MORRO BAY, CALIFORNIA
February 1995
Second chances. They are noble intentions that come with expectations and obligations. They can heal or they can cut. They can result in an uplifting hymn or a Greek tragedy. The outcome of second chances is never preordained. Some people will make the most of them and the giver of the chance will be proud, and some will squander them and the world will say, “I told you so.” Giving second chances can be risky.
“Guilty.”
At my words, Lieutenant Jeremy Carter, dressed in his summer white uniform, seemed crushed by the decision. He was a young SEAL who had a good career behind him and a lot of potential for promotion. Now his career was finished.
As the commanding officer of SEAL Team Three, I had reviewed the charges against him and found that he had violated article 133, conduct unbecoming an officer, and article 92, failure to obey a lawful order. He had been caught driving under the influence and evading a police officer, and I knew that I had to hold him accountable for his actions. He was a SEAL officer and we had high standards for conduct.
After everyone left my office, my command master chief, a seasoned Vietnam veteran named Billy Hill, returned to talk with me.
“You were a little hard on him, sir.”
“I know, Billy, but I can’t bust the enlisted guys for a DUI and then not hold the officers accountable as well.”
“Yes sir, but the enlisted guys can survive a bust. The officer’s career is over.”
Billy was right, but in my mind the expectations were higher for officers and therefore their performance needed to be higher as well.
“Maybe you should give him another chance.”
I just nodded.
Commanding a SEAL Team was the best job in the Navy, but the proverbial Sword of Damocles always hung precariously over your head. Every day you had to choose between being a hard disciplinarian, making the tough decisions necessary for running a SEAL Team, and being compassionate when someone made a mistake, looking beyond their failure to an alternate future—a future where they excelled and made a positive difference in the lives of your sailors. Of all people, I knew the value of a second chance.
Since graduating from training, I had done just about everything expected of a SEAL officer. I had served two tours with our SEAL Delivery Vehicles, commanded a SEAL platoon in South America, deployed to Desert Shield and Desert Storm as a SEAL Task Unit commander, and worked in the Pentagon, overseas in the Philippines, and on various SEAL staffs. I was married with three wonderful kids. But not everything in my career had gone perfectly. In 1983, while serving as a squadron commander at our elite East Coast SEAL Team, I was fired. Relieved of my command. It was a jarring, confidence-crushing, hard-to-swallow moment, and I seriously considered leaving the Navy. There seemed little chance of being promoted after losing my job. But, as she would do several times in my career, when I stumbled or circumstances turned against me, Georgeann reminded me that I had never quit at anything in my life—and now was not the time to start. Fortunately, several senior officers still saw potential in me. They gave me another opportunity, and over the years that followed the firing, I tried to redeem myself, proving to the doubters that I was good enough to lead a SEAL Team.
The master chief changed the subject.
“Sir, are you going up to Morro Bay to watch Echo Platoon’s final pre-deployment exercise?”
SEAL Team Three’s Echo Platoon was scheduled to deploy to the western Pacific in about forty-five days, and this was their last training exercise before leaving. As usual, the scenario called for an over-the-beach infiltration by the platoon. The fourteen-man SEAL element would depart from Morro Bay, in central California, aboard two thirty-three-foot Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs). They would transit about thirty miles up the coast to a point off the beach where we had constructed a simulated target. From there, the platoon would swim through the surf, hit the target, swim back through the surf, rendezvous with the RHIBs, and return to Morro Bay. Standard stuff.
“I’m scheduled to be down in Tampa next week to brief the SOCOM operations officer, but I think I’ll stop by the exercise for a day and see how things are going.”
The master chief had other commitments and couldn’t make the trip, but the following week, as planned, I drove up the coast to Morro Bay and linked up with Echo Platoon as they were planning a final day of rehearsals.
