by Owen, Mark
We were only three months into a nine-month training course. The next six months wouldn’t be any easier. After CQB, we went on to train on explosive breaching, land warfare, and communications.
One of the SEALs’ core jobs is ship boarding, called “underways.” We spent weeks practicing boarding a variety of boats from cruise ships to cargo vessels. Although we spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and Iraq, we needed to be proficient in the water. We rehearsed “over the beach” operations where we would swim through the surf zone and patrol over the beach and conduct a raid. Afterward, we’d disappear into the ocean, linking up with our boats offshore.
During the last month of training we practiced VIP security details. Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s first security detail were SEALs from the command. We also attended an advanced course in SERE, or Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape.
The key to the course was managing stress.
The instructors kept everyone tired and on edge, forcing us to make important decisions under the worst conditions. It was the only way the instructors could mimic combat. Success or failure of our missions was a direct reflection of how each operator could process information in a stressful environment. Green Team was different than BUD/S because I knew just passing the swim or run and being cold, all without quitting, wasn’t enough.
Green Team was about mental toughness.
During this time we were also learning the culture of the command. Throughout Green Team, we were on a one-hour recall to simulate what we would experience on the second deck. If recalled, the pager buzzed and we had an hour to get back to work and check in. Every day at six o’clock, we got a test page. The pagers became another source of pressure the instructors used. Several times, we’d get pages before dawn to come into work.
One Sunday around midnight, my pager went off. Still shaking the sleep from my head, I rolled into the base in time and was told to put on my PT gear and stand by. We were going to have a PT test.
We weren’t supposed to be more than an hour away and couldn’t drink to intoxication. We had to be able to perform when called upon. We could get a page and be on a plane to anywhere in the world within hours.
Soon, my teammates started to arrive. Some seemed like the page had interrupted a trip to the bar.
“Are you drunk right now?” I heard an instructor ask another candidate.
“Of course not. I just had a beer at the house,” he said.
As the hour ticked away, I still didn’t see Charlie.
He rolled in about twenty minutes late. The instructors were pissed. He’d gotten a ticket for speeding on his way, which only delayed him more. Thankfully, it was just a verbal lashing from the instructors and Charlie was able to stay with our class.
With only weeks left in the nine-month training, we started to hear rumors about the draft. To fill out the squadrons, the instructors would rank the whole class and then assault squadron master chiefs would sit around a table and pick new members from my Green Team class.
The individual squadrons were in a constant state of flux as they rotated from deployments overseas to months of training and then months on standby, during which a call to deploy could come at any time.
After the draft, the Green Team instructors posted a list. A whole bunch of my friends, including me, Charlie, and Steve, were going to the same squadron.
“Hey, congrats,” Tom said when he saw me looking at the list. “When I am done with my instructor time I am going back to that squadron to be a team leader.”
SEALs are deployed around the world at any given time. The heart of each squadron are the teams, each led by a senior enlisted SEAL and made up of a half dozen operators apiece. The teams make up troops, which are led by a lieutenant commander. Multiple troops make up a squadron, led by a commander. DEVGRU assault squadrons are augmented by intelligence analysts and support personnel.
When you get to a team, you slowly work your way up the chain. Most of the time, you stay in the same team, unless you get tapped to be a Green Team instructor or work a collateral duty.
The day after the draft, I brought my gear up to the second deck. I followed Steve and Charlie to the squadron team room. The room was large, with a small bar and kitchen area in one corner. Everyone had brought a case of beer, a tradition when you show up at the squadron for the first time.
Our squadron was getting ready to go on standby and then deploy to Afghanistan. Some of my teammates from Green Team were already packing their gear and deploying as brand-new assaulters with their respective squadrons.
Along one wall, the commander and master chief had offices. A massive table took up most of the room, with smaller tables with computers along the perimeter. Flat-screens that were used in briefings hung on one wall. The rest of the wall space was filled with plaques from other units like the Australian SAS and mementos from past missions. A bloody hood and flex-cuffs were mounted on a plaque on the wall after the squadron captured a Bosnian war criminal in the 1990s. Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts’s Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, was also hung on the wall. He fell out of a Chinook helicopter after it was hit by two rocket-propelled grenades during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan and was killed by Taliban fighters at the start of the war.
As we lined up at the head of the table, I saw all these senior guys with long hair and beards. Tattoos covered most of their arms, and only a few were in uniform. Toward the end of Green Team, we all started growing out our hair and beards. The grooming standards have changed several times over the years, but at this point in the war, people were less worried about your haircut and more worried about your actions on the battlefield. It was a ragtag bunch of professionals. We all came from different backgrounds and we had different hobbies and interests, but what we had in common was a willingness to sacrifice our time and even our lives for a greater good.
In the team room, the guys made us introduce ourselves and give them a brief bio. Charlie, the bully, was the first to speak and he barely got out his name before he was met with a chorus of boos and jeers from the senior guys.
“Shut up,” they yelled. “We don’t care.”
