Interview with NavySEALs.com founder

Brief background of your experience as a Navy SEAL?

I joined the Navy in 1989 after a brief career as a CPA in Manhattan. The painful drudgery of the job, coupled with the lack of moral character in the finance field led me to seek out men of character. I found them in the legendary SEAL program and struck out to become one. I attended Officer Candidate School, then Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL training class 170. The training was very challenging, with only 21 of the original 119 in my class graduating. I was the honor man of the class, which I was proud of and seemed to validate my rather dramatic career change.

After completing BUD/s, I attended Jump School at Fort Benning, GA, then SEAL Tactical Training (STT) at SEAL Team THREE in Coronado, Ca. Today STT is called SEAL Qualification Training (SQT) and it occurs at the BUD/s training center rather than the Teams. Trainees receive their coveted Navy SEAL Gold “Trident” after successfully completing both BUD/s and SQT – a grueling 11 -12 month process.

SEAL Team THREE was a great experience for me. I was an assistant Platoon Commander twice, and Platoon Commander for a third platoon. In my first platoon we geared up for Desert Storm and as we stood in the transom waiting to deploy that war ended. Later the same thing happened with Somalia, where our platoon was slated to go assist with the effort (the year leading up to the “BlackHawk Down” incident) but we were re-directed. SEAL Team THREE’s primary focus initially was the far East, so my first two platoon rotations were to a multitude of Far East countries, where we performed “Foreign Internal Defense” (FID). FID is a key mission where Special Operations forces assist the host nation forces (in our case the local version of their Navy SEALs) in training and operations to secure their own defense against their enemies.

I left SEAL Team THREE in 1994 and attended SEAL Delivery Vehicle training, then transferred to SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team ONE in Hawaii. I loved the SDV mission- very challenging. If you love being wet, cold and miserable - underwater in a moving coffin for 10 hours at a time - SDV’s are for you. This is a great example of the old SEAL saying “If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it!” I was at SDVT-1 for a year, working in the Republic of Korea, Hawaii and surrounding waters. I married my wife Sandy prior to transferring to the SDV Team, and after not seeing me for the first year of our marriage we decided that I could either be married to the Teams, or her. So I chose wisely and resigned the Active Navy as a senior Lieutenant and began a Reserve career.

In my Reserve career I was recalled twice, once to Iraq in a combat “staff” role. This was a very rewarding experience to serve again with my Active SEAL teammates, and to experience first-hand the efficacy and awesome focus of today’s SEALs. Though there are most certainly individual warriors from other services who rival the SEALs, there is no special operation fighting force more effective than SEALs when it comes to Maritime operations and Direct Action.

How involved are the SEALs in Iraq, Afghanistan and other GWOT locations? What are their roles in those locations?

The SEALs and SWCC (Special Warfare Combatant Crewman) have been intimately involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan missions from the very start. They have also had a dramatic impact on those missions working quietly and without much media focus on what they doing - due to the classified nature of much of their work. In Afghanistan Navy SEAL Admiral Bert Callen led all Special Operations on the ground and then Navy CAPT Bob Harward led the coalition SOF forces at Task Force KBar. The missions conducted were unconventional warfare by the Green Berets with the Northern Alliance, and SR / DA missions by the SEALs in the rugged mountain terrain where Bin Laden was holed up. We blasted Bin Laden and whoever was left alive right out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan, an unfortunate development that we are still trying to solve today. Since those early days of late 2001, we have had a steady presence in Afghanistan and have conducted upwards of a thousand SEAL missions to identify, capture and remove Al Queda and Taliban leadership elements.

In Iraq, the SEALs kicked off the war by raiding the Al Faw peninsula oil platforms that were heavily guarded by Republican Guard units and were thought to be rigged for demolition to re-create the ecological disaster (hence media disaster) of Desert Storm. CAPT Harward again led this crucial mission with SEAL Team THREE’s men.

The SEALs quickly established a reputation for intelligence-driven direct action missions that yielded awesome results at removing key players from the deck of cards (Hussein’s honchos). In 2004 the SEALs were tasked with protecting the key leadership of the newly elected Iraqi Government. Not a primary SEAL mission, the State Department acknowledged that they did not have the depth of personnel and experience in a combat environment to perform the mission effectively. Based on the SEAL reputation of succeeding at the job noone else wanted, CDR Wilson from SEAL Team ONE stood up the Iraqi Personal Security Detail (PSD) mission to protect the Iraqi President, Vice President, Deputy’s and Prime Minister. This mission was exceedingly successful and not a single “principal” was injured or killed. The SEALs finally trained an elite Iraqi Special Ops force to take on this mission in 2007.

Depicted in the book “The Mayor of Ramadi,” by former SEAL author Dick Couch, is the sniper mission the SEALs took on to help roll-back the insurgency in the Sunni Triangle. Both in Fallujah and Ramadi the SEALs took their intelligence gathering and sniper prowess to the streets and became a critical asset to the conventional forces weeding the insurgents out of those strongholds. A SEAL sniper now holds the record once held by legendary Gunny Hathcock for the most combat confirmed sniper kills (of course with deference to the Gunny Sergeant we acknowledge that the sniper mission in Vietnam was very different, and perhaps much more difficult, than that in the urban Iraq environment). Nonetheless the SEAL sniper work in the Sunni Triangle is nothing short of extraordinary.

