Project Quick Find

by Michael P. Wood

  Despite a large grey-colored piece obscuring the white tail fins, the sea lion still attached the grabber to complete the mission.

  The rest of the ASROC recovery went as normal until it neared the surface and became visible. This time there was a grey-colored section still attached above the top of the rocket fins. The diver entered the water, attached the additional lifting line, and removed the D8 grabber. The ASROC was recovered on deck and placed in the shipping container. Apparently the grey-colored section that separates the depth charge from the rocket motor that lifts the ASROC did not separate as usual and remained on the ASROC. The amazing thing is the rocket motor section completely obscured the white tail fins. The sea lion still placed the grabber onto the white below the grey/black section of the rocket even though the fins were not visible. I guess the sea lion decided that his third dive to three hundred feet was enough and placed the grabber on the ASROC as trained without seeing the fins. The sea lion did not want to come up unrewarded for a third time. The grey section rocket motor did significantly change the overall appearance, but the sea lion adapted and overcame.

  ASROC missile sits on the deck of the navy LCU, showing that the rocket motor did not separate from the depth charge portion of the missile. The presence of two sets of fins had potential to confuse the sea lions in placing the grabber device.

  There were two other QAST shots in Virginia where one was based out of NAB Little Creek and another based out of Norfolk. These QASTs ended successfully, just as the California and Florida shots. It seemed as if the QAST shots in Virginia and Florida attracted the most news media attention.

  Chief Sybrant usually handled most of the news media requests, but occasionally whoever was the current officer-in-charge (OIC) would address the media. There was always interest from the public about what the navy was doing with sea lions. Some of this public interest was natural curiosity, and occasionally there was the search by the media to find the killer dolphin or killer sea lion conspiracy. Project Quick Find was always an open source unclassified project for the simple purpose of recovering objects from the ocean floor. Sometimes there was a little news media disappointment in the benign purpose of the project. Most often, though, it was just natural curiosity about the sea lions and how they behaved and whether or not they loved their trainers. Many times we would put on a trainer and sea lion display, sort of like a mini Sea World demonstration.

  Chief Gordon Sybrant and OIC LT Paul Plumb review and explain Quick Find equipment to reporters and VIPs in Norfolk, Virginia.

  Occasionally we would have time to play hard, like this visit to a go-cart track in Little Creek.

  Sometimes, though, all was not just hard work. Occasionally we would have time to play hard just like we worked hard. One late evening, I do remember a trip into town for a little imbibing and then a visit to a go-cart attraction in Little Creek. Most of the guys were fairly sober, but there was one young SEAL in the group who had a bit too much to drink. We were the only ones on the go-cart track, and the whole group enjoyed racing around, passing each other, and ramming into each other like little kids—this included the chief, although ramming of the carts was forbidden.

  That evening, the youngest member of the group had severely impaired his prefrontal cortex, which controls inappropriate social behavior. He really did not want to quit driving the go-cart when he saw the flagman waving the flag for the “one more lap” signal and then again for the “return the cart” signal. A brilliant idea occurred to the young SEAL. That is always a dangerous thing, both from an alcohol standpoint but also from an age maturity standpoint. The great idea persisted, and the young SEAL swerved around the flagman and continued driving around the go-cart course with the flagman chasing behind. As he was about to complete the unauthorized lap, another bright idea occurred just about the time that the flagman had reinforcements to stop the go-cart driver. Bushes surrounded the go-cart facility perimeter with openings to the adjacent public street. “Why not drive around these guys and take the go-cart for a ride on the street?” he brilliantly thought. “That should be fun!” No sooner had the thought entered his mind than he put it into action and quickly swerved around the multiple flagmen, driving the go-cart through the foliage opening and onto the dark public street, where luckily it was late and there were not any cars. Down the street he went for a little fun, but then he turned around and drove back to the go-cart facility, back through the bushes, and returned the cart to the appropriate parking section. Luckily this young SEAL had a skilled chief watching over him, as he was able to talk the go-cart facility manager out of calling the police. Of course, there was some chief petty officer to junior second class petty officer calibration quickly to follow. Unfortunately, there are not any photos of this event.

  Gordy Sybrant stands on the bow ramps of the LCU support craft and looks out to sea toward the target area.

  We all became “plank owners” when the navy officially recognized Project Quick Find in April 1975.

  The Quick Find team. From top left: Dan Peterson, John Busch, Rick Hetzell, Gordon Sybrant, Jim Ruckman, Tom McHugh, and Michael Wood.

  Despite a few minor liberty incidents, under Chief Gordon Sybrant’s leadership, Project Quick Find had become a successful project for the navy. The six trainers and the three working sea lions became a great team. We all became “plank owners” when the navy officially recognized Project Quick Find in April 1975.

