by Don Mann
We waited until nightfall, then slammed into action. The plan was to dig up all our gear, cover the holes so it looked like we were never there, inflate the rubber Zodiac, put it in the water, place our dive gear inside, rig the gas tank and engine, motor toward the harbor, then dive and attach a limpet mine to one of their ships.
We definitely weren’t in the best of shape. But the three of us were digging hard, unearthing our equipment, as the LT kept watch. I was psyched to finally be moving; I was heaving shovelfuls of sand over my shoulder when I heard the LT say, “Okay, guys, put your hands up.”
“What?”
“Guys, put your hands up!”
I wasn’t sure I was hearing him right. But when I looked past the LT I saw about two dozen armed Somali approaching with AK-47s pointed at us. They were climbing over a slight knoll about a hundred meters away, and they looked frightened, as though they were wondering: What are these strange-looking giants doing on our land?
Maybe because I was in the company of highly trained teammates I trusted, I wasn’t scared. We could have run and jumped in the water. Or we could have reached for our weapons. Either way, we probably would have been shot to pieces by the Somali.
Our lieutenant wisely told us to stand right where we were and raise our arms over our heads, which we did, even though it felt wrong to surrender without a fight.
The Somali circled us with their fingers on the triggers of their AKs. Safeties off. I remember thinking: They can’t shoot us now, because if they do, they’ll fire right into one another.
But these weren’t trained soldiers. Besides, what did I know.
Their leader started screaming incoherently. We had no idea what he was saying. His men looked like they wanted to blow us away and return home.
Bobby O. tried addressing the head man in English. “Hold on, chief,” he said. “Let me show you something.”
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As Bobby reached for his rucksack, four Somali put rifles up to his head. I thought they were going to blow his brains out.
Bobby shouted, “Whoa, guys! Back off!” And looked like he was about to shit his pants. All of us tensed up.
Their leader motioned with his arm. Using the few words of English he knew, he said, “Down! Down! We shoot you!”
Screw that.
His volume increased. “Down! Get down!” It looked like his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.
We weren’t moving. No fucking way.
As their leader continued pointing at the ground and screaming, a couple of the other armed Somali discovered the gear we’d started digging up. Thankfully, they didn’t look through the bags, because if they had, they would have seen the mines and demolition equipment and quickly figured out that we were up to no good.
Our LT said, “We speak English. Do you know someone who speaks English?”
“Eng-leesh?”
“Yeah, English. We’re Americans.”
This seemed to register with their leader, who decided to hold us prisoner while one of his men returned to the nearest village to find someone who spoke our language.
Several hours later, his man came back with a dirty-looking fellow who described himself as a local merchant. He wore a robe with a dark vest over it and spoke some English.
It was approaching midnight. The merchant explained that the Somali were going to kill us for trespassing on their land. He said, “Okay, sir. Now you must lie on your stomach, so they can shoot you in the back. Because that’s what they do here to trespassers.”
No, we told him. That’s not going to happen.
What started as a standoff turned into a discussion conducted without anger or raised voices but with loaded AK-47s still pointed at our heads.
After several hours of back-and-forth, the Somali leader gave us permission to show the interpreter one of the ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ we had in our rucksacks. “It says that we’re only on a training mission,” the LT explained. “We’re Americans. We’re sorry we trespassed on your land. We won’t do it again.”
The Somali leader considered this, then pointed emphatically to our rubber boat and said, “Go!”
The local merchant elaborated. “He wants you to get in your boat and go back to America.”
“Sure thing.” That was a long way to travel with a 55-horsepower motor, but it sounded good.
“Go…now!” the leader repeated.
“Yeah. Right away.”
We thanked the merchant and the leader, who turned and left with his armed men and the merchant, to our great relief.
Our LT had been right not to resist them. If we’d done anything differently, all four of us would most likely have been shot and left to die on the beach in Somalia.
We were physically and mentally exhausted. “LT,” Bobby O. said. “We just cheated death. What do you say we go home?” None of us felt like diving into shark-infested waters.
LT wasn’t having any of it. Like I said before, he was a gung ho type. He growled, “Guys, get your gear on. Our mission won’t be a success unless we complete it. Let’s go!”
