by Rorke Denver
When people ask, I tell them that playing sports in school does seem to provide an edge. Athletes understand how to push themselves and what it means to be part of a team, although I’m not saying you couldn’t learn something similar from the debate squad or the Boy Scouts.
Going by past experience, five sports provide especially good foundations for being a SEAL—rugby, wrestling, lacrosse, water polo, and triathlon. Those big five offer an ideal mix of training, toughness, and teamwork. I hadn’t given a thought to the SEALs when I started playing lacrosse or water polo. But you can’t do much better than those. They develop the skills and mind-set that could be useful on a future military assault raid.
But far more important than trying to analyze background patterns and sports rosters is understanding what you’re getting into. Anyone who’s interested—or any parent with an interested son—has to recognize from the start: This occupation is an all-consuming lifestyle. It’s all about sacrifice. It’s much more than a job. It’s different from almost anything else you’ll decide to do. You can’t do it half-assed. If you don’t give it everything, you won’t do it well and you almost certainly won’t get through.
During basic training, you’ll be away from your family for about a year. You might get home at Thanksgiving or for Christmas. Other than that, don’t expect to see your family until the day you graduate. Then, when you get to a SEAL team, you’ll be in advanced training. That’ll keep you away from home for most of the next year. And once you are assigned to a SEAL platoon and you deploy, you’ll be out of the country for six or seven months at a time. Even if all that doesn’t dissuade you, please, don’t think of doing this for the money. Our pay scale is based on regular Navy compensation, which is appallingly low for the work we do. You could be chasing a top al Qaeda chief across the most dangerous terrain on earth—and taking home less than a night manager at McDonald’s. Our guys do get something extra for being dive-, free-fall-, and demolition-qualified. Those extras are significant, but not enough to make anyone rich. Our headquarters may be on ritzy Coronado Island, where many CEOs and retired admirals have lavish homes. But believe me, none of us will be buying those houses anytime soon.
Truly, there’s only one good argument for joining this challenging brotherhood: Because the idea is so compelling, there’s no way to convince you not to.
I was rejected the first time I applied to be a SEAL officer. I can’t say the Navy recruiter didn’t warn me.
“Don’t even bother applying,” he said when I went to his office in downtown Syracuse and asked about becoming an officer in the SEALs. “I’ve never had an applicant accepted for a SEAL officer billet.”
“Just humor me,” I told him. “Let’s do the paperwork anyway.”
I didn’t have any friends who were SEAL officers, so I tried to find someone who could offer me some guidance or advice. I called the brother-in-law of my father’s law partner, who had been a Vietnam-era SEAL and had retired as a commander. Al was his name.
“I’m Rorke Denver, Tom Denver’s son,” I told him. “Your brother-in-law Peter coached me in water polo. That’s how I got your number. I’m going to apply for a SEAL officer billet. I wonder if you have advice on how I could do it effectively.”
Al replied in a deep, booming voice without a hint of encouragement.
“My brother-in-law said you might be calling,” he said. “I don’t want to waste your time or mine. Even as I talk to you, I frankly don’t imagine you have what it takes to be a SEAL officer. I wouldn’t bother applying.”
Then he hung up.
I couldn’t believe he had done that. The short conversation rattled around in my head for a week or so. Then I called him back.
“I just wanted to get back to you,” I said when he picked up the phone. “I didn’t want to leave it hanging. I don’t think I really need your help. I’m gonna put the application in anyway. So thanks for nothing.” Then I hung up on him.
Two days later, he called me back. This time he was laughing. “Well,” he said. “You know, you might actually have what it takes to be an officer on a SEAL team. Let’s talk.”
About halfway through our conversation, he said: “You really, really gotta have thick skin to do this job. It’s a very competitive and wild group of guys. If you’re gonna be in charge of SEALs, you need to be a man among boys and have something special. I’m not quick to help people through this thing. It’s your own path to walk. But if I can be of service and answer questions, I will. It’s gonna be an uphill hike.”
“Great,” I said. “That’s why I’m interested.”
He gave me the number for the SEAL recruiting office in Washington, D.C., to make sure I was filing the right application.
The recruiter in Syracuse administered the physical test. He gave me the intelligence assessment, which was like a modified SAT, and a basic psych exam. He didn’t have much guidance to offer. But I wasn’t too worried. I was a Division I college athlete in excellent physical shape. I had solid grades and glowing letters of recommendation from my coaches. Plus, I had a burning desire to serve. How many candidates like that could they get every year?
The recruiter sent my application package off to Washington. And then I heard nothing for months. I graduated from college. I moved out to Colorado, where my mom was living. I figured I’d get the call any day, telling me an officer’s spot was waiting for me in the next SEAL class. I was working out day and night. Running every morning in the thin air of the Rockies. Lifting weights at the gym every afternoon. And before I collapsed in bed at night, I was reading military strategy books, moving on from Churchill to On War by Carl von Clausewitz, who warned so vividly about “the fog of war,” and The Art of War by Sun Tzu, the brilliant Chinese strategist, doing my best to climb inside their sharp and challenging minds. Napoleon Bonaparte wrote: “Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic.” It’s the only way to “master the secrets of the art of war.”
