Some emergency gear was in my pockets. Besides a tin of Copenhagen dip (tobacco), I had a Silva Ranger compass and two pairs of flexible plastic riot handcuffs to secure a prisoner if necessary. The balance of my emergency gear was my E&E kit with a Mark 13 day/night flare and a strobe light for signaling. For communications I had a Motorola MX 360 radio with a spare battery for backup.
For the fast-rope insertion, I wore a pair of green aviator gloves under fingerless black leather sports gloves. I would put the aviator gloves in my pocket when I hit the ground; the sports gloves would help protect my hands during the insertion. Over all this stuff, I slung that OD cloth bandoleer of 5.56mm ammunition in ten-round stripper clips. And I still wondered if I had left anything out.
Things were moving so quickly I didn’t have much time to think about what we were going to do. I had tried to imagine what Scoon’s mansion might look like. All I could think of was a luxurious place, kind of an island version of our White House. Then I had to get to work, and my imagining ended.
Like any SEAL going into his first combat op, I spent a lot of time going over my weapons and gear. My weapons were broken down, cleaned, and carefully lubed. Each magazine in my pouches was checked and secured. The quick-tape I had attached to the magazines to get them out of the pouches fast was examined minutely and tested. I had ten thirty-round magazines on me, nine in the pouches and one in my weapon, each mag loaded with twenty-eight rounds to ensure functioning. The extra bandoleer I took along gave me an additional 140 rounds of 5.56mm ball to go along with the 280 rounds I had in my magazines: 420 rounds for my first combat. And I still wondered if it would be enough.
We had a chance to test-fire all our weapons before we left Pope Air Force Base. Each man checked all his hardware, and we had a good test-fire. From that point, our weapons were locked and loaded and set on safe. And they stayed that way until we landed on the island. That was all we could do with our equipment. It was time to get on with the operation.
CHAPTER 15
ON OUR WAY: FLY THE UNFRIENDLY SKIES
Everything was working to get us on our way as quickly as possible, but we were still running about a day behind the originally planned schedule. The plan called for us to go in on helo assets, basing out of Barbados. Our birds would be part of a convoy of SEALs and personnel from our Army counterparts and the Rangers.
The Army detachment would take over Richmond Hill Prison while we would head into Government House, as we called Scoon’s mansion. Three major targets were in a kind of east-pointing triangle, with Scoon’s mansion on the north point, Richmond Hill Prison a little less than a kilometer away on the south point, and Fort Frederick a kilometer away on the east point. About six kilometers north of Scoon’s mansion was Beausejour, where the radio station was located.
Of the nine Blackhawk helicopters we would all be flying in, four held SEALs and the remaining five held Army Rangers and other operatives. Two of the SEAL birds would head north to hit the radio station, while the remaining two SEAL birds would continue on to Scoon’s. The five Army birds would head in to Richmond Hill Prison.
Our pilots were all from the Army’s Task Force 160 and were very good with their birds. Having practiced night flying while wearing NVGs, the pilots could move through near total darkness and hit their targets. Night flying ability was important because our planned timetable had us hitting our targets right before dawn. That would put the element of surprise more in our favor.
The plan had us getting to Scoon by fast-roping down from the hovering Blackhawks. Once Scoon was secured, which was expected to take only twenty minutes or so, we would call the birds back in for an extraction. If we found the area too densely covered with trees or brush for the Blackhawks to set down, we would make a landing zone right on the spot. One of our guys would be carrying a chainsaw with him so that we could quickly “improve” the governor’s landscaping. With Scoon in a bird, he would be on his way to one of the Navy platforms around the island. Max planned time: forty-five minutes from first man on the ground to last man extracted.
Even with the “simple” aspects of the mission, things were going to be tight. The Blackhawks would be going out to their maximum range to put us on Grenada and would have to get to a Navy platform offshore quickly to refuel. But that wasn’t my part of the mission, so I wasn’t given all the details.
One of our guys had been to individual training but almost wasn’t there for the operation. As the loaded aircraft full of SEALs, Blackhawk helicopters, and pallets full of equipment started to taxi, charging along the runway came our missing man, Larry.
Our guy wasn’t about to be left behind when the party was finally going to start. His vehicle charged up to the aircraft, and Larry started pounding on the side door. The load master opened the door and we yanked Larry in, wearing his jeans and civilian clothes and not much in the way of military gear, but we always brought extra gear and weapons, so outfitting Larry wasn’t a problem.
While in the air, some of the vets just settled in and grabbed some sleep. Most of the rest of us couldn’t sleep much, maybe something like twenty minutes total during the whole flight. We were getting a bit jazzed up. It was 2100 hours, and the flight was supposed to be over in two and a half hours. By 0230 hours, we noticed the flight was taking longer than we had been told it would. Instead of landing in Barbados, we were circling the island.
Duke and the other guys on the plane were concerned about the flight being so late. They called up front to the pilot’s cabin to find out what the hell was going on. The crews of the Air Force C5A Galaxy transport planes didn’t know we were going in on a hot operation. They all thought it was an administrative operation and we were still under peacetime rules. The aircraft commanders hadn’t known about the tight timeline to get us on the ground in Grenada while it was still dark.
