“Swim south,” Thornton said. He put two 4" × 4" battle dressings on Norris’s head, but they couldn’t cover the whole wound. Norris was going into shock.
Another group of SEALs, manning a junk searching for their buddies, found the Vietnamese lieutenant and debriefed him. Then they found Thornton, Norris, Dang, and Quon. Thornton radioed the Newport News for pickup.
Once aboard the Newport News, Thornton carried Norris to medical. The medical team cleaned Norris up as best they could, but the doctors said, “He’s never going to make it.”
Norris was medevaced to Da Nang. From there, they flew him to the Philippines.
For Thornton’s actions, he received the Medal of Honor. It is the only time a Medal of Honor recipient has rescued a Medal of Honor recipient. Years later, Thornton would help form SEAL Team Six and serve as one of its operators.
Norris survived, proving the doctor wrong. He was transferred to the Bethesda, Maryland, Naval Hospital. Over the next few years, he underwent several major surgeries, as he had lost part of his skull and one eye. The navy retired Norris, but the only easy day was yesterday. Norris returned to his childhood dream: becoming an FBI agent. In 1979, he requested a disability waiver. FBI Director William Webster said, “If you can pass the same test as anybody else applying for this organization, I will waiver your disabilities.” Of course, Norris passed.
Later, while serving in the FBI, Norris tried to become a member of the FBI’s newly forming Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), but the FBI’s bean counters and pencil pushers didn’t want to allow a one-eyed man on the team. HRT founder Danny Coulson said, “We’ll probably have to take another Congressional Medal of Honor winner with one eye if he applies, but I’ll take the risk.” Norris became an assault team leader. After twenty years with the FBI, he retired. He was last on the runs and swims at BUD/S, and he only had one eye when he went to the FBI Academy, but Norris had fire in the gut.
Some legends are passed down to BUD/S trainees, but I wouldn’t learn about Norris until after I became a SEAL. In such a small, tight-knit community, a SEAL’s reputation, good or bad, travels fast. That reputation begins at BUD/S. Norris remained the underdog throughout his careers in the Teams and the FBI. Now I had to forge my own reputation.
* * *
During one of our long runs, halfway through training on the island, we ran behind a truck while music played. I actually visualized myself wearing the SEAL trident. I’m either going home in a coffin or I’m going home wearing the trident. I’m going to make it through training. It felt like a vision had opened up in my mind. It was the first and only time I got a runner’s high. Some guys got that runner’s high repeatedly. For me, it sucked every time I ran.
In Third Phase, Dive Phase, we learned underwater navigation and techniques for sabotaging ships. Some of my classmates had trouble with dive physics and pool competency (pool comps). I had difficulty treading water with tanks on and keeping my fingers above the water for five minutes. An instructor would yell, “Get that other finger up, Wasdin!” So I would.
* * *
BUD/S prepares us to believe we can accomplish the mission—and to never surrender. No SEAL has ever been held prisoner of war. The only explicit training we receive in BUD/S is to look out for each other—leave no one behind. A lot of our tactical training deals with retreats, escape, and evasion. We are taught to be mentally tough, training repeatedly until our muscles can react automatically. Looking back, I now realize that my mental toughness training started at an early age. Our planning is meticulous, which shows in our briefings. In my encounters with the army, navy, air force, and marines, I’ve only seen Delta Force brief as well as we do.
A SEAL’s belief in accomplishing the mission transcends environmental or physical obstacles that threaten to make him fail. Often we think we’re indestructible. Forever the optimists, even when we’re outnumbered and outgunned, we still tend to think we have a chance to make it out alive—and be home in time for dinner.
