SO THERE I WAS, HANDED THE BEST OF THE BEST AND given the order: lead. It’s one thing to take new recruits and drill bad habits out of them. But to take knife-edged professionals and tell them to do things your way? That’s like telling a tiger to be a canary. Wasn’t gonna happen, and I was smart enough to see that on minute one of day one.
I worked tirelessly to acclimate and gain the respect of the men. That meant, first and foremost, I had to work harder than my teammates and look for opportunities to excel. And not just figuratively. I drilled with the team, making certain every training revolution was better than the last. I spent sleepless nights on the sea, bouncing all the hell over rough seas while chasing down ships. I exercised like a demon, the same way I had in high school and college, ignoring the pain and savoring the burn. I flushed every naval regulation I ever knew about proper grooming. In those years before rampant political correctness, I called myself the Last of the Mohicans. At my wedding, I had a small ponytail. Minus the tattoos, I began to look like the two Pirates on the Harley.
I worked nonstop to be one of the guys, and you know how I knew I’d made it? When they finally gave me a nickname. They called me “Z Man.” I liked it, and the name stuck.
That was it. I was in. All those qualities of service I talked about before, of the importance of working with and caring about the people around you? I had that now to a degree I never thought possible. “Brothers” doesn’t come close to describing the bond. And I’ll tell you this: that’s the difference between us and most of the enemies we fought in the Middle East, the same ones who terrorize defenseless families, who bind and execute helpless, blameless individuals. We weren’t motivated by hate or visions of conquest. We were obsessed with duty and honor and uplifting the lives of those we served at home and also abroad. That was as true in the field as it is—at least for me—in the halls of Congress.
Service.
That simple idea is why we win, why we will always ultimately win.
It is why terrorists and despots who may bloody our noses or slaughter their own people always fall.
The wild and woolly culture of the SEALs had its advantages. It was more flexible and in many ways more effective than “big navy.” It could get in and out virtually unseen, complete a mission before an enemy even knew it was underway. But there were problems, too, as there are in any organization. A decade before the strain of long, sustained combat began in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, an internal bloodletting had begun in the SEAL teams … and it came from a most unexpected source.
A success.
As I rose in seniority, I was asked if I would take over leadership of the team on my second tour. I had earned a reputation of working hard and leading from the front. While I could handle a rifle, I never was a sniper, and, more importantly in the eyes of the headquarters, I had been previously assigned to a unit other than the Pirates. It was an honor to even be considered and I took my new role seriously. My job was to ensure the men at the front of the battle’s edge had everything they needed to win. The team had gone through a rough patch and had lost the commanding general’s confidence by under-delivering on a couple of high-visibility training exercises. It was more bad luck than anything else, but there was never any room for even the slightest excuse for failure. I was sent in to restore confidence and faith to the Crusaders. I would start by focusing on the right training, the right equipment, and the right plan to dispatch the enemy and come home.
Some of the best SEALs have what I call “outlier” personalities. They may have come from the school of hard knocks, or they may have something smoldering deep down inside them. They may not have been academic or athletic superstars, but they had incredible drive and they were tough. Very tough.
A lot of discussion has been made over SEAL selection. Can you tighten up the initial screening so that the attrition is less? Can you predict success or failure? Judging from the backgrounds of the current master chiefs, I would say those who don’t fit the mold push the team forward. It’s easy to record the number of push-ups, difficult to screen character and drive, and impossible to predict greatness.
As it happened, there were characters on every SEAL team. Take “Blake Edwards” for instance, who was in training class with me. Blake had been assigned to an East Coast team and had seen action in Panama. He was a phenomenal shot and enjoyed life on the road. He used to go out on training trips and pick up local girls with his sidekick and fellow SEAL, “Vic Ferraro.” They couldn’t say they were with the SEALs, of course, so they’d concoct a story of being part of the Coors Light jump team, or some other outrageous cover. Even his choice of their cover names indicated they were brazen.
That was only the start of the stories they used to make up on the fly. They rarely got called out on his stories, of course, and they were never traced back to the command. How could anyone trace back his wild tales when he told any girl he met in a bar that his name was Blake Edwards? For those of you too young to remember him, Blake Edwards was an actor and director made famous for films such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and 10.
Blake had always been a wild man, even when stateside. He once picked up a girl; I have no idea if he was Blake Edwards at the time, and it really doesn’t matter. He decided he was going to take a blue chem light—like those day-glow light sticks you get at parties, except a lot more powerful—crack it open and, become the original “Blue Man” when they were both under the covers.
