We were facing not only icy weather, but the roughest combination of sea and wind I’d ever encountered.
God, how I hated the ocean at times like this. The 40-meter tugboat kept lifting out of the water and slam-dunking back with a series of keel-rattling, bone-jarring shudders. Every time we went airborne, I grabbed for a handrail. It was like getting kicked in the balls — no matter how hard you train to get kicked in the balls, it hurts every single time it happens.
Outside, the air was in the low thirties, with a wind-chill factor that put it below the teens. The whole tug was coated with ice. This was the coldest water I’d ever seen — and the most treacherous- The Atlantic has its long swells — lifting you out of the water just high enough to see the horizon, then thrashing you down deep and fast, making you grab the gunwale in momentary panic as you ride the roller coaster down, down, down. The Pacific, with its 60-foot-high walls of water and miles-deep trenches, has engendered respect from generations of sailors, me included. But no water was as nasty, as bad, as nut-numbing motherfucking sphincter-puckering cruel, as the North Sea. It was a masochist’s delight: misery at its finest.
You want evidence? The manufacturers of Boston whalers state — categorically — that one cannot capsize their boats. Bullshit. Horse puckey. During our first day of trials off the German coast, the massive North Sea waves, treacherous currents, and powerful winds flipped and/or rolled our Boston whalers three times, leaving SEALs and GSG-niners frigid and swamped until they could right their boats and call for a’t tow. The boats had been lifted completely out of the water by the wave action, then turned like flapjacks as they were caught by wind-tunnel gales and wind-whipped water. Our frozen, wet, hypothermic kraut brethren thought we were flipping the whalers on purpose — some crazy Amerikaner initiation rite — until we explained it wasn’t part of the script.
Then they berated us for trying to pound square-hole boats to round-hole water.
The tug’s captain looked disdainfully at my greenish complexion and tit his pipe, filling the already pungent wheelhouse with the foul odor of strong, black tobacco. He and his crew were taking professional pleasure in our obvious discomfort.
I clambered outside and pulled my way aft of the superstructure. Trailer Court, Pooster, and Horserace, layered in thermal underwear, English-made dry suits with hoods and boots, over which they wore black SEAL load-bearing combat vests, were working on the lines that held the whalers down. Snake, icicles forming on his mustache, was double-checking the assault gear in the boats. He, Trailer, and Pooster were my lead climbers — and they knew they had their work cut out for them tonight.
I called down, “Everything okay?”
Snake gave me a thumbs-up. “Roger that. Skipper. But it’s gonna be fuckin‘ cold shinnying up those goddamn stanchions and pipes.”
“You volunteered to play with the grown-ups, asshole. You could have been a regular sailor.”
Snake grabbed the rail at my feet, chinned himself up, and somersaulted over the rail to where I stood. “No way, Skipper. Who the heli’d want to be stationed aboard a rucking ship?”
He was right of course — six months without booze or pussy was the ultimate curse suffered by all fleet sailors, and Snake, former paratrooper, was not cut out for that kind of life.
So instead, he was waterlogged, half frozen, and ice encrusted, on a perverse training mission that Ricky Wegener and I had designed to come as close to the real thing as we could without causing undue fatalities. The GSG-9 commander and I saw eye to eye on that subject as well. He, like I, believed that unless exercises were performed at the very edge of the operational envelope, they wouldn’t help the men survive in real-life situations,
We both carried the weight of having killed men in training.
But — we’d talked about it in the past — there was no guilt, JUSI anxiety and the teeth-grinding, migraine-engendering stress of leadership. It was an integral part of the responsibility we had volunteered to bear. Neither of us liked it — but we both did it.
We’d been under way almost four hours — although it seemed like a lifetime — and I struggled back into the wheel-house where the captain told me we were almost at our launch position, three nautical miles from the rig.
“But Fregatten-Kapitan — Commander — we’ll want to circle the target at least twice to verify it is the right rig, and also so you can see how the currents will affect your small boats, yes?”
“Affirmative.” I wasn’t about to contradict him. He knew these waters. I was a new cork bobbing in a strange pond.
