The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen

by Brandon Webb

  “You have all these quals,” Clarin said. “Sorry, Webb, but I need you for this deployment.”

  The son of a bitch. Now I would have to stay with the squadron for at least another year and do a whole other six-month WESTPAC deployment.

  A few months later, in July, I applied to attend a one-week pre-SEAL selection course, held at the navy’s boot camp facility in Illinois, called Naval Station Great Lakes (or, unofficially, Great Mistakes). This is not a pass/fail kind of course, and going through it wouldn’t give me any technical qualification. Still, depending on how I did, I could come out of it with a recommendation to the real BUD/S—or without one. In a sense, it would be an informal entrance exam. If I flew through pre-BUD/S, it would boost my chances of getting orders to the real deal. And if I couldn’t make it through the week at Great Mistakes, I could forget about surviving the seven months of the genuine article.

  Calling pre-BUD/S a condensed version of the real thing would be a stretch. It is designed to give you a glimpse of what the actual BUD/S training experience would be like, but only a glimpse. I knew that. Still, it was one way to demonstrate that I was serious, and hopefully I would come out of it with an endorsement.

  There was a mix of guys in the program, some straight out of boot camp, some who were already regular navy, like me. One guy there cut an especially intimidating figure: a six-foot-tall, blond, Nordic-looking dude named Lars. Lars had thighs like tree trunks and could do push-ups from sunup to sunrise. He just crushed everything they threw at him. I met up with Lars again a year later when I finally made it to BUD/S and will have more to say about him at that point in the story.

  I passed the program with flying colors, and they recommended me for BUD/S—but my obstacle course wasn’t over yet.

  After he admitted to his duplicity in tanking my first BUD/S package, Chief Clarin and I had for the most part stayed out of each other’s way. Our mutual animosity came to a head, though, during my second WESTPAC deployment, which started in October of 1996. I had now been part of HS-6 for exactly two years, and I was determined to make it to BUD/S before another full year went by. I submitted a second BUD/S package and was pretty confident that it would go through. After all, I had done the pre-BUD/S course and come out with a strong recommendation.

  However, I also knew that if I wanted to pass the entrance qualifications for BUD/S when I got back stateside, I needed to get into shape. On the aircraft carrier, it was hard to keep up high fitness standards: I couldn’t swim, I couldn’t really run (running on a steel deck is not exactly great for the joints), and getting in a full workout routine was difficult. Six months in those conditions would really set me back.

  I went to Chief Clarin and told him my situation.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll send you back on early detachment [that is, guys who were flown back early to prepare the home command for the rest of the group’s return]. In fact, I’ll send you back a month early, so you can train and get in shape before you have to qualify.”

  I was a little surprised and quite grateful that he would go out of his way to do this. As it turned out, he was lying through his teeth. He never had any intention of sending me back home early. He didn’t want me to go to BUD/S and was determined to prevent it, whatever that took.

  A few weeks later, a friend in our squadron admin took me aside and told me I was getting railroaded (navyspeak for “screwed over”) by Chief Clarin on my upcoming evaluation.

  Evaluations go a long way in making rank in the navy; they’re put into the mix with your rating test to yield a final multiple that determines whether or not you are promoted. Normally you would not have a chance to see how your peers break out during an evaluation period unless you exchange notes. Through my friend, I learned that I was being rated as low as the brand-new check-ins.

  I was not about to take that lying down. If I had deserved a low eval, that would be one thing, but that was clearly not the case. I had busted my ass to get every qual I possibly could and volunteered for every shit detail to prove to my peers and superiors that I deserved a shot at BUD/S.

  Here’s how the process works: After receiving your written eval and having a one-on-one debrief with whoever wrote it, you sign your name at the bottom. There is a tiny box there by the signature line that you check if you intend to submit a statement along with your eval. Hardly anyone ever marks a check in that box. I still remember the look of utter horror on Chief Clarin’s face when he saw me check the box. He knew that I knew what he was up to. He knew he had fucked up.

