Frogman Stories, page 11
No sooner than I had pressed send did the secure phone on my desk ring. It was, you guessed it, the individual I was talking about. It seems the group was sharing one email address due to lack of resources in Afghanistan, a little fact my friend had failed to share.
The conversation was not pleasant. After all, he was an officer and one thing I always try to uphold is military order and discipline. I ended up doing the moonwalk backwards and apologizing, mainly because I never should have sent the email and, secondly, I didn’t want it to come back on my friend. I had to eat some major crow that day and for years to come.
The individual would move on to become the Commanding Officer of ST-6 and later an admiral. We had a good working relationship. I followed orders, but I am sure he doesn’t trust me, similar to the same way I feel about him. As it turns out, this same officer was actually in command at ST-6 when I decided to depart the Team after over twenty-five years. I have to thank him for that; he made the decision easy. I did not like the direction he was taking the Team in and it was better for me to leave than stay and bitch about it. As it turns out, leaving was the right call at that time.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. Think before you speak, email, or text.
CHAPTER 24
Listen to Your People
Each Command in the U.S. Navy conducts what is called a Command Climate Survey intended to measure the morale of troops from most junior to most senior. It isn’t perfect, but it is anonymous, meaning personnel have a tendency to open up more and answer the questions honestly. A SEAL Team is unlike regular U.S. Navy Commands. Everything and everyone is driven by the mission. Personnel that don’t recognize that are either transferred or marginalized quickly. You can imagine all the different issues and problems dealt with on a daily basis at a place such as SEAL Team SIX (ST-6).
The two issues that came up every time during the Command Climate Survey, believe it or not, were the disparity of treatment between the SEALs and support personnel, and parking. Out of all the issues in the world today, those were the two that continued to be brought up year after year. At first, I ignored the complaints but, after time, I knew neither problem was going to go away so maybe we should spend some time trying to address the concern.
There are seven support personnel for every SEAL. SEALs are amazing individuals and can do almost superhuman tasks, but we can do very little by ourselves. We need medics, Seabees, communicators, intelligence, admin, operations, facilities, travel, comptroller, weapons and ammunition support to name a few. Without everyone working together for the same goal, the mission would certainly fail. Paying attention to the word on the street is critical. Morale is a tough item to gauge across a large organization, so it you have the chance to make a difference, do it.
Navy SEALs are arguably some of the best athletes in the world. We work out for two to three hours every day besides our normal training schedule. SEALs, however, will not walk an extra 20 feet in the parking lot in order to park legally. Maybe it is human nature. I know most of the guys aren’t lazy, they just want to park closest to the locker room. In the big picture, parking was not a life-or-death problem. It could, however, slow down or stop someone from dealing with a life-or-death situation. Unchecked, personnel would block major choke points which would stop the movement of critical equipment or people. When you are on a timeline, every second counts. Then there’s medical support. Accidents happen all the time at a SEAL team, everything from gunshot wounds to heart attacks. Blocking the ambulance from getting to the scene is unacceptable.
The other item from the survey was the opinion the SEALs were treated differently to support personnel. True. No way to avoid that one. The SEALs are doing the fighting and the dying for the most part, with a few exceptions. They are the ones risking their lives on a daily basis and suffering the never-ending series of injuries that go with the lifestyle. Of course, SEALs can’t do the mission alone. Never could. The smart SEALs know how to work with their teammates and not alienate them. The stupid SEALs think, somehow, they are better than everyone else and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. I didn’t have much time for those SEALs. They didn’t get it.
As I started working the parking problem at the Command, I realized most of the problems came from the SEALs that didn’t get it. Ninety-five percent of the Command followed the rules, parked correctly, and were good sailors. It was the 5 percent I had to deal with. If I could figure out a way to punish them, it would take care of most of the parking problem and make it look to our support personnel that someone cared about them. They understood all along who the culprits were for illegal parking and many of the other problems suffered at the Command.
Every vehicle at the time was required to have a base sticker on the front bumper or windshield which would give them access to the base each morning. A base security guard would check to see if you had a sticker and then wave you in if you did. No sticker meant no entry and a trip to the base security office for a new one, which was a real pain. It took up to several hours to get a new sticker if you had all the paperwork to include registration and proof of insurance. No one liked to go for a new sticker.
My plan was that I would find the violators, scrape their stickers, and let them deal with base security. A typical violator wouldn’t even know they were “scraped” until the next morning when trying to get on base. Once the base police turned them around, they knew exactly what had just happened. I never feared for my life, but I did keep my head on a swivel. It wouldn’t be uncommon for my car or locker to be a target of retaliation. The scraping had its desired effect. People started parking better. Talk around the Command proved the 95 percent that followed the rules were appreciative of what I was doing. It actually took very little time. Usually when I took a trip outside the office to go work out or attend a meeting, I would make a mental note of the offending vehicles; if they were in place when I returned, they were scraped.