God only knows what that chemical is inside those lights. Blake certainly didn’t. It took a few minutes before it began burning him, and by the time he and the girl realized it was not a good idea, it was too late but that didn’t stop Blake from telling the story after he got back from the hospital.
I had what you could call an interesting conversation with Blake later, when I was the operations officer. I got a call from one of the master chiefs, telling me he’d received a letter from Blake’s wife stating she had a problem with his pay. On issues of family and pay, I took the issue seriously. Blake had been shot in Somalia months back during the infamous mission portrayed in the book and movie Black Hawk Down. Due to his wounds, he was assigned to the operations department while recovering. Somehow, he dropped off the radar.
“Okay,” I said. “How’s Blake doing?”
“You should know,” the Master Chief said to me. “He’s assigned to you.”
At that point, I hadn’t seen Blake for months. In fact, I could not remember the last time I saw him and had not realized he had been assigned to me. I hadn’t seen his name on any paperwork, and the team had been traveling a lot, so I wasn’t around much. But the navy thought Blake was still assigned to me, and there was a trail of direct deposit paychecks to prove it.
Nobody knew where his pay was going. Blake’s wife certainly didn’t; she hadn’t seen any of it for her bills or expenses. She thought he was still in the team area, and we thought he was rehabbing or had been assigned somewhere else.
We contacted the bank where his paychecks were being deposited, and from it got an address for him in North Carolina, where he was living off the grid, yet on full active-duty pay.
I was able to find his number and gave him a quick call. That was a fun conversation.
“Uh, hey, man, how’s it going?” he said upon answering the phone.
“Hey, Blake. It’s good here in the navy. You’re still part of it, and you’ve got to come back to work.”
“Well, I’ve got a lot of things going on, Z Man. You know how it is.”
“Yes Blake, I know how it is. I also know the navy and you are still in it. It’s Monday. You have until next Monday to be back on the job. Your decision matrix is either: a) you’re going to come back to work, permanently, or b) you’re out of the navy. You have zero leave left, you’re not on rehab, and you have to support your wife.”
Blake came back, at least for a little bit. We weren’t going to bust him. He had been shot, been stuck in rehab, and decided to go fishing for a while. Quite frankly, given the circumstances of being overrun in Somalia and the amount of time that a team guy is deployed, I was willing to work with him. But he knew that he no longer had the passion and soon got out of the navy, which was a shame. He was a good SEAL and an excellent shot. He just couldn’t do it anymore, and found other interests.
At least Blake was entertaining to be around. Unfortunately, every organization has them. The SEALs have more than our share. When you’re in charge of a SEAL assault team, you potentially have one of the best jobs in the world. You have plenty of money, great guys, cool equipment, and you’re in fantastic shape. You should feel like you were on top of the world.
But there is always one guy in any organization whose personality clashes with the rest like oil and water. I had mine with “Old Two Grit.” We called him that because he was the sand that got everywhere and rubbed everybody wrong. He hated officers, and the men hated him. Even his own mother, rumor had it, didn’t tell him when she was coming into town. Maybe it was me, maybe it was our egos, but the lesson learned was “cut bait early.”
I will say this about Old Two Grit: when it came to battle, he left his bull behind. He’d fight with people in the team room, and he’d fight with them in planning sessions or during training, but when we were out in the field, he was a SEAL warrior alongside the rest of us. I guess he always needed to be fighting someone, and if an enemy wasn’t handy, we were it.
Other guys were more in the mold of just being fun to watch talent work, like “Scotty,” who served with me throughout my career. He was savagely unorthodox, and savagely deadly in combat. You couldn’t really train guys like this. They’d learn the basic lessons, but most of the time they were driven by instinct, and their instincts were excellent.
Scotty was near perfection when it came to close-quarters battle work. He instinctively knew when to press ahead, and when to slow down and assess the field of battle. People around him learned quickly that when Scotty slowed down, they’d better slow down too, because he was probably seeing something you were not. I don’t even think he knew how he knew this. He just did it based on pure instinct. You can’t teach that; you can only hope to recognize and refine it. For me, I was in awe of his talent and remain so today.
