Inside SEAL Team Six(57)

I hadn’t even noticed that the helicopter had thrown those bodies out as well. People in the reviewing stand had ducked down and were screaming. They thought the helicopter was going to explode.

I had been so focused on the first soldier who had fallen out that I had experienced ocular exclusion (aka tunnel vision).

But as luck would have it, all eight guys that I had put through goat lab were there with their advanced emergency medical packs. They did what they had just been taught to do and went to work on the six soldiers who were torn up and had broken bones.

One guy was having trouble breathing, so I tried sweeping his mouth for broken teeth or bones. When I saw that the airway obstruction was down in his windpipe, I made a one-inch incision below the larynx and heard a loud whoosh as all the blocked air came out.

Then I inserted an airway tube that I had in my kit and started breathing into it. Mouth-to-cric.

After the medevac helicopters came to take the injured soldiers to the hospital, ■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​■​

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So the VIPs returned to their seats and we continued on with the shooting and climbing demonstrations. We did double taps, but guys weren’t hitting the targets as tightly as usual. I also noticed that people were looking at me funny.

Afterward, I went to the bathroom and saw that I had blood all around my teeth because of the mouth-to-cric breathing.

But the six soldiers survived, and Mark from our team was fine. Afterward, me and the eight guys I had put through goat lab received lifesaving medals.



Soon after the incident at Fort Bragg I was sent to Chile with two men from ■​■​■​■​■​■​ Chilean president General Pinochet, who had seized power in a bloody coup back in 1973, was growing increasingly unpopular. There was talk of another coup to depose General Pinochet, and three of us were tasked with surveying possible escape routes and finding safe houses, in case fighting broke out and the U.S. embassy and U.S. citizens had to be evacuated.

I flew to Panama wearing civilian clothes. With my longish hair and beard, I seemed to fit right in with the other people milling around the terminal in Panama City. But I couldn’t find the two guys from ■​■​■​■​■​■​

So I called the command and was told to go to my hotel. Still no sign of the guys from ■​■​■​■​■​■​ There was a band playing downstairs, so I went down to check out the scene and drink a beer.

Then, because I was wide awake, I drove fifty miles across the isthmus to the enlisted club at Fort Amador and had a few drinks there.

I returned to my hotel room hours later. There were still no messages. So I went down to the bar, which was full of people drinking and dancing. I surveyed the crowd and saw two well-built guys standing against the wall, observing the area, their arms crossed in front of their chests. They wore big watches and were the only two in the bar who weren’t participating in the fun.

I walked up to one of them and asked, “Are you Sergeant H.?”

He said, “Shh! Nobody’s supposed to know we’re here.”

“Well, Sergeant, I traveled all over the country tonight and saw about a thousand people, and you guys definitely stand out.”

On the flight down to Santiago, Chile, one of the ■​■​■​■​■​ guys talked about free-fall training. He explained how they practiced countless jumps in a wind tunnel. Then their riggers checked their chutes twice as they packed them. Finally, they did a jump, which was recorded on video and supervised by two instructors. Everything was by the book.

I told him about that tough old Vietnam-era SEAL who always had a can of Budweiser in his hand, how he’d asked us who hadn’t jumped before and then had us all jumping the next day.