Inside SEAL Team Six

by Don Mann

  “Okay.”

  “Maybe I’ll lose my job, but it’s my only brother and I have to do this.”

  The next day, I flew to Providence. My brother, Rick, picked me up on his Harley. He had long hair, a beard, and a black leather jacket—the same motorcycle-gang regalia I wore before I joined the Navy.

  Rick had been a tough, well-built guy, but now he looked sickly and skinny. We rode directly to a biker bar. By the time we sat down, it was around eleven in the morning.

  I turned to my brother and asked, “Rick, is this all you do, just hang out and party?”

  He answered, “No, I stay here until nine or ten at night, then I go out partying.”

  “Did you come here to reprimand me?” he asked.

  “No,” I answered. “I came here at the risk of losing the best job I ever will have to hopefully save your life.”

  The two of us sat next to each other at the bar. To my right stood a gray-bearded biker with patches all over his leather vest.

  He turned to me and said, “Your brother is a wild man. He comes in here every night and does eight balls [an eighth of an ounce of cocaine] with all the coke whores. They crawl all over him. He’s crazy.”

  I said, “That’s why I’m here.”

  The bartender set some beers in front of us.

  I turned to my brother again and said, “Rick, I wrote you a long letter last night. It will be easier for me to give you the letter than for me to tell you all that it says.”

  I handed him the letter, and he started reading. I could tell he was moved. When he finished reading it, he folded up the letter and stuffed it in his pocket.

  A minute or so later, the bartender came over and asked Rick if he wanted another drink.

  Rick said, “No, I’m on the wagon.”

  That’s all he said. He’s been on the wagon ever since. Today, almost thirty years later, he’s a successful businessman, with a wife and two wonderful children. And I’m so proud of him.

  He still rides with motorcycle clubs and attends big bike rallies but is completely against drinking and doing drugs, and he has helped hundreds of people who are trying to end their addictions.

  When I returned to the team the following Monday, the officer hadn’t even noticed that I’d left. And I decided that if I wanted a life, I needed to train some of the other guys on the assault team to be medics.

  So I started planning a mini goat lab and recruited four guys, one from each of the four boat crews, to attend.

  Just before I started to train them, I received word that the new CO, Captain Murphy, wanted to see me. (Captain Thomas E. Murphy replaced Captain Gormly in early 1986.)

  Captain Murphy said, “Sorry, Doc. But that goat lab you had planned—we’re going to have to cancel it.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “The team is under such close scrutiny, I don’t need the press to find out that we’re chopping up goats. I was shot in the leg in Vietnam. I didn’t need somebody who chopped up goats to save me.”

  I said, “I understand, sir. But you can’t cancel this.”

  The officer in charge of my team, who was sitting beside me, said, “Don, he’s the CO. Let it go.”

  “I know, but this is important. We’re going to have an accident one day, and we don’t have enough medics in my team to cover everything we do.”

  Captain Murphy eventually got tired of hearing me talk and relented. He said, “Okay. Your medics can go to goat lab. But no one else.”

  My point was that we didn’t have enough medics. In fact, we had only one, and that was me.

  But I had received permission to conduct the goat lab. So I typed up forms for eight people, now two from each boat crew, and made them all “medics.” I had no authority to do so, but I did it anyway.

  Then I ran a week-long goat lab and taught the eight medics how to perform cricothyrotomies and cut-downs, how to insert chest tubes and make splints, and so on. All the ABCs of combat medicine. And I made all of them advanced trauma medical kits, which they wore.

  Less than two months later, my boat crew was called to do a demonstration at Fort Bragg in North Carolina for a group of VIPs.

  First, we rehearsed. Each four-man team flew in on separate Black Hawk helicopters. The helos flared and hovered about thirty feet over the tarmac as we fast-roped down, two men from each helo at a time, wearing gas masks, camo, and all our ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​

  Once we all got on the ground, we lined up and faced the reviewing stand, which was going to be packed with senators, congressmen, admirals, generals, and other VIPs. The rehearsal was rough, because one of our Black Hawks came in on a hard landing. Then a platoon of Rangers rappelled down from ropes after us, and a few of them broke ankles.

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  The Black Hawks approached the tarmac and flared. My partner and I fast-roped down, but when the second two started descending, one of them—a SEAL named Mark—got hung up. The strap from his M5 got stuck on something in the helo.