Scotty usually wasn’t the best athlete on the field at any given time, although, of course, he was pretty good. But he was a great shot, and he had the right mental software to be a SEAL. He had enormously powerful and accurate decision-making capabilities for assessing threat/non-threat situations.
I did have a glitch in my record. Call it bad judgment or a bad habit; it was one in the same. My first tour was characterized as the Pirate era. Members traveled and trained where they liked and navy oversight was little or none. While the open throttle years of Dick Marcinko had passed, the legacy was still there. The team was in the early stages of a transition from pony tails and earrings to getting haircuts and returning to uniforms. I transferred about the same time that Eric Olson came in and changed the culture. When I came back to senior leadership in my team, the command had changed, but I had not. As team leader, I was in charge of determining the training schedule based on meeting critical skill requirements. I took every opportunity to go out west to find training sites and look for opportunities for my team. As areas of Montana are nearly indistinguishable from the forests of Bosnia or the hills of Afghanistan, it made sense. Selecting training sites was a privilege that had been afforded to every team leader before me. I had bought my grandparents’ house and decided to restore it rather than sell the family seat of generations. It seemed like a perfect match to travel to Fort Harrison, Spokane, Glasgow, and other training areas and go on leave. We conducted weapons and explosive training in Yakima, Washington, and conducted fire and movement in the hills of Montana. Why not? I was in charge and that was standard operating procedure. The problem was autonomous travel was no longer authorized and the rules had changed. Every travel claim for the past seven years was reviewed and every training trip was scrutinized. I felt like Captain Drake being tried for piracy in England after he fought for the Crown. It wasn’t pretty but I did not get hung. I ended up having to repay $211 in unauthorized expenses, but the biggest penalty was being embarrassed for wrongdoing. Lesson learned, all of us are accountable to someone. Even the President and Congress are accountable to the people. It was a hard lesson to learn and likely put a cloud over me making flag officer. When I transferred, I was still given the highest recommendation for early promotion, assigned as executive officer, promoted to full commander, and later assigned multiple tours as the Naval Special Operations Forces Commander in Kosovo, and later acting Commander of Special Operations Forces in Iraq. The incident was a “shot across the bow” for sure, and I have to say I got the message.
Then there was my association with the Pirates. The damn-the-torpedoes guys. Most of the time, if you gave them a training assignment, they’d pull it off brilliantly, but every once in a while they’d be absolutely horrendous. And you never knew which group of Pirates would show up.
Now, if you had a high-risk, high-action mission, any of the teams (with the exception of the training team, of course) could have accomplished it, but the Pirates would be the ones who were really pissed off that they didn’t get first crack at it.
The Pirates pulled the assignment to demonstrate at-sea techniques for boarding fast-moving ships using high-speed boats with monster outboard engines, and helicopters, something that not only had never been done, but it was considered damn near impossible. But we had been tasked with being ready to counter any terrorist threats against the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, particularly aboard the cruise ships that were acting as floating hotels for the Olympics.
The Pirates were game, of course, and got the call to demonstrate their capability. After parachuting the boats and men at sea, they banged over the rough seas and approached a big, smooth metal wall several stories high: the side of a cruise ship the navy had rented, along with a full crew and extras who would play enemy personnel and vacationers aboard the ship. It wasn’t just an exercise in skill, daring, and machismo, and the techniques would have benefits well beyond the 1992 Olympics. Since the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the Special Operations tactics to board a ship at sea needed to be developed and trained. Today, with the threat of weapons of mass destruction being transported on the high seas, the mission remains critical to national security. This technique was like hooky bobbing but with guaranteed deadly consequences if it didn’t work out. The slightest mistake in a small boat next to a large ship in high seas might mean the boat and men being taken under by the current and crushed by the steel hull or the ship’s propeller. Either way, the result was an “E” ticket to Davey Jones’ locker.
The night of the “ship attack” was dark and the seas were about ten feet high. Right on the edge of possible they were at their best. Helicopters appeared out of the dark skies and the boats seemed to rise from the seas alongside. The masked men in flight suits came in, guns blazing, and every one of their shots hit the targets we’d set up.
The day’s glory went to the men in the boats. These pirates’ pirates made a parallel run at the cruise ship that was dazzling. They used grappling hooks and caving ladders to secure themselves to, and then ascend, the wet, slippery hull. We were tense and sweating just watching them work it from our positions on the deck. The rush of the men descending from the helicopters and climbing from the boats made me proud to be a SEAL. After what seemed like an hour—but was just under two minutes—the guys hauled themselves onto the pitching and rolling deck and fanned out to take control of the entry points. It was impressive: the only person who ever looked better climbing out of the sea was Ursula Andress in the beginning of the James Bond movie Dr. No. And she wasn’t nearly as well armed as my guys.