  6

  CHANGE OF COMMAND

  Like any military organization, change is inevitable, and a successful project and capability also leads to expansion of the capability. There is also the normal military change of duty requirements that result in personnel transfers. In this case, it was time for Gordy to transfer and be replaced by both an officer and a new chief. In came LT Dan Healey as our Project Quick Find OIC and Chief Pat Gruber as our senior enlisted leader. Personnel changes are a natural way of life in the military, and Project Quick Find was no exception.

  During my time at Quick Find, the group commanders were CDR George Worthington and CDR Bill Early. Project OICs were LT Paul Plumb, LT Don Healy, LT Pete Molaris, and LT Don Ridgeway. Later, when I returned to Quick Find as a photojournalist, the OIC was LT Marshall Daugherty. There were only two chief petty officers during my time, and they were Chief Gordon Sybrant and Chief Patrick Gruber. Project Quick Find had many additional OICs, chiefs, and enlisted trainers who deserve credit for the continued success of the project.

  There were other changes brewing at the same time after the navy officially recognized the marine mammal program. First to happen was officially changing the command name and organizational chain of command from Naval Inshore Warfare Command under EOD to Naval Inshore Undersea Warfare Group One under Naval Special Warfare (NSW). That led to a “Group” designation and the assignment of a full commander as the group commander. It also led to the assignment of a lieutenant as OIC for both Project Quick Find and Project Short Time and with that, an increase in manning for trainers. This led to the first time introduction of East Coast SEALs as trainers.

  These patches reflect the change of Project Quick Find’s organizational chain of command from Naval Inshore Warfare Command (NIWC) to Naval Inshore Undersea Warfare Group One (IUWG-1).

  The Marine Mammal Department was a subdivision of IUWG-1.

  Change came very swiftly with increased rules and regulations, professionalization of the trainers, introduction of doctrine, and processes. Some of this change was a little overwhelming for some, which eventually led to their departures. A good change that did occur quickly was our education process, in which we received formalized animal behavior courses and certification. It was good to finally learn the official terms for behavioral training that we learned on the job and had long been doing. We did discover that there was one practice that we did that was frowned upon and not approved and that was the practice of food deprivation as a form of incentive for the sea lions. We did withhold feeding them their five to ten pounds of smel
t and mackerel on Sundays so that on Mondays they would be ready and willing to go to work. There seemed to never be any problems with the animals working on Mondays. We learned that food deprivation was bad. We did occasionally use other negative reinforcement or corporal punishment on sea lions that liked to bite and overtly tried to dominate situations. Sometimes we would use three fingers on an open palm to smack a biting sea lion on the snout. We also learned that corporal punishment was considered bad. Other than those two inappropriate behavioral training methods, we had been practicing very good methods, and now we knew what names to call those methods. The official animal behavior training was also timely because little did we know that soon we would be training naïve animals through new and more complex behaviors, and we were now skilled in the methodical process of operant conditioning.

  A new major positive benefit that occurred with the change of command was the marine mammal program actually received a larger navy budget, and we were beginning to see facilities, equipment, and services that we had never seen before. Most of our acquisition process in the earlier days was the old process of cumshaw, or trading in civilian terms. We would trade a can of coffee or, better yet, a bag of abalone to the Sea Bees for any building materials and services that we required. We had a person, Jim Ruckman, skilled and assigned to that very duty of cumshaw. Now we actually had money and a budget. In fact, one of the first things that happened was a new marine mammal facility and pier were constructed on the opposite corner of NAB Coronado from our old and crumbling World War II Quonset hut building at Pier 13.

  The new leadership and organizational structure did have a minor detrimental effect on our old Project Quick Find work relationships and evaluations. The original four of us second class petty officers all worked hard until the job was done every day and through some weekends, and our evaluations reflected that hard work equally. Under the new leadership, our equally hard work and dedication now had to be reflected in the new grading process of a “bell curve.” How do you grade four equally hardworking and dedicated individuals on a bell curve? Our new chief petty officer had to explain to two of our guys why their normally straight across the board 3.8 to 4.0 (out of 4.0) grades had to be lowered because two guys had to have lower grades to reflect the bell curve. Luckily, I was not one of them, but a good friend of mine had his grades lowered to reflect the curve. It was fairly demoralizing to him and later played a small role in his decision to leave the navy. The new bureaucratic process had ramifications.

  The navy’s increased budget for the marine mammal program enabled the building of a new pier and floating facilities in San Diego Bay at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado.

  We knew there would be good and bad changes with the new organization and leadership. There were other changes that were neither good nor bad but just annoying. We now had to actually wear standard uniforms, resume strict grooming standards, report for muster, stand inspections, perform physical training, stand command watches, and worst of all, attend mandatory navy general training on subjects such as drug and alcohol abuse and sexual harassment, which met some resistance from the male-dominant organization. During this training, the female navy LT instructor made the mistake of asking this group of SEALs if they had any questions or comments. There was one outspoken redheaded, frecklefaced Puerto Rican first class petty officer with an Irish name who felt it was important to explain to the female LT that women were good for only one thing and that was “to keep them barefoot and pregnant.” You could have heard a pin drop in that capacity-filled classroom. This female LT had experience working with SEALs and realized he said that to see how she would react to the shocking statement. She laughed it off but held her composure and command of the classroom. He was later heavily chastised by all the rest of us, not because we were sexual harassment sensitive, but because he unnecessarily prolonged our time and training in the sexual harassment class.

