Mr. Murphy had been active all morning, and as we closed in on the motor, he got busy with our end of the operation. The pilot was an air force bird colonel, and he called me up to the cockpit when we were about fifteen minutes out. “You guys ready to jump?” he asked.
I told him we were.
“We’ve got a little complication on this end,” he said.
“How little?” I asked. I watched the copilot look away.
“We’re getting a little low on fuel. We’ll be able to insert you, but we won’t have enough to hang around until the recovery ship gets there.”
This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Is there another helicopter?”
“Just us,” he said breezily. “I figure we can put you in and head back to Grand Bahama to refuel.”
“Then what?” I asked.
“We’ll come back and pick you up.”
That was the plan? This may have been my first rodeo, but I wasn’t going to bite. Nonetheless, I had to be careful, or at least I thought I did; only later would I learn how to deal with air force colonels. For now I had to tread lightly but firmly. I was an ensign and he was a full colonel, but his big idea was a man killer.
“How are you going to find us?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“We’ll mark the position on the GPS.”
I was rapidly becoming aware of the difference between the air force and the navy. “Look, Colonel,” I said, “I can’t put my guys in the water unless you stay with us.”
“Why not?”
“Because the impact point is in the Gulf Stream. There’s a three-knot current running north. You might mark the position, but we’ll be miles away from there by the time you get back.”
“You have a boat, right?”
“That boat’s small and black.”
“We’ll find you,” he said with a bit of a sniff.
“Nothing personal, sir, but I don’t think you can. I’m not going to put my guys in the big ocean, tethered to a damaged motor section that might sink, and hope that we’ll be found after a brief search.”
He was pissed. And so was I. I thought I was kissing my SEAL career good-bye, except I wasn’t even a SEAL yet. Here I was calling bullshit on an operation, and not just any op—I was calling bullshit on my first independent assignment.
“You’re aware that a Russian ship is closing in on the motor?” he asked.
“Yes sir. That’s another reason I don’t want to get left out there.” He gave me a “What are you afraid of?” sort of sneer. I continued as evenly as I could. “Six guys in an inflatable boat won’t be able to stop the Russians if they want to take the motor.”
“You have weapons?” he asked, still looking at me like I was his daughter’s prom date.
“Pistols.”
“We’re out here to recover the motor section,” he said.
“I can’t risk my team and hope you find us.”
There was a long pause. The helicopter’s engines droned and the rotors pounded.
“How long can you stay on target?” I asked.
“Thirty-five minutes, max,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. You get us to the motor section, and I’ll put a swim pair in. We’ll sink it with a couple of socks of C-4.”
He gulped. “You’re going to destroy it?”
“You want the Russians to get it?” I asked.
Just like a movie, at that moment the trawler came into view, hull down on the horizon, heading north. It was another Russian AGI, beat up and rusty. We flew past it. Everybody on the flight deck knew that all the Russians had to do was track us on radar and we’d lead them right to the motor section.
The colonel continued to look pissed. “I don’t know why you’re refusing to deploy.”
“It isn’t safe,” I said. “Call range control and tell them I’m offering to sink the motor.”
“I’m going to tell them you’re refusing to go in.”
“Mention that I’ve got no water, no food, and six signal flares,” I said. “I’m not jumping into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and hoping someone can find me again.”
I went back into the troop compartment and sat on the boat. I felt like my party was over, but Gibby gave me a thumbs-up. He’d listened to our discussion on his headset. He bent close and yelled into my ear, “Fuck ’em. You did the right thing.”
I hoped so, but I had a bad feeling about explaining this one back at the Team area. Five minutes later, the crew chief came up and yelled into my ear, “Range control wants to know if you can guarantee that this thing sinks.”
“We’ll blow the shit out of it,” I said.
The crew chief spoke into his headset, listened, and then bent toward me again. “Okay, you guys are a go.”
