The Warrior Elite: The Forging of Seal Class 228 - Hardcover

Couch, Dick

 
9780609607107: The Warrior Elite: The Forging of Seal Class 228
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0609607103 ISBN 13: 9780609607107
Verlag: Crown Pub, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

NAVY SEALS ARE THE TIP OF THE SPEAR.

They are able to strike without warning, anywhere, anytime. They come from under the sea, out of the air, and across the land. Their predeces?sors, the Navy frogmen, cleared the landing beaches during World War II, from Normandy to Okinawa. They led MacArthur’s forces ashore at Inchon. In Vietnam, SEALs were the men with green faces who struck the Vietcong in their sanctuaries. Today they are deployed around the world -- ready, waiting, lethal.

What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep? Why is the price of admission to this unique warrior culture so steep? In The Warrior Elite, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young men into warriors. SEAL training is the longest, toughest, most relentless military training in the free world. It is the distillation of the human spirit, a tradition-bound ordeal that seeks to find men of character and courage, men with a burning desire to win at all costs, men who would rather die than quit.

The book follows the trainees of Class 228 as they struggle through the twenty-seven-week Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal (BUD/S) training course at the Navy Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado, California. Only one in five will be left standing at the end of this brutal ordeal, a rite of passage that is but one step in the long road to becoming a SEAL. Few men have the character or stamina that allows them to keep going while others give in to the pain and the cold. The Warrior Elite reveals who these men are, where they come from, and what makes them so special.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DICK COUCH graduated at the top of BUD/S Class 45 in 1969. He commanded a SEAL platoon in Vietnam and led one of the only successful POW rescue operations of that conflict. Mr. Couch is the author of four novels and lives in Ketchum, Idaho. This is his first nonfiction book.
CLIFF HOLLENBECK is an award-wining photographer and photojournalist. He served with Naval Special Warfare Units, including Underwater Demolition, and was a naval aviator. He has written numerous books on photography and has two novels in print. Mr. Hollenbeck lives in Seattle.

Aus dem Klappentext

RE THE TIP OF THE SPEAR.

They are able to strike without warning, anywhere, anytime. They come from under the sea, out of the air, and across the land. Their predeces?sors, the Navy frogmen, cleared the landing beaches during World War II, from Normandy to Okinawa. They led MacArthur s forces ashore at Inchon. In Vietnam, SEALs were the men with green faces who struck the Vietcong in their sanctuaries. Today they are deployed around the world -- ready, waiting, lethal.

What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep? Why is the price of admission to this unique warrior culture so steep? In The Warrior Elite, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young men into warriors. SEAL training is the longest, toughest, most relentless military training in the free world. It is the distillation of the human spirit, a tradit

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The Beginning

Monday, 4 October 1999. A fine mist hangs over the Naval Amphibious Base on Coronado as a cool marine air layer steals in from the Pacific, extinguishing the stars. The lights along Guadalcanal Road are a harsh, haloed yellow. The base is quiet. Behind a chain-link fence with diagonal privacy slats, Class 228 waits anxiously, seated on the concrete pool deck. The new BUD/S trainees wear only canvas UDT swim trunks. They are compressed into tight rows, chests to backs, in bobsled fashion to conserve body heat. The large clock on the cinder-block wall reads 5:00 a.m.-0500, or zero five hundred, in military jargon. They are wet from a recent shower. Neat rows of duffel bags that contain the students' uniforms, boots, and training gear separate each human file. The pool-officially called the combat training tank, or CTT-has already been prepared for the first evolution. The students had arrived thirty minutes earlier to roll and stow the pool covers and string the lane markers.

"Feet!" yells the class leader.

"FEET!" The voices of nearly a hundred young men answer in unison as they scramble into ranks.

"In-struct-tor Ree-no!" intones the class leader.

"HOOYAH, INSTRUCTOR REE-NO!" the class responds in full roar.

The first day of training has begun for Class 228. It's pitch black except for the building lights that cut into the mist and the underwater pool lights that illuminate a blue mirror surface. The members of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Class 228 stand at attention in fourteen files, each file forming a boat crew of seven BUD/S trainees. Instructor Reno Alberto, Class 228's proctor for the two-week BUD/S Indoctrination Course, surveys the pool. Apparently satisfied the CTT is ready, he turns and regards Class 228 for a long moment.

"Drop," he says quietly.

"DROP!" 228 echoes as the class melts to the deck, each student scrambling to claim a vacant piece of concrete. They wait, arms extended, holding their bodies in a rigid, leaning-rest position.

"Push 'em out."

"Push-ups!" yells the class leader.

"PUSH-UPS!" responds 228.

"Down!"

"ONE!"

"Down!"

"TWO!"

