Let’s see. I need a good idea. A good idea. A good idea.
Nope. No good ideas. Oh well.
“Have you heard the one about the gorilla that walks into a bar?”
“What?” Ron said.
I said, “Have you heard the one about the gorilla that walks into a bar?”
Ron shook his head. Dave uttered something unintelligible.
“So a gorilla walks into this bar,” I started again. “Behind the counter, the frightened bartender sees the gorilla and runs to the manager in the back room. Panicking from the sight of this giant ape, the bartender shouts to the manager, ‘A gorilla just walked into the bar!’
“The manager seems completely unfazed. ‘Well,’ he says calmly to the bartender. ‘Go see what he wants.’
“The bartender returns to the counter, summons up his courage, and approaches the gorilla. ‘Can I help you?’ he asks.”
Ron propped himself up on the bow of the SDV and through his weary, bloodshot eyes said, “Mr. Mac, this had better be good…”
“Let me continue.”
Dave adjusted himself so he could hear through the waves slapping against the hull.
“So, the bartender says, ‘Can I help you?’
“‘Gin and tonic,’ the gorilla replies.
“The bartender returns to the manager and says, ‘The gorilla wants a gin and tonic. What should I do?’
“‘Sure, sure,’ the manager says. ‘Get him a gin and tonic, but charge him nine dollars.’
“‘Nine dollars!’ the bartender roars. ‘That’s ridiculous! He’ll tear me apart.’
“‘No, no he won’t,’ the manager says. ‘Gorillas aren’t very smart. He won’t know the difference.’
“So the bartender pours a gin and tonic, delivers it to the gorilla, and says reluctantly, ‘That will be nine dollars.’
“The gorilla scowls and grunts, but eventually reaches into a small purse, pulls out a ten, and gives it to the bartender. The bartender opens the cash register, puts away the ten, and gives the gorilla a dollar change.”
Dave was now on his elbows listening to every word and Ron was smiling through the cold.
“The bartender returns to the manager and says, ‘You were right! That gorilla was really stupid.’
“A few minutes later, the gorilla pounds on the bar. The bartender approaches the counter and the gorilla says, ‘Another gin and tonic.’ The bartender pours another drink, hands it to the gorilla, says, ‘That will be nine dollars.’
“The gorilla pulls out another ten. The bartender opens the cash register, puts away the ten, and gives the gorilla one dollar in change. Finally the bartender gets up his courage and says to the gorilla, ‘You know, we don’t get too many gorillas in here.’
“‘Well,’ the gorilla says…”
“Hey,” Dave yelled. “I hear a helo!”
I could hear it as well. “All right. Power down the boat. Dave, make sure we have the ballast tanks completely blown. Ron, you’re first up.”
We turned on a red flashing strobe light and saw the helo return the signal indicating he had seen us in the water. The weather was still touch and go and the helo struggled to maintain its hover. The downwash from the rotor blades was pummeling us, so I waved the helo away to a position about a hundred yards from the SDV.
Ron swam toward the horse collar, but every time he got close the winds pushed the helo off its mark, and Ron had to chase the sling for ten minutes before he finally caught the collar and was hoisted aboard.
The replacement crew jumped into the water and swam over to the SDV. Dave went next and then I followed. What should have taken ten minutes was now close to thirty. I knew the helo was running low on fuel, and just as I pulled myself into the side door the pilot banked the helo hard left and we headed back to Roosey Roads.
By the time we arrived back at our barracks it was around 0500. It had been a long night. We were still shaking from the cold and ready to get some rack.
“Well, let’s hope we don’t have to evade in Libyan waters,” Ron said. “We’d all die of hypothermia before we could be saved.”
Dave had already stripped off his wet suit and was heading to the showers. Ron was stowing his life jacket and I was jotting down some notes about the evening’s events when a chief petty officer, in uniform, walked into the room.
“Are you Lieutenant McRaven?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Sir, the admiral would like to see you.”
Ron and I exchanged looks.
“What admiral?” I asked.
“Sir, I was just told to come get you and deliver you to the admiral.”
“Yeah, I understand that part, Chief, but I don’t know any admiral.”
“Sir, Commander Mabry told me to get you right away and take you to see the admiral. I have a car waiting outside.”
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Let me change and I’ll be right with you.”
“No sir. You need to come right now. Those are my orders.”
I looked at the chief to gauge his seriousness. SEALs have been known to play elaborate jokes on each other, and right now I really, really wasn’t in the mood for a prank. The chief wore the insignia of a master-at-arms. He was the Navy’s version of a military policeman.
“Let me at least change out of my wet suit.”
“Sir,” the chief said, as if warning me for the final time.
Ron began to close ranks with me and I motioned him back a step.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go. Ron, you and Dave get some rest. Hopefully this shouldn’t take long. If I’m not back in a few hours give Commander Steffens a call and let him know what happened.”
Ron acknowledged and the chief and I headed outside and got in the car. We drove for thirty minutes to the other side of the base and arrived at a deserted parking lot across from an old C-130 hangar.
Standing in the parking lot were two men. I recognized the large figure of Commander Bob Mabry, but the other man, who was significantly older and in civilian clothes, I didn’t know.