Once we saw how the currents were moving, we’d be able to decide which direction to insert from.
I went aft again and explained the situation to the troops-
Their faces showed disappointment. Trailer Court spoke first. “Why the hell do we have to wait. Skipper? Let’s just go.”
The others agreed with him in a chorus of/o’s and rightons. I saw their point. Anything was better than the beating we were taking on board the tug. But this was no time to improvise. We’d have to assess the currents and the winds before we inserted.
An hour and a half later we began launching the boats.
That sounds easier than it was — in all, the launch took more than an hour. Getting the whalers into the water was difficult enough, without beating their hulls to shreds alongside the tug. Harder still was getting the forty-two shooters in — timing the swells, then jumping, laden with. explosives, weapons, ammo, and climbing gear, hoping you weren’t carried by the 50-knot winds into the water.
I went over the rail. Below me, the Boston whaler pitched and yawed. In rapid sequence, my mind ran over the possibilities. Which way would I leap/fall/swim if I missed the whaler? If I went in the water, should I worry more about the screws on the whalers or the gargantuan screws on the tug? If I got swept astern, would the force of the tug’s props suck me down and turn me into hamburger? How much pain can I take? What the hell am I doing here?
As I jumped, it came to me with crystal clarity that Ricky Wegener — no fool he — had politely declined the boat trip in favor of playing observer aboard the rig. He’d choppered out; during daylight. That’s why he wore stars, and I wore scars.
After almost an hour we finally got all forty-two malevolent, spiteful shooters into the small boats — maybe not the ones they were assigned on paper, but at least they were off the damn tug and heading toward a target, which, when neutralized, would mean they’d get warm clothes and a cold beer — if they lived that long. In Ihe last-minute shuffle on board the tug it had been decided that three men would stay with each whaler: one coxswain, one radioman, and one ablebodied shooter to return fire, pick up swimmers for rescue, and handle lines to steady the small boats alongside the rig and tug. That put the remaining twenty-four shooters in the loving North Sea — twelve swim pairs, two for each of the rig’s six legs.
The sea was so bad that even at a thousand meters we lost sight of the rig often and had to rely on our ops people on board the tug, working from the transponders we carried and a radar screen, to vector us in. Under normal conditions, we usually approached oil rigs from multiple angles to ensure a successful clandestine hit. In this sea, though, we tried to slay within sight of each other so that no boat would get lost-
We tacked toward the huge rig — its lights still faint in the darkness. I checked my watch: 0145. It seemed like we’d been in the boats for hours, although when we debriefed much later we’d learn it had taken only fifty minutes to reach swimmer launch point,
How bad was it out there? Bad enough so that it was actually a pleasure to leave the whalers and slide into the icy water.
At least in the water there was no wind whipping you. I adjusted my mask and went over the gunwale, a rope in my hands. Each pair of swim buddies earned one. The idea was to wrap the lines around the legs of the rig so we wouldn’t drift off. I frown on MIAs.
I swam toward one of the huge hull columns from which we couid reach the vertical bra
ces that would allow us to climb up to the deck and living quarters. Above me, the platform loomed like a futuristic space station, a ten-story skeletal structure of concrete and steel. I reached for one of the massive columns but a wave washed me past it. Damn. I swam against the current. Now a riptide took hold of me, dragged me under the surface, and flung me against the barnacleencrusted steel piling.
I breached the surface, spitting water. After two attempts I managed to loop the line around a brace. In doing so I realized that Mr. Murphy had come along for the ride in a trig way: the entire metal surface of the rig was glazed with in about an eighth of an inch of ice.
Quickly, I rounded up my best climbers — Trailer, Snake, Pooster, and Horserace — and explained the situation They’d find a way up and then drop caving ladders, which would be secured with titanium hooks, so the rest of us could climb. jl’ Pooster went first, wiggling his way up the slick cylindrical Jl surface of the brace, cursing in a way that would have done f Ev Barren proud. The noise didn’t matter — with the 50-knot wind, no one could hear anything anyway, and we were sure none of the terrorists expected us so soon. y I peered at my watch: 0225. Just slightly behind my schedSs ule. I trod water. I mused about the existence I’d chosen for H myself. I waited for what seemed an eternity. “Fuuuuck!” Pooster’s body came flying out of the blackness. He went into the water flat on his back five yards away with a sickening thwack.
