Seal Team Six

by Howard E. Wasdin

  “I just came by to say hi and see what you guys have been up to,” Commander Olson said.

  We told him what we knew.

  SEPTEMBER 23, 1993

  Maybe it was due to Commander Olson’s influence or maybe not, but we were able to reestablish QRF flights, now officially tasked as the Eyes over Mogadishu Mission. From 0300 to 0715 Casanova and I flew with the QRF. During that time, we received a call about a machine gun nest. In the five minutes it took us to reach the area, the gunner had evacuated. After returning to base, I caught a few hours of sleep.

  I woke up at 1200 and boarded a helo with the PJs, Scotty and Tim, to do a “goat lab.” We flew south of the hangar and landed in a field with some goats we’d purchased from a farmer. I stood in the field with my back to a goat while the Delta surgeon, Major Rob Marsh, shot it. Then he’d say, “Go.”

  I turned around and had to figure out what was wrong with the animal. Stop arterial bleeding, restore breathing with a trachea tube, patch up a gunshot injury, fix a sucking chest wound … He’d screw with us—shoot the gun up in the air a couple of times. I turned around and checked the goat for a gunshot wound but there wasn’t one. Turned it over and found a knife puncture wound on the right side of its lung. So I sealed the lung and put the good lung on top. Another time, Major Marsh had his foot on the goat’s hindquarters. When he lifted it, blood spurted like a geyser from a femoral artery. Very similar to the arterial bleeding of a human. So I stopped the bleeding. Of course, if we failed, the goat died.

  Animal rights activists would be upset, but it was some of the best medical training I ever had. After we finished with the goats, we gave them back to the locals and they ate them. A small price to pay, especially in comparison to the millions of cows and chickens the world kills, for training so realistically in how to save a human life.

  SEPTEMBER 24, 1993

  The next day we were briefed on raiding a teahouse frequented by Colonel Abdi Hassan Awale (a.k.a. Abdi Qeybdid), Aidid’s interior minister. All four of us would handle prisoners, and, if needed, Casanova and I would assist Delta with the assault.

  While waiting for our next mission, four Delta snipers, Casanova, and I hopped on two Little Birds and went on an African safari out on the plains—training. Armed with our CAR-15s, we sat on the skids of the helos and hunted wild pigs, gazelles, and impalas. I was the only one who shot a wild pig. We landed and picked up the pig with the other kills. For snipers, it was great training for shooting moving targets while flying. We returned to the hangar, where I cut out the tusk for my son, Blake. I didn’t think a tusk made a proper gift for my daughter, and there were no gift shops in Mogadishu, so I would have to find Rachel something later. I gutted the pig, skinned and cleaned it, and put it on a spit. Then we had a big barbecue for everyone—a welcome change from the MREs and cafeteria food.

  * * *

  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. It was time to blow off some steam. Volleyball, special ops style, is a contact sport. The officers challenged the enlisted men to a game. Before the match, we ambushed the officers. I helped snatch Delta Force’s Charlie Squadron commander, Colonel William G. Boykin. We put a ROGUE WARRIOR II tank top on him and flexicuffed his hands and feet to a stretcher. Delta shared my distaste for the Dick Marcinko Rogue Warrior nonsense. Then we took pictures of Colonel Boykin.

  When Boykin was twenty-nine years old, he attempted to pass selection for Delta Force. Lieutenant Colonel “Bucky” Burruss didn’t think Boykin would make it with his bad knee. In addition, a Fort Bragg psychologist tried to reject Boykin for Delta because he was too religious. Boykin surprised a lot of people by passing selection to become a Delta Force operator. He served in the 1980 Iranian hostage rescue attempt, Grenada, Panama, and the hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

  In the regular military, enlisted men don’t snatch commanding officers and flexicuff them to stretchers, but the special ops culture is different. For SEALs, the tradition of enlisted men training alongside officers goes back to our World War II frogmen ancestors. After we finished taking pictures of Colonel Boykin, he said, “I just wish you guys would’ve kicked the crap out of me instead of making me wear that tank top.”

