Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior

by Rorke Denver

  We had a recruit quit right before he became a SEAL. This was when I was running all three phases of BUD/S. He was sizing up one of those targets. The target was a teenage boy with a gun. We face child soldiers on the battlefield, and some of our practice targets resemble teenagers with guns. As he stared at the kid in the target, a pained look settled across his face.

  “I can’t do this,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “That target looks like my little brother with a gun,” he said. “This isn’t for me.”

  I tried to ease his concern. “Based on the enemies we’ve been fighting lately,” I told him, “I don’t think we’ll be facing anyone who looks much like your brother.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But it’ll be someone else’s brother.”

  It will be.

  And that’s an emotional issue all of us need to come to terms with. This job involves killing people—for good purposes, yes, but killing people nonetheless. What the recruit said to me that day was honest and, I’m sure, difficult to admit, surrounded as he was by SEAL recruits on their way to doing exactly that job, working as hard as they possibly could to sharpen their precision and expertise. What he said—and how he followed through by leaving—made me respect him as much as anyone I’ve worked with. Despite the level of training he’d received, he recognized this wasn’t for him.

  Those SEALs who get through the training and become members of a team have an emotional maturity and balance about this part of our job. In our unit we don’t spend much time talking about killing people. We just don’t. Our guys have come to terms with killing or they wouldn’t be here. When required, we will bring lethal force to an identified threat. From the range to the field to eerily authentic combat re-creations, SEALs learn to choose our targets carefully before the trigger is pulled. We must accurately discriminate between armed combatants and innocent bystanders, between people we want to engage and those we need to protect. Slowly, repeatedly, with firm direction from expert trainers in marksmanship—that’s how SEAL recruits prepare themselves for this central activity of the job.

  The fact of the matter is that by the time any SEAL gets on the battlefield, he has so often gone through the physical and mental processes that lead to taking another person’s life, killing becomes in part mechanical.

  We were patrolling in the middle of the daytime, a dangerous area deep in Indian Country, a very active battle space. Few American forces had been through there before. We came out from behind a palm grove near an irrigation ditch. There was an intersection a short bit ahead. It was another choke point. There were lots of those in western Iraq. I instinctively didn’t like the idea of all of us being in this one at once.

  So I split the team in two. I told half the guys to keep patrolling. “Just continue up the road,” I said. I wanted anyone watching us to see them leaving the area and think we’d all moved along.

  My explosives tech, my communicator, my heavy-gunner, my point man, and myself—the five of us stayed back and waited, hidden in a stand of swamp grass, as the rest of the team walked off. I didn’t want them to get too far in case we needed to call them back into the fight—but far enough that anyone watching would believe they were gone.

  “Just keep busy over there,” I told them. “Don’t come into sight unless you hear from us on the radio.”

  Slowly, quietly, the five of us who held back slipped out of the swamp grass and continued toward the intersection in a low crouch. As we were about to step into the open, we could hear voices, urgent voices, not twenty feet away. My heart was pounding. There were only five of us. I couldn’t see anyone yet. But they were close enough that I almost could have poked them with a stick.

  My EOD tech broke cover before my point man did. I have no idea why he did that. He probably doesn’t, either. But he stepped out of position and yelled at the top of his lungs, “HALT. STOP. DON’T DO THAT.”

  There were four of them altogether, three with AK-47s, one holding a belt-fed machine gun like our Mk 48. After my EOD tech’s outburst, they could see all five of us, I’m sure, and the fight was on.

  I felt no hatred for them, any more than a hunter hates his prey. I always respected my enemy and what they were capable of.

  We were up and blazing. So were they. I don’t how long the whole encounter took. I never do at times like that. My mind gets so acutely focused when the bullets are flying, the action in a battlefield shoot-out almost slows to a crawl. I feel like an elite quarterback who’s totally in the zone. The receivers are running their routes. A defender is circling from the left. The rushers are being held at the line. There’s the target. I’m executing a play practiced ten thousand times. Everything’s in slow motion. I’m moving on muscle memory.

  Up came my weapon. I truly felt calm as I shouldered it. I put my sight on the center mass of one insurgent with an AK-47. I let go two rounds. It was as if I’d hand-delivered each of those bullets, like I could see them inching through the air. Every detail was unfolding methodically. I felt like I had all the time in the world. This was obviously a bad guy, hell-bent on doing bad things to us.

  I saw that the rounds I was putting downrange were hitting the target they were intended for. Even as it was happening, I knew this was the first time I’d be killing someone in such an up-close and personal way.

  Him and me. Face-to-face.

  I saw him recoil. I saw him hit the ground. I heard what sounded like a small yowl. He balled up on his side, not moving. And he just stayed there. He was no longer in the fight, this gunman I had beaten to the trigger. And my guys had taken care of his friends.

  After the bullets stopped flying, the speed of the action returned to normal. My adrenaline was still ferociously high, but gradually it eased down. I don’t know whether I was breathing hard or I wasn’t breathing at all. I just know that through the whole encounter, I was on some kind of warrior’s autopilot, and thankfully I’d landed safely.

