Kris Paronto, Army Ranger with the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. As a private security contractor, I have deployed in South America, Central America, the Middle East, and North Africa. I served four years in the US Army and an additional four years in the US Army National Guard, reaching the rank of sergeant and becoming a commissioned officer before being medically discharged in 2003. In response to the events of September 11, 2001, the US government began to use private security contractors along with full-time CIA security staffers overseas. Private security contractors are normally former military special operators like me. We were eventually designated as Global Response Staff (GRS) by the US government, and since 2004, our main task has continued to be to conduct low-profile security in high-threat environments throughout the world.

Our team of six former military men (two Navy SEALs, three Marines, and the Lone Ranger) had been hired to provide security and protect American diplomats and CIA agents working in Benghazi. On September 11, 2012, terrorists attacked the US State Department Special Mission Compound and the Annex, a nearby CIA station. Our team took action, retaking the compound and defending attacks on the Annex throughout the night, despite initially being told to stand down and warned that it was outside the scope of our duty. We fought to protect the Americans stationed there, our assets, and one another.

The public interest in those thirteen hours that our team spent in Benghazi has changed all of our lives. Some of the people who are interested in the story want to use it for their own partisan goals. I don't like that, but I understand it. The hostility of radical Islam to US interests is the defining national security challenge of our time, and the events in Benghazi are part of that story. All our team can do is share our perspective from the ground. We wanted to make sure the story of the events on the night of September 11, 2012, got told on our terms. Four Americans died that night: Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty. Their deaths demand that we continue to set the record straight. I continued to do that after the publication of our book and the movie that Michael Bay directed based on our story. Talking about that night, and hearing the questions and comments from all the good people who have cared to listen, made me realize that some people are interested in understanding why we never quit and why we were all willing to act against our orders and risk the ultimate sacrifice in that situation. I began to reflect on the way our story unfolded, the reasons we were able to act as effectively as we did, and how my training and experiences might have contributed to my own performance at that critical moment.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

At 9:32, the consulate called the Annex for help because it was under attack. I know you might read elsewhere that the attack started at 9:42, but I looked at my watch when we got the radio call and feel clear about it having been 9:32. Our security team was at the Annex, which was about three-quarters of a mile to a mile away from the consulate, depending on how you traveled there.

When we got that call at 9:32 that night, saying "GRS, we need you in the team room now," I remember thinking "What did I do?" I wasn't the only one. My friend Dave "Boon" Benton asked me, "Tanto, what did you do now? Did you screw with someone today?" Sometimes I found the case officers pretentious and liked having a little fun at their expense. I had been deploying for ten years at that point, and I felt pretty free to mess around and joke with people. But I had been on good behavior, so I looked at Boon and meant it when I said, "I don't think I did anything."

Another call came on the radio about thirty seconds later, and it was intense. If you've been in the military or maybe in law enforcement, you know what I'm talking about when I say it was the kind of call that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Not because you're scared, not exactly, but because it's exciting. You're about to get some action. So when we got the second call that said "GRS, we need you in the team room now!" Boon and I looked at each other again. We had been together for ten years at that point—in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan—and we could read each other's minds. He smiled at me, and I was thinking "Man, we're gonna do something fun tonight." We didn't realize, yet, that Americans were under attack.

We gathered our things and were headed toward the team room in Building C when the GRS team leader told us that the consulate was being overrun. We could hear gunfire and shouting in the distance. We were jocked up and ready to move five minutes after the initial call. We six contractors had all been in the Middle East for a few months before the attack, and we were a good team. Our Marines were Boon, a scout sniper with whom I had partnered before; Mark "Oz" Geist, a former police chief, and John "Tig" Tiegen, our two Navy SEALs were Jack Silva and Tyrone "Rone" Woods, and I was the only Ranger. Boon was my closest friend in Benghazi. I know it might sound odd to some of you military types to have a Ranger and a Marine be best friends, but it did happen. Jack and Rone had partnered together before as well. Tig had spent the most time in Libya. I had been there for about five months, part of that time in Tripoli. All of us had been deploying as either servicemen or contractors for at least ten years. We were an experienced team used to working in risky environments. If we are hired, it means the location is dangerous for case officers, so our postings are not in places like Jamaica or the Bahamas. But it is a rewarding job, and we had all continued to come back for more.

We were all in our late thirties or early forties, which is pretty old for combat. All of us had young children, too. Tig's wife had just had twins. Ty's wife just had baby Kai. I had a two-year-old. Jack had just found out that his wife was pregnant. All of us who wound up in this no-win, disadvantaged situation were new fathers. But not one of us would flinch. We might see things differently, but I believe it's because we had faith in one another, faith in God, and faith in the knowledge that we were all exactly where we were supposed to be.