Morro Bay is as picturesque a coastal town as there is in California. The entrance to the bay passes by a huge rock formation, appropriately called Morro Rock, and then snakes around, first to the north and then to the south, opening up into a placid harbor where hundreds of yachts of all sizes find refuge. For most of the year the surf rolls gently over the beach in perfect waves, making the coastline a favorite spot for surfers. But during the winter months, that same surf builds to enormous heights, and when funneled by the breakwaters off Morro Rock, they can reach fifty feet.
Driving into town around sunset, I could see ten-foot waves rolling off the beach, a result of a storm system centered about a hundred miles to the west. However, the funnel effect of Morro Rock and the breakwater was creating a more dangerous situation with a series of plunging twenty-five- to thirty-foot waves right at the entrance to the harbor.
We had set up our command center at the local Coast Guard station, and as I pulled up to the entrance, Master Chief “Tip” Ammen came out to meet me. The master chief was in charge of the SEAL Team Three training cell and was responsible for the conduct of the exercise. Ammen was older and more experienced than most of the senior enlisted at the command. He was always upbeat, with a good sense of humor and an unflappable personality.
“The platoon is briefing now, sir. Do you want to sit in on that or take a quick break?” Ammen asked.
“I’m ready, Tip, let’s go hear what they have to say.”
The master chief ushered me into the conference room and I sat at the head of a long felt-covered table. On the wall were pictures of Coast Guard cutters, rescue helicopters, and citations for Coast Guard heroism on the Pacific coast. The Coast Guard certainly earned their pay on this dangerous stretch of shoreline.
The entire platoon was in attendance. The platoon commander, a Naval Academy graduate, was heading his second SEAL platoon, and having watched them for the past six months, the experienced leadership showed in the discipline of the men and the professionalism of their planning.
Seated along the walls around the room, the members of the platoon were dressed in a mixture of sweats and camouflage utilities. They had been in the bay most of the day, and with the water temperature in the low fifties, many of the men were still red-eyed and shivering from the cold.
The platoon commander did a quick recap of the brief for the following day’s events. “Sir, we will be conducting our final daylight rehearsals.” He pointed to the nautical chart tacked to the wall. “There is a small island inside the protected jetty of the harbor. While there is no surf to contend with, I think it’s a good place for us to do our contact drills.”
I looked at the chart, and the patch of sand that passed for an island was in sight of the entrance, but well beyond the booming breakers.
“As you know, sir, the waves at the entrance of the harbor are too large to get past right now. My guess is we may be delayed a couple of days before the waves settle down enough for the boat guys to get through.”
“Have we talked to the boat officer-in-charge?” I asked.
“Yes sir. Lieutenant Jones said he is going to take the RHIBs out into the bay tomorrow to see what it looks like at the edge of the surf zone.”
The chief petty officer of the platoon piped up. “The Coasties warned the boat guys not to get too close to the surf. They showed Lieutenant Jones an old picture of a fifty-foot wave crushing some large pleasure boat.” The chief smiled. “That seemed to get Lieutenant Jones’s attention.”
The platoon commander continued. “I’m going to let the guys get a good night’s sleep tonight, so we won’t begin the rehearsals until about 0800. Once we complete the daylight drills we will break for lunch, prep our gear, and then start our evening rehearsals as soon as the sun goes down.”
The platoon commander finished summarizing the brief and we broke for chow. In the mess hall I spent time chatting with the young SEALs. It was the best part of the job. Being a commanding officer was like being the coach of a football team. You knew all the players, their strengths and their weaknesses. Some were quarterbacks, some linemen, and some safeties. Some loved the two-minute drill, the pressure to make a tough decision when the game was on the line. Some were grinders: No matter what you threw at them, they just kept coming at you. Some were risk takers, always trying to jump the route. But all of them loved to play the game, to be where the action was. But beneath the pads, and the helmets, and the bright lights, they were just men, and men made mistakes, they needed guidance. My job was always to find the balance between letting them play hard and keeping them between the lines.
“Rise and shine, boss! It’s another day in which to excel.”
