BRAVE MEN DARK WATERS - The Untold Story of the Navy Seals

Author: Orr Kelly
Publisher: Pocket Books

I always enjoy reading books on special forces. People with sedentary lives find much fulfilment in the playground of their own imagination. So books like this fill a need in office workers like me.
Great stories in this classic.





THANKS to Hollywood, the name Seals is now almost as well-known as Coca-
Cola.
For decades, members of the USNavy Seals had operated under the cover
of darkness and away from the scrutiny of other prying intelligence
agencies.
But like most things or people whose reputation often precedes them, the
Seals of today have truly earned their stripes on the broken bodies,
courage and skills of their seniors and pioneers.
Orr Kelly's research into the Seals, an acronym for Sea, Air and Land,
took him into the Navy Library at the Washington Navy Yard, to a
collection of oral histories from the Naval Institute to the Pentagon.
The veteran defence correspondent has written an authoritative history
of the Seal programme. Brave Men Dark Waters is now considered a classic
for its wealth of details not found in other books on the Navy Seals.
Kelly's way of narrating the fascinating story about the US Seals
follows much like a Seal operation - strike hard, strike fast and strike
fear in the enemy, except here, the last part should be "fascination in
the readers".
Richard Marcinko, a Seal operative whose reputation has spread far
beyond the shores of America, is given generous mention in a chapter
devoted to his brave and sometime infamous deeds. Marcinko, also known as
Demo Dick the Assassin, was the leader of Seal Team Six.
After his unceremonious departure from the ranks of the Navy Seals,
Marcinko wrote a bestseller titled Seal Team Six. He then went on to write
a series of other books based either loosely or directly on his past
activities. No doubt, some Seals like Marcinko wear the badge of rogue
warrior pretty well.
For the US Navy Seals, the story began on the waters and shores of the
Pacific islands during the Second World War, when the fight against the
Japanese was raging with unfettered ferocity. In those days, the US Navy
had their Scouts and Raiders.
Soon, these were followed by the UDT or the Underwater Demolition Team
which later led to the formation of the modern-day Seals.
Hollywood has made much of the Seals, with some movies to the Special
Forces' immense benefit and others to their detriment. But only the Seal
commander will really know his men.
One veteran Seal officer had this to say after close observation of
Richard Marcinko's Team Six:
"You get a bunch of people, strong, smart, aggressive, and you require
them to kill other people.You are requiring guys to do some really tough
things. They are going in to find that terrorists are women, terrorists
are children, anybody. You're up close. This is very personal. The
psychologist looks at whether you can blow a hole in a man two feet away
and watch his brains come out the other side of his head - and do it."
Brave Men Dark Waters is all about the lengths well-trained soldiers
will go to for an objective. It recounts the vigorous, back-breaking,
mind-numbing courses that are designed to break most men except for the
exceptional few. Aptly, some of these courses are called Hell Weeks.
Before a soldier can be deemed fit to wear that badge which has an eagle
clutching in its claws a gun and a trident atop an anchor, he must first
undergo a vigorous six-month course, followed by another six months with a
full-fledged Seal team. And before all these courses can even begin, he
would have to endure four to six weeks of physical training and
indoctrination.
One of the Seals' favourite lines is: "Make them pay to kill you!"
Physical ailments like inflamed tendons, twisted knees and broken bones
are run-of-the-mill stuff. Trainees normally don't complain about them.
The lesser mortals just drop out. They are supposed to be Seals, for
heaven's sake, not ordinary human beings.
In the mid-'70s, it was reported that one Seal trainee class had 37 men.
None passed.
This book is filled with goose-pimpled accounts such as trainers
suffering stress-fracture of shin bones and thigh bones and yet continue
on regardless. On occasions when the stress becomes critical, it develops
into a compound fracture. That's when the bone protrudes outside the leg.
But if that was in the Seal training camp, in reality, it could be much
worse, as Orr Kelly tells it.
In 1972, somewhere in the Gulf of Tonkin, a team of Seals made its way
in a chopper on a mission called Operation Thunderhead, to rescue some
American PoWs who had planned to escape by way of Red River Delta. The
operation was botched when the PoWs had aborted their escape plan but
could not communicate with control centre. It was not one of the more
memorable Seal operations, resulting in many injuries among the rescue
party, but it demonstrated that despite the intensive training, anything
can and will happen in the field.
This lengthy tale of the history and exploits of US Navy Seals is one of
the finest I have ever come across. It does not hide the warts, the flaws
and the weaknesses in the Seal programme.
The bottom line is they are ultimately still human, and humans can and
do die when carrying out their duties, often in hostile territory. Out of
the chapters of pre-meditated sabotage, espionage, daring rescues and
weapons training, come shining examples of human courage, discipline and
display of awesome skills.
Today, the Seals continue to operate in small numbers, frequently away
from the scrutiny of the public or anybody else.
Very often, they do achieve their objectives. If they die, few will know
of it and if their mission is a success, only they and their commanders
know. That's because of who they are and what they do.