I opened the door to Crowe’s suite. One of his aides, a captain, looked up from a desk across the room. I waved the folder at him so he could see its distinctive violet stripe.
“Gotta see the old man. Code-word stuff.”
He waved me through. I sfid into the admiral’s cabin and closed the heavy door behind me.
Crowe looked up from his desk. “Come on in, Dick.” He pointed me toward the chair in front of his desk. “Park it.
What’s on your mind today besides your falling hair?“
I slid the folder in front of him.
Admiral Crowe dropped his half-glasses onto the bridge of his nose, slid his feet onto his desk, pulled the memo onto his stomach, and read it slowly, scowling at the pages as he scanned them.
He looked up. “Does anybody know about this?”
“No, sir, I’ve been working it on my own.”
He grunted and went back to reading. I spent my time examining the vast hat collection that sat on half a dozen shelves behind Crowe’s desk.
Finally he finished. The half-glasses were slid up until they rested on his forehead just above his eyebrows. He scrutinized me closely, his face telling me nothing- Then he broke into a broad smile. “I love this. It’ll give the Army a goddamn heart attack. I can guarantee the CNO’s gonna love it, too.”
He looked at me and slapped the desk for emphasis. “Do it, Dick — run with it.”
What I had wrought was a new SEAL unit devoted exclusively to counterterror- It would become a coequal part of the JTF, alongside Delta and the Air Force’s SOF, with world-wide maritime responsibilities. Not that I saw our job stopping at the high-water mark, either. So long as we carried water in our canteens, we’d be in a maritime environment — or close enough for me.
I called the unit SEAL Team Six. Six because there were already six platoons that had received CT training. And Six because the number would make the Soviets believe that there were five other SEAL teams somewhere, when there were in fact only two. Doom on you, Russkies.
SEAL Team Six would be lean and mean — seventy-five enlisted men and fifteen officers. They would look like civilians. Modified grooming standards — long hair, earrings, beards, and mustaches — would be maintained, so they’d pass as blue-collar workers anywhere in the world. Language skills would be encouraged. Unlike SEAL One or Two, whose activities were limited geographically, SEAL Team Six would be available on four-hour notice to deploy from its Virginia base to anywhere in the world.
The initial mission of Six was to join the second hostagerescue operation, which was being planned, though not scheduled. Six’s objective would be to insert covertly into Iran, where we would destroy a number of Iranian military targets just prior to Delta Force’s second rescue attempt. But Six’s ultimate CT mission would be much more wide-ranging. It was, as I wrote in my memo, imperative for the Team to train for virtually any maritime scenario.
My proposal stated confidently that SEAL Team Six would be operational six months after we got the go-ahead to start the selection process- Six months for ninety men to go from the equivalent of prone position to breaking the sound barrier.
I believed it could be done. I even drew up a calendar for the first year of SEAL Team Six training. There were 12 months and 365 days boxed on the paper — and I spent a week trying to shoehorn 408 days of training to fit into those 365 boxes. I decided the men would sleep on planes.
The late spring and early summer of 1980 were spent smoothing out logistical details, dreaming up budget and equipment lists, and working out as much of the minutiae as I could. The SEAL Six project was close-hold — code-word secret — and I worked in a bureaucratic vacuum- Even so, there were probably rumors in the Navy SpecWar community that something was afoot. I began making the three-and-ahalf-hour drive to Little Creek after I finished at the Pentagon.
The visits were informal: I’d spend time with the senior chiefs of SEAL Team Two and over beers, ask questions. “How would you do this, Chief?” or “If you had to do such and such, what’s the best way to get it done quietly?”
I spent night after night in the kitchen of an old friend, a master chief named Mac, whom I’d known since we’d gone through UDT training together. Working on coffee-stained legal-sized pads of yellow lined paper, Mac, a chief petty officer I called Fingers, and I drew up the logistics requirements for a new SEAL command. We also sketched out preliminary budgets and organizational charts and put together shopping lists of new and wonderful toys for the men to play with. We designed a training cycle that rotated two teams of three platoons each through a continuous schedule of shooting, jumping, diving, and CT hostage-rescue exercises. If Six got off the ground, I’d decided that Mac should become its command master chief. He was a tough, stringy little bird.
