Dick Couch - The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228

A wonderful, thought-provoking book by Dick Couch and a quick study of human personalities; his conclusions are optimistic and uplifting. Vice Admiral Jantes Stockdale (USN, Ret.), recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor The Warrior Elite offers superb insight into the making of a Navy SEAL. Robert J. Natter, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet The Warrior Elite is a very accurate and authoritative look at basic SEAL training. A must-read for any young man who wants to become a Navy SEAL. Rudy Boesch, MCPO (USN, Ret.), B UD/S Class 6, and Survivor contestant An authentic voice that spells out what it takes to become a SEALthe sheer grit to overcome all obstacles. America is lucky that it continues to attract such men as these to serve. Theodore Roosevelt IV, BUD/S Class 36 A story written of men's souls and the passion of deep personal challenge an illuminating description of human endeavor. Dick Couch has delivered the best accounting yet of the extraordinary young men I was so privileged to lead. Rear Admiral Ray Smith (USN, Ret.), BUD/S Class 54, and former commander, Naval Special Warfare Command

I NTRODUCTION

ach year, U.S. military boot camps turn out tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The Marine Corps builds about 20,000 new marines each year for their 174,000-man Force, and they do this remarkably well in only eleven weeks. In the U.S. Army special operations community, the ultimate gut check is Ranger School. This eight-week ordeal teaches young soldiers that they can fight and lead, even when they haven't eaten or slept for several days. The Army awards about 1,500 Ranger Tabs each year to these graduates. Ranger School is tough; a few graduates of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, or BUD/S, attend Ranger School each year to learn what the Army teaches. BUD/S, however, remains at the core of making a Navy SEALa sea-air-land commando. The twenty-seven-week SEAL basic school graduates fewer than 250 men each year. Not all of them will become SEALs. BUD/S graduates must complete at least another six months of intensive training to qualify as SEALs. Only then are they awarded their SEAL pin, or Trident. SEAL training is unique. It is designed to build warriors. The traditional military services train men and women together. The idea is that they will serve together during their military careers and should therefore train together, beginning with boot camp. There are women attached to the SEAL teams, but they serve only in support roles. Female Navy SEALs are only found in the movies. SEAL training is unique in other ways. All services train their officers and enlisted personnel separately during their basic warfare instruction. In BUD/S training, officers and enlisted men train and suffer together, side by side. BUD/S training is the glue that binds all SEALs together, from seaman to admiral. Any Annapolis graduate is quick to claim that he is Class of Whenever. And any carrier pilot can tell you the exact number of night carrier landings he has. A Navy SEAL can always tell you his class. In my case, I was Class 45. The first SEAL teams were commissioned just in time for the Vietnam War, and the early character of the SEALs was formed in that conflict. Forty-two SEALs were killed in action there. The spring of 1971 was not a good time for Navy SEALs in Vietnam. At that time there were only six operational platoons and some assorted advisers, all working in the Mekong Deltaless than a hundred SEALs in all. In a five-month period, more than 15 percent of them were killed or wounded. At that late stage of the war, most new SEALs came directly from BUD/S to the SEAL teams. After Army Airborne School and six weeks of training within the team, they were eligible for assignment to an operational platoon and duty in Vietnam. The corporate knowledge of SEAL operations in Vietnam rested with the shrinking handful of veteran enlisted men, some of whom went back for as many as seven tours. In that spring of 1971, I was a navy lieutenant and the platoon commander of Whiskey Platoon, SEAL Team Oneone of those six platoons in the Mekong Delta. Whiskey Platoon had been lucky. My platoon chief petty officer had picked up some shrapnel from a booby trap, but the wound had not kept him out of action. Zulu Platoon, another Team One platoon working in our area, had just gone home. Five of Zulu's fourteen SEALs, including both platoon officers, were in the hospital with combat wounds. There was also a squad of Vietnamese SEALs at our base, but a Viet Cong ambush killed three of them and wounded most of the others. In that same action, one American SEAL adviser was killed and another wounded. The four American crewmen of our SEAL support craft were all badly wounded. We also had a five-man detachment of frogmen from Underwater Demolition Team Twelve working with us. Not technically SEALs, they had the same training and often operated with the SEAL platoons. A few In 1971, Kim Erskine was a young petty officer two months out of BUD/S training. He had just turned eighteen and didn't look old enough to drive. Kim was just over six feet tall and skinny. He still had acne and a fresh innocence that said he knew nothing of combat and jungle fighting. The thing I remember most about Erskine, other than his youth and inexperience, was his ability to spike a volleyball. We operated at night most of the time, but in the afternoons we played jungle-rules volleyball and drank beer. Kim dominated those volleyball games. When Kim arrived, Whiskey Platoon had only about six weeks left in our