We readied the charges, three socks of C-4 plastic explosive. The socks were olive-drab canvas sleeves, a foot long and three inches wide, each containing a two-pound rectangular-shaped ribbon of C-4. Sewn onto the outside of each sock was a three-foot piece of cotton line, a bit thicker than clothesline. At the other end of the sock was a flat metal hook into which the line could be fitted and cinched tight. The arrangement permitted the line to be looped around the target and pulled snug, ensuring good contact and more bang for the buck. The bottom of each sock had a small hole punched through the canvas to permit the insertion of a det-cord booster or blasting cap into the explosive. Without a blasting cap or other high explosive to initiate, the C-4 would not go off. By itself, C-4 is an incredibly stable explosive, meaning that it is not likely to be accidentally detonated. Although I’ve never seen it myself, it is widely said that you can shoot a block of C-4 with a bullet and it won’t go off. Definitely something I would not try at home.
The crew chief watched with some concern as I crimped blasting caps onto three sections of time fuse and screwed M-60 underwater fuse igniters onto each firing train.
“You guys know what you’re doing, right?” he asked.
“Sure,” Gibby answered. “We watched Mission: Impossible.”
We arrived at the splashdown coordinates and started a search pattern. It took an additional twenty-five minutes to find the motor section, floating sideways like a tree stump. Gibby tucked the C-4 into his wet-suit top, and I stuffed the time fuse, blasting caps, and fuse igniters into mine. C-4 might be incredibly stable, but it was standard procedure to separate the explosives and the initiators during a jump, even a small jump like a swimmer cast. The trawler was closing in on us as we prepared to jump off the ramp. Spray kicked up from the rolling swells as the Pave Low sank into a twenty-foot hover.
“Pilot says you have seven minutes,” the crew chief yelled as we stepped up to the ramp. Seven minutes was not much time to swim, set the charges, and get recovered by the helicopter. I wished we were taking the colonel with us.
Gibby jumped first, disappearing off the ramp and into the swirling spray blown up from the downdraft. I followed, stepping off the ramp and crossing my arms against my chest to further cushion the blasting caps. As I fell the two stories to the water, I straightened my legs and pointed my swim fins in preparation for impact. I splashed into the incline of a rolling swell, surfaced, turned, and flashed a thumbs-up to the helicopter. As Gibby and I swam for the first stage of the missile, the helicopter moved off slowly.
The motor section was a bit over six feet in diameter and maybe twelve feet long. Basically, its shape was that of a beer can with a short funnel stuck to its end. There were some void spaces and guidance equipment in the lower sections, just enough for it to have retained buoyancy, and the cylinder was slightly flattened from impact. Much of the first stage was made of carbon fiber, Kevlar, and in places where the motor’s housing had fractured, carbon filaments spread out from the cylinder like a fine mat of dense blond hair. These Kevlar strands were extremely strong, and we had to avoid being snagged lest the motor section go down and drag us with it.
Waves surged over the first stage as we tried to find places to affix the charg
es. Gibby dove underwater and applied the socks to the lower sections of the motor housing, tying them tight against the base of the rocket nozzle and what was left of the steering actuators. As he cinched the explosives, I grabbed a lungful of air and dove down. I slipped blasting caps and fuses into the end of each sock, straightening the loops of time fuse and making sure the fuse igniters were screwed tightly.
As we were heaved to the top of a swell, we caught sight of the trawler. She was bow on and coming at us as fast as she could, her forepeak plowing down and through the rolling waves. The trawler was less than a thousand yards off when I bundled the three fuse igniters into my fist and simultaneously pulled the lanyards. The M-60s popped loudly, and I caught a whiff of cordite as the fuses started to burn within their waterproof plastic sheaths. There was maybe five minutes per fuse, but they’d burn at different rates, depending on water pressure and a host of variables that I no longer gave a shit about.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” I shouted to Gibby.
We put on the power and swam 150 meters from the booster section. It wasn’t far enough to keep us clear of the blast, but it was as far as I thought we could go and still get aboard the helicopter. I raised my right hand over my head and clenched my fist, the SEAL hand signal for “I am ready to be extracted.” Gibby put both his fists over his head and crossed them, the hand signal for “Extract me immediately.”
