A SEAL’s Most Daring Mission

Navy SEALS are taught to practice OPSEC, elaborate operational security tactics to preserve the element of surprise in carrying out missions. Former commando Matt Bissonnette seems to have put that training to good use in the publication of his controversial tell-all book about the assault that killed Osama bin Laden. Bissonnette, who was a member of the SEAL team that snuffed out the terrorist mastermind, and his publisher went to unusual lengths to conceal the existence of the project until the publisher announced it last month.

The SEALS train hard and stay quiet. But a new tell-all by a member involved in the bin Laden raid is testing the group’s code of silence. (Clockwise fom left: no credit; Lance Iversen / San Francisco Chronicle-Corbis; Aamir Qureshi / AFP-Getty Images)

For the Pentagon it was tantamount to a sneak attack. Officials were taken by complete surprise when details of the sensational account began appearing in the media. Adding to the pressure was the fact that Bissonnette’s account of the bin Laden raid was at odds with the Obama White House’s version in some key respects, notably whether the terrorist mastermind represented a genuine threat to the commandos when they killed him. Last week officials scrambled to get a copy of the book to see whether Bissonnette’s account, No Easy Day (written under the pseudonym Mark Owen), revealed classified information. But by the time government vetters got their hands on it, thousands of copies had already been shipped to stores and the title stood atop Amazon’s sales list.

“We were caught completely off guard,” conceded one senior Pentagon official, who says national-security personnel are obligated to submit manuscripts containing sensitive information for prepublication review (Bissonnette’s lawyer says the regs merely “invite” authors to show vetters but don’t require it). Late last week, Defense Department general counsel Jeh Johnson sent a letter to Bissonnette in a last-ditch bid to minimize the damage. The threat of legal action was aimed at pressuring Bissonnette and his publisher, Dutton, to submit to the Pentagon’s demands for prepublication review. In the past, the DOD has succeeded in halting distribution of books, even in some cases pulping printed copies. But in the case of No Easy Day, it is likely too late to prevent the book from receiving wide public exposure. “At this point the onus is on the SEAL and his publisher to put the genie back in the bottle,” says one senior Pentagon official, declining to explain how that would be possible.

The Pentagon has not disclosed whether it believes No Easy Day divulges classified secrets, though one official told Newsweek “you can bet we wouldn’t have sent the letter if we didn’t think there were serious security breaches.”

Making the situation all the more awkward: the administration itself may have opened the door. The White House has drawn fire for putting out its own cinematic version of the bin Laden raid. The move rankled critics, who say it smacks of end-zone dancing and could compromise future missions. Several SEALS were motivated to back a super-PAC ad faulting Obama’s leadership. All the attention would seem at odds with the culture of the SEALS, who pride themselves on a code of omertà. But if the organization hates the spotlight, you wouldn’t know it from their recent behavior. This spring, they helped produce a wide-release movie called Act of Valor—no Oscar threat, but a good way to recruit successors to Matt Bissonnette.

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The Navy SEALS’ Dying Words

The CH-47 was shot down a year ago 

Monday, August 6 marks the first anniversary of the Afghan crash of a U.S. military CH-47 Chinook helicopter that killed 30 Americans, including 17 Navy SEALS. It was the worst single loss-of-life day for the U.S. in the war in Afghanistan. It was also the worst in the history of Naval Special Warfare.

Just six weeks before the crash, I spent several days meeting with members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team SIX, talking to them about the loss of one of their teammates, Adam Brown, who had been killed in action during an especially complex raid on a compound in Afghanistan.

I met with two of them in a crowded bar in a remote Alaskan village. The salmon run had just begun so the place was packed with fishermen, one of whom approached our group with a tray of shot glasses overflowing with whiskey. It was also a place that SEALs would come to before heading for training exercises in the surrounding mountains.

The man offered to buy a round. “I’d be honored if we could have a drink together, to thank you all for your service. And for taking care of business in Pakistan,” he said. Tom Ratzlaff, one of the SEALs I was with, took two shots and handed one to me. “This is for Adam,” he clicked his glass against mine, I nodded, and we threw them back together.

Tom, who was better known as “Rat,” and Chris Campbell shared memories of their teammate, but as they talked about his life and the circumstances surrounding his death, they alluded to the fact that they were keenly aware death might be just around the corner, quite literally, for them too. They were about to be redeployed, and with the loss of Adam weighing heavily on their minds, there was some urgency to have a chance to talk and honor their brother-in-arms.