“Has he lost his friggin’ mind?” Bobby O. asked under his breath.
Still wearing our skin suits, we donned masks, fins, white belts, and rebreathers. Then dove into the warm, pitch-black bay, which stank and was covered with a layer of oily gunk. Our route took us right past the camel-meat processing plant. All I could think of was the sharks. When something brushed past me, my heart almost stopped.
We were going on pure adrenaline and couldn’t see a thing other than the luminescent dials of our depth gauges, compasses, and Tudor dive watches. The German diving Drägers strapped to our chests were feeding us 100 percent oxygen so that no bubbles could be seen on the surface.
We had four hours max before that high a concentration of oxygen became toxic. We traveled in two-man teams. I was paired with Bobby. He was the navigator and focused on his dive compass, while I timed each leg of the dive with my watch. After we swam an allotted amount of time on a particular bearing, I’d squeeze his arm, which was the signal for him to stop and set the next direction on the compass.
We doglegged through the harbor for three hours underwater until we located the right ship. Then we extracted the ■■■■■■■■■■■ from a pack and attached it to the ship’s
hull exactly where our intel had determined it should be placed. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
We set the timer and checked our watches: we were running out of time.
Now we had to swim back to where we had anchored our Zodiac CRRC. But when we got close we realized we had a problem. We’d left the boat when the tide was high. Hours later, in the low tide, our Zodiac rubber boat was beached and a couple of hundred meters from the water. High and dry.
First light was less than an hour away. Even though we were completely spent from the ordeal with the Somali and then the four-hour dive, we had to sprint over to the boat, carry it to the water, sprint back to pick up the gas tanks, motor, and all our gear, and then carry it back to the boat. This took multiple trips, all of which we had to do while carrying our personal gear and weapons.
By the time we had all our gear in the Zodiac and the 55-horsepower motor cranked up to max, the sun was starting to rise over the horizon.
That meant that we’d missed our primary pickup time; now we had to wait another twenty-four hours and try again.
Instead, our LT decided that we should trek ten kilometers through the desert and then radio headquarters to initiate plan B, which involved meeting a local guide who would take us to a nearby airstrip. This meant that we had to be on alert all day in case the armed Somali tribesmen returned.
Shortly after nightfall we met our guide, a smelly little Ethiopian man who had never worked with Americans before. For some reason, he was constantly touching us and giggling. I was designated the guide handler, meaning it was my job to take the guide out if he should do anything to put us in jeopardy.
The eager Ethiopian led us through some low desert terrain to the far end of an airstrip. As the sun started to rise, we paid our guide, cut through the barbed-wire fence, crawled through on our bellies, then radioed the extraction aircraft.
Then the four of us hid in the low shrubs and waited. No one had slept more than an hour or two in the past four days.
LT, lying beside me, asked, “How are you doing, Doc?”
“Okay, LT. How about you?” We were shivering and sweating simultaneously. Sick, dirty, hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. The sun burned into our backs.
“You still having fun, Doc?”
“Hoo-ya,” I answered, with a little less enthusiasm than before. The truth is I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.
All of us kept glancing up at the cloud cover over the landing strip, hoping for some sign of a friendly aircraft.
As the minutes dragged by, our desperation grew.
Finally, after about an hour, we heard this low rumble that quickly turned into a roar. Sounded as though the sky were exploding. Bobby O. covered his ears.
Looking up, I saw a C-130 cut through the clouds nose-first, like an arrow headed straight for the ground. As the four of us held our breath, the C-130 straightened out at the last second, touched down on the runway, and immediately slammed on its brakes.
Smoke billowed from the landing gear as though the plane were on fire. The smell of burning rubber was intense.
Through the drifting smoke, we watched the rear ramp open. Then the LT said, “Let’s go!”
We ran like hell with all our gear. As soon as we boarded, the crew closed the ramp and then the plane took off. Talk about an amazing short-field landing. I’d seen several, but none as dramatic as that.
The C-130 ferried us back safely to the base in Cairo. The mission had been a success, but we were all sick as dogs; at the base, we lay in a stifling fly-filled tent—pasty white, throwing up constantly, running high fevers. I was in the worst shape of the four of us. I couldn’t keep fluids down and it was impossible to get an IV in my arm because my veins had collapsed. My fever was up to 104 and rising.