Finally the huge C5A set down at a commercial airport. The original plan had us leaving Barbados on board the Blackhawks at 0400 hours, but it was 0330 hours before all the transport planes had finally touched down. The mission was already running close to an hour behind schedule and we had just gotten on the ground.
Duke wanted to try to regain a little of the time we had lost. Since my shooting partner and I were the fast-rope kickers and would be sent out of the helicopter first, Duke told us to get down to the Blackhawks and start hooking up the gear. At that time, only SEAL Team Six was using fast-roping as an insertion technique. Sliding down a specially made thick rope, a little like the ropes we used to have to climb back in high school gym class, a SEAL squad could be on the ground from a hovering helicopter in seconds. The special ropes were hung from the doorway of the insertion helicopter from a special bracket that had to be installed prior to the operation.
As soon as the plane had touched down, we were unbuckling our belts and getting ready to go to the helicopters. Most of the air crew, though, still thought we were on a regular peacetime mission. You know how the airlines have that warning about not unbuckling your seatbelt or standing until the aircraft has come to a complete halt? Well, the Air Force has the same rule.
A member of the flight crew took it upon himself to warn us to sit down and remain buckled up. Tempers were running just a tiny bit short, however, and we didn’t have a time for this kind of nonsense. I believe it was Duke who convinced the crew member that leaving us alone might be the best thing all around. It might have been a threat about severe bodily harm that finally caused the crewman to go find something else to occupy his time.
The helicopters were pushed out the cargo doors as soon as they opened, and we were on the birds hooking up the ropes as soon as we could get down to the cargo deck. The Army crew chiefs were attaching the rotor blades, which are removed for transport, to ready the birds for flight. A number of us climbed up on top of the helicopters to help tighten down the bolts that secured the four blades to the rotor.
While we were working on top of the birds, the rest of the guys were moving below us. The M60 machine gu
ns were mounted in the doors and the long ammunition belts carefully laid out in their cans and feed chutes. Now the adrenaline was pumping for me, and I imagine a number of the other guys also felt their hearts beating just a bit faster. Finally, at around 0500 hours, we lifted off for Grenada.
The helicopter formation flying across the ocean reminded me of the movie Apocalypse Now. That was the first time I thought to myself, “Here we go, this is the real thing.” Up to that point, everything had been handled the way we had learned way back in BUD/S training: one evolution at a time, and don’t anticipate.
The helicopters had metal decks inside with tie-down rings, much like in the older Hueys. We had the fast-rope rigs put up and securely in place, but this would be the first time we had used them without a safety rope. The training was over; it was time to put our learning to the test. And everything I looked at reminded me of that.
It started to get light while we were flying across the ocean, and our being behind schedule was looking more serious. The door gunner on the helicopter was newly assigned to the position, so my shooting partner and I tried to give him some help in setting up and operating his M60 machine gun. Unfortunately, we couldn’t prevent him from making a bit of a mistake.
To make up time, the Blackhawks were moving along at near top speed. With his weapon stuck out in the windstream, that gunner opened the aluminum feed cover on the top of his M60 in order to load it. The wind immediately ripped the feed cover off the weapon. Now the right side of the aircraft was without a working machine gun.
The helicopter was pretty well maxed out as far as its load was concerned. And here we were with a couple of thousand rounds of M60 ammunition that was now nothing more than a big weight. In the back of the birds were large rubber fuel bladders to increase the range as much as possible. So we were flying along in a partially armed, fuel-filled bomb.
During that hour-long trip across the ocean to Grenada, I had time to think about my childhood, girls I had known, and Kitty back in Virginia Beach. But I couldn’t dwell on such things. Thoughts like that can get in the way when you have to move and react fast. With a conscious effort, I thought about my part in the plan, how I would support my Teammates, and how glad I was that experienced guys were leading us in. I decided I was going to have a great time going into combat with these men at my side, and front, and back.
What we were heading into wasn’t like taking down a bamboo hooch in Southeast Asia. We were going up against an old-world mansion, more like a fortress, with thick stone walls. Bullets wouldn’t penetrate that structure. We would have to go in and cover it room by room. But that was what we had all trained for and why we were given this job.
Our training had been hard and dangerous for a reason: you train as you fight. We had done live fire exercises, stalked each other with revolvers loaded with wax bullets, and had learned from the best. We were tough, aggressive, and good. Where another troop would probably miss in a sudden face-to-face, we wouldn’t. That’s why we had the best chance of coming out on top in any fight.
We had been told to trust our training. That was probably one of the big differences between the combat veterans and us new guys caught on the sharp end for the first time. They knew instinctively that they could trust what they had been taught; we could be told that, but it took experience to settle the question at a gut level.
We may have lost one door gun, but we didn’t have as much trouble as the other bird going to Scoon’s mansion. Their doors were open, and all of a sudden we could see fluid flowing out the door and into the wind. After a few minutes, the flow stopped.