I swam to him, sure he was dead or unconscious or that he’d broken his back. He lay in the water wriggling his fingers.
Then his little red mustache twitched behind the mask. Finally, he groaned. “Shit. It’s goddamn slippery up there.”
He was okay. Thank God. I cracked a smile. I rolled my eyes skyward. “Up, asshole, up. You’re supposed to go that way.” I pointed over my head.
He rolled over, dog-paddled to the support, and began again — the little engine that could. This time he took off his robber gloves. “My hands kept sliding.”
“You’ll lose some skin.”
“So what — it’ll give me traction.”
Now, Snake and Horseface and Trailer went up, too. It was Trailer who finally got high enough to attach the first Caving ladder, which looks like one of those things trapeze artists climb, and I signaled the first six men to begin their climb. Shortly, three other caving ladders, each wedged into the braces with titanium hooks, followed. I motioned for the rest of the team to start the assault.
The plan was a real KISS operation. We’d climb the caving ladders to breach the vertical braces. Then, once we reached the skeletal superstructure rig itself we'd work our way up go over the rail and take down bad guys. Twenty-four of us were enough to hit all major areas of the platform simultaneously.
I watched as two GSG-niners pulled themselves up the ladder Horseface had dropped. Twenty feet, up they were smacked by a mini-tornado, and the hook pulled out of its niche. They dropped back into the water, stilt tethered by their swim-buddy line, sputtered to the surface, swam to a brace, and held on. The ladder was deep-sixed — shitcanned.
I tried to calculate the cost. Each titanium hook equaled the price of a Concorde ticket from New York to London.
I waved the Krauts over to Rooster’s ladder and signaled‘ for them to go up. When I saw they’d be okay, I followed— the last one to climb. Halfway up I ran out of steam. What the hell is an old guy doing here? I hung suspended forty feet above the churning ocean and looked at my watch: 0518. It had taken more than three hours to get from initial launch to final attack position.
Wheezing and sweating despite the freezing air, I pulled myself over the rail and watched as everyone took their preplanned positions in what I called the international-team mode — mixed shooter pairs. There was no movement on deck other than the normal sounds of wind and sea, and the hisses, groans, grinds, and wheezes of pneumatic, hydraulic, and electric equipment. Maybe, I thought, Mr. Murphy fell off the ladder and the son of a bitch drowned. I gave a hand signal. Trailer and Baby Rich, each with a German shooter partner, attached explosives to the main door. Another of my deadly shooters, an explosive little bantam cock I called Little Carlos, along with Snake, an armoire-sized SEAL I’d named Ho-Ho-Ho, Pooster, and their Kraut comrades, blocked the windows, escape hatches, and power stations.
This was too easy — not a sign of the bad guys anywhere.
Were we being set up? Was this about to become goatfuck city? I flicked my transmitter on. “Go!”
It was the fucking Fourth of July, Bastille Day, and the Queen’s goddamn jubilee all at once. KA-BOOMf — the charges breached the doors, KA-BLAM! — the guys roiled flash-bang grenades inside the control room and went in, quick and low.
I followed tight on Trailer’s shoulder. His Smith was up and ready. There was movement behind an electrical panel obscured by the smoke of the flash-bang.
Trailer swung his .357 around instinctively and squeezed off three shots of special dye-marker ammunition ammo.
“Die, motherfucker.” Three red stars appeared on the chest of a bad guy. There was more movement to his right. Trailer’s Kraut partner swiveled his HK P-7 and took the terrorist out with two 9mm wax bullets to the throat. Even with the padding he wore, that son of a bitch was gonna have trouble breathing for a couple of days.
“Clear,” Trailer announced into his radio. Now Carlos, Snake, Ho-Ho-Ho, Rich, Horseface, and the others began their methodical, chamber-by-chamber sweep of the rig’s main compartments. 1 got on the radio to the tug and the whalers and told them to converge. In the background I heard scattered two- and three-shot bursts from pistols and submachine guns.