  SEPTEMBER 25, 1993

  Even though we and the QRF pilots liked our Eyes over Mogadishu Mission, the upper echelon canceled our evening QRF flights, again. Military politics bounced this back and forth—some nights we were allowed to participate and some nights we weren’t—probably because someone above didn’t like sharing his piece of pie with Delta and the SEALs.

  That night, Aidid’s militia used an RPG to shoot down one of the QRF helicopters. The pilot and copilot were injured, and three others died. Aidid supporters had mutilated the dead soldiers’ bodies while the pilot and copilot evaded capture. The Pakistanis and United Arab Emirates (UAE) forces secured the area within minutes, protecting the surviving pilot and copilot as well. Our PJs, with us in support, were ready to rescue the survivors within fifteen minutes, but it was the opinion of all of us in the hangar that the QRF leadership was too ineffectual to do their job properly and too proud to let us help. It took QRF’s Search and Rescue two hours to arrive. Totally unacceptable. Not only did the QRF leave their pilot and copilot vulnerable, they also endangered the Pakistanis and UAE forces protecting them on the ground. Where was the quick in the Quick Reaction Force? If Casanova and I had been on that flight, we probably could’ve saved them.

  Some in the military thought that this RPG shooting down a Black Hawk was a fluke. The RPG was made for ground-to-ground fighting, not ground-to-air. Aiming one at the air meant the back blast would bounce off the street and probably kill the shooter. Also, the white rocket trail marked the shooter’s position for helicopter gunfire to take him out. The Black Hawk seemed too fast and too well armored to be shot down by such a weapon. The military would be proved wrong.

  SEPTEMBER 26, 1993

  Next morning we stood by for a raid on the teahouse. If it didn’t go down, we’d shift to another mission. No sense spending all our time preparing for a dry hole.

  One of Aidid’s lieutenants turned himself in to UNOSOM and said he was no longer an Aidid supporter. Now he’d be working for us.

  In the evening, a .50 caliber antiaircraft weapon was being set up at the pasta factory, and the next day it was dismantled. Aidid’s people had seen how we operated on more than one occasion—and now they were preparing to shoot us out of the sky. They were smarter than we gave them credit for.

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1993

  Qeybdid and two other lieutenants were in the NBC building. We jocked up with the helo and ground forces, but we had to cancel the mission because Aidid was supposedly sighted elsewhere, and they wanted us to stand by to chase Elvis.

  The CIA, SIGINT, and military counterintelligence took eleven guys into custody who were believed to be the controllers and launchers of the enemy mortar teams.

  SEPTEMBER 28, 1993

  We went to the memorial service in the 10th Mountain Division hangar for the three men who died in the QRF helo crash. Condor attended. After the service, he told me, “We’ve got a lot of targets, but all the military red tape and smoke prevents us from touching them.” He was clearly disgusted.

  The QRF had difficulties working with Delta. Delta had difficulties working with the CIA. Beyond those difficulties were the problems within the United Nations, particularly Italy. The Clinton administration’s lack of support compounded the mess. The three QRF bodies were loaded onto the plane to fly home.

  Later that day, although I didn’t want to, we got together with Delta on the runway for a group picture. I unhappily stood at the back of the group. Why are we doing this? So someone can get a copy and target each of us individually? I was told to do it, so I did. Looking back, I’m glad. It’s the only picture I have of my buddy Dan Busch, a sniper in Delta Force’s Charlie Squadron, standing next to me. It’s my only picture of others, too. Sometimes I look at this picture, which I keep in my pe
rsonal office, and honor their memory.

  SEPTEMBER 29, 1993

  Wednesday, we received a brief that no hard intel was available, running contrary to what Condor had told me the day before. I flew out to the USS Rentz (FFG-46), a frigate carrying guided missiles, sailing off the coast, where I studied for my upcoming exam for promotion to E-7. When I returned to the hangar, I found out we had a mission in five minutes, but it was canceled.

  The lieutenant colonel who had responsibility for Delta Force’s Charlie Squadron on the ground informed me of a plan to upgrade the compound to include air conditioners, tents, and trailers. There wouldn’t be any personnel rotation. We would leave when the mission was complete. I was slated for a signature flight with Sourpuss at 2200, but our bird broke before we could take off.