I rolled over in my sleeping bag, checked my watch, and slowly climbed out of my Army-style cot. It was 0600 and Ammen was already up and brewing coffee. The weather outside was overcast and, looking out the windows of the Coast Guard station, I could see the American flag flapping violently in the wind.
I threw on my camouflage utilities, grabbed breakfast, and by 0700 the master chief and I were motoring out to the island in our Zodiac. The platoon was fully kitted up. The swimmer scouts, the two-man element that surveys the beach before the main force comes ashore, were dressed in wet suits and carrying CAR-15s. The main assault force was dressed in dry suits, each man armed with a CAR-15 and three hundred rounds of ammo.
The platoon went through several contact drills, exercising their fire and maneuver in the event they were engaged by the “enemy” while crossing the beach. The SEALs moved well. The swimmer scouts established flank security. The point man of the main element directed his squad to form a semicircle around the two Zodiacs while the second squad hauled the Zodiacs up past the high-water mark and into the sand dunes. Once the boats were camouflaged, the platoon formed up in a single file and patrolled off the beach. After several renditions of this tactic the platoon commander called for a quick break to review their actions on the beach.
As the short debrief was occurring on the island, I looked out toward Morro Rock and saw the two thirty-three-foot RHIBs loitering just inside the harbor, their bows pointed toward the plunging surf. As each giant wave crested and then crashed, the sound rolled across the harbor like the proverbial thundering herd—then a moment, just a moment, of silence, followed by another deafening crash and then another and another. Mother Nature was not happy.
“Tip, do we have comms with the RHIB OIC?” I asked.
“No sir,” the master chief replied.
“Grab one of those Zodiacs. I want to find out what this guy is up to.”
The master chief quickly commandeered one of the zodiacs from the SEAL platoon and we headed over to the RHIB to talk with the crew. As we approached the entrance of the harbor I could see the waves much more clearly now. It was worse than I thought. There was a line of three plunging waves. Each would build from outside the entrance, its massive face growing as it gained speed and power. Then, when it hit its peak, the wave crashed violently upon itself, erupting in a volcanic display of white foam and dark blue water. The surge from the first wave was sucked immediately into the oncoming wave behind it, causing each successive wave to grow to new heights until the set of three waves exhausted themselves just long enough for the new set to begin.
The master chief slowed the Zodiac and pulled alongside the RHIB. A crewman reached out his arm. I grabbed it and scrambled over the large rubber gunnels that encircled the inflatable boat. After dropping me off, the master chief pulled away from the RHIB and motored back to the island.
The RHIB was a relatively new boat in the Naval Special Warfare inventory. It was built specifically to carry a SEAL squad of seven men and was crewed by sailors from the Special Boat Squadron. These sailors were all trained as Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen (SWCCs), and the officer-in-charge was a Navy Surface Warfare Officer, schooled and qualified to pilot a Navy ship.
The RHIB had a crew of four: a coxswain, who was the most experienced member of the crew and was in charge of driving the boat; an engineer, who ensured that the inboard motors were well maintained; a boatswain mate, who manned the .50-caliber machine gun; and an officer-in-charge. The RHIB had all the latest technology: high-end Furuno surface search radar; GPS; a full instrument panel for long-range night navigation. At half a million dollars, it was the most combat-capable inflatable on the market.
The swells from the surf zone were causing the RHIB to roll slowly to port and starboard. Grabbing the instrument console, I steadied myself and looked around the boat.
“Hey, skipper,” came a familiar voice. I turned to the aft part of the RHIB and there, strapped into an upright bolster seat, was SEAL lieutenant Geno Paluso. Paluso was the Special Boat Squadron operations officer and a damn good SEAL. Unbeknownst to me, he had also come along to observe the training. Alongside Paluso was Lieutenant Tom Rainville, another SEAL platoon commander, who was watching the exercise as well.
“Sir, is something wrong?” the RHIB officer-in-charge asked.
