Combat Swimmer

by Robert A. Gormly

  When the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial was in the planning stages, I thought erecting a black wall to the memory of the brave men and women who fought and died for their country was the final slap in the face. I avoided going there until I was stationed at the Pentagon in 1988. When I did go, I realized the color made no difference. I was struck by the view of the wall. It came out of the ground on one end, rose in the middle, and went back into the ground on the other—exactly the pattern of our effort in Vietnam in the 1960s. Equally striking was the fact that from the other side, the memorial was virtually indistinguishable from its surroundings. Instead of standing tall like the Marine Corps’ Iwo Jima Memorial just across the Potomac River, the Wall was hidden, as if the country were embarrassed by the whole thing.

  As I walked the length of the Wall, a strange feeling came over me. I was not the disinterested observer I’d intended to be. Tears came to my eyes as I randomly scanned the names and focused on that of Rick Trani, a SEAL Two officer killed during my second deployment. I went back to the directory to find the names of other friends and teammates. I had a hard time focusing, but I found and touched each name. I was affected by the Wall. It symbolized the bravery and dedication of our military and the incompetence of our political leadership. As I walked back to my car I told Becky, “The memorial is a good thing.”

  I also remember feeling that the self-appointed guardians of the monument—the grubby, bearded, and camo-clad “Vietnam veterans” selling souvenirs—were not like the ones I remembered from the era. I wondered how many of these had actually served in Vietnam. I thought they provided a final fitting insult by a country seemingly embarrassed to honor its dead from an unpopular and unsuccessful war. I didn’t buy a damn thing.

  To this day, it’s difficult for me to explain to non-SEALs what we did in Vietnam and why I liked it so much. People, including some military friends, think I’m crazy when I tell them I liked being in Vietnam. I know a lot of it had to do with SEAL Team Two, which was such a tightly knit unit in those days. I can’t imagine going to war with a group of people who didn’t have a background and bond like ours. We all felt we couldn’t let each other down. No doubt that was part of the reason SEALs were so successful in keeping battle deaths low even though more than 90 percent of the men from SEAL Team One and Two who served in Vietnam have the Purple Heart.

  I guess in the final analysis I found complete job satisfaction in Vietnam. Since we weren’t part of a grander strategy, the next best thing occurred: we were left to our own devices. I had total control over my actions and the authority to do whatever I thought best. Not bad for a young Navy lieutenant. For the SEALs of that era, Vietnam was a tough act to follow.

  PART 4

  Fire Three: SEAL Team Six

  The 1970s saw the rise of Arab nationalism: the oil crisis of the early 1970s; the Palestinian effort to gain control of Israeli lands; and the Iranian revolution, which elevated hostage-taking to a new level.

  The 1970s also saw the end of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam—indeed, the end of our military involvement “east of Montauk Point, New York,” as some pundit said. The Vietnam War left a bad taste in America’s collective mouth. We had little stomach to take up the cudgel in defense of anyone. But after the Munich Olympics it was clear that we had to be ready to combat a new and more insidious force—terrorism.

  Our military readiness hit a post-World War II low in the 1970s. But, given the need to be able to quickly mount small military operations to protect our national interests, we had to have a force in being. That need became even more clear after the debacle in the desert that was our attempt to free our hostages in Teheran.

  What emerged in 1980 was what I’ll call the Joint Headquarters, formed in the aftermath of Desert One, the failed attempt to rescue the American embassy staff being held hostage in Iran. It commanded forces from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. I became part of the new “joint” family when I assumed command of SEAL Team Six.

  18

  BACK IN THE SADDLE

  August 1983, 1925 Hours

  Thirty thousand feet above the southern Arizona desert, the ramp of the C-130 slowly opened, revealing an amazing sight. Seemingly just behind us was a huge thunderhead reaching higher than we could see. Lightning was flashing behind our plane as the sun dropped below the horizon. The jumpmaster looked at me, and we gave each other the thumbs-up. We would do the jump, thunderstorm or not.