  At the time I was taking a few college classes on the ship (they even had professors on board; as I said, an aircraft carrier is like a small city) and had just finished English 1302. I thought this would be a prime opportunity to put my writing skills to use. I prepared a formal statement, which I took great care in writing. It contained not a single whine or complaint, nothing but the facts, line item by line item.

  Apparently, my statement created quite a stir. After it landed on my department head’s desk, he ran it up to the commanding officer (CO). Pretty soon I got word that Chief Clarin and I were both wanted in Commander Rosa’s office.

  When I arrived, Clarin was already there. I nodded at him without a word. It was obvious that he was not too happy with the situation. Chiefs run the navy, and in the navy culture it is extremely rare for anyone to go against a chief or question his judgment or leadership, but I would be damned if I was going to roll over and take this. Maybe this came from my time on the dive boat, when I often felt I had to prove myself to all the older guys. Maybe it was an echo of the times I stood up to my dad—or maybe I got it from my dad, and it reflects the times he stood up to his father. Whatever its source, there is a stubborn streak in me that refuses to knuckle under to what seems to me a poor decision or unfair judgment.

  We were both ushered into Commander Rosa’s office, where we stood for a moment while the commander continued looking down at his desk at the eval and written statement spread out in front of him. He looked up at me, then at Chief Clarin, then back at me. “Look,” he said to me, “what’s the deal here?”

  “Sir,” I said, “in block 1, Professional Knowledge, I should be rated a 3.0. I’m the only guy in my shop who has these quals.”

  The rating system went from 1.0, “Below standards,” to 4.0, “Greatly exceeds standards.” I had been qualified as a NATOPS instructor, and at the time I was the only third-class petty officer in the squad who had done so. It’s hard enough for a senior guy to get this qual, let alone a junior guy. I wasn’t even asking for a 4.0, just a 3.0, “Above standards.” Clarin had rated me with a 2.0, “Progressing.”

  Commander Rosa looked at each of us again in turn, saying nothing, his face reddening. The chief looked like an idiot. It was clear that he had given me this poor rating purely because he didn’t like me.

  The CO turned back to me and said, “Petty Officer Webb, if the chief can’t figure this out, you write your own eval.” He paused, then said, “That’s all.”

  We were both free to go.

  I did not leave the WESTPAC early but was kept on for the full six months. Not long after this encounter, Chief Clarin transferred out of HS-6. We did not stay in touch.

  * * *

  My experience on those two WESTPAC tours taught me another powerful lesson about leadership great and lousy.

  When I had first deployed on the USS Lincoln, back in May of 1995, it didn’t take long to realize that morale on the ship was generally horrible. “This ship stinks,” I heard people say, and it was true. It was unkempt and funky. Everyone hated being there.

  The strangest thing happened on the Lincoln. For a few weeks, there was a pervert running around. This guy, whoever he was, would come quietly up to the door of a female crew’s room, slip one hand inside the door, hit the lights, then run in, cop a quick feel, and run out again. It freaked us all out. This was the kind of thing you might expect on a college campus, and even there it would be creepy—but o
n a Navy fighting vessel?

  Here is the most bizarre thing about it: They never caught him. Nobody ever knew who it was. In a way it was ridiculous, almost absurd, but it was also unnerving, not only for the women, who never knew when the guy would show up, but for the rest of us, too. In a weird way, the episode underlined that pervasive queasy sense that the place was never under tight command.

  The following year, when my second WESTPAC deployment came around, I dreaded it. This time we would be stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk. This old boat was not a spanking new nuclear vessel like the Lincoln; it was a conventionally powered ship that had been around since Vietnam. When our squadron deployed onto its deck, my heart sank. I figured if the brand-new ship was such a shitty experience, then this one was going to be downright awful.

  But it wasn’t. In fact, it was the opposite. The moment I was on board the Kitty Hawk I could feel the difference. It was clean. The crew was happy. Everything hummed along. This place was wired tight.