“No, Mr. Jones. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to find out what you were planning,” I said with a clear tone of concern in my voice.
“Sir, my senior chief is positioned on the jetty at the entrance to Morro Bay. He’s timing the waves and radioing the results to me. I think we can get out between the sets.”
The RHIB OIC pointed out that once the third wave passed he had two minutes to scurry around the jetty and out into open water before the next set of waves came crashing in.
“Sir, my boat crew has been training in Kodiak, Alaska, for the past three months,” Jones said. “Petty Officer Smith is the best coxswain in Special Boat Unit 20 and I have no doubt we can make it through the surf if we just time it right.”
I looked at the booming surf again and then into the eyes of the boat crew. I wasn’t so sure they shared their lieutenant’s enthusiasm.
The hardest part of commanding SEALs and special operations forces is finding that right balance between building confidence in their capability, so that during wartime they will be ready for the most difficult situations—and risking their lives doing so.
I went to each sailor in the crew and asked, “Is this within the capability of your craft and your crew?”
“Yes sir,” came the response from each man.
“Lieutenant?”
“Yes sir. We can do this.”
“Okay, then get me a life jacket. I’m going with you.”
“What?”
“I said, get me a life jacket.”
The lieutenant continued to object. “Sir, it’s not just the life jacket. You need a dry suit. The water is fifty degrees and if we capsize you’ll freeze your ass off.”
“Then don’t capsize.”
In the back of the boat Paluso and Rainville were laughing. “Good advice,” Rainville offered sarcastically.
Paluso patted the empty bolster seat next to him. “Strap in, boss, this is going to be a fun ride.”
The bolster seat had a three-point harness and was intended to keep the passengers firmly attached to the RHIB in heavy seas. As I began to strap in I realized I had two Cuban cigars in my pocket. I knew that later that night we would be sitting around the fire, and it never hurt to have a good cigar handy.
I pulled out the cigars and waved them at Paluso. “If you guys get me wet, you’ll have to buy me new cigars.”
Paluso laughed. “Don’t worry, sir. These guys are really good. We’ll be toasty warm throughout the ride.”
I looked out toward the Coast Guard station and saw that Master Chief Ammen had gotten word about my intent to ride along and subsequently headed back to the base camp.
The waves continued to build and plunge, build and plunge. With a plunging wave you have no ability to ride over it. As quickly as it builds, it crashes. There is no subtle rising, peaking, and then curling—just a large wall of water that falls on top of itself in a deadly whirlpool that sucks you under and spits you out, only to have the next wave do the same.
The lieutenant gave the order and the coxswain inched closer to the first wave, waiting for the three-wave set to complete, with the intent to make a mad dash to the edge of the wave and out into open water.
Paluso, Rainville, and I were all experienced SEALs who understood the nature of waves and the need for good timing. Together we watched as the first set seemed to peter out, waiting for the next set to build.
Now was the time! We needed to go now! There was an opening to the side. Gun it! Go now! The three of us were all thinking the same thing: Go! Go! Go!
But we waited.
Okay, he was just checking the timing. We’d wait until the next set was over.
Suddenly, the coxswain gunned the engines to full throttle.
No! No! This was the worst possible time! The first wave of the set was peaking. Paluso looked at me with wide eyes and murmured, “Oh shit!”
We were making thirty knots when the RHIB reached the base of the first wave. The bow knifed through the water and the engines propelled us straight up the face, shooting us over the top and into the air.
I clenched my teeth and began to count. It was a natural instinct from jumping out of planes. We were airborne and falling fast. “One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand!”
We slammed into the trough, the impact tossing the sailor on the bow out of the boat and jamming bodies into the hard aluminum floorboard.
“Man overboard! Man overboard!”
Before anyone could react, another thirty-foot wall of water was upon us.
The coxswain looked up and gunned the engines, trying to get his bow around into the fast-moving wave.