  I had taken command of SEAL Team Six a few weeks before, and I was in a phase of my “Green Team” training, learning to do the things that other SEAL teams didn’t do. I’d done preparation jumps with the Green Team but was called away before the “high-altitude, high-opening” (HAHO) phase. This was “makeup” training with one of my operational assault teams.

  There were twenty SEALs in the plane. We’d been breathing pure oxygen for the last forty-five minutes in preparation for the training HAHO jump. HAHO differs from the free-fall jumping so often seen in military demonstrations. In HAHO, just as the name implies, you open your parachute high. Tonight we would open our canopies in five- to ten-second intervals after leaping from the open stern ramp of the C-130 into -45° air. We would be “in the saddle” at about 28,000 feet above the ground. From there we would gather into a formation and follow the lead jumper to our target on the ground.

  Jumping from a plane at 30,000 feet is never routine, no matter how experienced or capable you are. It’s dangerous. The air at that altitude is low in oxygen. In order not to be asphyxiated, jumpers must breathe oxygen, first in the plane before jumping and then from self-contained rigs. Without the oxygen a jumper under canopy loses consciousness within seconds of leaving the plane. He may suffer severe brain damage or even die before he reaches 15,000 to 18,000 feet, when the oxygen content of the atmosphere will bring him around.

  Our self-contained rigs, consisting of a mask, regulator, and bottle, provided enough oxygen when all functioned well. Problems can occur as the jumper leaves the plane and begins his free fall before opening. In a normal free fall, the jumper maneuvers against air resistance, and thin air is not very resistant.

  The air at 30,000 feet is much less dense than that at sea level; it’s easy to lose control, tumbling or spinning instead of falling chest first. Because the air is thinner, the jumper is also traveling faster, leaving the plane at about 180 miles per hour rather than the 100 or 120 miles per hour of a low-level jump. Under these conditions, getting into a stable (chest to the ground) position before opening the parachute is critical, because if you open in a tumble or a spin or while out of control, there’s no telling what will happen.

  Finally, in military HAHO jumping you don’t have the option of waiting until you get control before you pull your rip cord. You are part of a team whose members must pull at specific intervals in order to get into formation and stay together till you reach the ground. So you’d better be ready when you leave the plane, because when the time comes, you will pull.

  The opening shock at that altitude is incredible even when you are in a perfect body position. You feel as if your head is going through your feet as you go from about 180 to 0 miles per hour in a matter of one or two seconds. When a jumper’s position is not good, all kinds of funny things can happen, none of them pleasant. At best, he will have a harder than usual opening. At worst, he may get so entangled in the chute as it comes out of its deployment bag that he’ll be jerked around violently. Even worse, his oxygen mask may be ripped from its attachments on the helmet; in that case, the jumper has to cut away his main canopy and free-fall to around 18,000 feet, where he opens his reserve chute and hopes for the best when he gets to the ground. Tactically, he is lost to the group. Although the group has a prearranged rendezvous site for such emergencies, in an actual operation the jumper would be on his own, having landed miles from the rest of the formation.

  A jumper who is knocked unconscious by the opening shock and has lost his oxygen supply faces a grimmer reality—without oxygen and floatin
g downward under canopy, he may die before he gets low enough for breatheable air. So HAHO, even in a training situation, is never ordinary and never safe. Add a large thunderstorm to the equation, and it really gets interesting.

  I left the plane third, behind Mike, the lead and most experienced jumper in our stick. In our business, experience, not rank, has privilege, and although I was the commanding officer of the team, this was my first HAHO jump. Before making his final decision, Mike contacted our drop zone (DZ) crew to learn what the conditions were there. Even though my unit trained as it fought, there were realities to HAHO operations no amount of experience or determination could overcome. Altitude winds were not a problem, but ground winds had to be taken into consideration. Our canopies could give us about 35 miles per hour of forward speed, so theoretically we could land in winds a little stronger than that. But we kept some safety rules. My policy was that if we would do it for real, we would do it in training. I would not plan a HAHO infiltration if the expected ground winds were higher than 30 miles per hour, so that was our cutoff velocity tonight. The ground crew assured Mike the winds were no greater than 20 miles per hour. And the thunderstorm was moving away from our intended track. So we jumped.