  I shouted up at him from the tarmac, “Mark, come on down.”

  His weapon sling had dislocated his shoulder, and he was hanging from it and in a lot of pain.

  He shouted back, “I hurt my shoulder.”

  I said, “I’ll look at it when you get down here.”

  He cut the sling and came down, and our eight-man assault team ran up past the side of the reviewing stand. I saw that Mark’s right shoulder was dipping way down, obviously dislocated.

  As I was examining Mark, I saw the CH-53 carrying the Rangers approach. It hit its back rotor on the tarmac and bounced about seventy feet into the air. The rear ramp was open, and, as I watched, a soldier came out the back door just as the tail of the helicopter swung left. Then I saw a large pink burst, and the soldier flew through the air and landed in the dirt.

  I was standing about a hundred meters away with my mask, body armor, and ■​■​ gear still on. I threw down my MP5 and ran as fast as I could to the downed man.

  He was lying facedown in a pool of blood with his helmet still on. I turned him over and saw that his entire face and most of his head had been sliced off.

  I took a deep breath.

  Then I looked to my left and realized that there were six other bodies lying on the ground.

  I hadn’t even noticed that the helicopter had thrown those bodies out as well. People in the reviewing stand had ducked down and were screaming. They thought the helicopter was going to explode.

  I had been so focused on the first soldier who had fallen out that I had e
xperienced ocular exclusion (aka tunnel vision).

  But as luck would have it, all eight guys that I had put through goat lab were there with their advanced emergency medical packs. They did what they had just been taught to do and went to work on the six soldiers who were torn up and had broken bones.

  One guy was having trouble breathing, so I tried sweeping his mouth for broken teeth or bones. When I saw that the airway obstruction was down in his windpipe, I made a one-inch incision below the larynx and heard a loud whoosh as all the blocked air came out.

  Then I inserted an airway tube that I had in my kit and started breathing into it. Mouth-to-cric.

  After the medevac helicopters came to take the injured soldiers to the hospital, ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​

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  So the VIPs returned to their seats and we continued on with the shooting and climbing demonstrations. We did double taps, but guys weren’t hitting the targets as tightly as usual. I also noticed that people were looking at me funny.

  Afterward, I went to the bathroom and saw that I had blood all around my teeth because of the mouth-to-cric breathing.

  But the six soldiers survived, and Mark from our team was fine. Afterward, me and the eight guys I had put through goat lab received lifesaving medals.

  Soon after the incident at Fort Bragg I was sent to Chile with two men from ■​■​■​■​■​■​ Chilean president General Pinochet, who had seized power in a bloody coup back in 1973, was growing increasingly unpopular. There was talk of another coup to depose General Pinochet, and three of us were tasked with surveying possible escape routes and finding safe houses, in case fighting broke out and the U.S. embassy and U.S. citizens had to be evacuated.

  I flew to Panama wearing civilian clothes. With my longish hair and beard, I seemed to fit right in with the other people milling around the terminal in Panama City. But I couldn’t find the two guys from ■​■​■​■​■​■​

  So I called the command and was told to go to my hotel. Still no sign of the guys from ■​■​■​■​■​■​ There was a band playing downstairs, so I went down to check out the scene and drink a beer.

  Then, because I was wide awake, I drove fifty miles across the isthmus to the enlisted club at Fort Amador and had a few drinks there.

  I returned to my hotel room hours later. There were still no messages. So I went down to the bar, which was full of people drinking and dancing. I surveyed the crowd and saw two well-built guys standing against the wall, observing the area, their arms crossed in front of their chests. They wore big watches and were the only two in the bar who weren’t participating in the fun.

  I walked up to one of them and asked, “Are you Sergeant H.?”

  He said, “Shh! Nobody’s supposed to know we’re here.”

  “Well, Sergeant, I traveled all over the country tonight and saw about a thousand people, and you guys definitely stand out.”

  On the flight down to Santiago, Chile, one of the ■​■​■​■​■​ guys talked about free-fall training. He explained how they practiced countless jumps in a wind tunnel. Then their riggers checked their chutes twice as they packed them. Finally, they did a jump, which was recorded on video and supervised by two instructors. Everything was by the book.

  I told him about that tough old Vietnam-era SEAL who always had a can of Budweiser in his hand, how he’d asked us who hadn’t jumped before and then had us all jumping the next day.

