CHAPTER FIFTY

NAVY COMMANDER DICK MARCINKO was sometimes known as “Dynamite Dick of the Delta” for his daring SEAL team operations behind enemy lines in the Mekong Delta. During one six-month period, his team performed an incredible 107 combat patrols that resulted in more than 150 confirmed enemy KIA and 84 captured. His two tours in Vietnam won him the Silver Star for Valor, four Bronze Stars with Combat “V,” two Navy Commendation Medals, and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.

I ran into Marcinko in one of the seventeen miles of corridors at the Puzzle Palace, while the Pentagon was in a frantic scramble to offset and respond to the humiliating blow of Desert One. He told me he was assigned to the Special Operations Division in the CNO’s office. I was assigned to a CNO SpecOps Advisory Panel while he was detailed to a TAT—Terrorist Action Team. Both of us were among those planning a second hostage-rescue operation against Iran.

Rather, we were the hands behind the scenes. Action officers for each branch of the armed services worked for their respective chiefs of staff. If the JCS had a question, they dropped it down the line, where we hustled to do research and draft an answer. Superiors then either “chopped” our work or approved it to pass on up the chain.

Over cups of coffee with Marcinko in the cafeteria, talk turned to counterterrorism and the changes in naval special warfare each of us hoped to see in response to Iran and the growing terrorist threat. Marcinko leaned across the table toward me with an intensity some men found unsettling. He was a big man of about forty with a dark olive complexion and eyes nearly as dark as his hair. “Rough at the edges” expressed itself in a vocabulary liberally sprinkled with “fucks” and “assholes.” He reminded me of Roy Boehm. Both were the kind you wanted with you in a barroom brawl.

“Delta Force screwed the pooch on Eagle Claw,” he said, “but that wasn’t Chargin’ Charlie’s fault, although the pencil dicks will have to find someone to blame it on. Bone, listen. We need to be preaching for the Navy to form a real counterterrorist team of our own. Let the pussy Army have Delta; they can play in the dirt. We’ll target maritime objectives—tankers, cruise ships, military assets like navy yards, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines.”

“I’ve been preaching it since before Vietnam,” I replied.

Marcinko growled in his throat. “The goat fuck at Desert One is the catalyst to get her done.”

He was right.

In fact, SEAL Team One on the West Coast and SEAL Team Two in the east had already established some counterterrorism training. At Little Creek, Team Two dedicated two of its ten platoons specifically to CT activities and gave it the name MOB-6, or Mobility-6. MOB-6 conducted joint training exercises with Britain’s SAS and its Special Boat Section, with West Germany’s GSG-9, and with CT units from France and Italy in boarding ships and oil rigs to rescue hostages and take out bad guys.

Marcinko had written a memo outlining his ideas, a copy of which I had in my possession. The original went to CNO Hayward.

“Commander Hamilton, you’re our UW authority,” CNO James Hayward said. “What do you think?”

He was a tall, gaunt naval pilot who projected formality and always looked as though he should be wearing oversized aviator-frame sunglasses.

“I’m considering Marcinko to command a new CT unit,” the CNO went on before I had a chance to respond.

I nodded noncommittally. “He’s abrasive, sir, he’s an asshole. Hide him when the women and kids are around, but otherwise he’s definitely the best man for the job.”

“Done. He builds and trains the unit. You oversee it and make sure he does it right.”

Marcinko promised the Joint Chiefs and CNO that he could have the unit operational within six months. We called it SEAL Team Six to confuse Soviet intelligence as to the number of actual teams. He started with seventy-five shooters and fifteen officers, most of whom were handpicked original members from UDT/SEALs. MOB-6 disbanded, and many of its members transferred to him.

SEAL Team Six came on line officially in October 1980 and set up shop at Little Creek in two “chicken coops” located fifteen yards behind SEAL Team Two’s headquarters. Both buildings were World War II wooden structures forty feet wide and eighty feet long, built on concrete slabs. They had been previously used as a Navy Wives Club meeting house and a Cub Scout den.