Churchill had done the same: “I ordered Hamley’s Operations of War, Prince Kraft’s Letter on Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery, Maine’s Infantry Fire Tactics, together with a number of histories dealing with the American Civil, Franco-German and Russo-Turkish wars, which were then our latest and best specimens of wars,” he reported. “I soon had a small military library.”
Then I heard.
The letter went to my dad’s house in California. “There’s no easy way to break information like this,” he said when he reached me in Colorado. “You didn’t get chosen, I’m afraid.”
Damn.
It was like I’d just been kicked in the gut. I thanked my father for letting me know. Then I told him I had to go. “I can’t stay on the phone,” I said. “I need to train some more. I have to be in better condition when I put my next application in.”
It would be another year before I finally joined the brotherhood I’d been dreaming of. I just kept on plugging, making sure I did better the second time. One of the first calls I made was to grumpy Commander Al.
“Hey, I didn’t get picked up,” I told him. “But without question, I’m applying again. Anything you can tell me about how to do it better this time, I’d sure appreciate.”
Al sounded immediately energized. He seemed happy to hear I wasn’t dropping the idea, and this time he had a couple of valuable, practical suggestions.
“My recommendation,” he said, “would be you go do your PT test out in Coronado, out at headquarters. The guy in New York might have done it poorly. You’ll have the opportunity to meet some SEALs. It might help your package a little.”
I asked Al if he’d be willing to write a letter of recommendation for me. He sounded a little hesitant about that. “I’m not gonna make you look like a super-candidate,” he warned. “I only know you so well. But yeah, okay.”
I followed Al’s advice and took the physical at SEAL headquarters. Actually, I took it twice in one week. The first time, on a Tuesday, ther
e was a scheduling screw-up, and I had to race over there in half an hour in my beat-up Jeep—and no excuses, but I really blew the test.
“I know my scores were nowhere near where they need to be,” I said to the lieutenant who was interviewing the candidates. “That doesn’t reflect what I can do. I guarantee you, if you’ll let me take the test again, I can double my scores. I know I can.”
The lieutenant took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “I’ll make an accommodation,” he said, “and let an instructor test you tomorrow. But I’m using the scores from tomorrow whether they’re better or worse.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed.
I came back Wednesday morning, and I crushed the test. The push-ups, the pull-ups, the five-hundred-meter swim—I did better than even I thought I would. “Holy shit,” said the instructor who administered the test. “That’s impressive to come back the next day and smoke it like that.”
My scores got sent off with Al’s recommendation. A month after that, some good news finally came in the mail. I had been selected for the Navy’s Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida, with follow-on orders to SEAL training.
Now the real work was about to begin.
PHOTO SECTION
Young grade-school warrior.
Young gunfighters: Nate and me.
Nate, my mom, and me.
Fishing with my dad.
Being sworn in as an officer by my uncle, a Navy captain.
Two ensigns: Jason and me the day we checked into SEAL training at BUD/S.
Ensign Denver with a clean gun in BUD/S training.
Minutes before the admiral “secured” my Hell Week. Can’t see me well, but that is a rare shot.
Finish line in sight. One week to graduation.
The famous sign on the BUD/S Grinder.
SEAL Team Four rappelling out of a helicopter at Little Creek.
Receiving my Trident from Father War.
Receiving our Tridents.
With Dad and Nate the day I received my SEAL Trident.
BRAVO Platoon fast-roping onto a submarine.
With Irish on a submarine in Puerto Rico.
Irish and I teach demolitions in Ecuador.
With Sonny in Colombia.
Lt. Denver in Monrovia Harbor, Liberia, 2003.
The young Navy couple, Tracy and LTJG Denver.
Lt. Denver and Scouts at COP Cowboy.
Bad actor now in custody. Notice his gear. He had hidden it in a haystack, so it looks dirty, but it was newly oiled. He should also not have had the chest rack to carry multiple magazines. Usually only fighters had those.
Rooftop nap before it got too hot out. My TU Commander’s M-14 rifle in the foreground. It was the best when I could take it on a test drive.
Lt. Denver and Lt. Rock Star. Old friends, right before I joined him on our first mission in Iraq.
At gun tables, keeping it loose before a raid.
SEALs and USMC teammates about to call bombs in on bad guys.
Caught this bottom-feeder on a hand line. Mortar rounds killed an Iraqi scout outside the house in the background about twenty minutes later.
Ro, Lt. Denver, and Lope taking a break in the heat on patrol. We had to wait for an EOD crew to remove an IED that was in our way from the road.
Convoy to Baghdad. One of the few times the boys let me ride in the turret with the .50-cal machine gun. Gets dusty.
On the set of Act of Valor.
With a former SEAL Team Four teammate on set.
With Tracy at Act of Valor premiere.
With former president George H. W. Bush and my buddy Ray.
With former president George W. Bush.
With President Obama and Tracy.
7
TEAM PLAYER
Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.