Class 228 loudly counts out twenty push-ups, then returns to the leaning rest. "In-struct-tor Ree-no," calls the class leader.

"HOOYAH, INSTRUCTOR REE-NO!" the students yell in unison.

Reno stands off to one side, arms folded, apparently uninterested in the mass of students leaning on their outstretched arms.

"Push 'em out," he commands softly.

"Push-ups!"

"PUSH-UPS!"

After two more rounds of this, Reno leaves them in the leaning rest for close to five minutes. By now the students are twisting and thrusting their buttocks into the air in an effort to relieve the burning in their arms.

"Recover," he says in the same measured voice.

"FEET!" the class responds, this time with less zeal.

"Give me a report, Mister Gallagher."

Lieutenant (junior grade) William Gallagher takes the class muster board from Machinist Mate First Class Robert Carreola, 228's leading petty officer, or LPO. Gallagher and Carreola are the class leader and class leading petty officer, respectively, as they are the senior officer and senior enlisted trainee in Class 228. Carreola is five-ten, but he appears shorter-partly because he has a broad, highly developed upper body and partly because his lieutenant is six-two.

Bill Gallagher is a slim, serious young man with a shy smile. He came to the Naval Academy from northern Virginia, recruited to play lacrosse for Navy. Gallagher has wanted to be a Navy SEAL since 1982, when his father gave him an article from Parade magazine with pictures of SEALs and BUD/S training. He was seven years old. Bill Gallagher was unable to come to BUD/S from Annapolis, so he went directly from the Academy to the fleet. Now, as a qualified surface warfare officer with two years at sea, he stands at the head of Class 228. His goal is still to become a Navy SEAL. Bob Carreola has been in the Navy for eleven years; this is his second try at BUD/S. He is thirty-one years old with more than a decade of service in naval aviation squadrons. His goal is also to be a Navy SEAL.

"Instructor, Class Two-two-eight is formed; ninety-eight men assigned, ninety-five men present. I have one man on watch and two men at medical for sick call."

"Ninety-five men present, Lieutenant?"

"Hooyah, Instructor Reno."

"That's wrong, sir. Drop and push 'em out. You too, Carreola."

While Gallagher and Carreola begin pushing concrete, Reno turns to the class. "The rest of you, seats."

"SEATS!" bellows Class 228 as the young men hit the concrete. They return to their compressed boat-crew files. They will sit like this often in the days and weeks ahead, hugging the man in front of them to stay warm. Gallagher and Carreola finish their push-ups and chant, "Hooyah, Instructor Reno!"

"Push 'em out," Reno replies.

This is not the last time that Lieutenant Gallagher and Petty Officer Carreola will personally pay for the sins of the class. One of the boat-crew leaders failed to report to Gallagher that one of his men was UA, or an unauthorized absence. This oversight caused Gallagher to give a bad muster; the actual number of men on the pool deck this morning is ninety-four. When one man in the class screws up, sometimes the whole class pays the tab. Sometimes a single boat crew pays or just the class leaders. But someone always pays.

"Now listen up," Reno says, turning to the class, finally raising his voice. He glances at his watch; it's 0510. "This is bullshit. You guys better get it together . . . now! Things are going to start to get difficult around here. We know most of you won't be here in another two months, but if you don't start pulling as a team, none of you will be here! It's a simple muster, gentlemen. If you can't get that done, what are you going to do when you get into First Phase and things really become difficult?" The class listens silently. Gallagher and Carreola continue to push concrete.

Reno regards the files of young men seated on the pool deck, then turns to the two sweating trainees. "Recover." They scramble up and take their places at the head of their boat crews. "This morning, gentlemen, we're going to take the basic screening test. You all passed this test at your last command or you wouldn't be here. If you can't pass it again this morning, you'll be back in the fleet just as soon as we can get you there. Understood?"

"HOOYAH, INSTRUCTOR RENO!"

. . .

BUD/S training is conducted in three distinct phases. First Phase is the conditioning phase, followed by Second Phase-diving-and Third Phase-weapons and tactics. In order to prepare them for the rigors of First Phase, the trainees must first complete the two-week Indoctrination Course. Here they will learn the rules and conventions of BUD/S training. They will learn how to conduct themselves at the pool, how to run the obstacle course, and how to maneuver small boats through the surf. They will also learn the complex set of procedures and protocols needed in First Phase and the rest of BUD/S training-customs they must observe if they hope to survive this rite of passage. During this indoctrination period, they also begin to learn about SEAL culture and begin to absorb the ethos of this warrior class. In these first few minutes of the Indoctrination Course, Class 228 has already learned something about accountability and leadership. An...

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Verlag
Crown Pub
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0609607103
ISBN 13 
9780609607107
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
319
Kontakt zum Hersteller
CROWN
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