Inside SEAL Team Six(55)

I wasn’t allowed to visit my uncles when they were dying. Nor was I given permission to attend their funerals.

During this time, I got a call from my parents, who were living in Westerly, Rhode Island. Because they knew I was very busy, they never asked me for anything. But this time my mom and dad said that my younger brother, Rick, was in real trouble and needed my help. He was drinking heavily and doing drugs; he had even attacked his wife and daughter with a Buck knife I’d given him for Christmas.

That night I sat down and wrote Rick an eleven-page letter. I spoke from my heart. I wrote:



Rick, you and I both were going down a road of trouble since we were kids. I diverted off—thanks to the Navy. But you’ve kept down the path, and now you’re in all kinds of trouble. You’re not working, you lost your family, you’re having cocaine seizures, you’re stealing cars. I know. You’re going down a dead end road and you will end up dead or in prison. These are the only options for guys who lead the life you are living. You’ve got to stop. I love you. You’re my only brother.

Please allow me to ask you just one favor. First, please stop drinking, drugs and partying for thirty days. Just stop. If you can’t, let me send you to rehab and I’ll pay. That’s the only favor I’m going to ask you for the rest of my life.



I went to my assault team officer and asked him if I could go to Rhode Island for the weekend. I told him that my brother was in a lot of trouble and I needed to help him.

The officer said. “Sorry, Doc, but we can’t afford for you to be away now.”

I decided to go anyway. The only person I told was my swim partner, Clell.

I said, “Clell, if we get recalled, you know where I am.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my job, but it’s my only brother and I have to do this.”

The next day, I flew to Providence. My brother, Rick, picked me up on his Harley. He had long hair, a beard, and a black leather jacket—the same motorcycle-gang regalia I wore before I joined the Navy.

Rick had been a tough, well-built guy, but now he looked sickly and skinny. We rode directly to a biker bar. By the time we sat down, it was around eleven in the morning.

I turned to my brother and asked, “Rick, is this all you do, just hang out and party?”

He answered, “No, I stay here until nine or ten at night, then I go out partying.”

“Did you come here to reprimand me?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. “I came here at the risk of losing the best job I ever will have to hopefully save your life.”

The two of us sat next to each other at the bar. To my right stood a gray-bearded biker with patches all over his leather vest.

He turned to me and said, “Your brother is a wild man. He comes in here every night and does eight balls [an eighth of an ounce of cocaine] with all the coke whores. They crawl all over him. He’s crazy.”

I said, “That’s why I’m here.”

The bartender set some beers in front of us.

I turned to my brother again and said, “Rick, I wrote you a long letter last night. It will be easier for me to give you the letter than for me to tell you all that it says.”

I handed him the letter, and he started reading. I could tell he was moved. When he finished reading it, he folded up the letter and stuffed it in his pocket.

A minute or so later, the bartender came over and asked Rick if he wanted another drink.

Rick said, “No, I’m on the wagon.”

That’s all he said. He’s been on the wagon ever since. Today, almost thirty years later, he’s a successful businessman, with a wife and two wonderful children. And I’m so proud of him.

He still rides with motorcycle clubs and attends big bike rallies but is completely against drinking and doing drugs, and he has helped hundreds of people who are trying to end their addictions.

When I returned to the team the following Monday, the officer hadn’t even noticed that I’d left. And I decided that if I wanted a life, I needed to train some of the other guys on the assault team to be medics.

So I started planning a mini goat lab and recruited four guys, one from each of the four boat crews, to attend.

Just before I started to train them, I received word that the new CO, Captain Murphy, wanted to see me. (Captain Thomas E. Murphy replaced Captain Gormly in early 1986.)

Captain Murphy said, “Sorry, Doc. But that goat lab you had planned—we’re going to have to cancel it.”

“Why, sir?”

“The team is under such close scrutiny, I don’t need the press to find out that we’re chopping up goats. I was shot in the leg in Vietnam. I didn’t need somebody who chopped up goats to save me.”