The chief dropped me off next to Mabry and pulled away. It was still nighttime and there were no lights in the parking lot. Mabry walked up to me and made the introductions.
“Bill, this is Admiral Craig Dorman. He’s running the show.”
I came to a modified attention and shook hands with Dorman. He was in his early fifties, with fading blond hair, a wiry build, a strong grip, and piercing eyes, but with a friendly smile.
“You guys have done a great job here over the past three months, Bill. It’s been very impressive to watch.”
All I could do was say thank you. I still didn’t exactly understand what was going on.
“I’d like you to come talk to a few folks about tonight’s training operation. We need to make sure we can fix the problems with locating your position or we will never get approval from the Pentagon to launch this mission.”
I looked around at the empty parking lot.
“This way,” Mabry said, and we started heading to the hangar.
The admiral opened the door and Mabry followed quickly behind. As I entered the hangar bay I was stunned at what I saw. Two hundred people were arrayed in ten rows spread out across the length of the floor.
Mabry smiled.
“Sir, who the hell are all these people?” I whispered to him.
“They are all the people behind the curtain, Bill. They have been coordinating the aircraft, working the intelligence, tracking the submarine, jamming the Russian AGI, and passing daily situation reports to Washington.”
The admiral walked me in front of the line of desks and made a short introduction. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Lieutenant McRaven. He was the mission commander for tonight’s CSAR exercise and I have asked him to provide a quick summary of the operation.”
I started to speak, but before I could the admiral interrupted. “Oh, but before you give us your debrief, we’re all dying to know one thing.”
“What’s that, sir?” I asked.
“The punch line,” the admiral said. “What’s the punch line?”
“What punch line?”
“The punch line to the gorilla joke.”
My mouth dropped open and the crowd broke into laughter.
“Surely you knew that the sonar buoy had a microphone on it?” The admiral smiled, knowing damn well that I didn’t.
“No sir,” I responded, turning a bright shade of red thinking of everyone we had bitched about while waiting for the helo.
“Well you do now. Sooo…” The admiral didn’t finish the sentence.
“So…” I continued. “The bartender said, ‘You know, we don’t get many gorillas in here.’ And the gorilla says, ‘Well, hell, for nine dollars a drink I’m not surprised.’”
The hangar erupted in laughter. Mabry and the admiral were almost bent over. The joke wasn’t that funny and the delivery a little staged, but there was no denying the humor of the situation. Even though I was the butt of the joke, I couldn’t help but laugh myself. Two hundred people had been listening to every word Ron, Dave, and I had said over the past six hours. Every complaint about the submarine crew, every snide remark about the late helicopter, every lurid story about some port call, everything that sailors talk about when they think no one is listening—everything.
I finished briefing the admiral and his folks and returned to the barracks. Mabry directed me not to tell Ron and Dave about the additional staff hiding in the hangar. I told them the chief had it all wrong and it was only Mabry who wanted to see me.
Two days later we received the word that the SEAL mission was canceled. The Pentagon decided to go with an airstrike option, and what was later to be Operation El Dorado Canyon was conducted on April 15, 1986. The air raid struck several targets, including the airfield in Tripoli, a military barracks in Bab al-Azizia, and a headquarters building in Bengazhi.
The Cavalla returned to Hawaii. The SEALs returned to Little Creek and we all got back to our daily lives. But two months later as I was driving in to work, scanning the local radio stations, I heard a disk jockey say, “And the bartender says, ‘You know, we don’t get too many gorillas in here.’ And the gorilla said, ‘Well, hell, for nine dollars a drink I’m not surprised.’”
Some jokes are just too good to be kept a secret.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE GHOSTS OF TOFINO
CORONADO, CALIFORNIA
September 1989
It says, ‘George H. W. Bush, President of the United States.’”
“Bullshit, let me see that!” I said, grabbing the letter from the command master chief. “Well, I’ll be damned. It does say George H. W. Bush.”
Master Chief Bill Huckins pulled the White House letter back from me and began to read the memorandum. Huckins was the senior enlisted man at SEAL Team One. Tall, stocky, always red-faced, with a gregarious personality and a cutting wit, he had the respect of every man in the Team. I was the Executive Officer (XO), and with the commanding officer deployed to the Persian Gulf, that put me in charge of SEAL Team One, and Bill Huckins was my right-hand man.
“The President of the United States requests your assistance in locating a Navy P2V2 reconnaissance plane lost in British Columbia, Canada, in 1948. The plane departed Whidbey Island Naval Air Station on November 4, 1948, for a routine patrol and was never heard from again. A Navy search and rescue crew located pieces of the wreckage in 1962, but owing to the hazardous conditions, were unable to recover much. For the next twenty-seven years, the plane remained lost. Recently, a bush pilot flying in the region of Tofino, British Columbia, spotted a shiny metal object inside an extinct volcanic crater near Mt. Guenes. The base of the crater is filled with water and it is possible that the remains of the aircraft lie deep beneath this mountain lake. On board the plane were nine souls and it is our duty to locate them and return their remains to a proper resting place.”