  I dove off the ramp headfirst, trying to relax as much as possible while maintaining a “tight” body position. When you jump from the ramp of a plane, the first wind you encounter is the flow from the bottom of the plane; if you aren’t properly positioned, it will start you flipping head over heels. Past that initial flow, the next thing that can happen, if you are leaning left or right, is that you may start a flat spin. Tumbling and spinning are very possible even for an experienced jumper, because the body position “error tolerance” as you leave the plane is slim. If you know what you’re doing, though, you can to some extent overcome a spin or a tumble in the five to ten seconds you have before opening. Since I was third in line, I had to pull at eight seconds—plenty of time!

  I was fortunate enough to go out of the plane in good position, slowly starting a heels-over-head tumble that I easily corrected. I pulled at eight seconds, got through the negative Gs, and checked my canopy, which looked good. I took a quick look around to ensure I wasn’t on a collision course with another jumper, and then freed my control lines.

  Looking around again, I saw we had ten good canopies and started maneuvering into my position in the “stacked” formation. Mike came on the net to check with all of us and ensure no one had a problem. Attached to the left side of his harness, each man had a Motorola MX-360 semisecure VHF radio with earphone and throat microphone. A small rucksack, containing ammunition and food, was attached to the front of the harness between each jumper’s legs. Just above the rucksack was a control board containing an altimeter and a compass. Each jumper also had a weapon (assault rifle or submachine gun) attached to the right side of his harness, plus a pistol in a holster for immediate action when we hit the ground.

  We were around 26,000 feet at this point, and I looked around to enjoy the incredible view. The thunderstorm was now south of us, but it seemed to be closer than when we had left the plane. To the southeast, I could see the Tucson Mountains and lights from the few houses there. By this time it was dark on the ground, but we could still see the sun setting in the west, just past the Gulf of California. I turned to look north toward the DZ. We had expected southerly winds at about 50 knots, so our ground speed should have been around 65 or 70 knots. It didn’t seem we were moving over the ground that fast, but so high up it’s difficult to judge.

  I wasn’t concerned. Another reality of HAHO operations is that the winds aren’t always as forecast. I used to tell my bosses that I couldn’t guarantee we’d always land where we planned, but I could guarantee we would land together and we would know where we were. So even though we seemed to be moving more slowly than we’d planned and would likely land short of our objective (the airport DZ), I wasn’t worried—we’d just patrol back to the DZ.

  What was beginning to worry me was the thunderstorm. It seemed to be moving north, not south. I got on the radio and told Mike we’d have to keep a close eye on it.

  Meanwhile, a Boeing 727 was also headed our way. It appeared to be well below us, but, having just taken off from Tucson International to the east, the pilot was probably headed for his cruising altitude, 30,000 or 40,000 feet. The 727 was headed right at us. Mike came on the net and told everyone to be ready to execute an emergency cutaway so we could fall below it if necessary. The turbulence produced by the 727 could cause us serious problems if it came too close, to say nothing of what would happen if he hit the formation. Finally the plane passed by—directly under us, but a good distance away. We all instinctively pulled up our legs, then turned our attention to the storm, which had crept closer.

  Lightning was the least of our worries. Our real concern was strong updrafts. Found in all thunderstorms, these winds could easily carry us up to 50,000 feet before spitting us out of the top of the storm. Then our oxygen wouldn’t last long enough to get us to the ground. Recently, two civilian jumpers caught in a local thunderstorm had found themselves going from 2,000 feet to 30,000 feet before they had the presence of mind to cut away, fall through the storm to about 1,000 feet, pull their reserves, and land safely if not soundly.

  I was thinking about this as I saw the storm overtaking us. Mike came on the net again and said we were going to forget our original flight plan and head immediately for the ground.