“What the hell was that?” someone wondered out loud. “A mass piss?” Later we found out the other bird had sprung a leak in one of the fuel bladders they had in the back of the passenger compartment. Our guys had joined in with the helo’s crew to wrench down fuel fittings, finally stopping the leak. Now they were flying along soaked in fuel and not looking to light any cigars just yet.
The five Army birds were up front in the formation, with the SEAL birds bringing up the rear as we arrived near the target. The island looked peaceful from where we were. There wasn’t any noticeable movement. In fact, the whole place looked deserted to me.
We were blasting along just two hundred feet above the water, the birds trying to stay below any radar on the island. The daylight gave us a good view of the U.S. Marines coming across the water, getting ready to make their landing on the beach. We waved to them, they waved to us, and we continued on our way.
As soon as we had crossed the beach and were over Grenada proper, we started taking 23mm antiaircraft artillery fire. This was the first time I had heard bullets fired in anger going past my head. During range firing in training, I had been forward in the trenches and heard the snap and crack of different caliber bullets go past. That situation is enough to make you think. But now the bullets going past me were meant to bring down the Blackhawk, something I could do nothing about.
The bright green Soviet-style tracers looked like big Christmas tree bulbs or bright fireflies rising up slowly from the island. As the green lights came closer, they appeared to move faster and faster. The ZU-23 guns on the ground were being manned by Cuban or Grenadian crews, we didn’t know which, and we didn’t care a whole lot either. What we did care about was the four hundred rounds per minute of armor-piercing and high-explosive cannon fire the two guns on the ZU-23 could put out to a range of 2,500 meters.
We could hear the cracks of the projectiles going by. Those cracks were spaced out by the occasional sound of one of the shells hitting the helicopter. Nothing I had ever heard sounded worse. You didn’t know what might happen. If one hit you, it was just going to be the luck of the draw.
As the number one kicker, I would be the first person out the door. I was at the back of the doorway with my shooting partner, who was the number two man, facing me. His elbow had to be only inches from my face, something I would be thinking about later. In spite of everything that was going on, I had to laugh at a problem I suddenly had. In my mouth was a big chunk of dip (tobacco), and my mouth turned dry as cotton when I heard the shells hitting.
My Teammates in the bird, Duke and some of the other Vietnam vets, were laughing, and it was pretty easy to see who they were laughing and smiling at. One of them leaned forward and shouted above the wind, “How’s it feel to be shot at?”
Well, fuck this, we all laughed. It was about all we could do while moving through the air like a great big target. As we moved along, the AA fire would slow down and then build back up as we passed near another ZU-23 battery. Fortunately for us, we veered off to head for Scoon’s mansion and didn’t get the worst of the AA fire closer in to Richmond Hill Prison. Later we found out the prison was pretty heavily fortified and the Army took some losses getting to it.
Guns located at Fort Frederick were just pouring out fire at us and all the birds in the area. It was like we were flying into a bee’s nest. At least four ZU-23s were on the ground, and all of them were aimed at us. As we came closer to the governor’s mansion, we started taking more AA fire from both Fort Frederick and another spot closer to our target. To the east of the governor’s mansion was another big house where there had to be at least one ZU-23 battery. Behind us Bob Gormly’s helo was badly hit and had to veer off. They made it to a Navy carrier offshore, but it was a near thing.
In spite of the smiles and joking around, the pucker factor went way up on board after that. Even as full as that bird was, we snugged up so tight you probably could have gotten ten more people on board right then. You can’t do anything to defend yourself; you just have to ride it out and trust in your pilots. And I hoped we had the best damned pilots in the world.
Since I was the first one in the door, thoughts about my exposed position did run through my mind. Could this be it? Would I take a round? Would it hurt? Was there anything I could do about it? That last question I could answer: no.
Anyone who tells you they weren’t scared when they were bein
g shot at is handing out bullshit. Everyone is scared. It’s how you handle it that makes the difference. I know I was scared in this first situation, with the rounds coming at me. But I thought about what was going on at the other end of those guns. Those guys on the ground were also probably brand-new to combat, and they were just as scared as I was. Two new guys going at each other in combat. And I knew I was going to react quicker than he would if it came to a face-off. There was no way I was going to let myself, or my Teammates, down.
Finally we recognized the governor’s mansion from the air and split up for the insertion. Our two helos came in fast. My bird would be going in at the front of the building and the other would cover the rear of the house. Both birds were taking a lot of fire, and one of the pilots was hit. I never did learn how badly he had been injured, but he continued with the mission and survived the operation. In spite of this, both birds were able to get on station.
A few guys armed with AK-47s were firing up at our bird from the governor’s mansion. All I saw were the muzzle flashes, but that was enough to let me know the guys were there. Since my side of the helicopter didn’t have a working door gun, one of the SEALs in our crew leaned out with his carbine and returned fire.
Under the limited cover of our fire, we kicked the rope out the door. The Blackhawk was still ninety feet in the air, the full length of our fast rope, but that didn’t matter. As soon as the rope was clear I was out the door with my shooting partner right behind me. Now that we were in the thick of it, the thought of bullets going by simply stopped, and it didn’t bother me again. It was time to get into the game.
One Perfect Op Page 14