Inside SEAL Team Six(37)

These weren’t scenic freshwater dives, but night dives in the bay or ocean for combat-diver training.

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We practiced dives like that all over the world. We also trained for sub ops in Subic Bay, Philippines, in Guam, and in Bremerton, Washington.

I liked the sub ops and the lock-ins/lockouts the least. The first time I did them was on the USS Grayback. Earlier, the diesel-electric Grayback had served as a launching platform for Regulus II sea-to-surface missiles. In the late 1960s, the ship’s cavernous, twin-missile bays had been converted into diving hangars for Special Forces operations.

The idea of being cooped up in the tight quarters of a submarine didn’t appeal to me at all. Submarine sailors are pasty white and alternate using the beds in twelve-hour shifts.

Usually it took us a few days to load all our gear on our host sub and was a challenge to find a place to put it.

Most times there were as many as fourteen of us and we’d have to sleep on the deck with all our gear. When the sub was underwater, the stale air would start to make us feel sick after a couple of weeks.

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