My alarmed teammates summoned an Egyptian doctor. Half awake, I saw him approach me with a nasty-looking syringe that had no cover on it. His hands looked dirty and he was covered with flies.
“Egyptian medicine,” he announced with a big smile. “I’ll take care of you, sir. I’ll fix you.”
I said, “No way you’re putting the needle and whatever is in it in me.”
He backed off. After half a dozen more tries, Bobby O. finally got an IV in my arm. We forced in about 3,000 ccs of Ringer’s lactate, and I started to revive.
That night the four of us were invited to go to dinner with some Egyptian military VIPs. We were still weak and exhausted, but we were expected to attend. At around six, a little guy named Mohammed showed up to escort us to the restaurant.
On the way, he took us through a section of town that was crowded with tourist shops peddling jewelry, cosmetics, scarves, and rugs. He stopped in practically every shop we passed to point out the array of perfumes.
He’d say, “Look, Mr. Don. Your wife, your girlfriend will like this.”
“No, thanks, Mohammed.”
None of us showed the least bit of interest. We just wanted to get the dinner over with, return to the base, and crash.
But Mohammed wouldn’t leave us alone. He was constantly at my elbow, saying, “Look, Mr. Don. Fine perfume. Very nice. I get you the very best price.”
“No, thanks.”
I tried arguing with him, I tried ignoring him, but he wouldn’t let up.
After half an hour we arrived at an upscale restaurant where four or five Egyptian military officers were waiting. They escorted us to a round table. My three SEAL buddies sat across from me. The Egyptian officers found places next to them. Mohammed settled to my right.
The waiters placed before us plates of fried falafel, kushari, baba ghanoush, lamb kebobs, and more. All the local delicacies. None of us four SEALs had any appetite. We just wanted to get through the dinner politely and then go back to our tent in west Cairo. It had been a difficult week.
But Mohammed to my right kept bugging me. He kept saying, “Please, Mr. Don. You can’t leave without buying some fine perfume. I’ll take you later.”
“No, thanks.”
He wouldn’t let up. “Please, Mr. Don. I insist. I’ll show you. I’ll personally guarantee the very best price.”
“I said no.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Don. You’ll see. These are the finest perfumes in all the world.”
I’d held myself together through the heat and diarrhea, the night of captivity and exhaustion, the collapsed veins, even the sharks. But with this little Egyptian handler refusing to leave me alone, I snapped. I lifted a sharp knife from the table and held it to his throat.
Mohammed’s eyes bugged out and his face turned white.
In an even tone—without raising my voice—I said, “Shut the fuck up, Mohammed.”
He nodded and I put down the knife.
Nobody at the table said anything about the incident. We finished our dinner as though nothing had happened.
As we neared the base, LT walked beside me and flashed his sinister smile. “You still having fun, Doc?” he asked.
“Sure.” But inside, I was saying, I just want to get out of here alive and in one piece.
“Teams and shit, huh, Doc?” LT asked. It was a SEAL saying that in a few words described all the training and hardship we had to go through to accomplish what we did. I’d just completed my first real-world SEAL mission.
“Teams and shit. Yeah,” I responded, now appreciating what the words meant.
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Through all the action, the physical and mental challenges, and the brushes with death, my enthusiasm for SEAL life hasn’t dimmed. Call me a maniac, which many people have. Call me crazy. But I’ve never wanted it any other way.
Chapter Two
New England, 1970s
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way…
—Steppenwolf, “Born to Be Wild”
During my career I’ve been called Dr. Death, Don Maniac, Warrant Officer Manslaughter, and Sweet Satan. Over the past three decades I’ve served as a Navy SEAL lead petty officer, assault team member, boat-crew leader, department head, training officer, advanced-training officer, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) officer, and, more recently, program director preparing civilians for BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL) training. I was asked by the U.S. Navy in 1997 to assist with the Navy recruiting command and created the SEAL Adventure Challenge and the SEAL Training Academy, where we taught skydiving, combat scuba diving, small-unit tactics, marksmanship, and land navigation. Up until August of 1998, I was on active duty with SEAL Team Six.