Don Mann - Facing Your Fears: A Navy SEALs Guide to Coping With Fear and Anxiety

Copyright 2020 by Don Mann and Kraig Becker

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-4574-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-4577-3

Printed in China.

CONTENTS

PART I

IDENTIFYING YOUR FEARS

I n October of 1983, a dispute between two factions of the Peoples Revolutionary Army broke out on the tiny island nation of Grenada. The PRA had ruled the country for more than four years, but over that time disagreements had arisen within the party over who was best equipped to govern the nation moving forward. Those disagreements eventually led to violent clashes that resulted in dozens of deaths, including the ritual execution of the former party leader and seven of his closest allies.

As the turmoil continued to escalate, the streets of the Caribbean nation became a battleground, with members of the PRA waging war against each other. Innocent civilians found themselves caught in the crossfire as the situation went from bad to worse. What started as an internal struggle within the leading political party quickly shifted to a dangerous situation that endangered the lives of hundreds of people.

Amongst those living on the island at the time were 600 American medical students who attended St. Georges University. As Grenada descended into chaos, fear over the safety and whereabouts of those students began to grow back home in the US. With the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1980 still fresh in the minds of many Americans, President Ronald Reagan authorized military action in the Caribbean. The goal was to both quell the fighting and ensure the safety of the students and their families.

On October 25, the US military launched Operation Urgent Fury using forces from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. The plan was to launch a multi-pronged assault on the island, overwhelming the local forces as quickly as possible, while capturing strategic targets along the way. Naturally, the Navy SEALs were tasked with some of the most challenging and risky objectives of the entire mission.

Prior to the start of the military action, members of SEAL Team Six were ordered to perform reconnaissance on a strategic beach that would play an instrumental role in the invasion. The first of those recon missions ended in tragedy with four members of the team drowning after being airdropped at sea. A second attempt to survey the island was also scrubbed due to poor weather conditions. Ultimately, that meant that the US forces were going in blind without having a real sense of the resistance they might face.

Eventually it was time for Operation Urgent Fury to get underway with US Rangers dropping from the sky onto the island. The Army units were charged with securing Grenadas two airports and the campus where the American students were housed. While they went to work on those objectives, however, Navy SEALs were given two very important tasks that were best suited for their particular training and skills.

The two missions that were assigned to the SEALs included securing the extraction of Paul Scoon, Grenadas governor general, and capturing a radio tower on the island. To accomplish those goals, the SEALs broke into two teams and set off to achieve the objectives they had been assigned.

Like their Army counterparts, the SEALs didnt have much intel to go on before they launched their respective missions. They knew the locations of the governor generals home and the radio tower, of course, but they werent sure how large of an enemy force they would face, nor how well armed they might be. Still, they had their orders and as usual they were determined to accomplish the tasks at hand.

The first order of business was capturing the radio tower, which was used by the Peoples Revolutionary Army to spread leftist propaganda to the people of Grenada. The plan was for the SEALs to take control of the tower and convert it for use as a tool for psychological warfare. If the SEALs found that that wasnt possible, their secondary objective was to destroy the antenna altogether.

The mission began with a Blackhawk helicopter flying members of SEAL Team Six to the radio station, which was captured quickly and without resistance. Enemy forces soon got wind of the SEAL presence, however, and launched a counterattack on the station using armored personnel carriers and heavily-armed troops.

Poorly equipped to deal with that kind of firepower, the SEALs knew it was imperative that they complete their objectives and vacate the area as quickly as possible. The team destroyed the radio transmitter and made a hasty retreat, cutting their way through a nearby fence while under heavy fire. Eventually they eluded the PRA forces by escaping into the ocean and in true frogman fashion, swam out to US ships that were waiting just offshore.

Meanwhile, the SEAL unit charged with securing Paul Scoon also captured the governor generals mansion almost completely unopposed. The team fast-roped from a hovering Army helicopter and soon found themselves inside the building, securing their target in a matter of minutes. But like their teammates at the radio tower, they soon found themselves under heavy fire as a fierce counterattack came their way. Before they had time to respond, enemy armored personnel carriers took up strategic positions, trapping the SEALs inside.

To make matters worse, in their haste to get to the battlefield the SEALs inadvertently left their back-up communications system behind. With the batteries on their primary comms unit running low, the team found themselves without a way to call for support. In a moment of quick thinking, one of the SEALs used the governor generals home phone to place a call to the central command post and before long the team received some much-needed air support in the form AC-130 gunships and AH-1 Cobra helicopters.

Despite those airstrikes the Grenadian forces held their ground, laying siege to the mansion for more than twenty-four hours. During that time, the twenty-two SEALs who had embarked on the mission were forced to hold their position and wait for help to arrive. That made for a long, tense night with heavy weapons fire being exchanged by both sides. Eventually however, US forces closed in on the mansion, defeated the enemy forces outside, and liberated the Navy SEALs, as well as Governor General Scoon.

All told, Operation Urgent Fury lasted just three days, but during that time US forces eliminated not only the leftist forces that controlled Grenada, but a cadre of Cuban troops and advisors that were stationed there, too. All of the American medical students were eventually accounted for and secured as well, with the overthrow of the PRA eventually leading to the installation of a democratically-elected government.