—ALEXANDER THE GREAT
* * *
“SEAL TEAM,” the cap said.
Not “SEAL TEAM ONE” or “SEAL TEAM THREE” or “SEAL TEAM ANYTHING ELSE.”
Just “SEAL TEAM.”
And that wasn’t the only thing that seemed a little off about the man who pulled up the stool at the far end of the bar. The combat boots, the commando jacket, the aviator shades—none of it seemed quite necessary for a stop at a suburban burger-and-wings joint. It wasn’t even Halloween.
Our whole platoon was out to dinner when he walked in.
“You know the guy in the SEAL cap?” I asked the waitress.
She rolled her eyes.
“Oh, yeah, Billy,” she said. “He scares people.”
“Well, this is your lucky night,” Chief Hall told her.
Phony SEALs are everywhere, people who crave the attention or the tough-guy cred of being associated with the SEAL teams. Some of them have turned these claims into elaborate, decades-long ruses. It’s probably not the worst crime in the world, but to many real-life SEALs, this kind of imitation isn’t the sincerest flattery.
The chief dispatched baby-faced Irish.
“Excuse me, sir,” Irish said to Mr. SEAL Team at the bar. “Are you a SEAL? They’re some of the greatest warriors in history.”
The man looked up slowly from his beer. “Look, son,” he said, “don’t be pestering me all night. But yeah, I’m a SEAL.”
Irish’s eyes widened. “I won’t take much time,” he promised. “What SEAL team were you on? What was your job there?”
“I’m what they call a demo god,” the man said. “A demolition expert. Killing people with explosives. I was at SEAL Team C4. Out of Groton, Connecticut.”
Now, Groton, Connecticut, does have a naval base. They launch submarines. I’m sure a SEAL has been to Groton. But there aren’t any SEAL teams there. And C4 is a plastic explosive, not the name of a SEAL Team.
“Booby traps,” the blowhard went on. “Planting bombs on cars, on motorcycles, in houses, under buildings.”
“Well,” Irish said, “my buddies and I would like to buy you a beer.” The man nodded our way as Irish walked back to the table and recounted the conversation for us.
When the waitress returned, the chief asked her: “Would you bring a beer to Billy over there. Tell him it’s from a real SEAL combat unit—not some make-believe bullshit.”
“Happily,” the waitress said.
We all watched as she delivered the beer.
The man’s confident nod melted into confusion and then to something that looked like abject fear. He glanced over at us again. We all grinned and waved.
He probably should have just gotten up and left the restaurant. Instead, he sought refuge in the men’s room.
Ron, our leading petty officer, who is six foot five and 270 pounds and I’d say a little intimidating, followed him in.
Nothing violent happened. I can promise you that. But in less than a minute, the man came bolting out of the restroom and headed straight for the parking lot. He wasn’t wearing his cap anymore.
Somehow or another, that cap ended up on the wall in our team room. The blade of a combat knife was jammed through the bill.
“SEAL TEAM,” the cap said.
* * *
The day I checked into SEAL Team Four, I half-figured I would walk onto Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and a couple of senior guys would pull me aside. “Okay,” they’d say, “here are all the top-secret missions.” And by the next afternoon, we’d get an urgent page and be on our way to Bosnia or Afghanistan or Somalia on some clandestine operation the world knew nothing about. Maybe the instructors at BUD/S had been keeping the wild stuff under wraps because we didn’t have our security clearances yet. If they told us, they’d have to kill us or something.
I know that sounds kind of crazy now. But the SEAL mythology is that strong.
Back at BUD/S, the instructors had repeatedly asked us: “You going East Coast or West Coast?” As a SEAL recruit, you don’t automatically get to choose your first team assignment. But the leadership tries to accommodate
people’s general preferences. Chances are, you’ll stay with that first team for four or five years, and the first team you go to is usually the one you’ll always identify with. I’ve spent more time on the West Coast than the East, but since I started on the East I’ll always think of myself as an East Coast SEAL.
Both coasts have their own personalities and their stereotypes, wildly exaggerated but not totally unfounded. East Coast frogs would say, “If you want to have dyed hair and play volleyball and surf, you should definitely stay on the West Coast. If you want to go to war, go East Coast.” Believe me, the West Coast SEALs didn’t see it like that at all. They thought they were every bit as hard. The East Coasters just never learned to let loose and have fun. And to be fair, the West Coast guys were doing a whole lot more than playing volleyball.
I put in for East Coast and got assigned to SEAL Team Four.
Despite my eagerness for action, we wouldn’t be rushing quickly off to war. Given my timing, there weren’t any wars to rush to. These were the days before 9/11. None of us had any idea what was coming next. The War on Terror was simmering on a back burner somewhere. America wasn’t engaged yet in Afghanistan or Iraq. So for the time being, I was in Virginia Beach. For now my job was to stay in better shape than anybody else and do whatever it took to become a world-class warrior. To shoot harder and straighter than anybody. To blow things up more effectively. To dive and jump with pinpoint accuracy. To be prepared for the call whenever it came, which I was constantly hoping would be immediately—if not sooner.