  We surveyed the area to make sure the danger had passed, that no cohorts or backups were lingering in the nearby grass. Within a minute or two, the other half of our group returned. Then I took one deep breath and exhaled.

  “Nicely done,” one of my teammates said.

  That first time didn’t feel traumatic at all. It didn’t even feel like the first time. I had shot so many weapons. I had aimed at so many targets. I had spent so long perfecting my technique. I had probably killed people in battle before, even though I couldn’t precisely identify them. Crossing that line was not such a giant leap for me.

  When it finally happened and the results were clear, I felt something almost like relief. I had finally done something I’d trained for. I did it well. We won the fight. Everyone on my team returned home safely. We’d removed some dangerous characters from the battlefield. We’d been looking for that crew or some of their associates for a long time. This was definitely going in the win column. Winning beats losing every time.

  That night, after we completed the after-action report and the follow-up operational summary, we cleaned our weapons and made sure our bags were packed and ready to go again the next morning. I had something to eat. I showered. I got into bed. Then I took a moment in my mind to acknowledge the fact that there now was one fewer question I had to ask myself: Could I do it?

  I had confirmed what I believed was the case, that I was capable of executing the most intense exchange between two human beings, the attempted taking of one another’s lives, a deadly force connection. And that I was the one who’d come out alive.

  I was now in a new category of warrior. I was a “meat eater” now. That’s the expression SEALs use for someone who has killed on the battlefield. When I entered the category of those who had done that, it was a special distinction to me.

  Because of our training and our temperament, SEALs are attuned to a more primitive version of what men were once required to be—and still are—when our special skills are called for.

  This is nothi
ng to be embarrassed about. People, good people, go to dark places from time to time, whether they want to or not. There is something in the human psyche that just sends us there. At some time or another, almost everyone has said or thought, “I wish I could kill that person.” Most people never act on those feelings, and rightfully so.

  It’s a real thing, taking somebody’s life. We operate under the U.S. Forces Rules of Engagement. We take those rules seriously. In their most basic terms, they require us never to target noncombatants. But we have the right and the duty to defend ourselves or our unit from attack or threat of attack. And we may use deadly force against hostile combatants to further the legitimate aims of the war.

  Nevertheless, I am cognizant of the fact that the people we took off the battlefield had families, too. I know that I have changed a family, that this is a son, a brother, a father, or a husband whose life is now over while mine continues. It is not something I dwell on. Nor is it something I can deny. But I feel like I’ve been lucky. I didn’t see anyone we shot at who wasn’t prepared to shoot at us—or wasn’t already shooting. I’ve never shot at a target or an individual I didn’t believe was absolutely the enemy. I have never had a moment where I wondered, Was that a good shot or not? A lot of guys have experienced that. For any decent person, that’s a real challenge.

  I can’t speak for women on this. Maybe it isn’t as much a part of the female psyche. But most men and boys today, at some point in their lives, have lingered in bed or stood in the shower or stared at the mirror and thought to themselves:

  What would I do if I were confronted with a deadly-force encounter? If I were in a pizza joint and a man came in with a shotgun, if someone on the street flashed a big knife and demanded my wallet, if someone I loved was threatened somehow—what would I do?

  At some point or another, almost every man wonders: How would I perform in mortal combat? Could I kill before I was killed? Who would I kill for? Who deserves to die?

  For some of us, just thinking and wondering is not enough. There is a breed of man with something inside him that pushes him to find out.

  My wife always notices things about me I don’t notice about myself, like the way I can’t ever seem to sit still. My body can’t do that. I move and adjust and reposition constantly. I don’t feel like I’m uncomfortable. I don’t feel like I need a new La-Z-Boy in the living room. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. But after we’d been together for years, Tracy said one day: “You are unbelievable. You can’t sit still for three minutes on a couch.” And she’s right.

  Over the years, she has asked me, “What did you dream last night?” She would feel me moving in my sleep or hear me saying something. I would tell her what I’d been dreaming. I didn’t think too much about it except, Well, Tracy must be interested in dreams.

  One day, she told me something else I hadn’t realized. “Every single dream you ever told me about involves some kind of deadly conflict encounter,” she said.

  Someone was chasing me. Someone was threatening me. I was trying to save someone in harm’s way. Every dream had something to do with adventure and conflict—most of the time mortal combat. I can’t say for sure if becoming a SEAL satisfied a subconscious desire to enter mortal combat. But it was certainly connected to something fundamental in my makeup.

  When I first got home from Iraq, Tracy asked me a little about the deployment and how it had unfolded. I told her it had been an extremely violent experience. We’d been in a lot of fights. I didn’t talk about the details. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share. She didn’t ask me for too many details, and I didn’t offer them on my own.

  Then five years later, we were out at dinner one night and she said: “You’ve never told me if you killed anyone, what specifically happened or how often that happened.”