  SEPTEMBER 30, 1993

  The following day, outside, under the U.S. flag, instead of flying Delta’s flag, for the first time they flew SEAL Team Six’s flag, a black American Indian head on a red background. Little Big Man on his own initiative had carried it from the Red Team ready room with his other equipment to Mogadishu. When SEALs go somewhere, we surreptitiously let people know where we’ve been. While I was with SEAL Team Two, as we departed a Norwegian submarine, we covertly covered their dinner table with our flag. It would be nice to take a picture with the four of us and our Red Team flag draped across Aidid. Or if we caught General Garrison asleep we could tuck him into bed using our flag: Garrison likes Delta, but he feels safer wrapped up in a SEAL Team Six security blanket. Then we’d post the pictures in our ready room alongside the other photos. That would be big bragging rights for us. Buy us beer for the rest of the year, suckers. While you stayed home going to driving school, look what we did.

  Around noon, we received a report that Qeybdid had been sighted. We prepared to go, but the reconnaissance bird lost him, and we didn’t launch. Finding one man in the maze of Mogadishu was like finding a mole inside an elephant’s butt. We should’ve taken him when we had the chance before, but instead, we chased Elvis sightings.

  Contrary to what the lieutenant colonel had told us the previous day, Commander Olson told us we would be rotating out two at a time.

  That afternoon, a hammerhead shark attacked a soldier getting some R&R in waist-deep water at the beach. The soldier lost one leg up to the hip, the other leg up to the knee, and lots of blood. I lined up with others to give blood. He took twenty-seven units of blood. Unfortunately, someone put a breathing tube in his esophagus instead of his trachea. He wasn’t expected to make it through the night. Although he survived, he was brain dead—remaining in a coma. I don’t know who was more to blame, the shark or the person who put his breathing tube in wrong.

  OCTOBER 2, 1993

  In the afternoon, we geared up to hit Aidid at Sheik Aden Adere’s house. We stood on alert for three and a half hours. Aidid had been at the same house for four hours. Again, the CIA seemed to have a sure thing, but the hit didn’t go down. The Agency was furious.

  OCTOBER 3, 1993

  When I woke up, the CIA told me they wanted to set up a couple of repeaters in the Lido district of Mogadishu. An asset could use his handheld radio to transmit to the repeater, which could relay the transmission back to the army compound. Likewise, the base could transmit to the asset via the repeater. This would allow for stronger radio transmission at longer distances.

  I wore desert cammies with body armor underneath, including the hard armor inserts. Over my cammy top, I put on a bandolier with ten magazines, thirty rounds in each, for a total of three hundred rounds. The bandolier gave me freer movement as a sniper, especially when in the prone position or standing up against something like a wall, than the bulkier web gear. Also, I wore my trusty Adidas GSG9 boots over my military olive drab wool socks. Cotton socks stay soggy wet in the desert, but wool pulls the moisture away from the skin. The evaporation process also helps cool the feet during the day. In the evening, when the desert becomes cold, wool keeps the feet warm. As a sniper, I didn’t wear knee pads or the Pro-Tec helmet of assaulters (because of various types of head trauma during the Battle of Mogadishu, JSOC would later change to an Israeli ballistic helmet). For communication, we wore bone phones with the durable waterproof Motorola MX-300 radios, capable of encryption, on our belts. The earpiece went behind the ear, so it wouldn’t obstruct our hearing. Two mike pads pressed against the trachea. The mike didn’t come out in front of the face, so while aiming, we easily settled a cheek to the butt of the rifle without interference. Of course, I carried water in the Camelbak. As usual, I carried my Swiss Army knife, which I used almost daily.

  We rode Huey helicopters out to the Pakistani Stadium, then rode indigenous vehicles to two houses. After inserting the repeaters, we drove back to the camel factory on the beach, where the helos picked us up. I had no idea this was about to be the longest day of my life—and nearly my last.

  PART THREE

  Do the right thing even if it

  means dying like a dog when

  no one’s there to see you do it.

  —Vice Admiral James Stockdale,

  NAVY PILOT

  13.