Benghazi during the fall of 2012 was dangerous. Tripoli had been relatively safe, but Benghazi kind of felt like the Wild West. It reminded me of being in Iraq in 2004 but without the military presence. There was no reliable police force, there was limited intelligence, and you never knew if you could trust what you were getting. Islamist militias were in charge of the city. But September 11 was an ordinary day, for Benghazi. The consulate was calm. We called it the consulate; I think the government called it a Special Mission. The distinction between a US Mission or Special Mission and a consulate is important because a Temporary Mission Facility or a Special Mission Unit requires less security than a consulate. The US government treated our location in Benghazi as a temporary residential facility, which didn't require it to officially notify the Libyan government of its existence and exempted it from the facility and accountability standards a consulate requires. State Department personnel have testified that the status of the US Mission in Benghazi was unlike anything in their working memory.

It was a relatively quiet night. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening. We conducted normal operations all day until about nine that night, and there were no reports of any videos or any insurrections. We would have been told of any kind of unusual activity. I think the locals knew the Annex was there. If they saw Americans coming out of there every day, including Ambassador Stevens, they might not have known the buildings belonged to the CIA, but they would have known it was part of the US government.

John and Rone had driven right in front of the consulate on patrol at 9:00 p.m. and called Dave Ubben, the diplomatic security agent there, to see if they should stop by. They were told, "No, we're good." Our role was to protect CIA staff, so we did not have a direct role with the consulate. We shared radios with the consulate and kept in regular contact, but keeping an eye on it was more of a handshake arrangement. It was out of our normal scope of duties to protect it. But we would have helped anyone who asked us. If you need help, call us; we'll come get you. We would have done that for any Americans. I think that is how we all understood our jobs as a Ranger, Marine, or SEAL. But we were contractors, and when you are a contractor, there are repercussions for not following orders or going beyond your scope of duties.

For example, people don't realize that contractors are not directly insured by the government. We are insured by a third party through Defense Base Act (DBA) insurance. If we had died or been injured at the consulate, working outside our normal scope of duties, we would not have been covered by that insurance. So we could have had no medical insurance after an injury, our families could have received no life insurance payout if we died. We could have been fired, or we could have lost our security clearance. Not one of us discussed it at the time, but we were all aware of the risks we could face, in addition to death. But Americans were in trouble. Americans needed help, and we wanted to take action. But we were told to wait.

Our team was ready to go within five minutes of the initial call, but it sounded as though we would be facing a substantial force, so the GRS team leader told us to wait while he coordinated with a friendly local militia called 17 February Martyrs Brigade (17 Feb). We were double- and triple-checking our gear and waiting with our feet on the gas pedals of our cars for ten or fifteen minutes. The compound was less than a mile away; we could have walked there in the amount of time we spent waiting. It was tough because we could hear the State Department guys on the radio, and it was heartbreaking. We could hear Scott Wickland, and we could hear Alec Henderson, who was barricaded in the tactical operations center, watching his team get decimated on video screens and unable to do anything about it. He was saying "GRS, where are you? GRS, where are you at? GRS, we need you. GRS, we're taking heavy fire. GRS, you swore you'd get here." That one really hurt. Because we had sworn to help. We'd given our word.

I had approached our chief of base, Bob, and the team leader and asked them to request air support and other resources. They'd told me to hold up because 17 Feb might be able to handle the whole thing themselves. I was incredulous. American lives were on the line, and we were letting the initiative go while waiting to see if a foreign force (that I didn't consider particularly reliable) might come to the rescue? We could still hear the firefight. I was trying to maintain my composure. I prayed, "God, just give me strength. Give me strength to be patient. I want to burst out of this gate, but I know I have to listen to my leaders." But sometimes a moment comes when you have to stop listening to man's law and start listening to God's law. That moment came for us at about the fifteen-minute mark that night. I remember hearing Scott and Alec on the radio and looking at Tig. Tig had gotten out of his car and I could see him arguing with Bob. He was telling him that we had to go, that we were losing the initiative. Bob said we could not go. Tig got back into his car, and I asked "What's going on?" He told me, "Bob is saying we've got to stand down."

That stand-down order has become a political hot button. Some people on the news claim it didn't happen. I don't want to get into the politics around that, and I honestly feel it doesn't matter anymore. I think the truth about Benghazi has prevailed. If you want to take CNN's word over a Marine's, go right ahead. Me, I'll take the Marine's word one hundred percent of the time. We were told to stand down. And we continued to follow orders. That was what we had been trained to do. But we had also been trained to fight and to protect Americans at any cost. When we talked about it later, all the guys agreed that we had each begun to think that soon we might have to take the lead.