Some violators were so over the top that they required special treatment. I couldn’t be everywhere all the time, so I had help, usually from my Seabee (Construction Battalion) friends who could not move a big piece of equipment due to illegal parking. They would give me a call, report the violator, and ask what I wanted to do. If the vehicle was blocking an intersection, it was towed immediately and the offender had to visit me in person to explain. If they were in someone else’s parking spot, such as the Commanding Officer’s, they were booted. A “boot” is a wonderful device that locks on to the wheel of the vehicle so it cannot move. Again, the person would have to visit me in person to explain their actions. This step was dependent on my schedule which could also take some time out of their day. Because this was a SEAL Team, there were many ways to handle problems such as a boot that did not require a face-to-face meeting. One individual actually went to the breacher shop and borrowed a quicky saw to cut the boot off. Breachers are the specialists that gain entry into any locked space whether it be a building, car, ship, plane, or anything else we needed to get into. This guy was a five percenter through and through and had apparently had multiple other issues within his team and was shit-canned (relieved) immediately. I always felt a bit bad for that one. Not really.
Personnel were parking correctly and one of the perceived disparities between SEALs and support was being addressed. I enjoyed the task, but I had to be careful. Well-trained guys half my age do not take kindly to being scraped, towed, or booted. The last thing I wanted was a physical altercation in the parking lot. Lose-lose for everyone. Sniping was not an option for this mission, so I had to use my stealth abilities to find the violator’s car and scrape the stickers before anyone was the wiser. I could cleanly walk past a bumper and scrape the sticker in seconds and be on my way. The target site was always the most dangerous whether it be in combat or fighting parking violators. The plan succeeded, there was peace in the parking world once again. I had to draw the line when the Seabees offered to train me how to drive a tow truck. Maybe I like the excitement. I believe it was similar to being a repo man—risk and reward.
Unfortunately, not everyone enjoyed my tactics, and the CO and executive officer were getting complaints about my heavy-handed methods; they were actually contemplating letting me go. Fortunately, my officer counterpart and I had a great working relationship and became friends. As the headshed (what we called the leadership) was about to shit-can me, my boss at the time put in a good word for me and ended the situation.
What I did not realize at the time is that many leaders are not willing to make the hard call when it comes to the possibility of angering the masses—in this case the SEAL Team. I, on the other hand, was not in charge so I had no qualms about acting as the “adult” in many situations and actually saying “No” to people or holding them accountable for their actions. I think, in the long run, the headshed realized it was better to let me hold the line than for them to do it. That way they could stay above the fray and always have a way out, should it come to it. I didn’t have a problem with my role in the scheme of maneuver, in fact I relished it because I knew there were very few individuals that could or would actually take the part. I had plenty of friends and was not there to make any more. My mission, like it had always been, was to get the job done in the best, most efficient way possible. Period.
Another issue, which could sometimes be worse than the parking, was cage allocation. Each SEAL was assigned a 10 × 10 × 10-foot cage to store all their equipment. It literally looks like a cage in the zoo—a wire mesh cube with a rolling wire mesh door that you can secure. We had to be ready to go to war in a matter of hours, so all the gear had to be packed in bags, labeled, and weighed at all times. The cages were a way to store your equipment exactly the way you wanted and gave you a little bit of property you had total control over on the compound. Cages were a very personal item so, as you can imagine, there was always drama involved. There were clear and concise lines or borders between the various elements. You could visit the other section, but there was no way you could move into an empty cage in another group’s area. Rules were rules and everyone was happy to help with this problem. Of course, we couldn’t leave a cage vacant if someone needed a space, so it become a negotiation every time.
Property matters usually fell on the Command Master Chief to handle. All were my friends, so it was not hard to contact them to try to work the deal. The problem was two-thirds of the Command was usually traveling at any given time so making quick decisions with consensus was difficult to say the least. The most difficult trades usually involved a cage move which no one wanted. Hours of lugging bags, guns, and personal gear appealed to no one. Life is not fair, especially to the new guys or junior guys. Many were forced to move to create peace. Inside deals were the norm. What ended up happening was that most of the senior guys ended up in the center of their little kingdoms with junior guys on the periphery. That way, the decision makers wouldn’t be put in a position to have to move for the greater good. It always fascinated me what guys thought was important—like parking. Of course, I always had a good cage in a strategic area along with a pristine parking spot. After all, someone has to make the decisions.