Through the glass of the bridge windows, several senior officers and I watched through binoculars. On the deck, my job was to narrate the action to the VIP dignitaries watching. I had arrived just weeks before and had yet to prove my merit as a “meat eater.” I was the outsider, the liaison between the Pirates and the brass. I was also forced into an ad hoc diplomatic role. In addition to the US fleet admiral, we had our commanding officer (CO) and command master chief, who were almost inseparable. In my role as an ad hoc diplomat, I was the “expert,” but, in actuality, I knew very little at the time and watched with equal amazement. In addition to US dignitaries, there were flag officers and diplomats from Spain to include rivals from the Spanish naval headquarters in nearby Rota, Spain, and Spanish air force in Madrid. In short, it was a “dog and pony” show on steroids. I later had “inside baseball” experience with the rivalries between the Spanish navy and air force.
These two branches of the Spanish military hated each other: apparently more than forty years before, Spain’s General Francisco Franco had been denied a ride from the navy and the two services were still at odds with each other. I was assigned to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties and the US in regard to establishing a Naval Special Warfare Unit in Rota. During the negotiations, the Spanish navy admiral would say, in English, “Inform the Spanish air force that our position is …” and the Spanish air force general in return would say, in English, “Inform the navy that our position is …”
Both the base’s executive officer and I tried to navigate that particular minefield of territorial pissing while getting our unit established. Neither of us were fluent in Spanish, but we received a master’s in Spanish politics in getting the unit approved.
All the brass were watching the assault team from the deck. They were supposed to be there to observe the tactics and techniques of a maritime assault that may be needed for Olympic security, but they spent at least half their time glaring at each other.
As soon as the team had swiftly taken charge of the major control points of the vessel, you could tell the dignitaries were impressed. Ideally, the team would have gotten back on their boats and headed back to Rota once the exercise was completed. But there was a wrinkle: among the role players serving as the crew and cruise ship passengers were women, and the boys in the team weren’t going to pass up a chance to mingle with them and tell tales. They hadn’t discussed this with anyone in advance, of course.
My other role in the exercise was to ensure the hook from the boat was secure, crack a chem light to signal that the hook and ladder was secure, and then get out of the way and let the assault teams do their work. No, in a real scenario there wouldn’t be anyone checking the security of the ladder, but we made this allowance: we weren’t going to risk killing any of our guys for a little extra unnecessary verisimilitude. I also had the task of entertaining and answering questions from the distinguished visitors on board. At the time I knew just enough to be dangerous. In my role as liaison, I was standing next to the fleet admiral, the commanding officer, and his command master chief. When the ship was secure and the exercise was wrapping up, the admiral turned to me and asked if he could say “Bravo Zulu” to the men before he left. Since he was “the admiral,” it was hardly a request and I obliged. I turned to both the CO and master chief and said in very loud and clear tone that the admiral has asked to say hello to the men and I am taking him down to the “Pursers locker” to see them. I stared right into the master chief’s eyes, nodded, and repeated it twice because I knew the Purser’s locker was a bar, and more importantly I knew the Pirates knew it too. The admiral and I departed and I took him on a circuitous route into the bowels of the ship, pointing out all the hook points and control points along the way. When we arrived at the locker, even I was not prepared for what was next. The Pirates had found the bar, removed their masks, and created a scene that looked like it was straight from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. I remember even hearing a muted “F**k you, admiral” from someone deep inside the crowd. Like the short calm before the storm, I prepared for heavy rolls.
“My navy?” I remember the admiral asking, “These guys are in my navy?”
Hardly another word was spoken as the visitors departed the ship bound for Rota. I was not invited to join them. I just stood there, trying not to recall tactical details of the impressive performance the team had done. The admiral was not as impressed as I was. His navy was the US navy and not Jean Laffite’s!
Within days of that triumph, the naval equivalent of breaking the sound barrier, came what I called the “great bloodletting.”
Turns out that big navy and the joint forces commander did not want their SEAL units to be too special. It didn’t want pirates; it wanted traditional, neat, respectful sailors. Sadly, it wasn’t just the look they disapproved of. In fairness, I could understand how the long hair and attitude would draw fire, and agreed that change was needed. It was possible for any Pirate to be good and to look good at the same time.