  It didn’t take long to understand why. That first night I was surprised to hear the captain of the Kitty Hawk come over the PA loudspeaker, welcoming us and giving us a brief rundown of what was happening that day.

  This never happened on the Lincoln. The captain of that vessel hardly ever talked to his crew. Never said a goddam word. It was weeks, months, before we ever heard his voice over that PA system, and that happened maybe twice during the entire six-month stretch.

  Not on the Kitty Hawk, though. It wasn’t just the first day that the captain addressed us. He did it again the next day, and the next—and every one of the roughly 180 days we were aboard his ship.

  “Good afternoon, shipmates, this is your captain,” the familiar voice would say. “This is what we’re doing, here’s where we’re going, these are the decisions we’re making.” He never revealed any details or specific plans that he shouldn’t have, but he made sure that everyone felt included in what we were doing.

  The difference this made was amazing. It may have been a much older vessel, but it was spotless. Morale was consistently high.

  The two experiences were like night and day, and the difference came down to a single factor: Captain Steven John Tomaszeski and the leadership he brought to the ship’s crew. That crew loved their captain because he took care of them, and they knew it. I would have ridden that boat to the gates of hell with Captain Tomaszeski, and I’m pretty sure every single person on that boat felt the same way.

  This was a lesson I would see played out again and again, and it’s one I have striven to embody every day, whether it was running a covert op in Afghanistan or Iraq, reorganizing the SEAL sniper course in the States, or in business since getting out of the service. People need to be talked to and kept in the loop.

  Years later I often found myself reflecting on the lesson of the two captains: the importance of talking to your people, sharing the plan with them so they know where you’re headed and the purpose behind it. It’s not rocket science. Engage your crew. Have a dialogue; let them know that you know they exist and that they’re part of what you’re all up to. Leaving people in a vacuum is no way to lead, yet it’s a mistake I’ve seen made way too many times.

  * * *

  When I got back from that second WESTPAC in April of 1997, there were orders waiting for me at North Island. I was elated. It had been more than four years since I first set foot in Orlando for boot camp, and after a seemingly endless stream of obstacles, I was finally on my way to BUD/S.

  I went to the squadron office to pick up my orders and found Lieutenant Commander John Vertel there, subbing for our usual position officer. John was an excellent pilot and a great guy. We called him “Admiral.” It was great to see him.

  However, it was not so great once I saw what he handed me. There were my orders to BUD/S, all right, along with another eval. I glanced through it and felt my face pale. Normally, when you transfer out to another station you’re going to get a decent eval. On this eval, they’d given me a low rating in the Professionalism category.

  “Sir,” I said, “excuse me, but what is this? I’m being dinged for lack of professionalism?”

  “Here’s the thing, Brandon,” he said. “You’re excellent at everything you do, but sometimes you’re too hard on some of the pilots. Everyone kind of noticed it.”

  I had to stop for a second and think about that.

  Was I sometimes hard on my pilots? Yes, if I was going to be brutally honest with myself. I’m somewhat aggressive by nature, and I knew I needed to learn how to tone it down a bit at times. If you’re too aggressive in the back of the helo, that can transfer to the ready room. There’s an expression in the military, “Shit rolls downhill,” and if you dump on someone, the chances are good he’ll turn around and dump on someone else.

  At the same time, the pilots I was hard on deserved it; hell, they needed it. There were some solid pilots in the squad whom I respected, and I never gave them a hard time. John was one of those; another was Jim Cluxton, who ended up being the training officer of a helo squadron. It was an honor to serve with both of them. But there were also guys who were more marginal on the stick, and I did not respect them. After all, one of them had almost gotten us killed in the Persian Gulf.

  Still, justified or not, I could see that my leadership style could stand some refining.

  Okay, they had a point—but no one had said anything about this to me before. Wasn’t that why we had reviews, before the formal evals came out, so they could tell us where we were strong and where we needed improving?

  I took a deep breath.