It went that way for all of us. But afterward, the guys were shaking our hands and helping us get our gear unpacked. It was all in fun and, besides, everybody was too busy to worry about it. There was a war going on and no time to be wasted with petty new-guy treatment.
I felt at home.
This was the kind of command I’d wanted to be a part of since I joined the Navy. Here, there were no limits on how good you could be and what you could contribute. For me, all of the fear of failure was now replaced with the desire to perform and excel.
What I had learned during the three-day screening more than a year ago was even more true in the squadron: just meeting the standards wasn’t good enough.
As I unpacked my gear, I realized I had to prove myself all over again. Just because I got through Green Team didn’t mean shit. All of the other guys in the room completed the same course. I made a promise to myself that I would be an asset to the team and that I’d work my ass off.
CHAPTER 3
The Second Deck
A few weeks before we were scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan, I printed out the packing list. It was 2005 and I was preparing for my first deployment to the central Asian country. While at SEAL Team Five, my only combat deployment had been to Iraq. Standing next to the printer, I watched as the paper rolled out. Six single-spaced pages later, I started to gather up my gear. The suggested packing list basically told us to bring everything.
We worked under “Big Boy Rules” at the command, which means there wasn’t a lot of management unless you needed it. Since getting to the team, I prided myself on being independent. For the last three months, I had trained hard and tried to be an asset. I learned that it was OK to ask questions if you have them, but you didn’t want to be the guy who didn’t know what was going on and was always asking. I didn’t want to make a mistake on my first de
ployment by not packing something, so when I saw my team leader in the team room I asked him about the packing list.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing a cup of coffee. “I was getting my kit together and the packing list basically wants me to load everything.”
He was sitting at the granite countertop sipping a cup of coffee and going over some paperwork. Short and stocky, unlike some of the other guys who had longer hair and thick beards, he was clean-cut, with a short haircut and a close shave. He also wasn’t the most talkative guy and he had been at DEVGRU for much longer than I’d been in the Navy.
He took “Big Boy Rules” seriously.
“How long have you been in the Navy?” he said.
“Going on six years,” I said.
“You’ve been a SEAL for six years, and you don’t know what you need on deployment?”
I felt like an asshole.
“Dude, what do you think you need to bring for deployment? Load it,” he said. “This is your guide. Bring what you think you need.”
“Check,” I said.
Back at my cage, I laid out my gear, called “kit.” Each operator at DEVGRU had a cage, sort of like a locker big enough to walk inside. It was the size of a small room, with shelves that lined the walls and a small hanging rod that ran along the back wall to hang uniforms.
Bags of gear filled with everything I needed for the different missions we could be called upon to perform rested on the shelves. One bag had everything I needed for CQB. Another had my HAHO (High Altitude, High Opening) or “jump gear.” My combat swimmer or “dive kit” was in a separate large green gear bag. Everything was color-coded and ready. My OCD was definitely in overdrive, and I had everything perfectly organized and separated.
But some of the gear, like a Gerber tool, came in handy on most missions. Back at SEAL Team Five, you were issued one Gerber tool, which had a knife blade, screwdriver, scissors, and can opener.
You were also issued only one scope for your rifle.
One fixed blade knife.
One set of ballistic plates.
That meant sorting through multiple bags to find the single item that you needed to transfer to a new bag containing the specialty gear for a given mission. It was a hassle and was not very efficient, but it was the U.S. government and I’d gotten used to it.
But it was different at DEVGRU.
My team leader came by my cage later that day to double check how I was doing and saw my load-outs in the color-coded bags. Off to the side, I had an extra bag with the gear I thought I’d need for most missions, including a Gerber tool.
“Go down to supply and get a Gerber for each bag,” my team leader said.
I looked at him confused.
“I can go get four of them?”
“Yeah, you got four different mission load-out bags. You need one Gerber for each bag,” he said.
My team leader signed my request form and I walked down to the supply office. One of the support guys met me at the window.
“What do you need?”
I showed him the list. It was basic stuff like flashlights and other tools, but I wanted four of each.
“OK,” he said without hesitation. “Be right back.”
In a few minutes, he came back with a plastic bin full of everything on the list. I had to fight to keep from smiling too much. This was a dream come true. Back at our previous teams, guys spent thousands of their own dollars buying kit we needed for work.
The armory was even better. Above the door was a sign: “You dream, we build.”
For a gun geek like me, it was heaven. I had them set up my two M4 assault rifles, one with a fourteen-inch barrel and one with a ten-inch barrel. I got an MP7 submachine gun and a collection of handguns, including the standard-issue Navy SEAL Sig Sauer P226. My primary weapon that I used daily was a suppressed Heckler & Koch (H&K) 416 with the ten-inch barrel and an EOTech optical red dot sight with a 3X magnifier. My H&K 416 with a fourteen-inch barrel I set up for long-range shooting. It was also suppressed, and on top I mounted a 2.5X10 Nightforce scope.
I also set up my fourteen-inch H&K 416 with an infrared laser and a clip-on thermal sight that allowed for more precise night shooting. I didn’t use the gun much because my primary weapon, with the ten-inch barrel, worked for most missions, but it was nice to have a gun ready with a little more range if I needed it.