  Battle of Mogadishu

  As we pulled back into the compound, everyone was jocking up for something big. Helicopters spun up, Humvees pulled into position, and everyone topped off their magazines. Although the sun shone brightly through clear blue skies, I knew the troops weren’t heading out on a picnic. “What’s going on?”

  Commander Olson approached us before we stepped out of our “cutvee”—a cut Humvee without a top, doors, or windows, officially called the M-998 cargo/troop carrier. It had no special armor. Tech reps from the States had arrived less than a week earlier and put a Kevlar ballistic blanket underneath the vehicle to protect against land mines or other fragmentation. I sat in the driver’s seat with Casanova riding shotgun. Behind me was Little Big Man, Sourpuss beside him. To the rear of them we had two benches running parallel to the vehicle where two army guys sat—I think they were Rangers, but they could’ve been Delta operators. In addition, a Ranger manned the .50 caliber machine gun.

  Commander Olson briefed us in just a few minutes. “You’ll be part of a blocking force. Delta will rope in and assault the building. You guys will grab the prisoners. Then get out of there.” Usually such a brief would last an hour to an hour and a half. Delta, the Rangers, and others got that briefing, but we missed it. Although the mission was important enough for us to be briefed on, it had popped up suddenly while we were out in town setting up repeaters for the CIA. Commander Olson slapped me on the shoulder. “Shouldn’t take long. Good luck. See you when you get back.”

  Each of four light AH-6J Little Birds carried four snipers, two on either side of a helo. The Little Birds also carried rockets underneath—where we would be going wasn’t going to be good. The two AH-6Js, armed with 7.62 mm miniguns and 2.75-inch rockets, would guard the front of the target building from the air while two hovered to the rear. Delta’s C Squadron would fast-rope from two MH-6 Little Birds and assault the building.

  Eight Black Hawks would follow, two carrying Delta assaulters and their ground command. Four of the Black Hawks would insert the Rangers. One would hover above with a Combat Search and Rescue team. The eighth Black Hawk contained the two mission commanders, one coordinating the pilots and one directing the men on the ground.

  Three OH-58D Kiowa helos, distinctive for the black ball mounted above the rotor, would also fly in the airspace above the target. The black ball was a sight with a platform that contained a TeleVision System, a Thermal Imaging System, and a Laser Range Finder/Designator to provide audio and video of the ground to General Garrison at the Joint Operations Center. High above everyone circled a P-3 Orion.

  I drove into position at about the third vehicle in the convoy. Behind our Humvees idled three 5-ton trucks, and five more Humvees brought up the rear. Rangers made up most of our convoy. In all, nineteen aircraft, twelve vehicles, and 160 men.

  Aidid�
��s men had already seen how we did this six times before, and now we’d be operating under broad daylight on his home turf. Many of his militia would be pumped up on khat at this time of day, not coming down off their high until late in the evening. Risks that pay off are bold moves. Those that don’t pay off are stupid. Part of my job included taking risks.

  At 1532, the helicopters took off first, following the coast. When we received word that the birds were headed inland, our convoy headed out. I wasn’t afraid—yet. This is going to be a routine op.

  On the way, the lead Humvee took a wrong turn. Nobody followed. They would have to catch up to us later. We sped northeast on Via Gesira. Before reaching the K4 traffic circle, we encountered sporadic fire. Little Big Man yelled, “Aw hell, I’m hit!”

  Are we driving into an ambush? Does Little Big Man have a sucking chest wound? The needle on my fear meter was still close to zero. Little Big Man was shot, not me. All the same, I worried for Little Big Man’s life, and my alert level went up.

  I pulled off the road underneath an overhang, slammed on the brakes, jumped out, and checked Little Big Man. He lay on the floor with part of his Randall knife blade beside him. I expected to see blood come from somewhere but only found a huge raspberry on his leg. An AK-47 round had hit that Randall knife he loved so much and carried everywhere. The blade lay on the floor. It saved his leg—worth all the kidding he had ever endured about that big-ass knife.

  The convoy continued moving during the minute we were parked on the side of the road. I returned to the driver’s seat, then sped forward, catching up to our former position. The convoy passed the K4 circle and went north on Via Lenin, then east on National Street. Finally, we turned left on a dirt road parallel to and south of Hawlwadig Road.