tour. We were focused on running our operations and trying to take everyone home in one piece. I remember little of those last few weeks in Vietnam except for that slow-growing, delicious feeling that comes with the prospect of ending a combat tour. We were just starting to tease ourselves with visions of McDonald's burgers, clean sheets, and flush toilets. It was a tightly managed euphoria felt by everyone in the platoon, but we were careful not to give ourselves over to it. Even after we had ceased operations and only a few of us went into the field to break in our relief platoon, we never let ourselves believe it was overnot completely. We'd heard too many stories about SEALs finding trouble on that one last operation. Only when we were on the flight back did I know it was truly over. A platoon officer who took all his men home after a combat tour was uncommon in those days. I was immensely proud that all my men were on this flight with me. After Vietnam, Kim Erskine attended college and earned his degree. Then he returned to the teams as an officer. I saw him briefly in the late 70s, a fresh ensign with gold bars and a gold SEAL pin on his khakis. He was more mature, but he still had the boyish grin I remembered. It always made me feel good to see a former enlisted man back in uniform as an officer. I ran into Erskine again in 1987. I was on two-week reserve duty at the Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, California. After reporting in, I made my way down a laminated corridor to a small, sparse office with two desks. One was empty, but the other was occupied by a large, solid-looking man with a tanned, ruddy complexion. When he grinned, I realized that it was Kim Erskine. Hello, Commander, he said as he rose and offered his hand. I heard you would be here this week. Welcome to staff officers purgatory. It was great to see him. Except for the grin and a glint in his eyes when he smiled, Kim had lost all his boyishness. He was a full lieutenant now. He also had a nasty series of scars on his right arm and the ribbons for a Silver Star and a Purple Heart just under his SEAL pin. What happened to you? I asked. You didn't get those when we were in the Delta way back when. Well, sir, it's kind of a long story. Grenada? I ventured. He nodded. Commander, you know all that training we went through at BUD/S and in the teams? Well, it finally paid off. I got hung out there pretty far. If I hadn't been with a bunch of guys who went through BUD/S, I wouldn't be here. I put my curiosity on hold while I got a cup of coffee. Then I pulled a metal folding chair alongside his desk and listened to Kim Erskine's story. Operation Urgent Fury was the invasion and occupation of the island of Grenada in late 1983. This hastily mounted military operation against that Caribbean island was to curb growing Cuban influence and to restore the authority of the Grenadian governor-general. The opposing forces were a well-armed but poorly trained Grenadian army and a very seasoned cadre of Cuban advisers. The outcome was never in doubt, but there were pockets of fierce opposition. A squad of Navy SEALs was assigned to secure the governor-general, who was under house arrest. A second element was to capture a key radio station and transmitting facility, an installation located on the hilly, coastal region north of the capital. Kim was in command of the team of twelve SEALs assigned to take the radio station. SEALs operate best in small units, and a key to their success has always been teamwork. In the years prior to Grenada, a great deal of additional training and qualification standards had been instituted for BUD/S graduates once they arrived in the teams. Predeployment training for SEALs was extended and made more rigorous. BUD/S was now just one step in the complex and comprehensive training of a Navy SEAL. This training is intense, continuous, realistic, and dangerous. Better training makes for better teamwork. Each man comes to know his role in the team and what to expect from his teammates. They react as one. At the time of Operation Urgent Fury, Kim led a special team of six Navy SEALs trained for mission tasking in Central and South America. When the order came to move against Grenada, they had only time to gather their gear and race for the airlift that would take them south. Once aboard the plane, Kim learned that his mission was the radio station at a place called Cape St. George Beausejour. At the last moment, Kim and his five teammates were assigned six SEALs from another SEAL squad. He had never worked with the new SEALs. Since he hadn't trained with these new men, he tried to resist making them a part of his element. His commanding officer overruled him. Kim would take along the second group; he would lead a twelve-man squad. In spite of the additional men, he was assured the operation would be a cakewalk. The initial airlift took them from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the island of Barbados, where they boarded an MH-60 Pavehawk helicopter for the final flight to the target area. The helo took small-arms fire on the way in, but once on the ground, the SEALs quickly overran the station complex. By the time they seized the facility, the guards and station personnel had fled. Kim's orders were to hold the station until a broadcast team could be brought in. This would never happen. The operation had been staged quickly and the radio frequencies shifted without Kim's knowledge. Their state-of-the-art, cryptocapable, satellite radio was worthless, and their backup sets didn't have enough range. The SEALs had taken their objective, but they could tell no one about it. Kim's squad and the SEALs