Nevertheless, sometimes a SEAL can’t find his way back to Mother Ocean and must make a choice between fighting to the death or surrendering. For many brave warriors, it’s better to roll the dice on surrendering in order to live to fight another day—SEALs have incredible respect for those POWs. As SEALs, though, we believe our surrender would be giving in, and giving in is never an option. I wouldn’t want to be used as some political bargaining chip against the United States. I wouldn’t want to die in a cage of starvation or have my head cut off for some video to be shown around the world on the Internet. My attitude is that if the enemy wants to kill me, they’re going to have to kill me now. We despise would-be dictators who wish to dominate us—SEALs steer the rudders of their own destinies. Our world is a meritocracy where we are free to leave at any time. Our missions are voluntary; I can’t think of a mission that wasn’t. Ours is an unwritten code: It’s better to burn out than to fade away—and with our last breaths we’ll take as many of the enemy with us as possible.
* * *
Laura and Blake, who was just a toddler, flew out for my graduation. Blake rang the bell for me. I told him, “Now you never have to go to BUD/S, because you’ve already rung out.” In his teenage years, he would want to become a SEAL, but I would talk him out of it. Half a dozen people in my hometown would have kids who wanted to go to BUD/S. I would talk every single one of them out of it. If I’m able to talk someone out of it, I’m just saving them time, because they really don’t want it anyway. If I can’t talk them out of it, maybe they really want it.
* * *
After BUD/S, we went directly to airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the army’s airborne and infantry schools. The summer was so hot that they had to run us through the sprinklers two or three times a day to cool us off. Even so, people still fell out from heatstroke and heat exhaustion. Some of the soldiers talked as if the training were the hardest thing in the world. They thought they were becoming part of some elite fighting force. Coming from BUD/S, airborne training was a joke.
“This isn’t hard,” I said. “You’ve got women here making it through the training.” I felt like we could have done their two weeks of “intensive training” in two days.
Army regulations didn’t allow the instructors to drop anyone for more than ten push-ups. One airborne instructor was a “good old boy” who always had a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his mouth. We tadpoles screwed around with him wanting more push-ups.
“Give me ten, Navy,” he said.
We did ten push-ups, then stood up.
“Hell no.” He spit his tobacco. “Too damn easy.”
We dropped down and did ten more.
“Hell no. Too damn easy.”
We did ten more.
At night, we went out drinking until late. For us, airborne training was a holiday.
West Point gave its seniors a choice of what army school to attend during summer. Some of the officer candidates chose airborne school. Two or three would polish our boots if we told them BUD/S stories. I felt like a celebrity. Seems strange thinking back on it now. They were officer candidates from the army’s most prestigious school, and they were polishing my E-5 enlisted boots just so I would tell them about BUD/S. I wasn’t even a SEAL yet and had never seen combat. The West Point guys were mesmerized by our tales. Soon we had to leave our rooms for a bigger area because there were so many guys who wanted to hear us.
By the end of airborne training, we had completed five static-line “dope on a rope” jumps, meaning the parachute automatically deploys immediately after leaving the plane and there is no need to pull a ripcord. It was real, and it was fun—but now the real fun would begin.
6.
SEAL Team Two
After airborne training, I reported to my SEAL Team. The odd-numbered Teams (One, Three, and Five) were on the West Coast at Coronado, California, and the even-numbered Teams (Two, Four, and Eight) were on the East Coast at Little Creek, Virginia. Although the Top Secret SEAL Team Six e
xisted, I knew nothing about it. I reported to SEAL Team Two in Little Creek.
During a Wednesday run on the obstacle course, a nearly sixty-year-old SEAL, still on active duty, ran with us—Rudy Boesch. I thought I could take it easy—no instructors around yelling at us. At the end of the course, Rudy pulled aside all of us who finished behind him. “Meet me back up here this afternoon.”
That afternoon, the slowpokes and I ran the O-course again. It was a wake-up call. Even in the Teams, it paid to be a winner. Later, I would become one of the fastest men on the O-course at Team Two.
Rudy soon served as the first senior enlisted adviser of the newly formed United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), commanding navy, army, air force, and marine special operations units, including those in JSOC such as SEAL Team Six and Delta. After more than forty-five years in the navy, most of it as a SEAL, Rudy retired. When he reached his seventies, he competed on the reality TV series Survivor.