Kevin Houston, one of the SEALs I met with in Virginia Beach the following week acknowledged, “I could end up getting killed on my next mission I go on, but until that happens, for me, business will continue to be conducted.”

One of things I was most interested in understanding from these men was how they managed moving so fluidly between their family lives and their work as highly-trained warriors. Frequently, they were deployed, came home, and then were suddenly redeployed.

In some cases they developed rituals. Tom shared that whenever he boarded a helicopter for a mission, he said the Lord’s Prayer silently, once he got seated, and then prayed for protection. “I don’t ask for protection myself because that’s in his hands. I ask him to look after my wife and kids. Then I ask him to protect all my buddies and forgive them of all their sins and me of my sins. Then I move straight into thinking about what I’m about to do-the target, the map study, making sure I know which way’s north so I can call out things correctly on the target.”

During my interview with Heath Robinson, another teammate of Adam Brown’s, I asked “How do you do it?” referring to how they transition from lethal missions—shooting and killing people—and then coming back home, sometimes just hours later. Heath answered using his friend’s horses as an analogy. “His wife and daughter have horses,” said Heath. “Nothing makes [them] happier. Well, horses are dirty animals, every weekend he puts on his waders, goes in the barn, and shovels the manure…the dirty hay…their piss. It’s not a good job, it’s miserable, but somebody has to shovel the shit so the family can enjoy what they have.”

Kelley Brown, Adam’s wife, recalled the one time she saw “that side” of her husband. He had just returned home and was relaxing in a bubble bath when a very unlucky burglar attempted to break into their house. Adam, naked but covered in bubbles, flew out of the tub and the look in his eyes was someone she did not recognize. Moments later, the intruder bolted in fear and Adam returned to being her loving husband and the adoring father of their two young children.

The SEALs were also circumspect about death in a way that only those confronted with it regularly can be.

“I either want to die in combat, doing my job right now, or live till I’m 98 years old and see my great, great grand kids,” one of them told me. “I don’t want anything in between. None of us do. A warrior’s death, you can’t get any higher than that. It’s horrible for the family, they don’t want to hear that, but for us, the guys at our command, we’re okay with it. That is our duty, the highest calling. And if that happens to you, you hope you are in the right frame of mind that you are okay with it. I have seen a lot of people go, not well. Had they been able to do another take on it, they would probably want it to go better. I remember everything else about Adam also, but I will always remember the end. You know, your first impression lasts a relationship, and your last impression is with you forever. Adam died well.”

Six weeks after my last interview, I was returning to civilization from my version of being off the grid: camping with my family. My own happy grubby kids were in the back seat of our car when my cell phone indicated I had voicemail.

I called in and listened to one message after another and I learned that all seven of the men I had interviewed — John, Kevin, Brian, Heath, Matt, Tom, and Chris — had been killed in action the day before.

The team had been on a mission in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan, part of an operation intended to capture or kill leaders from an insurgent cell that was holed up in the region. The Chinook carrying them, along with 23 other Americans, and eight Afghan troops, had crashed and exploded after a single rocket propelled grenade struck its aft rotor blade.

Questions surrounded the crash: Why were so many from our most elite military unit on one helo? The most credible view is that it was a lucky shot, but some speculated that it might have somehow been retaliation at the same unit that had only a couple months earlier taken out Bin Laden.

As of today, some family members remain unsatisfied with the investigation. A few days after the crash, I attended Kevin Houston’s funeral, then began transcribing the interviews, haunted as I listened to their voices and read their reflections on life and on death.

As they had talked about Adam Brown, they had unknowingly defined themselves: humble, selfless, and fearless.

With the one-year anniversary of that tragedy upon us, I think of them, and their families, often.

My mind wanders to the inside of that helicopter, envisioning their final moments. It’s a dark place filled with questions — mainly the questions I didn’t ask when I interviewed each of them just weeks before they were killed — but the one thing I know for certain is that they died honorably: serving their country, doing what they believed in.

I have no doubt that they died well.

Eric Blehm is the author of FEARLESS: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown, which is dedicated to the memory of the men who were killed on August 6, 2011. See www.fearlessnavyseal.com

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2012/08/06/the-navy-seals-dying-words/#ixzz265q1Izga

SEALs reach out to increase diversity

The Navy’s special warfare community has grown in size over the past few years but still remains overwhelmingly white. It’s a statistic officials are working hard to change.