The edict came through channels, and it was like a change in tides. Absolute and impossible to stop. The age of the Pirates as I knew it had come to an end.
The man tapped to do the initial housecleaning was Captain Tom Moser. Moser had been previously assigned to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and was fully briefed on what he faced as the new commanding officer. He rapidly changed grooming standards and reintroduced the men to the navy uniform. Perhaps it was fear or just his leadership style, but he sent a video down to the Pirates’ team room rather than go in person. It was the early ’90s, and Moser was at the forefront of using new media—not just to communicate but also to create a permanent record and make an indelible impression. Whenever he had a new policy to share, he didn’t go over to the team rooms to brief us. He made a video, which we all were required to watch. Either way, they got the word. After all, where could they go? Moser was followed by Admiral Eric Thor Olson, who made the transformation from Pirate to professional complete and permanent. Olson, now retired, was a thirty-eight-year veteran who rose higher than any other SEAL before—all the way to four-star admiral, the navy’s highest rank.
He remade the SEALs all right, and he did it in a way that the big, loud, fearlessly brazen Richard Marcinko never did: Admiral Olson never ever raised his voice. Not once. That was one of the most useful tactics I have ever encountered. To hear him, we had to stop whatever we were doing and listen. You ever see the way guests on political talk shows shout to be heard over one another? If you talk softly when you speak, people have to be quiet or they’ll miss what you’re saying. They can’t respond to what they don’t hear. With Olson, you had to be comfortable with silence.
In Congress, I’ve never had to board a cruise ship from an inflatable. But let me tell you, Admiral Olson’s “speak softly” approach is a skill I use to this day in politics.
Olson made several lasting changes. All SEALs under his command would be in uniform while on duty without exception. Regulation haircuts were once again mandatory. Jewelry was banned. Navy policy about smoking, drinking, and other health and quality-of-life issues was adopted at once. Olson made the changes in culture as well as drove changes in tactics. The team commenced a review and update of every tactical procedure and leveraged emerging technologies as appropriate. The chasing down of vessels at full throttle was changed to reflect advances radar signatures and stealth technology. Flashlights were replaced by night-vision optics and the boneyard was retired.
It was pretty brilliant. In retrospect, I couldn’t understand why any of us college-educated wunderkinds hadn’t had the intestinal fortitude to do that before.
Within a few short years, almost all the “founding members” had either transferred or retired. Sad to say, tens of millions of dollars of training and experience left with them. It was a real loss, though there was no way to break the downtime habits and the traditional way of doing business. It’s kind of sad, when you think about it, since while we were all being shaved and shorn of our piratical earrings, everyone from metropolitan police to gridiron stars were starting to adopt the look.
Back then, I was not sure whether removing all the previous culture was the right or wrong thing to have done. I was too busy to give it much thought. I’m not sure that it improved the way we did our jobs but there is no doubt it improved the image in the eyes of those who would approve and authorize the missions and provide the money. I mean, I’m not aware of any Super Bowls that were lost on account of hair.
A new SEAL team culture began to appear, and quickly, that won the hearts and minds of big navy and the joint commanders. It was more by the book, and reflected the US Army’s elite SF approach of the “quite professional” rather than the celebrated crew of the Queen Ann’s Revenge.
The army’s elite force was having their issues as well. US Army Rangers, known for following procedure, were winning a battle for control with the Army SF ranks at the expense of the more unconventional-minded Special Forces. On every front, the rogues were endangered. By the end of my second stint, they were extinct. The old days of the Pirates were over.
But, obviously, it wasn’t my call.
The funny thing is, it didn’t close the cultural gap that had always existed between regular and irregular (Special) forces, between the guys who sailed the seas and the guys who killed terrorists in their beds. But I was surprised and proud to see the well-oiled machine that command had become. Full disclosure time here: Even though I was “Z Man” to the enlisted men, I was always “one of those guys” to the senior leadership. And they were the ones who controlled assignments and promotions. They were right in that my loyalties lie with the men more than with the institution. I was always the first to go to the gap. I had done two tours of duty at the command, been ground force commander, elements and team commander, current operations officer, and had been privileged to lead some of the most complex operations our military had ever executed. I was not the best, but I always knew who was and was just honored to be with them.