There was nothing at all military looking about the members of Six, nothing to identify them on-base or off. Marcinko wanted lean and mean. He got that and more. They were scruffy looking and wore civilian clothing with no base stickers on their vehicles. But what they did have was the best equipment available: high-tech Gore-Tex parkas and boots, parachutes, climbing gear, helmets and goggles, backpacks and ballistic nylon soft luggage, skis, SCUBA, camouflage for every environment … S&W .357 revolvers in stainless steel, Beretta 9mm autos, H&K submachine guns with and without silencers, stainless steel Ruger Mini-14s, silenced .22 caliber automatics, sniper rifles, stun grenades, C-4 explosives, claymore mines, radio-controlled remote detonators, and an annual ammunition training allowance larger than that of the entire U.S. Marines.

CNO Hayward’s orders to Marcinko had been curt: “Dick, you will not fail.”

SEAL Team Six’s training program emphasized realism in various scenarios: ship boarding, oil-rig takedowns, plane hijacking recoveries, air ops, structural entry. … Naturally, training entailed a great deal of combat shooting and specialized techniques. Shooting had to be both accurate and instinctive. Shooters must be able to bring down their targets with one or two shots under any conditions. Six Team operators each shot a minimum of 2,500 rounds every week, more than most SEALs shot in a year.

In the Kill House, they practiced entering and clearing rooms and determining friend from foe on pop-up man silhouettes. Entries began with a single man coming through a doorway. Then in pairs, groups of four, finally in sixes, weaving a lethal, complicated choreography until every man mastered the art of dancing through a doorway and entering a room without getting killed or killing the man in front. After a while, maneuvers were all conducted with live fire.

Marcinko then added a twist. He attached a three-by-five index card somewhere on each silhouette target—head, torso, shoulder, groin… A shooter had to hit the card in order to score. Miss it and he started all over.

The scenario came with certain hazards. Concrete walls and floors created ricochets which occasionally dinged a guy. It was a dangerous game, but a necessary one in order to have men face the worst monsters terrorism produced. Better that men be injured or even die in training than that more of them be killed because they were not ready for the major leagues.

“We will not fail” became Marcinko’s mantra.

Having conducted initial training at Little Creek, SEAL Six moved to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to continue even more demanding CT training in a secluded corner of the base. Marcinko stood before them.

“Gentlemen, this will be a no-shitter,” he began. “You know what we are here to do—counterterrorism. And what does counterterrorism mean? It means that we will fucking do it to them before they fucking do it to us. First, you do not have to like everything you do. Fact is, I don’t give a shit whether you like everything you do or not. All you have to do is do it.

“Second, you are the system, gentlemen. The buck stops with each one of you. You assholes have the very best toys money can buy. If your equipment fails, it’s because you fucking failed—not it. So I will not accept any goddamn excuses—‘the gear didn’t work, sir’ or ‘I got the wrong lung, sir,’ or ‘I didn’t bring the right weapon, sir.’

“You are the fucking system. Failure is on your shoulders. I will accept no excuses. None. CNO Hayward sent me down here. You know what he fucking said, gentlemen? He said, ‘Dick, you will not fail.’

“So, I will not fucking fail, gentlemen. Nor will you fucking fail.”

He walked to a covered easel and threw back the black drape, revealing a map of Iran. “We have been assigned a mission. We aren’t even a unit yet, but we have a mission. You see the map. You know where that is. You know who’s still being held there. We are on call. Our number has been posted.

“It comes down to this: I’m giving you the tools. I’m giving you the opportunity. I’m giving you the support. If there is shit, I will take it for you. If there is flak, I’ll absorb it for you. All you have to worry about is getting so fucking good at your jobs that you can fucking do anything.”

I nodded with approval. Marcinko was an abrasive sonofabitch, but he knew how to motivate men. SEAL Team Six was up and running.

“Dick, you’ve got the best unit in the world,” I complimented him. “Don’t abuse it.”