of the newly assigned squad melded well. From basic small-unit tactics to urban-warfare procedures, their training was the same; they were SEALs. Having cleared the radio station, they set up defensive positions. Kim again briefed his team on the rules of engagement, or ROEs, and emergency procedures in the event they had to make a hasty withdrawal. This seemed unlikely, but standard special operations doctrine calls for ithope for the best, but plan for the worst. While he was working with the backup radio to establish comms, they had their first visitors. A military truck pulled up to the station. Twenty armed Grenadian soldiers in their blue field uniforms piled off. They looked like service station attendants with automatic weapons. The SEALs were on alert, concealed and well positioned to receive them. Kim stepped from behind cover and, in accordance with his ROEs, identified himself as an American military officer. He asked them to lay down their weapons and leave the area. They responded by opening fire, and paid a terrible price for it. The SEALs raked them with their automatic weapons and devastated the Grenadian unit. Half were killed immediately and the rest seriously wounded, many fatally. Kim's SEALs hastily converted one of the rooms in the station to a makeshift morgue for the dead and another to an infirmary for the wounded and dying Grenadians. No Americans had been hurt. The SEALs had expended a third of their ammunition and almost all of their medical kit on the Grenadian unit. Still, Kim had no communication. The SEALs redistributed ammunition, went to their defensive positions, and waited. Kim scaled the radio tower with his backup transceiver, desperately trying to make contact with the American forces coming onto the island. No luck. Then one of his men called from the ground, Hey, sir, looks like we got more company. From the tower, Kim could see an armored personnel carrier (APC) and three trucks making their way slowly up the hill to the radio station. The APC paused to disgorge a dozen Grenadian soldiers, then continued toward them. The three trucks stopped and each deployed a dozen or more armed men. It was clear that they had come to retake the radio station. Kim quickly pulled his men back from the perimeter, intending to carry out a defensive action from the main station building. The Grenadians flanked the building and opened fire, while the APC drove right up to the front entrance. Then, with its 20mm gun, it began to tear into the wood-and-stucco building. Up close and personal, a 20mm cannon is a devastating weapon. The APC's turret swung back and forth, punching holes in the radio station. The SEALs could hold their own with the Grenadian infantry, but the armored vehicle with its cannon was another matter. With the building about to come down on their heads, one of the SEALs got a clear shot at the APC with a bullet-trap grenade and managed to jam the turret. The APC could still shoot, but the gunner was now unable to traverse the turret. This gave Kim and his SEALs a breather, but their situation was precarious. The Grenadians were well armed with good reserves of ammunition. They were now pouring heavy automatic-weapons fire into the building. Inside, the walls were exploding, bullets splashing everywhere. Bullets, when they pass close by, carry a sonic wave and produce a distinctive snap . Kim Erskine was now hearing the snap-snap as the rounds broke close over his head. The SEALs were critically low on ammunition. If the 20mm came back on line, they had no chance. Behind the radio station was a broad meadow leading to a path that cut between the cliffs to the beach. This was their preplanned escape route. When SEALs plan their first training missions in BUD/S, they include alternative escape routes and emergency procedures. Clearly, if Kim and his men remained to defend the radio station, they would all be killed. The APC surely had a radio and more soldiers could arrive at any moment. Kim gave the order to pull out. He told his SEALs to redistribute their remaining ammunition and prepare to leapfrog across the meadow for the beach. The SEALs needed no direction; they had done this many times, beginning at BUD/S, where they learned basic squad tactics. The open area behind the station was the size of a football field. They would be terribly exposed, but escape was their only hope. As the SEALs fell back to the rear entrance of the radio station, incoming rounds continued to rip through the walls around them. The Grenadians were now ranging on both sides and would have them in a cross fire on the open ground. Kim had no option but to lead his men across the field and down a steep slope that led to the beach. When SEALs get into trouble, they always try to get back to the water. In the movies, this scene would be played with scrappy, grim-faced men slapping their last magazine into their weaponsready for the worst, but gamely determined to make a show of it. But this wasn't the movies. These were twelve real-live, scared Americans. Each thought he was going to die in that open field. Even Navy SEALs know fear, and here, we're talking about paralyzing, oh-please-God-no, pee-in-your-pants fear. They were scared, but they were also very well trained. In life-and-death situations, mortal fear can cause men to freezetotally immobilize them. Often, only the confidence instilled by repetition and drill can get them moving. Often, there is a fine line between preparation and bravery. Go, go, go, Kim yelled as he and his squad bolted from the radio station to the base of the transmitter antenna. They laid down covering fire while his second squad sprinted into the field. Grenadian