Navy SEALs are at the forefront in the Global War on Terror and operating globally. Without question they have been heavily relied on for land-based operations, the “L” in the acronym for “Sea, Air, Land Teams.”

Do SEALs receive special training to prepare for deployment to these locations?

SEALs perform their training workup covering the basic and advanced skills they need to succeed in their primary missions of SR, DA, FID, WMD counter proliferation and Counter Terrorism. Additionally they receive training specific to the geographic region to which they deploy. Thus, the SEALs going to Iraq will work in desert environments, conduct aggressive live-fire Direct Action exercises in urban settings equipped with role players who speak Arabic and wear the local clothing. For Afghanistan it is the same, but mountain warfare and a heavy focus on Special Reconnaissance is added.

Prior to 911, SEALs relied on maritime platforms (boats and submarines) air assets (Fixed and Rotary aircraft…typically to jump out of) and their feet to get around. A major transformation occurred as the result of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions – the need to develop a Ground Mobility capability. Starting with Humvees begged and borrowed by the first SEALs on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by an aggressive sourcing and training program stateside, the SEALs have develop an innovate ground mobility capability with Standard Operating Procedures that have led to not a single death from a road-side explosive device.

In your opinion, what sets SEALs apart from other SOF units?

Before I risk sounding like head cheerleader, let me again say there are great warriors and units in all branches of the SOF community. Missions and capabilities are the distinguishing factor. Having said that, SEALs excel at a number of things which make them the force of choice for the Generals. Here is my short list:

1. SEAL planning: extremely flexible, bottom-up and short-fused are the hallmarks of SEAL mission planning. SEALs can plan an op and be out the door in the time it takes most units to develop their first Course of Action brief. This makes them very useful for Time Sensitive Targets.

2. Flexibility of thought: hard to pin down, but SEALs are taught to think fluidly and adapt on the fly. Often they will react to intelligence found at a dry target to move swiftly to another target of opportunity, netting a valuable catch.

3. Aggressiveness: Shoot, Move or Communicate and do it with Violence of Action. This is basic BUD/s teaching and it serves the SEALs well. When planning a vehicle infiltration, driving with lights out, on NVG, at 60 mph with all guns at the ready is routine. When in a firefight, SEALs run toward the sound of guns with an aggressiveness that is frightening, and launch enough rounds, always well aimed, to make any enemy retreat in a hurry.

4. Ethos and Culture: SEALs have never left a man behind, and will always fight to the bitter end. The two recent Medal of Honor recipients, LT Michael Murphy and Petty Officer Michael Monsoor are tremendous examples of the virtues captured by the warrior ethos of the SEALs. If you have not read their MOH citations it is worth the time. Another great warrior, who also deserves the MOH, is Chief Petty Officer Neil Robert (see Robert’s Ridge). Neil was knocked out of his MH57 after it was hit by an RPG on a barren mountain top near Torra Bora. Predator feeds showed him firing all his M4 rounds, launching his grenades and fighting to the last round of his side-arm before finally succumbing to the horde of angry Taliban surrounding him. He killed many, many of these men in his final moments and would not be taken alive.

Can you give an idea of what it felt like to train and execute SEAL missions?

The SEALs certainly practice the theory that “the more you train in peacetime, the less you bleed in war.” Thus they are constantly training, refreshing perishable skills, adding new skills. The list of stuff a SEAL must master is staggering to most civilians. They are PHD’s with a Draeger and HALO Rig on. The training is sometimes more grueling than BUD/s, but the SEALs make it fun and suck it up. Thus, when it comes down to planning and executing a combat mission, it is often SOP or business as usual. Most Active Duty and Reserve SEALs are now combat veterans. They mastered the combat environment very quickly as a result of their training and preparation through the years leading up to 911. Also, the SEALs are a small, flexible force so can integrate lessons learned from the battlefield very quickly into the training. A good example of this is the capstone exercise called CERTEX, which the deploying SEAL team must conduct prior to departure. CERTEX is updated to match the current intelligence and operational environment of Iraq for each deploying team - which is every 6 months. For an exercise with 200 participants and 400 back-side personnel this is pretty extraordinary.

At a personal level, SEALs maintain elite athlete training regimens so they body’s and minds are honed for action. They prepare for missions by knowing their target and the mission requested of them. They plan for success, and have back-up plans because they know that that no-plan survives first contact with the enemy. SEALs psyche themselves up with music, meditating while preparing their gear (think wax on, wax off!) and briefing the mission until everyone knows his role down cold. Then they execute the mission with ruthless determination and lack of emotion, plying the tools of their trade with precision and pride.

Mark Divine is a former Navy SEAL, and founder of NavySEALs.com, the web’s first and largest community serving Naval Special Warfare, SEAL trainees, Athletes and military supporters. Mark lives in Encinitas, CA with his wife Sandy and son, Devon.