His sardonic, often derisive management style would keep the troops on their toes; his long Team experience would keep the gears grinding. I wanted Fingers aboard, too. Both of them said they’d love to come and play, although Mac complained bitterly about the parachuting. He’d always hated throwing himself out of a perfectly good aircraft.
I also paid a lot of attention to what Paul Henley had done with MOB-6. Henley had just been promoted to lieutenant commander and was in the process of moving to the West Coast, where he’d been assigned as the XO of the BUD/S training unit at Coronado, He visited me in my basement hideout just before he and his wife, Marilyn, left for California. He had come north to see the personnel managers at BUPERS and bitch about his new assignmentEd never worked with Paul, yet I liked him. He would, I’d already derided, be the perfect XO for SEAL Team Six.
Paul’s was a real success story: he was a Naval Academy grad who’d fought Ilis way up from a poor, tough Irish neighborhood in Philadelphia called Fishtown.
Paul was a smallish guy, dark haired and sharp featured, but a tough bantam rooster you wouldn’t want to fool with.
He made the mistake of telling his first-year advisers at An-napolis that he wanted to become a Frogman. No way. Academy grads, he was told, do not become snake-eaters. If you want to succeed, you will drive a ship. So, after he received his ensign’s bars in 1970, Paul was sent to become a ship driver.
He got to BUD/S anyway, and even got there for the best of all reasons so far as I was concerned: brawling. He was at a junior officers’ club called the Datum one night and stepped into a fight between a commander, who’d had a little too much sauce, and a couple of large, nasty linebacker-sized lieutenant JGs, who’d decided to tattoo a new set of stripes on the commander’s face. Paul put both JGs on the floor and got the commander out of the club before the shore patrol showed up. Within three months, he was at BUD/S, the result of some friendly commander-to-commander phone calls.
Paul had made a lot of good moves for a guy who’d been a SEAL less than a decade. He was an accomplished parachutist — a member of the Navy’s parachute team. He’d served twenty-six months with the Kampfschwimmers, the West German combat swimmer company based at Ekernforde, on the Baltic Sea, and was fluent in German. Softspoken, good with his men, and well respected, he’d probably be given a CO’s slot as soon as he made commander. But Paul had a warrior’s mentality, and he hated the thought of a two-year assignment that would keep-him chained to a desk, writing reports about dumb-ass trainees who had just fallen off a log and sprained their ankles.
He sat in my basement office the last week of June and complained about his sorry fate. “What the hell am I going to do, Dick?”
I shrugged-1 wasn’t about to tell him anything about SEAL Six — yet. “You go out there and do the job.”
“What about MOB-6?”
“What about it?”
“I was just getting it in shape. We were just beginning to get to some good scenarios. Did I tell you about the SBS boarding tactics? A ship under way. Well, I reworked ‘em, and—”
I cut him off. “Listen, boychik, you’ve got a good junior officer to take over MOB-6. Think of this as ticket-punching.”
&n
bsp; He went to California, but he went kicking and screaming.
Little did he know what I’d have in store for him, if everything went according to plan.
According to plan also meant that I had to make some changes in my own timetable. I’d been selected to attend the National War College at Ft. Leslie McNair for the 1980-81 academic year. Selection to the War College is a virtual prerequisite for promotion to captain, commodore, and then up the ladder to Hag rank. The courses are taught by a distinguished faculty. One’s colleagues are the “command-select” elite of the armed forces, State Department, and CIA. More than just a low-pressure academic year and a full social schedule, the War College allows professional bonds to be formed, bonds that will pay hefty dividends later in a career, when who you know is just as important as what you know.