troops were moving along the chain-link fence on both sides. The radio station had become a death trap, and the field behind it could easily become a killing zone. Kim and his men had no choice but to cross it. To do this, the SEALs had to play the deadly game of leapfrog. Thirty yards into the field, using the antenna's cement anchors for cover, the second squad went down and began to return firesingle shots to conserve ammunition. It was now Kim's turn. He and his five SEALs sprinted across the field, past the other men who were now covering their dash. The signal to halt and take up a firing position happens when the squad leader drops and begins to shoot. This decision was made when an enemy round clipped Kim's belt, shearing off his canteen and knocking him to the ground. Kim's squad went down with him and began to return fire, while the other squad ran past them to a new position. This leapfrog drill is rehearsed many times in SEAL platoon training; for most of the SEALs at the radio tower, this was the first time they had done it under fire. Kim Erskine was knocked down three more times running across the fieldonce when the heel of his boot was shot off, and another time when a round glanced off a magazine strapped to his torso. The third time, a bullet destroyed his right elbow. At the end of the field, the SEALs were able to cut through a section of the chain-link fence and slip through. Kim, now seriously wounded, paused to get a quick count. A SEAL team leader, just like a boat-crew leader in BUD/S training, must always account for his men. Kim was a man short. Back in the field, his wounded radioman was making his way across the field, dragging the useless radio. While the SEALs laid down a base of fire, Kim screamed for his wounded man to abandon the radio. The young man pulled his 9mm pistol and destroyed the satcom radio with its classified encryption components. As the SEALs expended the last of their ammunition, the final member of their team scrambled through the fence. Once in the dense brush behind the field, they had a brief respite from their pursuers. Yet their prospects were anything but good; they were outnumbered and they had no communications. No one knew where they were or whether they were still alive. Quickly, they descended the path to the beach and waded out into the water. The shoreline arced in a shallow crescent that formed a scenic bay surrounded by rocky cliffs. The SEALs began swimming, but they knew it was a temporary sanctuary. It was evident that if they kept swimming, they would be sitting ducks for the Grenadians on the cliffs. Kim told them to ditch all their equipment except side arms and signal flares, and to swim parallel to the beach. A short way along the shoreline, they came back into a rocky portion of the beach and made their way up into the cliffs where they were protected from above by overhanging ledges and vegetation. The Grenadians were still following, but very carefully now. The running fire-fight across the field had left a number of them dead and wounded. They understood now that these Americans could shoot as well as run. Once down on the beach, the pursuing Grenadians found the tracks leading into the water and assumed the invaders had probably escaped out to sea. Still yet more Grenadians arrived and searched along the shore and high on the cliffs until nightfall. Kim and his men could hear them talking as they searched above and around them, but they remained undetected. At dusk, the Grenadians finally pulled back to the radio station. Soon after dark, two U.S. Hughes 500D observation helos, or Little Birds, made a pass over the radio station. The SEALs heard the choppers roar in over the beach and assumed they were looking for them, but the men huddled in the side of the cliff could do nothing. Kim, in consultation with his senior petty officers, decided to wait until after midnight before trying to swim out to sea. Kim's wounded arm was throbbing and he had lost all feeling below the elbow. The radioman was also in a great deal of pain, but holding on. Another SEAL suffered from a wound in his upper leg. They settled in to wait, but just before ten o'clock the SEALs again came under fire. Unknown to Kim, the Little Birds had taken fire from the Grenadians at the radio station and a nearby antiaircraft battery. Since nothing had been heard from the SEALs and the Grenadians held the radio station, the U.S. force commander assumed they had been killed. He sent an air strike against the radio station. While the SEALs burrowed into the rocks and vegetation, a section of Navy A-7 attack jets made several strafing runs on the radio station and surrounding area. Again the SEALs were on the wrong end of 20mm fire, this time from the A-7s Vulcan gun pods 20mm fire at seven thousand rounds per minute. Stray rounds splashed around them, chipping at rocks and bringing down tree limbs. After the A-7s left, Kim's chief petty officer turned to him and said, Sir, maybe it's time we got the hell out of here. Kim agreed. The Grenadians at the radio station were now probably more concerned with A-7s than SEALs. And the SEALs had had enough friendly fire. Descending the rocky cliff would have been dangerous in the dark, but there was an outcropping from which they could jump. With a strong leap, they could clear the rockface and make the water. Kim's right arm was useless and he was in a great deal of pain. The SEALs had pain drugs in their medical kit, but Kim feared the side effects; he was still in command. Unsure if he had the strength to make the leap from the cliff, he had two of his SEALs throw him off. All twelve of them made the water and began to swim seaward. Kim