Inside SEAL Team Six(48)

We’d dive into a harbor with maybe forty ships in it and have to locate the target vessel from underwater in the dark. The only lights we used were the luminescent green lights on our watches, depth gauges, and compass boards.

We did vertical de-rigs, which they don’t do anymore because of the danger. Six of us would swim up under a ship and rig a vertical line from its hull. The line had loops attached to it so each diver could secure his dive gear as he de-rigged underwater. We’d secure our weight belts, fins, and Dräger rebreathers.

On the signal—toot, toot, toot—we’d silently surface.

As lead climber, I would climb the ladder and attach it for the rest of the team. This was always an adventure because I never knew how securely the ladder was hooked, or what it was hooked on to. We climbed in order and we each had specific duties once we boarded the vessel.

Weapons training and CQB were also a lot more intense. In fact, we did more CQB training than any other unit in the U.S. military, and probably in the world. And we ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​

We learned how to take down a house room by room and how to infiltrate an aircraft or a bus. We could secure a vessel compartment by compartment after boarding by sea or air. And we were surgical shooters trained in various breaching and explosive-entry methods. ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​

One of our sniper instructors was the famous Carlos Hathcock, known as the Marine Corps sniper, who had recorded ninety-three confirmed sniper kills in Vietnam. He held the record for distance: a twenty-five-hundred-yard confirmed kill with a .50-caliber rifle during a five-day standoff with the Vietcong.

We also had four incredible lead-climbing instructors, including the amazing Jay Smith and Danny Osmond.

On ops in the jungle, desert, or wooded areas, we’d often extract from a target with ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​) helicopters shooting right behind us to ensure that we weren’t followed by anyone who might have survived the initial assault. They’d fire so close, hard, and hot that you could literally feel the ground shaking. We trusted those ■​■​■​■​■​ pilots with our lives—over and over again. They became famous with the book and movie Black Hawk Down.

■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​ ST-6, ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​

Rich, one of my teammates and a guy who had distinguished himself in Grenada, was doing live CQB training with his boat crew. The shooting house, or as we called it in the ’80s, the kill house, was dark. There were paper funny-face targets placed in different locations. Upon entering with his weapon, Rich spotted a darkened hallway that extended between two rooms. He went down it to make sure it was clear. But the guys who had set up the shooting house and placed the targets didn’t plan for anyone to go all the way down the hall. Rich did.