Inside SEAL Team Six

by Don Mann

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  Back in March of 1979, the New Jewel Republic, led by Maurice Bishop, had overthrown the newly independent government of the small Caribbean island and established a socialist regime called the People’s Revolutionary Government; it was allied with the Soviet Union and Cuba, thereby raising the concern of officials in Washington.

  On October 12, 1983, a hard-line faction of the Central Committee led by Bernard Coard seized control of the government. Over the next several days, Bishop and many of his supporters were killed, and the country was placed under martial law.

  President Ronald Reagan, alarmed by Coard’s hard-line Marxism and concerned about the welfare of nearly a thousand U.S. medical students in Grenada, launched an invasion of the island, code-named Operation Urgent Fury.

  Right from the start, commandos from ST-6 ran into problems. Their first mission: to secure the airfield at Port Salinas, emplace beacons, and wait for an airdrop of Army Rangers. But one of the two C-130 cargo planes carrying the SEALs veered off course, then got caught in a storm. Four of the eight SEALs that made the drop were blown out to sea and drowned.

  The SEALs’ next mission was to secure Governor-General Paul Scoon and his family. But as the ST-6 commandos fast-roped onto the grounds of the governor’s mansion, they took fire. My buddy Rich H. was hit in the elbow.

  He shouted, “I’ve been shot! I’ve been shot!”

  Bobby L., who later served as our ST-6 free-fall instructor, responded, “What the hell do you think is supposed to happen in war?”

  The SEALs moved Governor-General Scoon and his family to a safe part of the house. Then the mansion came under fire from men armed with AK-47s and RPGs and wearing Cuban uniforms.

  Meanwhile, two assault teams from ST-6 sent to secure Grenada’s only radio station were met by Soviet-made BTR-60 armored personnel carriers and truckloads of armed Grenadan soldiers. Facing overwhelming firepower, the SEALs decided to destroy the radio transmitter and head to the water following a preplanned escape route. That’s when a round from an enemy AK-47 hit one of our officers, Kim E., in the arm and shredded his triceps muscle.

  Grenada proved to be a tough baptism by fire for ST-6.

  Informal post-ops and hot washes were still being discussed around the command when I arrived. Many of the operators were recognized for the show of great bravery. But as happens in battle, the team had also made mistakes, and they were determined not to repeat them.

  ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ ST-6 ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​/■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​

  Even the PTs were harder. We did weekly long swims, long runs, obstacle courses, sessions in the weight room, and, usually on Friday mornings, what was known as a Monster Mash—three to five hours of insane nonstop paddling, running, swimming, O-course drills, as well as carrying simulated wounded men and
stopping at various stations to shoot at targets, assemble weapons, put together the radios, and establish comms with HQ.

  The days of static-line jumps were over. Bobby L., the tough, Vietnam-era Texan vet who had fast-roped into the governor’s compound with Rich H. in Grenada, taught us free fall, HALO (high-altitude, low-opening), and HAHO (high-altitude, high-opening).

  He walked up with a beer in his hand and growled in a deep voice, “If there are any of you assholes here who don’t know how to free-fall, you’re gonna learn to pack and jump by morning.”

  And he meant it. Those of us who already knew how to free-fall helped the guys who didn’t.

  We trained in HALO and HAHO, jumping at night in full stacks. Our team would do a mass exit at 17,999 feet, and each jumper would count somewhere between four and eight seconds before pulling.

  Much more tactical than the jumping we did at ST-1!

  We planned our jumps so we hit the ground at nautical twilight. That way no one on the ground could spot us coming.

  Sometimes, we’d be under canopy for forty-five minutes or more. Passing through thick cloud cover was dangerous, because if another jumper happened to drift off his compass bearing and came at you in the whiteout, the two of you could hit each other at a combined force of over two hundred miles an hour.

  So we kept track of one another. Each of us always knew how many jumpers were supposed to be in front and how many were behind. We’d spot the low man, ensure no one else was coming in for approach, flare our canopies, and try to land within twenty-five meters of one another.

  Once you landed, you buried your parachute in the dirt. Then you’d get your op gear in order, form a 360-degree security perimeter, receive any last-minute communications, get in patrol formation, and start moving toward the target or the objective. This all took place in less than ten minutes.

  ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ most of our over-18,000-foot jumps in either Australia or Germany because the allowable ceiling for skydivers was much higher there.

  In Germany we jumped at 22,000, 24,000, and 26,000 feet, and we worked our way up to do a 30,000-foot team jump, which would have set a world record as the highest mass-exit full-military-team HAHO.

  At the higher altitudes, the jumper would typically pass through three levels of clouds. He’d exit the aircraft, do his four- to eight-second count while staying on bearing, deploy his main canopy, and watch everyone disappear in a haze that would quickly turn completely white. After that he’d enter a patch of clear sky before sinking into clouds again. Once he fell through the third level of clouds, he’d finally see land.

  The jumper and the rest of the stack would do their best to stay in formation and on bearing through the clouds and land within thirty seconds of one another.