“I got hostages — alive.” It was Gold Dust Larry’s voice on the radio. “But they’re wired.”
Shit. They’d been booby-trapped. Where the hell was the detonator? Was it electrical or radio controlled? Was it—
Pooster’s unmistakable voice broke in. “I got the cocksucker with the initiator — he was asleep and it was wedged under Iris mattress. Untie ‘em, Larry.”
We broke off the exercise at ©730. The umpires (three Germans and three Americans) totaled the scores: two bad guys killed, three wounded, eight captured. Two good guys wounded. Twelve hostages released, none injured. All in all, not a bad morning’s work.
I found Ricky in the galley, working on a steaming bowl of oxtail soup, a wedge of black bread slathered with white German butter in his free hand, a mug of black coffee at his elbow.
“Enjoying yourself, Herr General?”
He looked up at me with a malevolent smile. 7fl, dickhead.
It’s been an interesting morning. Good progress.“ He paused and took a big spoonful of soup. ”But these exercises — they always give me a big appetite.“ He gnawed at the pumpernickel. ”And you?“
And me? I stood there in my rubber suit, with my dripping beard and my frozen, skinned fingers, and my aching joints.
I’d relieved myself in my suit — common practice during operations — and I smelled like a latrine. “You no-good sonof-a-bitch cockbreath dip-shit numb-nuts shit-for-brains hotsy-totsy fucking Nazi Kraut bastard. You sit there eating fucking soup and rucking bread and rucking drinking hot fucking coffee white I’ve been fucking freezing my fucking ass off in your fucking North rucking Sea and you ask me that? Fuck you. Hen- General.”
He roared with laughter. “Seems to me, dickhead, if you’ll pardon my French, that this morning it’s you who’s the real phoquee” The son of a bitch had a point. But then, he wore the stars, and I wore the scars.
Our visit to GSG-9 may have left us cold and sore as hell.
But at least we got to play with people we liked. Shortly after we returned stateside, I was summoned to JSOC headquarters and told that a detachment from SEAL Team Six was needed for a clandestine operation in Lebanon. I liked nobody in Lebanon.
But there were American naval assets in Lebanon in the winter of 1982, pan of the multinational force that had been sent in just after the massacres at Sabra and Chatila refugee camps, where
Phalangist militiamen had taken revenge for the assassination of their charismatic leader Bashir Gemayel by murdering roughly a thousand unarmed Palestinian men, women, and children the previous September.
So JSOC and — grudgingly — the State Department had decided that two reduced boat crews from SEAL Team Six (twelve men instead of fourteen) would be inserted in Beirut clandestinely. Our mission would be to assess possible terrorist threats to American targets, survey the embassy and Marine positions, and suggest improvements. As had so often happened before, I deployed Just before Christmas.
I made the selection carefully. I’d take Paul, of course, and the Duke. And I thought Indian Jew would fit in well. The Gold Dust Twins were included, as were Snake, Horserace, Fingers, Pooster, and the big, bearded son of a bitch I called Ho-Ho-Ho because of the way he laughed. I also took my favorite junior-junior cannon-fodder enlisted man — Baby Rich (I told him we needed him to volunteer in case we had 30Z to throw somebody to the wolves. He asked if he should bring his little red riding hood. “If it looks anything like a kaffiyeh,” I said, “pack it”).
The rains had come early to Lebanon the winter of 1982, and it was raw and cold as I pushed my way through the crowded terminal at Beirut International clad only in a light jacket and a turtleneck sweater. I slipped my rucksack over one shoulder, took my overnight bag in my hand, and let myself be carried by the human current toward the customs and immigration desks.
I’d flown from Norfolk to Washington, Washington to New York, New York to Paris. I overnighted in Paris and sampled some of the holiday cheer — I never did get her name, but she was Vietnamese and she was beautiful — then rose at five and took a cab to Orly airport, a half hour southeast of the city, from where the Middle East Airlines nights departed for Beirut. I was traveling light: carry-on baggage and a smalt .380 pistol that was easily concealed when I passed through metal detectors.
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