had to drag his useless arm through the water; the other wounded had to swim as best they could. But SEALs prepare for this. In BUD/S training, the trainees are bound, hands and feet, and made to swim this way. They call it drown proofing. Kim knew that a SAR Bird (search-and-rescue C-130 aircraft) would be circling the island on a regular schedule. They had been in the water for close to six hours when the SAR Bird flew near them. The men in the water fired off several pencil flares and the aircraft turned toward them. The C-130 found the SEALs in the water with its powerful searchlight, and vectored a Navy ship to their position. Just before dawn, the SEALs were picked up by the USS Caron (DD-970). By this time, Kim had been awake for over forty-eight hours. The last time he had been this beat up and sleep-deprived was during his Hell Week with Class 52. Once on the deck of the Caron , he again counted his men. During every BUD/S Hell Week, exhausted, half-dead officers and petty officers again and again count their men. BUD/S instructors do unspeakable things to leaders who lose track of their men. So Kim counted his men. Once the count was right and he knew his men were safely aboard, he passed out. When he awoke a day later in the hospital at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, his first question was Where are my men? The account of Kim Erskine and the SEALs at the radio tower on Grenada is extreme, but perhaps not unusual. Intelligence about enemy troop strength and opposition forces is usually accurate. The radios usually work. But what if they don't? Then, it's all about the men in the fight. Are they true warriors? In the face of overwhelming odds, do they have the training and the will to fight and win? SEAL training, beginning from day one at BUD/S, is designed to create warriors. This is a book about Navy SEALs and their training. It is also about their warrior culture. It is a sorting process that finds young men who would rather die than quit, then instills them with a relentless desire to fight and win as a team. Once a prospective SEAL trainee reports for BUD/S training, he is immediately immersed in the culture of the teams. Most SEALs never have their courage and training put to the test as severely as the SEALs on Grenada. But many have. Modern SEALs are much like policemen. Their operational deployments often take them into dangerous and volatile situations, but they may well spend their entire careers without firing a shot in anger. Yet, at any time, they may have to fightto risk death in combat. From the days of the World War II frogmen, through the establishment of the first SEAL teams in 1962, to the present, SEAL training has evolved to meet new mission requirements and changing threat scenarios. In World War II and Korea and Vietnam, a young frogman or SEAL could find himself in a firefight after three or four months of training. Today, it takes more than thirty months to train a Navy SEAL. At that point, he is certified and ready for deploymentan apprentice warrior in the SEAL trade and still a new guy. When he comes back from his first deployment, he is called a one-tour wonderno more than a journeyman in the trade. As SEAL training has become longer and more comprehensive in recent years, one aspect of this training has remained the same; in order to get one good man, it's necessary to begin with five good men. Since the birth of the Navy frogmen at Fort Pierce, Florida, during World War II, this forging of warriors through adversity and attrition has always been unlike any military training in the world. It is a ruthless process; for every man who succeeds, four men will fail. It's a rendering for men of character, spirit, and a burning desire to win at all costs. It is a unique and often brutal rite of passage that forms the basis of this distinctive warrior culture. So who are these guys, really? Taking examples from the public sector, are they like Bob Kerreythe quiet, charismatic former senator and governor from Nebraska, who as Ensign Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor in Vietnam? Or are they like Jesse Ventura, A.K.A. Petty Officer Jim Janosa veteran of UDT Twelve and the World Wrestling Federation, and the governor of Minnesota? The senator was Class 42 and the governor, like Kim Erskine, was Class 58. Or are they like Rudy Boesch, Class 6? Rudy was a survivor for forty-five years as a SEAL on active duty; the television series was a piece of cake. To examine SEAL training today, I was allowed to follow BUD/S Class 228. It was an opportunity for me to journey back in time, and to revisit an important and meaningful time in my life. This time, as an observer, I thought it would be without the pain or the emotion. I was wrong. At times, watching young men battle cold water, mud, swollen joints, and days without sleep was almost more than I could bear. Sometimes when the instructors sent them back out into the surf at night, I would begin to shake uncontrollably and have to walk up the beach to regain my composure. Even after thirty years, there's still scar tissue. Here, you're going to meet the young men who want to be SEALs, to see where they come from and exactly what they must do to join this elite band of warriors. And you're going to see why they do it and what motivates them to willingly suffer so much. If the Marines are the Fewthe Proud, then the survivors of Class 228 are the Courageousthe Driven. I was privileged to have been allowed to share a small part of their journey. And I'm both proud and grateful that such fine young men are still willing to pay the price to become modern warriors and to serve in the Navy SEAL teams.