  The higher the jump, the further away from the target we would exit the aircraft, depending on the direction and velocity of the wind. The advantage of jumping at such high altitude is that the enemy doesn’t hear or see the aircraft.

  But jumping that high changed the game.

  Once airborne in the plane but before we jumped, each of us would do a half hour of breathing from an oxygen tank to flush the nitrogen out of the body. Then we’d disconnect our oxygen lines from the large aircraft O2 tanks and connect them to the smaller tanks on our gear.

  We received a thirty-minute warning, which was followed by a six-minute warning, a three-minute warning, a one-minute warning, a thirty-second warning, and then standby. Then each of us jumped a split second apart, staying flat and stable, each jumper keeping his eyes on the jumper below. If the guy below pulled early, the jumper above didn’t want to free-fall into his canopy, because that would kill them both. Because of the two-hundred-mile-an-hour speeds, our oxygen masks would sometimes blow off our faces. So we had to duct-tape the masks to our helmets minutes before exiting the aircraft.

  We were falling much faster than on the typical twelve-thousand-foot jumps. And because of the added speed and air pressure, guys were hurting their necks and straining their backs when they deployed their chutes. We joked that there were boot prints on the backs of our helmets, because the shock of opening at those altitudes and exit speeds was so violent that the jumper’s back arched to the point where his boots kicked the back of his head.

  My buddy Foster frequently lost his oxygen mask and passed out under canopy. He’d wake up after his automatic opening deployed his main chute.

  After dozens of jumps, we were ready to try for thirty thousand feet, but I was worried. The rear ramp lowered. A ■​■​■​■​■​ support para-rigger stood behind me on the ramp as I tightened my straps. I cinched down my mask and did a couple practice wave-offs.

  My heart pounding, I was ready to go.

  But just as the red light turned to yellow, I heard a loud crash. When I looked behind me I saw the ■​■​■​■​■​ ■​■​■​■​■​■​ on the deck convulsing. His arms, legs, and neck were thrashing uncontrollably. The jumpmaster immediately radioed the cockpit. The ramp was closed and we flew back to the base.

  The doctors discovered that the ■​■​■​■​■​ para-rigger had cocaine in his system. He was kicked off the team, and we were pissed that he’d ruined our world-record attempt.

  A legendary badass from New Jersey named Al Morrel taught us defensive tactics (DT)—commonly known as hand-to-hand combat. Al was a heavy man who wore thick glasses and had huge bear-paw-like hands. He’d served as General Westmoreland’s personal bodyguard during Vietnam and had worked as bodyguard for Elvis Presley.

  He stood before ten of us and said, “I can’t prove everything I’m going to tell you, but I can tell you this: The ten of you can’t take me down. There’s no one on this planet who can take me down. But all I can prove right now is that the ten of you can’t.”

  The ten of us looked at him, thinking, Is this old man crazy?

  Al said, “Give me about a second apiece and come at me one by one. Try gouging my eyes out, putting me in a choke hold, whatever you want to do.”

  We charged, one after the other. Being one of the smaller guys in the group, I figured I’d jump up at his neck and put him in a choke hold. But when I ran up to him, that mountain of a man threw me, and I landed flat against a wall. He smeared all ten of us good.

  Al had an amazing ability to use the assailant’s own energy against him. If the guy came at Al with a knife or a baseball bat, Al would use the weapon against the attacker.

  Al loved knives. He said to us once, “If I really get to know my knife, I can cut a person without the blade even touching them.”

  What?

  He made incredible statements, and proved many of them to be true.

  One day Al walked up to the biggest guy in our class—Mack. Mack stood out not just for his size and his big mustache but also for the big, ugly scars on his face, which he’d gotten from his wife. He explained that he’d been in the shower with his wife and she’d pissed on his leg because she thought it was sexy. Mack didn’t agree and slapped her face. She reached up and gouged his face wit
h her long fingernails, which resulted in the scars.

  Al said to Mack, “Kick me between my legs as hard as you can.”

  Mack didn’t want to do it.

  “Go ahead and kick me!”

  Mack kicked Al in the balls. Al didn’t even twitch.

  The rest of us guys couldn’t believe what we had just seen.

  Al said, “If I wanted a freakin’ girl to kick me, I would have asked one. Go ahead and kick me like a man.”

  Mack reared his leg back and kicked him so hard it was painful to watch. Al’s body rose a couple of inches off the ground, but his face didn’t register even an iota of discomfort.

  Holy shit!

  He straightened his shoulders, walked past us, and said, “Men, I never want you to show how much pain you’re in. Under any circumstances.”

  He never explained how he did it, but we couldn’t have been more impressed.

  Unfortunately, Al’s tolerance for pain knew no bounds. Al had developed a triple hernia years before we met him, which protruded quite a bit. One day before class, he accidentally sliced open his protruding belly, causing his large and small intestines to spill out of the wound. One of the guys in our class found him bleeding on the floor and called an ambulance. Al died from complications in the hospital. We couldn’t believe it, and we’d never forget what he taught us.