Inside SEAL Team Six(40)

For some ops (training or real), we’d split into squads of six or seven men. Squad one would typically be run by the officer in charge (OIC) and the senior enlisted, the lead petty officer (LPO); squad two by the assistant officer in charge (AOIC) and the chief.

A target would be set up in a building. Squad one would approach on the vertical axis, the other squad on the horizontal. The chief would initiate the order, then it was boom, boom. Depending on the op, there might be at least one M60 in each group and the rest us shooting M16s, M14s, or MP5s—point shooters.

When we used this standard operating procedure, the enemy had no place to hide. Every threat on target would be found and captured, or killed.

On command from the OIC, I’d fire a white star cluster from my 40 mm M203, signaling the other squad to shift fire so they hit anyone trying to escape from the back of the building. Meanwhile, squad two would move into the structure and shoot until the ceasefire order was given.

Captured prisoners would be tie-tied at the wrists and ankles and blindfolded. We’d put them on their knees, with their foreheads touching the ground and their wrists behind them. Then we’d search them for weapons, demos, or intel. They weren’t allowed to communicate. We’d hold them until the military intelligence guys arrived to debrief them.

We also conducted a lot of land, desert, and mountain warfare training, in and out of helicopters and indigenous vehicles at Camp Kerry, located in the Sonoran Desert outside of El Centro, California.

One night we were rehearsing an op■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ The driver, an ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ and our officer sat in front, and eight of us SEALs were in back, four to a bench. We all had our weapons, gear, and rucksacks, and we were camouflaged. With all the op gear, we were probably carrying about three hundred pounds each.

The driver, who was the only one wearing night-vision goggles, was fresh out of BUD/S. The rest of us couldn’t see a thing as the ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ flew down a dirt road that dropped off sharply to our right into a canal thirty feet below.

All we heard was the grind of the engine and rushing water as we were tossed around.

I yelled, “Slow down.”

The officer in front responded, “Quiet back there.”

I told the SEALs who were with me to unbuckle their web gear and hold their weapons away from their heads in case the vehicle had to stop abruptly or went off the road.

Minutes later the ambulance fishtailed around a turn that had no shoulder or guardrail.

We heard the ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ (■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​) guy up front shout, “Cut it! Cut it sharp!”

Then our officer shouted, “Here we go!”

The ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ shot off the road and flipped over onto its right, so that the guys on the opposite bench fell on us. It felt like we were flying, and then we hit the water hard. We were all severely jolted, and then we felt the ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ start to sink.

The guys in back with me remained calm. I thought, At least it’s not filling up with water. Almost as soon as I had that thought, water started pouring in the back. It filled up quickly. The eight of us positioned ourselves so that we could hold our mouths above the waterline and breathe. We tried pushing open the back door but were hindered by the strong current in the canal.

Luckily for us, the driver and SAS guy up front had been thrown from the vehicle. The SAS swam around and tried to pull the back door open while we pushed. After a couple of tense minutes we managed to pry the door open and swim out.

But we couldn’t find the driver. Thinking that he was trapped underneath the ambulance, I dove to find him, but he wasn’t there.

Turned out he had suffered a head injury and had been carried with the current about a half a mile down the canal. We found him sitting on the bank wondering what had happened.



We trained hard and sometimes partied hard. One night after a long seventy-mile hike in the heat, three of us were sitting outside against some CONEX ammo boxes. One of the SEALs, a big, muscular guy who I’ll call Ed, was drunk. He had a deathly fear of snakes.