* * *
Some Team Two guys returned from deployment on an oil barge called the Hercules, one of two in the Persian Gulf. They were a part of Operation Praying Mantis. When an Iranian mine damaged the USS Samuel B. Roberts, one of the SEALs’ missions was to capture an Iranian oil platform that had been launching attacks against ships in the Gulf. The SEALs planned for a navy destroyer to shoot up the platform with armor-piercing ammo in order to keep the Iranians’ heads down. Then the SEALs would land on the helipad and take down the platform. Unfortunately, someone on the destroyer loaded incendiary and high explosive rounds instead. When the destroyer opened fire on the platform, it literally opened fire. Instead of keeping their heads down, the Iranians promptly jumped off the burning platform. The barge burned so hot that the SEALs couldn’t land their helo on it. The barge melted into the sea. Oops.
Dick, Mike H., Rob, and I hadn’t participated in that op because we still had more training to do, but that didn’t stop us from wanting to celebrate the guys’ safe return. After work, we left the SEAL Team Two compound, exited the Little Creek base’s Gate Five, and headed to a little strip club called the Body Shop. Because the Body Shop was in such close proximity to the SEAL Team Two compound, a number of us had spent some time there. The bouncer was a new guy, sitting in for Bob, a SEAL Team buddy. One of us asked him, “A group of our guys just got back from the Persian Gulf. Can you give them a congratulations over the PA?”
So he did. “Let’s send out a big thank-you to our American fighting men who just returned from the Persian Gulf.”
Applause and cheers filled the room.
We high-fived each other, buying beers.
From the back of the room where a table of four Tunisian men sat, one said in fluent English, “Why doesn’t America mind its own damn business?”
Dick didn’t go around the runway where the girls were dancing. He went straight over it. By the time I ran around it and got to the four men, Dick had the loudmouth in a choke hold. During our brief altercation, the three buddies of the loudmouth shouted expletives at their comrade. The four of us left the four Tunisians in a pile.
As we attempted to leave, the new bouncer tried to stop us. “You just had a fight in here. You’re not going anywhere.”
We catapulted him over the bar.
At the front door, a police officer showed up. He must’ve been right around the corner, because it had only been five minutes since the fight had started.
“Come on, gentlemen, let’s just sit down for a minute.”
So we did. This guy seems cool.
The bouncer had picked himself up and cut in. “These guys are Navy SEALs. They just came in here and were tearing up the place.”
Oh, no. He said the S-word.
The officer panicked, calling on his radio. “Navy SEALs are tearing up the place, and I need backup!”
We were sitting down calmly talking to him. That was enough. We stood up to leave.
“Wait, you can’t go anywhere.”
Ignoring him, we walked to the front door. Outside, a sea of blue lights flashed at us from the parking lot. The backup included a large police van with K-9 UNIT written on the side. The first officers stepped out of their vehicles.
We started to explain.
The policeman from inside cut off our explanation, suddenly becoming brave. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to come with me.” He grabbed Mike by the shirtsleeve.
Dick caught the policeman in the chin with a square blow, dropping him straight down.
Now police officers with batons faced the four of us with our bare hands. We fought for what seemed like ten or fifteen minutes. On TV, batons might drop people to the pavement, but these batons were bouncing off of us. The police dog jumped up and bit Dick. He grabbed the dog by the head, bent it over, fell down on top of it, and bit a plug out of the dog. The dog yelped and ran away.
I was fighting the two cops in front of me when I felt a little thud on my back. Turning around with my fist cocked back, I saw that a small female police officer had just hit me with her baton. It felt like a mosquito bite compared to the whacks the other cops were delivering. Realizing she was a woman, instead of punching her, I picked her up and pushed her onto the hood of her car.
Now there were nearly thirty cops against the four of us. We finally lost. They handcuffed us. We told them our story. The Tunisian guys had walked out of the Body Shop and resumed talking their anti-American rhetoric. Now the police were mad at the first officer. “What were you thinking? Are you crazy?”
What was done was done. We had assaulted cops. They separated us and loaded us into the back of the patrol cars. The female police officer stuck her phone number in the pocket of my shirt and said, “Hey, give me a call sometime.”