  “Sir,” I said, “that’s great, and I acknowledge it and take it for what it is. The problem is, this is the first time I’m hearing about it, in this formal eval situation. Prior to this I was never given the opportunity to correct the deficiency. To be honest, sir, I’m happy to get the fuck out of here. I’ve worked my butt off to get these orders, and I appreciate it. I just want to get that point across.”

  He nodded and sent me off with my orders. The next day he called me back into his office.

  “Webb,” he said, “you’re absolutely right. Here—” and he showed me my eval. Under Professionalism, where it had read 2.0, it now read 4.0.

  He nodded. “Best of luck.”

  * * *

  Even though I already had my orders to go to BUD/S, I still had to demonstrate that I could pass the Physical Screening Test, or PST, before I could check into the program. Here is a quick overview of the minimum requirements applicants are required to exceed:

  • a 500-yard (460-meter) swim, breaststroke or sidestroke, in 12.5 minutes or less (9 minutes or less is better, if you want to be seen as competitive)

  • at least 42 push-ups in 2 minutes (shooting for at least 100 to be competitive)

  • at least 50 sit-ups in 2 minutes (again, preferably 100 or more)

  • at least 6 pull-ups from a dead hang (no time limit, but you want to shoot for a dozen or more)

  • a 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometer) run in boots and pants, in under 11.5 minutes (better yet, under 9 minutes).

  That Friday, I went down to the pool where the test was being held and found myself grouped up with a bunch of guys who were all going through the PST. We got down there in the pool and did our swims, then got out and hiked across the street, where we did our sequence of push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. After that, they took us outside for our 1.5-mile run, with boots.

  We waited around for a few minutes while they tallied up all our times, then got our results. I almost crapped in my pants. My run time was twelve minutes—thirty seconds past the absolute maximum. Thirty seconds. Not only was I not competitive, but I had actually failed the test. And not by a sliver of a margin: I had failed it badly. The memory of the devastation I felt has stayed with me ever since. I had run smack into the last and toughest obstacle in my four-year quest: myself.

  It’s easy to remember the times you excelled, the tests you passed, the achievements you scored. It’s not as much fu
n to remember those times when you failed—even worse, those times you failed miserably—but often it’s those failures, and not the wins, that end up securing your future.

  I told myself that the important thing was not to feel sorry for myself, to get my shit together. I practiced that test over and over until I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I had it nailed, and then I took it again. This time I passed, and it felt great. But I was still badly overestimating what kind of shape I was in.

  I would find out soon enough.

  FOUR

  NEMESIS

  On Friday morning, June 14, 1997, two days after my twenty-third birthday, I arrived in my dress whites on the main quarterdeck of the pretraining office in Coronado to check in for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. It had taken me more than four years to get this far, and I was aware that the odds of making it through the course were somewhere between one and three out of ten. I was nervous as hell.

  The grunt on duty handed me a check-in sheet with a list of signatures to collect that would grant me admission, signatures for such items as Medical, Dental, Admin, and Physical Training Rehabilitation and Remediation, or PTRR. As I scanned the page, I heard a roar like the crash of a gigantic surf coming from outside. The sound practically shook the building.

  “FORTY-NINE! FIFTY! FIFTY-ONE!”

  It was a BUD/S class doing their PT on the grinder, the legendary concrete-and-asphalt courtyard just outside the quarterdeck doors where BUD/S calisthenics take place. I can still feel the shivers that ran up my spine as I stood there in the sweltering June heat hearing the thunder those guys produced.

  Walking outside, I saw about thirty hard-looking guys in brown shirts and tan UDT shorts doing PT in the courtyard with a chiseled blond instructor leading them through the exercises. The students were lined up on the black concrete, their feet positioned atop staggered rows of small white frog-feet outlines painted onto the grinder’s surface. Just off the edge of the concrete hung a shiny brass ship’s bell with a well-worn braided rope trailing down from the ringer. At the foot of the bell, more than a hundred green helmets lined the ground in a neat, mournful row, each helmet inscribed with the name and rank of one more would-be SEAL who would never go on to graduate training.