  It was a profound moment for us. For the first time, I shared with her a lot of details from that deployment. I don’t know if I’d been worried she might be horrified. Sitting across from her in the restaurant, I watched her face. But she didn’t seem to be. I could see in her eyes what looked to me like a great deal of almost relief that I had been able to test myself that way. She knew me so well. She knew how it would have weighed on me if I’d been through all that training, if I’d built up all that experience, if I had such a violent deployment in a truly historic war—and I hadn’t been tested in the ultimate way.

  She was right.

  By then, I was back in San Diego, working my way up the training hierarchy, taking a larger and larger role in the development of the next generation of SEALs. That meant building on the power of my own experience. It also meant a chance to be home as Tracy and I planned the next adventure in our lives as a couple and eventually as parents. If I still had that hanging out there, if I hadn’t had that opportunity to be the warrior I knew I could, I know deep inside me how unsettled I would have felt. I would have been itching for the next adventure.

  And now I know. The potential and ability to perform the ultimate act of a warrior lives inside of me. I know because I have let it out. And that’s given me a higher sense of responsibility and a stronger appreciation for all that life offers. Those who have fought in combat units in any way know what I am talking about. When you have fought for your life, that life means more to you.

  Food tastes better. Moments with family feel closer. Hobbies give more pleasure than they used to. Your senses are actually heightened. You don’t sweat the small things like you used to. You have pushed the human experience about as far as it can go.

  At the same time, I feel like I have been part of a needed organization. I know there was evil pitted against me. I know there were bad guys in Indian Country who wanted to take my life as much as I wanted to take theirs. I confronted them in the most intimate way imaginable. And I’m still here.

  I have spent my entire adult life in the company of SEALs. It is only when I’m away from my brother SEALs with old friends or new ones, that I notice. People look at me strangely. I can tell they are thinking, I bet that dude killed some people.

  I’m not going to pretend I don’t like being looked at as special in that way. It wasn’t my motivation for joining. It wasn’t what kept me in. But it is part of who I am forever.

  14

  FAMILY TIME

  I never feared the day

  That death comes take my hand.

  I fear the cries of my family

  So I’ll live as long as I can.

  —NATE DENVER

  * * *

  I have attended too many warrior funerals.

  All of them are overwhelmingly sad. But there’s not a single funeral I’ve been to where the rest of us haven’t felt the tiniest bit of envy that we weren’t that guy. I know most people can’t imagine feeling like that. But a fellow warrior understands the draw of going out that way. Shoulder to shoulder with your brothers. Fighting the bad guys in a savage land. That’s dying with your boots on. That’s a gunfighter’s life.

  Whether it was Mark or Mikey, Nate or Mike, or any of the other brothers our community has lost, I felt grief-stricken. Everybody did. But I was still convinced that dying in war would be a hell of a way to go, an honorable way to end this life and move on.

  * * *

  When I first enlisted and sought a commission in the Navy, I had never given much thought to what military service would mean for my family. I had heard people say, “Your family serves right along with you.” But I had no idea in practical terms what that might mean. It’s hard to know going in. Gradually—and especially when I began deploying to war zones—I began to feel the weight of what I was asking of my mom, my dad, my brother, and, when I met and married Tracy, especially my wife. I was the one who had decided to walk this warrior path. Without their ever agreeing, I made it their path as well.

  With my long and constant absences.

  With all the emotional pressures that this life entails.

  With the genuine possibility that I might not come home.

 
As I was heading to Iraq on what I knew would be a highly aggressive SEAL team deployment, I started thinking about what my death might mean to my father. He loved me. I knew that. He’d miss me. But for my father, my dying would bookend his life in a hugely potent way. My dad’s dad was killed in World War II. To have his son die, too, in a war zone while serving his country—that was more than anyone should ever have to bear.

  My mom has always known I was an aggressive person who constantly liked to push himself. I don’t think she was surprised when I joined an elite military unit. But my mother, like most moms, is an emotional person, and she worries about me. Even today. When I learned I was headed to Iraq, I had a talk with my brother, Nate. I told him I really did feel at ease going into that violent war zone. Whatever happened would happen. I had chosen this life.

  “But I’ve been thinking about Mom,” I said. “If something happens, don’t let her descend into hate or anger. I don’t want her feeling bitter at the country that sent me to war or at our leadership. Remind her I chose this. I’m doing what I want to be doing with guys I want to be doing it with.”

  I was already a SEAL when I met Tracy.

  She folded immediately into the life and banter and culture of BRAVO platoon. It was an alpha-male world. Sonny, Irish, Face Man, and the others were a wild group of guys. Most of the platoon members were still single then. They were going out and running hard and having crazy romances. Almost all the girlfriends got nicknames—not all of them flattering. But the whole platoon treated Tracy differently. They called her “K-Wonder,” the Kentucky wonder. It took a woman like that, they decided, to lock down Diesel, to pull him off the market.

  And Tracy really connected with the team. Yes, they had their raw side. But they seemed like a cool throwback to her. “It’s like they’re from another era,” she marveled. They would hold the door for her. They’d stand when she walked up to the table. They’d give her a hug and kiss when she came into the room. She knew if someone had ever said something disrespectful to her, any one of the BRAVO boys would gladly have flattened him—or worse.