  We started executing a tight spiral descent, still in good formation. But we didn’t seem to be descending fast enough. Because we were no longer flying away from the storm, it started to gain on us—quickly. The winds picked up, buffeting our canopies and making me wonder if I shouldn’t tell Mike to have us cut away. Still, no jumper wants to cut away from a good canopy, and I trusted Mike’s judgment completely. I kept my mouth shut.

  We kept spiraling toward the ground. The winds from the north kept increasing—a solid sign the storm was overtaking us. Mike came up on the net and told the ground crew we’d land about eight miles short of the DZ. We didn’t hear a response; the storm was probably interfering with the signals, and as we got closer to the ground we were losing our line of sight with the DZ.

  Around 2,500 feet, the winds really increased. Mike came on the radio and told us he was going for an into-the-wind landing on a northwest heading. We came out of the spiral headed south, running with the wind to bleed off more air. At 800 feet we turned east and then north. It was pitch-black by this time, but as we turned north to face into the wind, I could see we were moving south at a pretty good clip. It was going to be a very interesting landing.

  We were underneath MT-1X canopies, which as I’ve mentioned could move us forward at about 35 miles per hour at full speed with no wind. We controlled the speed with our control lines, called brakes. Normal landing procedure for these high-performance canopies was the same as that followed by aircraft: fly a downward leg; turn right or left to the base leg; then, for an into-the-wind landing, turn again, in the same direction. The last maneuver is called “turning final.”

  As we turned final, we could all see what was in store for us—a landing in more than 30-mile-per-hour winds. The normal procedure for landing the canopy is to stall the chute as your feet touch the ground, reaching zero altitude and zero speed simultaneously. Tonight a stand-up landing wasn’t even on my mind—a no-bones-broken, semicontrolled crash was what I was hoping for.

  Mike came on the net to recommend that we pull our trim tabs (located on the front risers) down to the retainer, a maneuver that dumps more air out of the rear of the canopy, increasing forward momentum but also increasing the rate of descent. Jumpers normally use this maneuver at higher altitudes when they want to lose height quickly. It is not usually done on landing because it’s very hard to judge the trade-off of forward movement for increased rate of descent. Each of us had to decide for himself whether to do it. I did it.

  I looked down at about 500 feet to see where I was going to la
nd, but it was pitch-dark; the thunderstorm had taken care of any ambient starlight. We seemed to be in the middle of some farmer’s field. I saw a fence fly between my legs, but there was no more I could do to control the situation—I was flying full out, my trim tabs at the retainer. I was still moving backward. Fifty feet off the ground, I saw another fence fly beneath my legs. I figured I’d land between that one and the next.

  My feet, butt, and head seemed to hit the ground simultaneously. I pulled my canopy-release mechanism and did a somersault. The canopy took off in the wind, impaling itself on the next fence a hundred meters away. I took a quick inventory and found my body parts in the right places, with nothing broken.

  Two other guys were being dragged in their harnesses at a good clip. I intercepted one and jumped on his canopy, collapsing it with my weight. The jumper was stunned, so I ran up and released the canopy for him.

  We mustered once everyone was down. Incredibly, nobody’d been hurt. One man had been dragged through a fence before he was able to get rid of his canopy, but he appeared okay—SEALs are hard to hurt. We had all landed together in the space of a football field. Even Mike was impressed.

  Back at the DZ, where we’d been driven by a friendly farmer, we figured we had landed about five miles short. It turned out that the DZ officer realized, just after he told us it was good to go on the ground, that the thunderstorm was approaching, not moving away. He stopped the second stick from jumping. They were now in the debriefing room, waiting to hear our stories. There were 30-knot winds on the DZ, gusting to 40 knots about the time we hit the ground. I told him to keep that information within the command. Some higher headquarters folks thought we were pushing the safety envelope as it was; I didn’t want word getting out that we were doing night jumps in 40-knot winds, even if it wasn’t on purpose.