  The sexual harassment training was also very timely because we soon received our first female prospective sea lion trainer. Just as we learned in our sexual harassment classes, she was afforded the same and equal sea lion indoctrination that all the previous male trainers received. She was introduced to harness training with Fatman. It seems Fatman is not sexist. He sunk his teeth deep into her unsuspecting thigh just like he did with all the other new male trainers. She decided right away after that incident that she did not want to train sea lions anymore. Initially, she was moved to the administrative office but soon after transferred to being a dolphin trainer in Project Short Time. She sure had a rude awakening in store in that project with the male dolphins during antiswimmer training. Let’s just say that swimming against the dolphins is a jolting experience once they come from out of nowhere in the dark, murky water and head butt you in your side or back. The male dolphins also had another natural biological urge, and even a big thick hawser line hanging in the water of a pen was not always enough to keep you safe. I don’t remember whether she ever became a dolphin trainer or not. To be honest, it was not that she was female because there are many awesome female trainers both civilian and military. It was not her sex; it was her lack of willingness to deal with the natural animal behaviors.

  The male trainer propensity for animal-like behavior and stupidity did not go totally unfounded. There was one brief moment in time during this transition period when two very experienced trainers exhibited a momentary lapse in judgment. LT Don Ridgeway, a former enlisted officer, was our new OIC, and he had a lot of respect and confidence in these two senior plank-owner trainers. He counted on them for help with running Quick Find because he and the chief were both new to marine mammals. Occasionally, we would need to transport sea lions to the NUC facility on Point Loma, which as the crow flies was just across the bay. Going by roads, the route took longer and went right through some old and seedy portions of San Diego. These trainers needed to transport Akahi to NUC for a routine medical checkup on the past heartworm issue. Normally, this transport task would require only one trainer to go, but the excuse was given that two trainers were needed to lift Akahi in his cage into and out of the truck bed. Technically that was a legitimate reason as far as weight and lift requirements were concerned, but there was an alternative reason for these two trainers to collaborate.

  The trip there and the medical checkup on Akahi all went well and according to schedule. It was during the drive back through the seedy part of town that the plan deviated. There was a very popular adults-only bar called “Pacers—Just a Kiss Away” en route, and the truck “accidentally” pulled into the parking lot. It was early afternoon, so there were plenty of parking spots with some under the cool shade of a tree. “Why not?” they thought. “We will just have a couple of beers and then take Akahi back.” Even in the early afternoon, the topless bar had very attractive dancing ladies and that combined with a couple of beers seemed to cloud the two trainers’ normally sound judgment.

  Pacer’s topless bar lured a couple of trainers off their route when transporting Akahi back from a medical checkup.

  Akahi wonders what all the hullabaloo is about, regarding the Pacer’s stop.

  Lieutenant Don Ridgeway reminded the wayward trainers of their priorities.

  Early afternoon turned into late afternoon, and suddenly the bartender handed the bar phone to one of the trainers saying that they had a call. A little surprised about who might be calling because no one knew they were there, they took the phone. It was LT Don Ridgeway. His prior enlisted experience and route analysis had helped him deduce where the two trainers might be since they were late in getting back to the command. It did not take a brain surgeon to find the phone number to Pacer’s either. Luckily, it was a cool day, and Akahi was okay in the cage under the shade of a tree. The two trainers didn’t do anything else real stupid like bringing Akahi into the bar to meet the ladies, though they probably could have gotten some extra attention for introducing a real sea lion. After the very brief phone call, the two trainers quickly paid the bar tab and drove
safely back to the command for their awaiting chastisement and restricted duty assignments. The days of “zero tolerance” had not hit the military yet, but the thirty-day restriction was still “attention getting.”

  Times continued to change. The navy saw the success with Project Quick Find, and the dolphin Short Time program was demonstrating success. The navy also had a big mine warfare burdening requirement that could benefit from the marine mammals both in recovering training mines after mine laying exercises but also in the detection, location, and marking of live enemy mines. Most enemy mines utilize some form of magnetic, seismic, or acoustic influence to initiate detonation. Most divers, diver propulsion vehicles, and submersibles all have a heavy magnetic signature, which require significant investment and training of low magnetic signature divers and equipment. Sea lions and dolphins have zero magnetic, seismic, or acoustic signatures and were prime candidates for mine detection, location, and marking requirements. Whether sea lions or dolphins would be the best choice for any of these mine warfare requirements would be determined only after training both of the marine mammals in the multiple behaviors required to detect, locate, or mark a mine.