The helicopter came on, and a wire caving ladder dropped from a hatch on its belly. The Pave Low settled to an altitude of about fifteen feet and flew at us, dragging the ladder in the water. I took a position fifty feet behind Gibby. The downblast from the rotors put out near-hurricane-force gusts; the tops were torn from the swells and slashed our faces and eyes. As the spray swept over me, I watched Gibby catch one of the rungs of the ladder in the crook of his elbow—classic frogman technique—and he started to climb up hand over hand.
Soon he was up and through the hatch, and the helicopter was directly over me. The downgusts diminished sharply as the fuselage blocked out the sun. I caught the ladder and climbed. As I came away from the surface of the water, the trawler was closer than ever, and I could see a pair of her crew standing on her port bridge wing, pointing binoculars.
As I pulled myself through the hatch, one of the air force crewmen fired a flare off the stern ramp of the Pave Low. Dragging a ribbon of smoke, a red star cluster snaked into the water a hundred yards in front of the trawler. They got the idea, I think; the Russian vessel turned sharply to starboard as the helicopter climbed. Half a minute later, two loud thumps were audible over the roar of the engines. I made it to a window in time to see a pair of white geysers falling back to the surface of the water. Five seconds later, the final charge went off, throwing pieces of motor housing into the sky. Ripped stem to stern, the first stage sank tail first and disappeared in a whirl of bubbles.
We flew back to the cape. Our presence was not required at the NASA debrief. We returned to our crummy hotel and spent the evening drinking lugubriously at a joint called Big Daddy’s. The following afternoon we were cold-shouldered as we loaded out and flew another C-141 back to Norfolk. It was late evening when we arrived back at the Team area. I cut the guys loose, then sat down to write what I was certain would be my first and last operational summary. I then went to the Casino, arriving a little past midnight, and tied one on. As the jukebox played reggae, I watched a couple of lesbians shoot pool and drank like the soon-to-be unemployed.
Before officer’s call the following morning, the XO called me into his office. I gave my report and told him the story. He listened, his face showing nothing. When he finished reading the report, he asked if I wanted to add anything. I first thought to say nothing—“No excuse, sir” was the stock answer—but dread got the better of me. I said that given the circumstances, I’d made the best call I could. I said that I had been respectful to the colonel, even if he was a moron, and that I was sorry if I had done the wrong thing. The XO shook his head and told me to get out of his office. Later that afternoon, Mike Boynton came into ops and told me to clean out my desk. My heart froze; then he said, “You just got reassigned, sir. You’re the new assistant commander of Fifth Platoon.”
“You’re shitting me” was all I could think of to say.
“I wouldn’t shit you, sir.” The master chief grinned. “You’re my favorite turd.”
I was somebody’s favorite turd. It was true: I’d been released from bondage in the operations shop and chopped to a newly forming line platoon. I’d apparently made the right call out there in mid-Atlantic. As far as the captain and the XO were concerned, tethering the Zodiac to a sinking missile motor and expecting the air force to return and find us was a bullshit idea. Although the mission was recovery, I had been prepared on short notice to destroy the missile section and had denied the Russians material intelligence. In short, I did okay.
As Master Chief Boynton put it, “You showed good judgment, sir. And it ain’t like ensigns are necessarily known for that.”
Not only was I made operational, but two days later, Rick and I were unceremoniously given our Budweisers. We spent a couple hundred bucks at the Casino, got every frogman on the East Coast a cold one, and I had a headache for days.
We were Navy SEALs at last.
FOR A WEEK OR TWO, Fifth Platoon was my temporary command. Rather, I acted as its commander. Operating out of a connex box in the back forty of SEAL Team Four, the Fifth was a provisional outfit, a skeleton of a platoon. Frank, my neighbor from San Diego, was slated to assume command after he finished Spanish-language school in Monterey, California. Before he arrived there was a lot to be done; we had yet to receive any equipment, any men, and in the first weeks we were a paper outfit—a name, basically—and that was about it.