I looked over and Paluso and Rainville were wincing in pain, holding their ribs, which had been driven into the side of the bolster seat.
We hit the next wave much like the first, driving up the face and over the edge. “One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, holy shit… five thousand!”
The impact left me breathless as we hit with such force that the bow cracked, the engines stalled, and the RHIB was now dead in the water. Looking up, all we could see was the next wave. The wave of the day: a forty-foot monster that was about to eat our lunch.
“Hold on!” I yelled.
The wave picked the boat up, stood it on end, and then with an angry roar crushed us beneath the foam.
As the RHIB tumbled underwater I was trapped in the bolster seat, rolling over and over again as the force of the wave pushed me along the bottom. Shotline, that thin nylon cord that SEALs use to tie down loose gear, had somehow gotten wrapped around my neck and my arms. It was like a wire garrote, strangling me as I cartwheeled over and over. Grabbing the line, I tried to pull it away from my neck, but the tension was too tight and the more I pulled the tighter it got.
There had been several times in my SEAL career when I faced the possibility of dying, but the events happened so quickly that I only had time to react. It was over before I could think about it. Now, trapped under the RHIB, a noose around my neck and no air to breathe, I thought this was finally it.
A quietness came over me. Shades of dark and light seemed to flash before my eyes as the surging water changed color. This was how I would die. My thoughts were slow and methodical. Tugging hopelessly against the shotline, I said to myself, I will never see Georgeann, Bill, John, or Kelly again. Dear God, take care of them.
As I struggled for air, my lungs began to convulse. Deep throaty sounds echoed in my ears and everything began to fade to black. One final tug at the shotline. One final grasp for survival. Please let me live.
In my life in the Teams, there have been several times when the inexplicable happens. When all that was set against you suddenly resolves itself and you come out from the darkness into the light. And when, in the quieter moments that follow, you reflect on the event with no logical conclusion other than that the hand of God played a role in keeping you alive. This was one of those moments. Suddenly, inexplicably, I was free! Free from the bolster seat, free from the shotline, free from the tumbling boat.
Shooting upward toward the sunlight, I broke the surface with a gasp. Looking up, I realized that I was still in the surf zone, and as I turned around the next big wave was almost on me. The old life jacket I wore had lost its buoyancy and my utilities were heavy with water. I couldn’t survive another hit.
In the roar of the surf I could hear a faint yell. “Skipper! Skipper!”
Turning toward the shore, I saw a Zodiac screaming in my direction. On board were two SEALs dressed in only their swim trunks, one steering the outboard motor, the other positioned to snatch me from the water. The SEAL on the bow was pointing. Pointing at the next wave. They weren’t going to make it, and I knew that if they capsized in this surf, with this water temperature, it would likely mean their lives. Still, they kept coming.
The first wave was building to a crescendo as the SEALs rushed to grab me. Right at the base of the wave, the SEAL coxswain cranked the prop over hard, did a U-turn, and drove right for my bobbing head. With no time to pull me in, the SEAL on the bow held me tight against the rubber sponson, the blades of the outboard motor nipping at the soles of my jungle boots.
“Hang on, skipper!” he yelled.
Face up and dangling from the side of the Zodiac, all I could see was a wall of blue-green ocean about to crush the tiny boat. The outboard motor whined as the coxswain cranked the throttle to full just as the torrent of water broke from the top of the wave, impacting inches from the fleeing Zodiac. The cauldron of churning foam pushed us forward at twice the normal speed, propelling the small boat into calmer waters.
Looking back, I could now see that we were out of the surf zone and into the safety of the harbor. Slowing the Zodiac, the SEAL on the bow pulled me into the boat.
“Are you all right, skipper?” he asked as I rolled onto the floorboard.
Shaking from the cold, it took me a second or two to answer. “I’m fine. What about the rest of the crew?”
“They were thrown free of the boat when the RHIB capsized. The surge pushed them into the harbor. I think the other RHIB picked them up.”
