It didn’t help that the area was full of rattlesnakes. The third SEAL, Tommy—who went on to become the command master at ST-6—killed and cut the head off a large rattlesnake, then threw it in Ed’s lap. Ed jumped to his feet and started doing this herky-jerky dance as he screamed bloody murder. His movements apparently scared a big, black rat; it came running out from behind the CONEX boxes and started charging right at Ed.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” he screamed.
Tommy coolly raised his .45 and shot the rat dead in its tracks.
A couple days later, we were out on patrol again, resting on some rocks, when a large rattlesnake slithered past us. Everyone was so exhausted, including Ed, that no one moved a muscle.
Snakes seemed to be a constant nuisance. Another time during jungle-warfare training in the Philippines, a Marine who was working with us went missing in the jungle for a couple of days. His body was finally found and brought into camp, where a pathologist performed an autopsy to ascertain the cause of death. He found two fang marks four inches apart; they had penetrated four inches through the Marine’s skull.
He’d apparently been struck by a king cobra when he stood up to take a piss.
We could be working anywhere on the planet at any given time. One month we’d be slogging through the jungles of Thailand. A month later, we’d be shivering our way through winter-warfare training in Alaska.
It was around this time that me and three other SEALs were selected to go on the ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ which was so sensitive that it was never even mentioned in our records.
Our platoon also trained for months for a highly sensitive op (that is still classified) that was supposed to take place behind the Iron Curtain. To our great disappointment, we never deployed.
In the winter of ’84, seven of us were selected to perform a winter-warfare op in Korea, which involved getting intel from someone who had contact with a North Korean defector. We jumped from an aircraft at night into the freezing water, but we didn’t have room on the boat for all our winter gear.
By the time we climbed into our Zodiac and started motoring through the rough sea to shore, our hands and feet were numb, our clothes and gear were frozen, and we were all suffering from hypothermia.
Thankfully we warmed up a little as we climbed into the mountains. The rocky landscape was covered with frozen snow and ice.
We slept outside huddled together on beds of sticks that we’d gathered to keep our bodies off the frozen ground. One night my feet slipped off the sticks, which caused me to suffer frostbite in both feet.
But still we made it through three days of humping over the mountains until we reached our target, and got the intel. Mission success!
Unfortunately, the frostbite stayed with me, and to this day I experience pain and numbness every time my feet get cold.
Despite the occasional discomfort, I loved the pace, constant movement, interesting places we visited, and the characters we met.
There was no one more colorful than Ray Bosco, who taught us hand-to-hand combat in the Philippines. He was a big tough ex-con who had a gym in Subic City; the gym had a bar upstairs and we all gathered there at night.
Once two robbers attacked him at the bar—one armed with a gun, the other with a knife—and Ray, who was unarmed, killed both of them with his bare hands.
He told us that if we ever had any trouble, we should come to him.
I’d gotten away from the kind of trouble I’d had as a kid, but occasionally it still found me. Around this time, I bought my wife, Kim, a new custom-built high-end bike for her birthday. When I was away with my platoon in Guam for a month, our house was broken into and the bike stolen.
I went to the kids who were on the streets riding bikes and I said, “If you ever see my wife’s bike, I’ll give you a hundred-dollar reward.”
They were back in half an hour and said, “The guy who runs the booth down the street where he sells jewelry has your bike. But he painted it bright orange.”
I filled my wallet with money, went to his booth, and bought a little piece of jewelry. Behind the vendor was an old bike leaning against a building. I asked him if he was selling it. He gave me a price. I could tell right away that it wasn’t my wife’s.
“Do you have anything lighter?” I asked him. “I’m in a bike race next weekend and am looking for a lightweight bike.”
He said he did but didn’t want to sell it. My initial instinct was to grab the vendor by his throat, pull him into the open doorway behind him, and beat the hell out of him. But I decided against it because the bike wasn’t even there.