Frank, an Annapolis graduate, had been commissioned a year before I joined the navy. Had I accepted my appointment out of high school, we would have been classmates. Frank had majored in naval architecture and graduated in the top ten of his class, considerably higher than I might have expected to place. I am hardly technically inclined, and I doubt I would have acquitted myself in the rigors of an engineering education. While I dallied in graduate school, Frank chose to serve two years on a minesweeper in San Diego, waiting for a slot in BUD/S. It was thought at the time that naval special warfare was a career path unworthy of an Annapolis man. As a penance for even attempting to become a SEAL, Frank had to earn a surface warfare designator. Although a minesweeper was on the bottom of the warship totem pole, Frank knew the wardroom of an oceangoing mine hunter is small, and no officer is superfluous. In those two years Frank served as first lieutenant and damage control assistant. He earned his water wings in half the usual time and put in his chit to transfer across the bay to Coronado and BUD/S. A natural, he assumed the mantle of 113’s class leader when the officer in charge broke his spine. It can’t be said that the job was a picnic. Of the 105 students who started 113, thirteen graduated. These men later became famous as the 13 of 113. To the surprise of no one, Frank was the honor graduate.
Fifth Platoon was to be Frank’s first command, and it had to be built from scratch—equipment and personnel assembled from the ground up, and the operators trained from square one. Our two seniormost operators were Stan and Tim, both ten-year veterans. In the weeks before Frank returned, these two proved their worth as scroungers, making the deals and steals that are frequently necessary in the military just to get the tools you need to do your job. At this, they excelled, and we were soon well and even abundantly equipped, if not fully manned.
The remainder of the platoon, ten operators, was to be taken in a single draft from BUD/S Class 117. This was unusual and not necessarily a good thing. All of them were fresh from Coronado and Fort Benning, and not one had been through Senior Chief Jaeger’s AOT program. They were young, in superb shape, and extremely motivated. They knew one another well and worked together reliably; that was the upside. The downside was they didn’t know their asses from their el
bows.
Only four men out of the sixteen assigned to Fifth Platoon were rated as fully qualified SEALs. I considered myself qualified but hardly knowledgeable. As the platoon assembled, I saw that we would be short on experience. As Frank settled into command, we were informed that the Fifth was immediately to begin predeployment training, or PDT. PDT is normally undertaken after all operators have gone through advanced operator training. We were not to have that luxury. We were expected to form our own cadre and undertake the AOT curriculum as we prepared for the ORE, or operational readiness exam. Any training shortfalls would soon become apparent to our superiors, and to other people as well. Fifth Platoon was slated to deploy to Honduras and serve in the capacity of a mobile training team, military advisers, on the Honduras-Nicaragua border.
We settled in and worked our asses off. PDT was a well-scripted series of evolutions, and the additional work of AOT had to be crammed around and on top of an already full schedule. The bulk of the extra training would fall to Stan and Tim and our newly arrived chief petty officer, Doc Jones. If Frank and I were expecting our chief, the seniormost enlisted man, to provide some adult leadership, we were to be disappointed. Well, if not disappointed, then disconcerted.
Our platoon chief actually wasn’t even a chief yet. Hospitalman First Class Jack “Doc” Jones was a chief selectee, meaning he hadn’t assumed the rank and title of a navy chief petty officer. Strangest of all, Doc was not even a BUD/S graduate. You might ask what a corpsman, a medic, was doing in an operational SEAL platoon in the first place. Doc might not have been to BUD/S, but he was a SEAL, a damn good one, and a Vietnam combat veteran.
In the throes of that late unpleasantness between the Vietnams, the navy found it impossible to get hospital corpsmen through BUD/S in sufficient numbers. So they asked for volunteers to attend an abbreviated special operations technicians’ course. SOT was hardly eight weeks long, and all the corpsmen had time to do was learn one end of an M-16 from another, how to scuba dive, and how to spell “SEAL.” The graduates were then sent to Vietnam to join operational SEAL platoons and serve as medics. Well, not just medics. In the Teams, our corpsmen are armed, and patrol, jump, dive, and do demo just like everyone else. In short, they operate.
Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL Page 11