The master chief stopped reading. “The letter goes on to give the point of contact and directs us to respond to the President’s request by this Friday,” he said.
“Why would the President of the United States care about a plane that was lost over forty years ago?” Huckins asked.
“Bush is a former naval aviator,” I answered. “My guess is one of the crew members’ family must have approached the POTUS and asked for his help.”
“Okay, XO, but why us? Why SEAL Team One?”
“Because who else can mount an expedition into the middle of nowhere Canada that requires climbing and diving?” I responded.
“Not just diving,” Huckins said, unrolling a topographic map of the area. “High-altitude diving.”
I surveyed the map as the master chief pointed out the terrain.
“Those mountains in that area go as high as eight thousand feet,” he said. “And the crater lake the President is talking about sits at about three thousand feet. That means all our dive tables need to be revised.”
The region was as isolated as any I had ever seen. The mountains around the suspected crash site were exceptionally steep, and there wasn’t a level piece of ground within a hundred miles of the site.
“We’ll need someone who knows his shit,” I said.
Without hesitation the master chief said, “I’ll give Barker a warning order.”
Senior Chief Geoff Barker was the preeminent diver in all the SEAL Teams. Tall, heavyset, with dark hair and a big soft face, he could outswim and outrun most of the smaller, fitter guys in the team. He supervised our SEAL Team One dive locker and was one of the most professional enlisted men I had ever worked with. He did know his shit.
“Who else do we need?” I asked.
But before the master chief could answer, I knew who I wanted.
“Get me Pat Ellis,” I said. “He’s a lead climber and has the intel background to do the prep work.”
The master chief nodded his approval.
Pat was everyone’s image of a Navy SEAL, also tall, but with strong angular features and a sharp intellect. And with Pat, there was a level of maturity that wasn’t common in most young petty officers.
“And let’s add Greg Walker.”
“Good choice,” Huckins acknowledged.
Walker was a quiet fellow, with a dark complexion and large mustache. While not a SEAL, as a Navy First Class diver he was the most knowledgeable about the science of diving. He was the second in charge of the dive locker at SEAL Team One and had earned the respect of every frogman in the command.
“Finally, throw in Doc James, he’s good all around,” I said.
“Who do we put in charge?” the master chief inquired.
“The senior chief can lead it,” I responded.
“Sir…” the master chief said, drawing out the word with a certain amount of derision. “You know there is no way Admiral Worthington is going to let the senior lead this effort. He’s going to want an officer-in-charge.”
“You don’t need an officer to lead this operation,” I argued. “Barker is more than capable of handling this mission.”
The master chief didn’t say a word. He just nodded politely as if to confirm that I was a lunatic.
“Screw you,” I said, laughing. “Call Naval Special Warfare Group One and let them know that we have our team and we can be ready to go early next week. And stop giving me that look.”
“What look?” the master chief asked, feigning surprise.
“Yeah, that look,” I fired back. The master chief just smiled.
He had been right, of course. Admiral George Worthington, the commander of Naval Special Warfare, not only insisted that an officer go along on the mission, but ordered me to be the head of our little expedition. I didn’t complain too much. It was an opportunity to get out of the office and hike the outback of Canada. While none of us really expected to find an aircraft that had been missing
for over forty years, it was another adventure, and who didn’t want another adventure?
Doc James was on travel and unable to join us, so we added Petty Officer Chuck Carter to the team. The five of us—me, Senior Chief Geoff Barker, Petty Officers Ellis, Carter, and Walker—were boarding a C-130 bound for Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington State. The plan called for us to land at Whidbey and transfer to a Canadian cargo plane for the final flight into Tofino, British Columbia. Once at Tofino we would rent a small helicopter and take turns lifting our gear and personnel into the suspected crash site.
The loadmaster motioned us onto the airplane. We were ready to take off.
“Look, XO,” the master chief yelled above the noise of the spinning props. “I know this seems like a lot of fun to you, but you guys are heading into an area where no living being has set foot in decades.”
“A little dramatic, aren’t we?” I said.
“I’m only saying—be careful. You don’t know what’s out there, and if you get into trouble, help is a long, long ways away.”
I could see it in his eyes—the master chief was genuinely worried. Worried like a mother sending her child off to their first day of school. I smiled, shook his hand, and said, “Gotta go. Hold down the fort until we get back.”
The master chief nodded, gave a half salute, and turned away.
As the plane lifted off, Barker, Ellis, Carter, and Walker were already dozing. I pulled out a small laminated copy of the topographic map and looked at our destination one more time. It was a long way from anywhere, but we were five experienced sailors and I was certain we could handle anything we might find. Absolutely certain.
“You’re looking for what?” The bearded man laughed.
“That again, eh,” his ruddy-faced partner roared.
I was beginning to regret stopping for dinner. The German-style restaurant with long picnic tables, wood-beamed ceilings, and several large grandfather clocks was the only place open for food and it was Oktoberfest in Tofino. The oompah music blared in the background and lederhosened men and large-breasted women danced the polka while my team and I downed some brats and sauerkraut. Barker, a teetotaler, sipped his Coca-Cola, while the rest of us guzzled a liter of hefeweizen.
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