As a Libyan militia convoy finally arrived to secure the area, the GRS loaded the wounded and the dead onto a C-130 evacuation plane. Jack Silva sat next to Rone’s body bag, staring at the floor. He didn’t cry. Not yet. That would come later, alone, in a hotel room in Germany.
At 12:05 AM, September 12, the second wave began.
And sometimes, an hour is everything.
Years later, a journalist asked Oz Geist if he regretted going back into the burning compound. He looked at the scars on his arm and leg, then at a photograph of Rone Woods holding his daughter. HD13 Hours- The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Oz Geist took a second round, this time to the arm, shattering the bone. Tig was hit in the back by a piece of shrapnel. But they didn’t stop. They couldn’t. They dragged Rone’s body inside, covered him with a flag, and went back to the wall.
At 9:40 PM local time, the first explosion didn’t sound like a mortar. It sounded like the world tearing in half.
They returned to the Annex at 11:30 PM. The CIA compound was a small fortress—sandbagged fighting positions, a central villa, and a tactical operations center. But it was not designed for a coordinated assault. And the attackers knew it. As a Libyan militia convoy finally arrived to
In the sweltering heat of Benghazi, Libya, the year 2012 felt like a held breath. The Arab Spring had toppled Muammar Gaddafi, but in its wake, a vacuum of power had been filled by militias, extremists, and exhausted revolutionaries. The American presence was tentative: a small, low-profile diplomatic mission known as the "Special Mission Compound" (SMC) and, a mile away, a covert CIA Annex called "The Globe."
The men guarding the Annex were not uniformed soldiers. They were ghosts—former Navy SEALs, Delta Force operators, and Marine Raiders who had traded their service stripes for polo shirts, tactical jeans, and Glocks hidden under untucked shirts. They were the Global Response Staff (GRS). Their official job was "diplomatic security." Their real job was to be the last line of steel between the Agency and the abyss.
In the weeks and months that followed, the story of Benghazi was twisted into political theater. Hearings, investigations, and accusations flew across cable news. But no committee ever called the GRS to testify about their courage. They were secret soldiers—off the books, invisible to the Pentagon, ineligible for the Purple Hearts they had earned in blood. Not yet
From three directions, mortar rounds began walking in. The first explosion cratered the parking lot, flipping a Land Cruiser onto its side. The GRS took positions along the north and east walls. Rone Woods climbed to the roof of the villa—the highest point, with no cover—manning a Mk 48 machine gun. "I need eyes on the north ridge," he said calmly over the radio. "They’re setting up a mortar tube."
"Regret?" Oz said slowly. "No. I regret we couldn’t get there faster. I regret the politicians who left us hanging. But the men I fought with? They are the best of America. We weren’t heroes. We were just… the ones who showed up."
Finally, after 20 agonizing minutes, Bob relented. "Go. Get them."
At 4:00 AM, the attacks began to wane. The militants, having lost dozens of fighters, withdrew as the first gray light crept over the horizon. The GRS stood among the wreckage—burned vehicles, spent casings ankle-deep, blood-soaked sandbags. They counted their dead: Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty (a former SEAL sniper who had arrived from Tripoli as a reinforcement and been killed by the same mortar that took Rone). And the two from the SMC: Stevens and Smith.
