Inside SEAL Team Six(65)

As a firefight broke out nearby and grenades were falling in the water, SEAL diver Randy B. attached a limpet mine to the hull of the Presidente Porras. At 0100, a large blast shook the walls of buildings across Panama City. It was the first time SEALs successfully executed a limpet attack on an enemy ship of battle.

I was in base housing at Fort Amador, which was about four miles from Rodman, when Shannon and I heard an AC-130 gunship firing rounds at a target in Panama City. I telephoned work and they said, “Get in here immediately!”

I grabbed my gear and weapon and started running as fast as I could toward Rodman Naval Station. I was so excited!

A U.S. Army jeep speeding down the road saw me running and stopped. An MP asked at gunpoint, “Where the hell are you going?”

“My name is Chief Mann and I am on my way to Rodman. I need a ride.”

They rushed me to Rodman. Minutes later I was on a river patrol boat with six guys from SBU-26. SBU-26 was commanded by a Navy lieutenant commander, Mike Fitzgerald, a tough Vietnam-era SEAL with more riverine experience than anybody else on the teams. The unit was made up of a headquarters element and ten patrol boat light detachments. Each detachment consisted of two boats with crews.

Our first frag order of the night was to confirm the reported sniper fire that was coming from the Bridge of the Americas.

We fired up the PRB (patrol river boat), basically a beefed-up Boston whaler armed with MK-19s and twin .50s, and approached the bridge. As soon as we emerged from the shadows, we started taking fire. The snipers had the advantage of concealment and elevation. With rounds ripping into the water around us, we trained our twin mounted .50-caliber machine guns on the snipers. They ducked behind some metal beams and fled.

At the same time a few miles away, SEALs from ST-4 were coming ashore in small inflatable boats near the Punta Paitilla airfield. Their mission was to seize the small civilian airfield and disable Noriega’s Learjet so he couldn’t escape. But the element of surprise had been eliminated because of the explosion on the Presidente Porras. Also, the runway was well lit by landing lights, and the AC-130 Spectre gunship that was assigned to provide air cover was unable to launch.

Those weren’t the only problems the SEALs encountered. They had been told that the airstrip wasn’t guarded. But the intel was wrong.

SEAL Dennis Hansen, a lieutenant at the time, was the platoon officer in charge. “As we advanced, I heard yelling,” Hansen remembered. “The plan was to tell the Panamanian security guards to go away. This seemed to work well until we got to Noriega’s plane hangar. There, a gunfight broke out after a brief exchange of words. The platoon adjacent to mine was directly in front of the hangar. They were to disable the plane. About half of the platoon was wounded. I sent my assistant officer in charge and his squad to support the platoon that was in contact. They took effective fire also, killing my AOIC and wounding a couple of other men.”

Four SEALs died in the firefight: Lieutenant John Connors, my good friend; Chief Engineman Donald McFaul; Boatswain’s Mate First Class Chris Tilghman; and Torpedoman’s Mate Second Class Isaac Rodriguez III.

A very good buddy of mine, Carlos Moleda, was shot in the chest and leg. Another teammate, Mike P., thought Carlos was dead and used his body as a shield as he returned fire.

I was with Mike when he apologized. He said, “Sorry, Carlos, but I thought you were dead and I couldn't get low enough, and needed anything in front of me to block me from the incoming fire.”

Fortunately, Carlos survived. Even though he never recovered use of his body from his sternum down, Carlos went on to compete in several Ironman and ultra-distance athletic events in his wheelchair, and he has won many!

Years later, while I was training with Carlos at Fort Story, Virginia, I saw him racing down a steep hill on his wheelchair bike at close to thirty miles an hour when his foot slipped off the footrest. I watched as his limp foot scraped down the road. When I ran over to Carlos to check on him, his foot was a bloody mess. He shrugged and said, “I guess that’s going to take a while to heal.” It took over a year.

Carlos is still competing in the world’s most challenging events with the use of just his arms and shoulders.



Our next assignment was to capture Noriega’s yacht, which was docked on the south side of the canal. The SBU-26 executive officer, Johnny Koenig, who could out-PT, outswim, and outrun most SEALs who were twenty years younger, received the order and wanted to accompany us.

The general in charge ordered him to stay.

Meanwhile, our patrol boat had almost finished backing away from the pier and was turning right. Johnny hung up the phone, ran down the pier, jumped in the water in full uniform, web gear, and weapon, and swam to the boat. Johnny wasn’t going to let anybody tell him that he couldn’t go into battle with his men.