I was ready for a year of low-pressure fun and games. So was Kathy. Our kids were teenagers, and didn’t need the constant mothering she’d provided for so long. I’d been in the Navy almost twenty-two years, and early in 1980, Kathy had started asking me to think about retirement. I could understand her concerns: it was as if she’d signed up for a 20year hitch as a Navy wife — but she wasn’t sure she could make it to thirty. That was to be expected — thirty years is a long time to live with the constant emotional and physical separations. But in her heart of hearts Kathy also knew I wasn’t ready for retirement yet, so a year at the War College seemed like an excellent compromise. It would be a 12-month vacation. We could relax, take time for each other, and enjoy the cocktail parties, picnics, trips, and other perks at Ft.
McNair.
But to be honest, I had conceived SEAL Team Six with me as its CO, and I wasn’t going to be happy unless I got my way. The War College began its academic year in August. I said nothing to Kathy, but the last week of June, I requested an appointment with Bill Crowe.
“I got a problem. Admiral,” I told him.
“Let’s talk, Dick.”
“I’m supposed to go to the War College next year.”
“Which is where you should go,” he interrupted. “Face it, Dick, you need a rest. A year at McNair wilt do you a lot of good.”
“I’m sure it would, sir. But as you know, I’ve been working for the past few weeks on this SEAL Six concept, and we still don’t know who the commanding officer’s going to be. Who you choose may affect my decision whether or not to attend.”
“Well, I guess if we were looking around, you’d be on the short list. You’re qualified to lead Six. But Dick, no one’s given any thought to choosing a prospective commander yet.”
“Well, Admiral, to be blunt about it, I’d like to be put on the list.”
“I’m sure you would. On the other hand you’ve been going balls to the wall for almost two years now, Dick, Maybe it would be better if you took some time for yourself and your wife instead. Enjoy the War College. Teach them about snake-eaters over there.”
“If you think that’s the course I should follow. Admiral, then that’s what I’ll do. But sir, I’ve been with this counterterror thing for almost three years now, from the fall of the Shah to Desert One.”
“I know that.”
“Well, sir — frankly. Admiral, everything up to now has been a real goatfuck, so far as SpecWar’s been concerned.
Charlie Beckwith got screwed because the people around him didn’t have any idea what SpecWar’s about, or how to use the men. Goddammit, Admiral, that kind of dumb-shit thinking’s been going on since Vietnam. My SEALs were always sent out by some numb-nuts who didn’t know squat about what we did or how we did it. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s my goddamn ego, but I believe I can make a real difference when we go the second time. I know the people. I know the community—“
He nagged me to a halt. “I know, I know. But Dick, we really haven’t given the matter any thought. Now that I know you’re interested, I’ll raise the issue. Remember, though: the final decision about a CO for SEAL Six rests with the chief of naval operations, not me.”
“Do you think I should talk to Admiral Hayward, sir?”
He polished the lenses of his glasses, examined them closely, then replaced them. “It couldn’t do you any harm to broach it.” He squinted at me quizzically. “But Dick — . ”
“Sir?”
“A word to the wise. Don’t use goatfuck as a noun around Admiral Hayward.”
I laughed as I saluted. “Aye-aye, sir.” But I knew Crowe was serious. If I wanted to command Six — and I wanted it worse than I’d ever wanted anything in my life — I knew I’d get only one shot to ask Admiral Hayward for the Job.
I plotted my moves and my words with care, running a series of scenarios through my head until I was certain that whatever Hayward asked me, I’d react properly. Within a week, I was asked to carry an intelligence package into the CNO’s cabin. That was the opportunity for which I’d been waiting.
I delivered the folder, then stood in front of his desk. The CNO was a tall, gaunt naval pilot who always looked as if he should be wearing oversized aviator-frame sunglasses. The large, avuncular, balding Bill Crowe exuded folksiness; Tom Hayward projected formality.
“Excuse me, sir.”
He raised his eyes and looked at me. “Yes?”
“If you’ll pardon the intrusion, sir, I was wondering if you’d do me a great personal favor and offer me some advice.” I hoped that this opening would work with the CNO. Normally, admirals love to give advice. But Tom Hayward was no normal admiral. He was the only one of his kind in the Navy.
You don’t stand around and shoot the breeze with a CNO.
My assignment was to deliver the papers to him, then depart quickly and silently.