I ran with a suppressed MP7 submachine gun on a few missions, but it lacked the knockdown power of my H&K 416. The submachine gun came in handy during ship boarding, in the jungle, or when weight, size, and the ability to stay extremely quiet were needed. Several times we shot fighters in one room with a suppressed MP7 and their comrades next door didn’t wake up. The H&K 416s didn’t compare to the MP7 when you were trying to be extremely quiet.
Rounding out my guns were two pistols—the Sig Sauer P226 and an H&K 45C. Both were suppressor capable and I typically carried the 45. I also carried an M79 grenade launcher, which was called a pirate gun because it looked like a blunderbuss. Our armorers cut the barrel short and modified the stock into a pistol grip.
Of course, none of my guns were standard issue. We all had individual modifications on the trigger and grips. I know for a fact the armorers took great pride in taking care of the tools that took care of us. Without a doubt, DEVGRU had the best tools in the business.
As you walked around the command, it wasn’t uncommon to hear rounds being shot at the indoor and outdoor ranges, or hear the thud of a breaching charge going off in the kill house. Training was constant. It wasn’t unusual to see guys walking between training events dressed in full kit, with their loaded weapon slung in front of them. Everything was geared toward war-fighting or training for it.
I was just getting the hang of things at the squadron in 2005 when I found myself on a plane headed overseas to Afghanistan. At the time, our unit was focused on Afghanistan, and the Army’s Delta Force was in Iraq.
Delta hit a rough patch that year and had taken several casualties in a short time. They requested additional assaulters, and DEVGRU rogered up and my team was selected to go. My squadron didn’t want my first deployment to be with Delta, so I spent some time acting as a floater working with my troop in Afghanistan. Given Delta’s needs, I eventually left Afghanistan with two other SEALs and headed to Iraq to help out.
We got into Baghdad well after midnight. The ride from the helicopter pad was dark as we weaved through the deserted streets of the Green Zone. It was summer and the humidity hung like a blanket over everything. Sitting in the bed of a pickup truck with our gear, the breeze felt good. Everything felt and smelled the same as my first combat deployment to Baghdad with Team Five in 2003.
We had arrived just after the invasion started. Our first mission was to secure the Mukatayin hydroelectric dam northeast of the Iraqi capital. Our chain of command was afraid retreating Iraqi forces might destroy the dam to slow the American advance.
The plan was simple. Based on our experience, which was zero, we planned to fly to the X, which is a tactic that means we insert directly onto the target, keeping speed and surprise in our favor. In this case the X was the dam, and once over the target in a helicopter, we planned to fast-rope into the courtyard. From there, we’d rush the main building and clear and secure it. Nearby, the GROM, Poland’s special operations unit, would clear another cluster of buildings while another group of SEALs would secure the outer perimeter using two dune buggies.
After a few days of waiting for the weather to clear up, we got the word to go. Climbing into the MH-53, I could feel my heart beating quickly. I’d been waiting for this moment since I was a kid reading about ambushes in the Mekong Delta.
I was about to launch on my first real combat operation. I’d thought about it, read about it, and now here I was about to do it for real.
I probably should have been scared, or at least concerned about the unknown, but it felt good to finally do it for real. I didn’t just want to practice the game, I wanted to actually play in the g
ame, and this was going to be my first taste.
The flight took several hours and included a midair-refueling linkup. My team of twenty guys was crammed tightly inside the helicopter. The fuel smell wafted into the cabin as the helicopter filled its tanks using the boom in front of the cockpit. It was pitch-black inside the cabin, and I zoned out for most of the flight until we got the signal to get ready.
“Two minutes,” the crew chief screamed, signaling with his hands and turning on a red light. It was well after midnight as the helicopter approached the dam.
I took my position at the door and grabbed the rope. I couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the engines. Like the rest of my teammates, I was loaded down with breaching gear and our chemical protective suits. The “good idea fairy”—which is what we called the tendency for planners to add their two cents about every possible contingency, weighing the team down with options and extra gear and “good” ideas—had struck often on this mission. We were loaded down with quickie saws to break open the dam’s gates. We had to carry food and water for a few days. We didn’t know how long we’d be there, so we needed to be self-sufficient. The rule is, “When in doubt, load it out.” Of course the more you carry, the greater a toll it takes on your body, the slower you move, the harder it is to react quickly to a threat.
As the helicopter slowed to a hover, I grabbed the rope with both hands and slid down to the ground. We were about thirty feet up, and I could see the ground coming quickly. I tried to slow my descent, but I didn’t want to be so slow that my teammates would crash down on top of me. With all my gear, I landed like a ton of bricks. My legs ached as I brought my gun up and started toward the gate less than one hundred yards away.
As soon as I stepped out from under the helicopter, the rotor wash beat me down. Small rocks pelted my body and dust tore at my eyes. I could barely make out the gate ahead of me. As I started to run toward it, the rotor wash pushed me forward into an uncontrolled sprint. It took every effort to stay on my feet, and I literally skidded to a halt at the locked gate.