  At ST-6, we thought more out of the box, which suited me just fine.

  Chapter Ten

  ST-6/Divorce

  Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us.

  —Virginia Woolf

  At ST-6, when we were recalled for training or for real-world ops, we had an hour to get ourselves assembled in the team room to receive the warning order. The warning order gave us basic information about the upcoming mission. It started with a brief, concise statement: This will be a jump op. Boat crew three will conduct a raid on this building, which is located at this position, at this time and date.

  The warning order included the topography of the land we were going into, the enemy forces we’d be going up against, the location of the nearest friendly forces, and the location and number of civilians in the area of operation.

  Once we started planning, the amount of detail and specificity depended on the amount of time available. In Grenada, the guys used street maps and tourist maps because they had had little time to plan.

  Typically, we started our discussion with preliminaries—who is on the op, what are the jobs, what gear is required. Then we analyzed the specifics of the situation on the ground.

  Part of the warning order was a general outline broken down into phases. Phase one might be how we would insert (boats or helicopters, and what types), followed by the infill, including primary and secondary insertion.

  The general outline also included information about the recon team, where we would meet up with them, and what info they had provided so far.

  Depending on the operation, the commanding officer, executive officer, operations officer, or assault team officer would then talk briefly about what was going to happen during each one of the phases. In most instances, he concentrated on the insertion, infiltration, and actions at the objective, which were usually the most critical components of an op.

  The officer also provided specific information about what was required from each operator on the team.

  The warning order covered all the basics. Following the warning order, after we had some time to sort out the gear for the op, a patrol leader’s order (PLO) was prepared with the help of every member on the team.

  All of the above topics covered in the warning order—infiltration, insertion, position, weapons, concealment, deception, ROE—were now broken down and discussed in detail.

  Specific tactics were always determined by the team or element entering the engagement. Each assault team on ST-6 had a different standard operating procedure based on the skills and experience of its individual operators.

  Once the entire team was present and we had a full muster, we’d synchronize all of our watches. Then the PLO was presented by various leaders of the team. They’d brief us on the weather forecast, moonrise, moonset, phase of the moon, sunrise, sunset, tides, currents, how deep the water was, natural boundaries, vegetation, landmarks, and so on.

  The PLO provided specific detailed instructions to every assault team member on the op. Regardless of whether the mission required movement through jungle, desert, mountains, or urban areas, if the insertion or extraction was from sea, air, or land, it indicated all responsibilities and all fire positions—who covered right, who covered left, and who carried the grenades, Claymores, and any specific equipment.

  In the case of a combat swimming op, we’d indentify who the swim buddies were going to be and review the hand and arm signals that w
ould be used on the surface and underwater.

  In certain missions we reviewed the procedures for body searches.

  As in the ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ op, the rules of engagement were discussed in detail. They’re extremely important, because today’s wars are fought with restrictions in terms of who operatives are allowed to fire at and under what circumstances, and there are rules for taking prisoners, seizing property, and interrogating enemy soldiers.

  Most civilians probably aren’t aware of the emphasis placed on ROEs and how they define and modify every U.S. military engagement.

  We always designated a loss-of-communication plan too, and we answered the following questions: What signal will be used for withdrawal or extraction? Will we be using a 40 mm, a flare, IR chemical light, or an IR strobe? Would we come to report fifteen minutes past the hour, or every other hour?

  All SEALs are experts at concealment and deception. And many of our ops included a deception plan. For example, we might blast off a lot of demo to make it sound like a hundred guys were storming a beach when in reality we were staging a night jump miles behind enemy lines.

  We’d talk about how to get in, how to get out, and how to stay concealed, and remind one another of the importance of noise and light discipline. It’s amazing how well sound travels at night, especially over water.

  Usually we’d use only hand and arm signals and radio communications, when they worked. If we needed to communicate something between squads or boat crews, we’d talk in a whisper. SEALs are expert at sneaking in and out of an area completely undetected. We do it all the time.

  All of us learned about forty-five hand and arm signals in BUD/S. There are signals meaning I see enemy personnel; I see a danger area; stop; listen; enemy hutch three hundred meters to my three o’clock; and many more. They’re pretty basic, but in the pitch-darkness, they don’t work. That’s when we use a low whisper passed down the patrol formation.