We spent many days and nights practicing land navigation, small-unit tactics, and patrolling techniques. Then we were taught how to both rappel and fast-rope from a helicopter.
Since rappelling is safer (and slower), we learned that first. From a helicopter hovering anywhere from twenty to seventy feet off the ground, the trainee was taught how to snap into a rappel line using a locking carabiner that was strapped to his shoulders. A beener or D ring was attached to each trainee via a rappel seat that went around his waist and upper thighs.
From a sitting position with the legs out the door of the helicopter, the trainee pivoted 180 degrees on the skid so he faced the inside of the helicopter—feet shoulder-width apart, knees locked, balls of the feet on the skid, body bent at the waist, the brake hand on the small of his back.
On the go signal, he had to flex his knees and push away from the skid gear, allowing the rope to pass through the brake and guide hands.
Optimal descent was roughly eight feet per second with no jerky stops. The trainee had to start braking about halfway down by releasing tension on the rope and moving his brake hand (the bottom one) out at a forty-five-degree angle.
One guy fell in front of me and broke his back in two places, both his feet, and his right femur.
Fast-roping is a whole lot quicker. Wearing a pair of leather gloves, the trainee grabbed the rope with both hands held at about chest level and then put the rope between his boots and stepped out. The idea was to slide down using hands and feet as brakes.
We practiced slowing our descent and stopping. And when we started carrying fifty-plus pounds of gear on our backs for a seventy-foot descent, we had to pull our gloves off fast when we hit the ground because the leather felt like it was on fire.
By the last days of November we felt like warriors. But even at the very end of BUD/S, guys were selected out if they didn’t keep improving steadily.
Over a hundred trainees had started BUD/S with me, and only twenty-three of us stood on the podium in our white dress uniforms on December 3, 1982, to receive our BUD/S graduation certificates.
It would be another six months at least, during which we were on probation and completing our advanced SEAL training, before we could earn our coveted Navy SEAL tridents and become SEALs.
Chapter Six
Goat Lab
Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.
—Confucius
Back in the early 1980s there were only two ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ SEAL teams in existence—ST-1, on the West Coast, which covered operations in all of Asia; and ST-2, stationed in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which was responsible for operations in Europe, Africa, and Central and South America. My goal at the time was to serve on both.
Each coast was also home to two UDTs (underwater demolition teams)—elite, special-purpose forces established by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Their primary function was to reconnoiter and destroy enemy defensive obstacles on beaches prior to amphibious landings. The Navy’s top combat swimmers, UDTs breached the cables and nets protecting enemy harbors, planted limpet mines on enemy ships (as we did in Somalia), and located and marked mines for clearing by minesweepers.
A precursor to the Navy SEALs, UDTs pioneered closed-circuit diving, underwater demolitions, midget submarine (dry and wet submersible) operations, and combat swimming—a more efficient variant of the side-stroke that reduced the swimmer’s profile in the water.
Even though I knew about SEAL Team One and Two and the UDTs, I was still in the dark about SEAL Team Six, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
Before I checked into SEAL Team One, I had to complete Special Dive Technician School (SDTS), with the only other corpsman in my BUD/S class, a guy named Bob. SDTS was basically a crash course in how to diagnose and treat dive injuries and dive illnesses, including decompression sickness, emphysema, and dive embolisms, and how to administer hyperbaric-chamber treatment.
Since I was responsible for the safety of the divers on my team, I was eager to learn.
I found out that decompression sickness (aka the bends) occurs when a diver who has spent a long period of time underwater or has been breathing gas at a higher pressure than the pressure on the surface ascends and then develops bubbles of inert gas within the tissues of the body.
Symptoms include severe joint pain in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles. Some divers develop itching and mottled skin; others, headaches and blurred vision.