Today’s force of SEALs and SWCCs, or special warfare combatant-craft crewmen, is roughly 85 percent white, according to Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, Calif. That’s much higher than the Navy overall — which in 2010 was about 64 percent white, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center — and is also out of whack with the cultural environments in which today’s SEALs operate.

That gap remains despite concerted efforts by Naval Special Warfare Command to seek more minority candidates and expand its overall recruiting pitch to get more SEALs and SWCCs to fill the larger force mandated by Congress. But as the community grew in size, the command also beefed up standards and requirements during the 26-week SEAL Qualification Training, causing graduation rates to drop across all ethnicities.

“Where we stand today is, we have more work to do,” said Capt. Duncan Smith, a SEAL who heads Naval Special Warfare Command’s recruiting directorate.

“We absolutely have a need for operational diversity. For us to train with our special operations partner nations, our mission is more easily accomplished if we have people with the cultural and racial identities that allow us to create lasting relationships to better understand our partner forces,” Smith said.

But recent years’ efforts, which included tailoring marketing to minorities and reaching out to historically black colleges and universities, fell flat in attracting more minorities to the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course and follow-on SQT.

So the command is casting the net wide again, getting outside help to market to minority populations and taking a more coherent look at targeting communities with potential minority candidates — not just blacks.

A recent directive from Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, head of Naval Special Warfare Command, expanded the range of targeted minorities to young men of Asian and Arab descent, as well as Hispanics.

“We are moving the needle, but it is a slow process. It takes time,” Smith said.

Recent efforts to reach more blacks helped to better understand the community, he said.

“We have really learned or developed a template that allows us to better understand ... a culture that we may not have been heavily engaged in,” he said. “So we built a road map on how to build trust ... and respect in the minority communities.”

Don’t expect to see quotas, however.

“We have no numeric goal for diversity. This is not a quota-based operation,” Smith said. “This is really just wanting to make progress and to better prepare our force to conduct overseas operations.”

And the command won’t ease its tough standards to become a SEAL or SWCC. “We are trying to become more diverse, but our standards have never been compromised,” he said, “and will not be compromised.”

OUTREACH AND EDUCATION

Officials are reaching out to parents, teachers, coaches and other “influencers” to get their message to young men — even those still in middle or high school — that naval special warfare is an exciting place of opportunity, regardless of their upbringing, experiences or ethnic or racial background. “We as the SEAL team have probably not been as successful as we should be in communicating that there is a direct and very positive impact on success later in life by having served as a SEAL,” Smith said.

“A lot of the diverse or minority communities that we address really view military service and education as two different worlds, as being mutually exclusive.” he said. “The opposite is true.”

With combat and global operations keeping spec ops forces deployed and in demand, the Navy doesn’t have enough SEALs and SWCCs — especially minorities — to send to recruiting districts and scout neighborhoods, schools, sports teams and urban areas. Contractors will help with outreach, and the latest push will concentrate on many minority neighborhoods, said Scott Williams, a command spokesman.

Recruiting and marketing efforts are being stepped up in San Diego and Norfolk, Va., where SEALs and SWCCs have joined in local swim programs geared toward children and young adults, as well as in Detroit and Dearborn, Mich., home to large concentrations of blacks and Arab-Americans. The swim programs provide community service and show that swimming skills can be taught to those who never swam in a pool or in the ocean.

“The swim component of SEAL training and SWCC training across all cultures is one that is a dividing factor,” Smith said, noting those unfamiliar with swimming have the toughest time passing the physical screening test. “We’ve gotten them to increase their performance well beyond our entry standards.

“Our real mission is to make sure the SEAL/SWCC opportunity is open to anyone,” Smith said. “You just have to have the mental toughness to decide that is what you want to do.”

This year, the command also extended its reach by participating in nine of the NFL’s regional scouting combines, where prospective players show off their skills.

“As it turns out, what got you here, with your opportunity with the NFL, is a lot about what makes the SEAL program successful,” Pybus told one group at a session supported by members of Naval Special Warfare Group 2. Several SEALs joined in the visits, meeting athletes and sharing their stories, including a SEAL lieutenant who had played college football before enlisting in the Navy.

Nearly 100 of the 1,900 athletes, about 80 percent of whom were minorities, asked for more information about naval special warfare or becoming a SEAL, Smith said, adding, “that is a pool of 100 young talented men. That right there is success for us.

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