“Get me over to the other RHIB. I need to make sure we have a full head count.”
Moments later I arrived at the second RHIB and on board was Lieutenant Jones trying to ensure he had all his men accounted for. For a man who had just lost his boat and was clearly injured from the impact of the wave, he was doing exactly what I would have expected—he was taking command of the accident scene and trying his very best to salvage a bad situation. With my rescue, he now had all men accounted for.
There was a look on his face that I knew well. Fear. Fear that he had failed in his duties. Fear that his future as a naval officer was over. Fear that his fellow sailors would lose respect for him. Worst of all, fear that he had almost cost men their lives. Deep fear.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yes sir,” came the stoic reply.
I put my arm around him and pulled him close. “Listen to me,” I said gently. “No matter what happens from here, everyone is alive. It will be okay.”
He nodded, but that didn’t seem to console him. Losing a boat in the Navy, even a small boat, is never a good thing.
But near death has a way of putting things in perspective. There would be no funerals—his, mine, or our fellow SEALs and boat guys. There would be no mourning wives and orphaned kids. There would be no memorial dedicated to the lost lives of valiant sailors. There would only be happiness that everyone had returned alive.
Slapping Jones on the back, I said laughing, “Well, you boat guys sure know how to have a good time.”
“Sir?” came the startled response.
“Do what you can to raise the boat and get things back in order and I will go make the reports to our seniors.”
Jones smiled, still trembling from the cold. “Thanks, sir.” He paused, looked out at the waves still pounding and threatening the narrow channel. “I thought I was going to die.”
I laughed. “Yeah. Me too,” I admitted. “But we didn’t. So let’s make the best of it.”
Hopping back in the small Zodiac, I headed to the pier.
Back on the shore, the five injured men were laid out on the floor of the Coast Guard station awaiting an ambulance. The corpsmen were attending to their injuries as best they could.
Paluso, who suffered a broken left foot and cracked ribs, was clutching his side, trying to find a comfortable position, his face contorted in pain, his breathing quick and labored.
Walking up to him, I bent down and pulled out the two cigars, now mangled and soaked with saltwater. “Geno, you got my cigars wet.”
Paluso cracked a smile and rubbed his head with the universal sign of the solitary finger. “I guess I owe you.”
“We’ll take it off the price of the RHIB,” I replied. “That should get us under a half a million.”
Paluso moaned, either from the pain or the sudden recognition that we had indeed lost a five-hundred-thousand-dollar boat.
The ambulances arrived and I began notifying my bosses of the accident. With each phone call I was reminded of why I chose the military as a way of life. Every senior officer, upon hearing about the loss of the pricey boat, had only one question: “Are you and the men okay?”
Of the seven men aboard the RHIB, five ended up in the hospital with broken ribs, fractured legs, contusions, and mild hypothermia. Also that day, another Zodiac crew had charged into the surf to rescue Lieutenant Tom Rainville, whose dry suit filled with water, almost downing him. The RHIB was eventually raised from the bottom, but it was a total loss. An investigation ensued, and over the next ninety days depositions were taken, interviews were recorded, reports were made. The final report concluded that in spite of the loss of a high-value craft, there was a critical need for such challenging training. And while the decision to attempt the surf passage was unwise, the review board recognized that taking risks is part of what makes us a special operations force. We would all be given a second chance.
For their actions that day in saving my life and that of Tom Rainville, Petty Officers Dan Mero, Nate Johnson, Scotty Stearns, and Chief Brad Lucas received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal—the highest award for heroism during time of peace. In November 1995, with my wife, Georgeann, standing beside me, we were honored to pin the award on each man’s chest.
A few years later, I served on the promotion board for Lieutenant Jeremy Carter, the officer I had found guilty of a DUI. A good man who had made a mistake. Carter was promoted to lieutenant commander and would eventually go on to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning the Bronze Star for valor and saving the lives of several of his fellow SEALs. SEALs who also got a second chance.