I reported to Naval Special Warfare Group Two Training Detachment or TRADET on September 8, 2001, in a new instructor role and would remain there for a little over two years until 2004. I taught air operations, including parachuting and helicopter insertion, as well as extraction techniques. I spent time in the departments that developed land warfare tactics and close-quarters combat (CQC) training. This was a new command, with the idea of providing the best training to the SEAL community. It was staffed mostly by guys like me with leadership experience. It was a good group, but I would have much preferred to stay with a team. Three days later, I’d really be wishing I was back at a team.
On the morning of September 11, I was cutting my lawn in Virginia Beach when my wife called out to me from the house and said a plane had just hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. My first thought was, Well, someone is about to get fired. She called out to me a few minutes later and said that a second plane had just flown into the second building. That’s when I knew it was no accident. I suspected that the attack had its origin someplace in the Middle East. There were multiple indications prior to the 9/11 attack. We knew of Osama bin Laden (or Usama bin Laden, shortened to UBL) and that he founded al-Qaida in 1988. Abdul Hakim Murad was a Pakistani citizen arrested in the Philippines in January 1995. He was affiliated with al-Qaida and had plans to blow up U.S. airliners over the Pacific and fly planes into CIA headquarters or other federal buildings. In August 1998, bombs killed 224 people at the U.S. embassy in Kenya and Tanzania. Intel from as far back as 1998 knew that UBL was developing an attack in the United States. Then in October 2000 the USS Cole was hit by a suicide bomber while docked in Yemen. These are just some of the indications; we had been hit at U.S. embassies and other U.S. targets around the Middle East for years.
I finished cutting the lawn, then got on the phone with my chief. We all were making calls and wondering when we would need to be ready to go. I knew it would take time to identify specific targets and put together a launch plan. My role would not change all that much directly after the 9/11 attacks. We were always preparing and training for war. This is the DNA of the SEAL community; we train, test, improve, and train some more. Being a SEAL prior to 9/11 was interesting, as I watched the many ways that the SEAL teams evolved because of these attacks. Up to this point, all of our training was based on known knowns; prior operations were used as case studies to adjust and improve current training. The community was prepared for war, but nothing changes tactics like current real-world lessons paid in blood. Our guys started going after bad guys and some of ours were coming home wounded. The enemy found ways to defeat our IED defenses and we lost guys. AARs, or after-action reports, are generated after engagements. The AARs are honest, no candy-coating lessons learned and what was done well and what needed to be fixed. We used the AARs to constantly adjust our TTPs (training, tactics, and procedures) to beat the enemies’ tactics. Those two years were a busy time, planning and preparing to bring the fight to the perpetrators.
I’ve been asked if I feared the enemy in Iraq and any of the other places where I’ve been deployed. The answer is always no: the vast majority of enemies I’ve encountered are undisciplined and poorly trained, and many are what I refer to as economic combatants, who fight as a means for survival rather than ideology. Given the opportunity and means, I think those economic combatants would choose to leave their country and start a new life elsewhere, if that was an option.
But the enemy in Iraq had the advantage of using our own rules of engagement against us. Rules of engagement are designed to protect noncombatants; they also benefit an inferior military force. Back during WWII, we had one rule of engagement: win. The enemy in Iraq wove themselves into the population, took random shots at us, and paid people to plant bombs in the roads. Most of the time the enemy was lucky; then again, when you can use an entire population to hide under and do your dirty work, you get lucky more often.
I’m just your normal, run-of-the-mill everyday Navy SEAL, and I was far better trained and prepared than the best of the best foreign fighters. We often joked that we were not that good; it was that everybody else sucked. The U.S. military has conventional forces that are better than nearly all other military “special forces.” While we face some very serious threats, America is safe with these warriors on the watch.