The Second Amendment is alive and well in our country because of men and women like the ones I worked with every day at the team. However, that didn’t mean we had the same rights that every American enjoys outside our compound. We had every weapon imaginable at ST-6 and for good reason. We were required to be proficient with all of them in order to do our job. At one time, the allocation of 9-mm ammunition at ST-6 was greater than the entire United States Marine Corps. We shot a lot and were very good. Man for man, we could have competed with any other military unit in the world. With that fact in mind, we were not allowed to carry firearms on base. No concealed carry and no carry inside a vehicle brought on base. Some of the most highly trained personnel in the world were supposed to be protected by contract guards and U.S. Navy personnel between assignments. Even the professional Navy Police or Master of Arms had very limited training. To top it off, certain U.S. Navy civilian employees that worked at the Command actually complained about guys carrying weapons into their workspace to conduct business. There were many times each day when administrative tasks had to be accomplished. Since we were training most of the time, that meant carrying weapons. The threat of lawsuits by civilian employees that felt threatened eventually ended the practice of carrying guns outside the designated live-fire ranges, or to and from those ranges. Weapons are strictly accountable in all military units. Going to the armory to lock up your weapon takes time we didn’t have. The process of getting in the secure storage, which was there for a good reason, also took away the valuable time needed to make a phone call or get a new ID card. Cell phones are a big no-no inside a secure compound, at least for the guys that followed the rules.
Similar to the no weapons rules, we had to deal with Rules of Engagement (ROE) on a daily basis. We can all say we love lawyers, right? Well, at ST-6, you couldn’t do anything without a legal review. Most of the lawyers, otherwise known as “Jags” (Judge Advocate General, Navy lawyers), were good to go, but not all. The best advice I have ever been taught, whether you are a lawyer or not, is “Never tell the boss ‘No.’ Tell him how he can accomplish the mission within the rules.” It may not be the exact way he asked for, but at least you offered him an alternative solution before he makes a final decision anyway. In the long run, it wasn’t hard to get the boss what he wanted since the Jags were the ones responsible for writing the ROEs in the first place. It was their job to keep us out of trouble even though at times it seemed like they were interfering with our mission. The lawyers that automatically gave a “No” answer were marginalized and pushed aside. Find the person that would give you the conditional “Yes.” The most successful SEALs at ST-6 understood that. Never settle for a no, find the yes. Some even created the yes in their own minds. Risky move, but where there is no clear guidance, we will create it. The biggest risk to any of our missions was being distracted by bullshit.
CHAPTER 25
Make a Plan
Change is hard. After 34 years working for the U.S. Navy as an active-duty SEAL and in civilian service since I was 17, leaving was a scary thought. In the Teams, we call it quitting. It doesn’t matter how long you have been doing a job, once you decide to leave, you are a quitter. All in good fun of course, but, as far as others are concerned, once the decision is made you are excluded from any decision-making process and politely shown the door. Of course, you get a going away party with some plaques and other knick-knacks, but that is about it. No big deal. I did the same thing countless times to friends who had made the same decisions. The weird part about this story is that you never knew for sure what was going to happen. I have seen people years later at the Team thinking they had moved on only to find they had been there the whole time. Military life, especially in the Teams, is very transient. The only absolute is retirement.
Even retirement has a gray area if you decide to move from active duty to civilian service (basically doing the same job you used to do without the guns). I deployed around the world as a civilian member of SEAL Team SIX (ST-6) for many years. Everyone was needed during the Global War on Terror; it didn’t matter if you were a civilian or not. It was common to be sent to places like Afghanistan and Iraq. The young guys did the fighting. The old guys did the coordination. Still in the fight but not quite.
What else can you do after years on the front line. Quit cold turkey? Some could do it; I couldn’t. It was the highest honor to be part of the team, regardless of your actual position. Unfortunately, SEALs find themselves pigeonholed into certain career fields once the decision is made to move on—security, shooting instructor, contractor, physical fitness, or government civilian, to name a few career fields which are most common among former SEALs. Of course, there are exceptions, usually officers with a background in finance or something similar that can move on to a big company with the SEAL “brand” helping them in the front door.
An issue that baffles me to this day is the fact many of my brothers fail to plan for the day they are forced to move on. Whether it be their choice or not, many will not accept the inevitable and actually have a plan. There is a saying in the military that any good plan does not survive the first contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy is retirement. Many of my teammates know the end is coming but fail to come up with a game plan. Planning is the bread and butter of the military, yet they fail to take care of themselves. I understand the problem since I went through the transition from military to civilian myself. I made jokes about it. I had a plan. I was going to be the Executive Director of the Navy SEAL Museum. Couldn’t quite cut away all together from the Teams. The job was familiar and not that far of a stretch in my mind. Clueless once again. Hadn’t I thought the same thing when I wanted to join the SEAL Teams back in the beginning? What did I know about running a museum? I knew how to be a SEAL, lead people, and make decisions. Hopefully that would be a good place to start. The first thing I had to do was learn about the past. I had to make myself a subject matter expert about everything SEAL-related, or at least be knowledgeable about each. Clueless. I am still learning something new each day. I will say, however, there are only a few dozen former SEALs that have more knowledge than my team at the Museum.
CHAPTER 26
Learn from Mistakes and Grow
The National Navy SEAL Museum was dedicated in 1985 in Fort Pierce, Florida, to much fanfare in the Naval Special Warfare community. A sleepy little museum, it took the home of the Florida State Treasure Museum. Along comes a Frogman with an idea in 1984 and thus, after much work with the county, the “UDT SEAL Museum” was born.