At the station, they processed us and gave us a court date. They contacted our command at SEAL Team Two. The police wouldn’t let us leave until SEAL Team Two sent a driver to pick us up.
When our court date came, I feared for my job. We were all new to the SEAL Teams and expected our careers to be ruined. On the front row of the courtroom sat police officers wearing neck braces. One had his arm in a cast. Another had a cane. They looked like fertilizer. In our dress blue uniforms, we looked like a million bucks.
Voted by my Teammates to be spokesman, I told the judge our side of the story. The people in the courtroom seemed sympathetic toward us because of what happened and how it happened.
The judge asked, “Why were three of these men taken to jail and immediately released, and Petty Officer [Dick] wasn’t released until later?”
The K-9 officer explained, “The dog bit him, and we had to take him to the doctor for a shot.”
“How long could that have taken?” the judge asked.
“Well, Your Honor, he took a bite out of my dog, so I had to take my dog to the vet for a shot.”
The courtroom behind us erupted in laughter.
The K-9 officer explained, “Your Honor, it really isn’t funny. It took me months to train him, and I still spend sixteen hours a month training him. But since Petty Officer [Dick] bit the dog, it won’t do the job anymore.”
The laughter rose to sheer pandemonium.
Down came the judge’s gavel. “Order. Order in the court!”
Except for a couple of snickers in the back of the courtroom, the noise calmed down.
“Now, the four of you need to step forward to the bench,” the judge said.
Oh, man. Lose our careers. Go directly to jail. Do not collect two hundred dollars. We were scared.
The judge leaned forward and then spoke quietly and calmly. “Gentlemen, I’m going to write this off to youthful vigor and patriotism, but don’t ever let me see you in this courtroom again.”
I heard applause from the courtroom behind us.
Turning around, I saw the cops in the front row. They looked like thieves had just robbed their houses. On our way out, I passed the cop in a neck brace and the one with a cane. As I passed the police officer with his arm in a cast, I winke
d at him. We left the courtroom.
Back at SEAL Team Two, we reported what happened to the Team Two skipper, Norm Carley, a short Irish Catholic guy from Philadelphia, graduate of the Naval Academy, and the first executive officer (second only to the commanding officer) of SEAL Team Six. Recently, the SEAL Team Two skipper had returned from Operation Praying Mantis in the Persian Gulf. He looked at us for a moment. “There was a time when we used to go out and fight the cops a lot. Those days are coming to a rapid end. The military is changing.”
He let us go, and his prophecy came true—the modern military has changed. On March 31, 2004, Ahmed Hashim Abed, an Iraqi al Qaeda terrorist, orchestrated the ambush of empty trucks picking up kitchen equipment from the army’s 82nd Airborne. Abed’s terrorists killed four Blackwater guards, then burned the corpses, mutilated them, dragged them through the streets, and hung two of the bodies from the Euphrates Bridge. One of the four guards was former SEAL Scott Helvenston. On September 1, 2009, the SEALs captured Abed. Then three other SEALs received courts-martial for allegedly giving him a bloody lip. Although the three SEALs were eventually found not guilty, such charges never should have risen to the level of courts-martial. If the SEALs had simply killed Abed, nothing could’ve been said. It’s hard to lawyer up when you’re dead.
In the same building as the Body Shop was a 7-Eleven. My house was 2 miles away. One evening after dinner, when Blake was still four years old, I drove with him to the 7-Eleven around seven o’clock to get some milk and bread. At the same time, Smudge pulled up in his Ford Bronco pickup truck jacked up on big wheels and big suspension. We had become friends after I joined him in Foxtrot Platoon at SEAL Team Two. Smudge walked over and, as usual, picked up Blake and gave him a hug.
As he held Blake, I said, “I’m just going to run in and get some milk and bread. I’ll be right out.” When I came back out with the groceries, they were gone. I looked at the Body Shop. Smudge’s girlfriend was a stripper there. Oh, no, he didn’t. When I hurried in, the bouncer greeted me, “Evening, Howard.”
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