“Sure, Dick.” He kept his eyes on me as I stood at attention. He did not invite me to sit down.
“Sir,” I said evenly, “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but I have orders to report to the National War College in August.” I hoped my pounding heart wasn’t giving me away.
I could feel the blood pulsing in my temples, my wrists, my chest.
“I didn’t realize that. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, sir. Well, you see, now there’s this new command on line — the one at SEAL Team Six. And I was wondering, sir, if you’d be kind enough to advise me whether I’d be considered as a potential candidate. If I am being considered, which of the assignments would you recommend I take — the War College or SEAL Team Six?”
The CNO sat back in his high-backed chair and made a steeple out of his hands. “I know how hard you’ve been working, Dick,” he said. “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress. And I know the hours you’ve been putting in.” His eyes never left me. It was as if he were tracking a target.
“How’s your family doing?”
Good question. The subtext was clear: will your marriage stand two more years of constant separation or will it unravel?
I pretty much knew it would probably unravel — Kathy and I already weren’t on the best of terms domestically — but I was willing to take that chance to get this command. I decided to parry. “Well, sir, I’m married to a Navy wife, and I’ve got two Navy kids.”
His eyebrows arched an eighth of an inch. then returned to normal. “Sounds fine,” he said. He paused, then continued,
“Well, Bill Crowe tells me you’re his man because you’ve been carrying the CT load for a while. But it’ll be a tough Job- Question is, Dick, which assignment would you prefer?”
: It was going to be mine, if I asked for it. An ineffable calm came over me — the same calm I had known in battle. Time slowed. I drank in each millisecond. My mind flashed to some of the men who had gotten me to this incredible position. Ev Ban-ett. B. B. Witham. Eagle Gallagher and Jim Finley and Patches Watson and Ron Rodger of Bravo Squad, my first combat command — Harry Humphries, Hoss Kucinski, Frank Scollise, and Gordy Boyce from say wonderful, crazy bunch of killers in Eighth Platoon. For an. instant, I was back in Chau Doc holding Clarence Risher’s body in my anas. Would there be others
like him in this new unit? Probably. Could I face that challenge? Take that kind of pressure? Damn it, yes, I could. I knew my whole life had been spent in preparation for this one chance in a million to become a real warrior again, at the helm of a unit that I had created in my own image.
I looked the CNO in the eye. My voice was even and calm.
I spoke formally because that is what CNOs like. “Sir, you know I’d be proud to be the first CO of Six. Command is the first thing in every sailor’s mind, and this command would certainly be special to me because I’ve had so much to do with staffing it.”
The CNO nodded. “I’d like that, Dick. I’d like you to be the first commander of SEAL Team Six.”
Fireworks were going off in my brain, a real Fourth of July celebration, but I didn’t give a hint of the explosions. “Thank you very much, sir. Then I think the War College is no longer a point of discussion.”
He extended his hand toward me. I shook it, stepped back, and saluted. “Thank you, sir.”
Once outside the CNO’s suite I let out a whoop that they probably heard at Little Creek. I galloped like a wide receiver down the corridor, skidded around the corner, and burst into Bill Crowe’s suite. The secretaries and aides didn’t even have a chance to react as I went through his door. I didn’t say a word — just threw him a double thumbs-up.
Crowe looked back at me with a big, wide, warm grin that told me he’d greased the skids with ten yards of Vaseline. “I gather, SEAL Six, you didn’t use goatfuck as a noun.”
Chapter 18
There was a SpecWar conference at Little Creek in July of 1980. I went to it. I did a lot of listening, not a lot of talking. I badly wanted to be able to tell the commodores who ran NAVSPECWARGRU RNE and TWO — Dave Schaible at ONE and Ted Lyon at TWO — that I was forming a new command and I’d be coming to raid their turf for warm bodies after August 15. But the CNO had ordered me not to say a word about SEAL Team Six, and my compliance was a matter of common sense and basic mathematics. Ted and Dave were captains, and no matter how you add it up, four bars plus four bars does not equal four stars.
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