7.
Desert Storm
With Iraq’s economy failing, President Saddam Hussein blamed Kuwait, invading the country on August 2, 1990, and taking Western hostages. The UN condemned the invasion, demanded a withdrawal, placed economic sanctions on Iraq, and formed a blockade. However, Hussein seemed poised to invade Saudi Arabia next.
On August 7, Operation Desert Shield began. U.S. aircraft carriers and other ships entered the Persian Gulf. Our troops were sent to Saudi Arabia. The UN gave Iraq an ultimatum to leave Kuwait by January 15, 1991, or be forcefully removed. We formed a coalition of thirty-four countries, with financial contributions from Germany and Japan.
* * *
My platoon readied our equipment and deployed to Machrihanish, Scotland. As we learned that Desert Shield was about to become Desert Storm, we flew to Sigonella, Sicily. Our Naval Air Station was located on the NATO base, serving as a hub to the Mediterranean. There we waited for our ship to arrive.
While waiting, I often went off base to eat at a nearby restaurant. Their manicotti was particularly delicious. One evening, I asked the waitress how to cook it. She disappeared into the kitchen, then came out and told me. After I’d eaten there a few more times and asked how to cook the dishes each time, she said, “You and chef talk.” She escorted me back to the kitchen. I realized a family was running the place. The chef and I drank Chianti while he showed me how to do prep work and, after a number of visits, taught me how to cook Sicilian—homemade meatballs, sausages, baked ziti, and manicotti. He seemed pleased that I had taken an interest in assisting with the cooking. The most important part of cooking Italian is the sauce, which can take a couple of days to make. First, chop up the peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Then sauté them. Cook some herbs to a boil in tomato sauce, then put the heat on low and add the vegetables. Add wine. This would take a full day. Make meatballs and sausages while the sauce is slow cooking. Then add the meat to the sauce. Wake up in the middle of the night to put it in the refrigerator. Then take it out to eat the next day. Even now, I still cook Sicilian. My wife and I often invite friends and neighbors over to enjoy the same food and atmosphere I enjoyed while in Sicily. Occasionally I’ll be outside walking the dog when a neighbor asks me, “Hey, Howard, when are you going to cook some Italian again?”
After several weeks had passed, I came back from the restaurant one evening and stopped by the air tower to watch some TV. On CNN, they showed the first shots of Desert Storm. I sprinted to the Explosives Ordnance Disposal locker where my platoon slept in sleeping bags and woke them up. “Hey, the war has started.”
Everybody jumped up, ready to get busy. Then we realized, What the hell are we getting all excited for? We haven’t been told what to do yet. So I grabbed a sleeping bag and slept.
The next morning, we found out we were going to the John F. Kennedy, the same aircraft carrier where I’d done Search and Rescue. When the ship arrived from the Mediterranean Sea, it seemed to take forever to get all our equipment loaded: cases of 84 mm one-shot light antitank rockets (AT-4s), claymores, ammunition … We didn’t know what specific missions we’d be tasked with, so we took everything.
The John F. Kennedy was 1,052 feet long and 192 feet tall from the waterline to the top of the mast. It could sail at 34 knots (1 knot equals roughly 1.15 miles per hour) carrying more than five thousand personnel. In addition to more than eighty aircraft, it was armed with two Guided Missile Launching System Mark-29 launchers for Sea Sparrow missiles, two Phalanx close-in weapon systems for attacking incoming missiles, and two Rolling Airframe Missile launchers that fire infrared homing surface-to-air missiles.
I saw a lot of my old buddies on board. Even some of the same pilots remained. John F. Kennedy sailed through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea, heading for the Persian Gulf. Most ships didn’t have quarters for a SEAL contingent. We slept and held meetings wherever we could find a space. Fortunately, we had a great rapport with the ship personnel. Whenever the ship’s crew saw us coming through the passageway wearing our camouflage uniforms and SEAL tridents, they said, “Make a hole, SEAL coming through.” It felt like being a celebrity. We tried to treat them with respect, too.
At first no one approached us when we were in the chow hall. After a while, people started to join us. They asked us about BUD/S and other things. In the huge hangar bay, we did our physical training every morning. Some of the ship’s personnel showed up and joined us.
We didn’t follow the Dick Marcinko Charm School of arrogance and alienating people. Marcinko created SEAL Team Six, served time in jail for defrauding the government, wrote his autobiography, entitled Rogue Warrior, and made a video game. Although I respect that he created Team Six, Marcinko gave us a black eye by disrespecting people who weren’t SEALs—and by disrespecting SEALs who weren’t part of his clique. I was on a flight once with a pilot who was amazed at our behavior in comparison with the loud, obnoxious, gun-waving attitude of Marcinko’s SEALs. Even worse, Marcinko cheated the government out of money, putting Team Six under a dark cloud of suspicion. He had been imprisoned for conspiring with a civilian contractor to overcharge the government for explosives and pocketing the money. For years, we had to overcome that legacy. Especially at SEAL Team Six, subsequent commanders worked hard to clean up the crap stains Marcinko left behind.
On the John F. Kennedy, we were visitors in someone else’s home. They were the ones in charge. They were the ones who took care of it—making our stay as good or as bad as they wanted. If the ship sprang a leak, we depended on the ship’s personnel to plug the hole. We treated the crew well, and they treated us like royalty.
I’m not saying we had to kiss everyone’s butts, but we were all on the same team. The non-SEALs took the same navy oath as the SEALs to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Treat people like crap who are in the same military and eventually it will come back and bite you in the butt. If I saw Marcinko on the street, I would respect him for creating SEAL Team Six, but if he said anything to me about how everything used to be better when he was commanding officer, I’d tell him, “Go play your video game and blow some more smoke up your own ass.”
* * *
For over a week, pilots from our ship took off loaded up with bombs, leaving us behind to watch their payloads explode on CNN. Then we stood by as the pilots came back without their bombs. We had trained and trained for this moment. Especially in winter warfare, we skied in and set up a beacon to let the pilot in the aircraft see our location. Then we would “paint” the target with a laser, letting the bomb know where to go. We’re missing out. Wearing Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, I stood on the outer deck of the aircraft carrier feeling a breeze and looking across the shimmering calm ocean toward Iraq. I could see the USS San Jacinto (CG-56), a cruiser loaded with Tomahawk missiles. The USS America (CV-66) and USS Philippine Sea (CG-58) also sailed in our battle group. I was all dressed up with nowhere to go. My platoon and I weren’t the only ones. Although General Norman Schwarzkopf had utilized British special ops, the Special Air Service (SAS), at the beginning of the war, he didn’t utilize American special ops. He clearly favored American conventional forces over American unconventional units like the SEALs or Delta. It sucked.
On a side note, although the SEALs had specifically rehearsed to protect the oil wells in Kuwait, Schwarzkopf didn’t use us. Later, as Coalition military forces drove the Iraqi military out of Kuwait, Saddam’s troops conducted a scorched earth policy, destroying everything they could—including setting fire to over six hundred of Kuwait’s oil wells. Kuwait lost five to six million barrels of oil each day. Unburned oil formed hundreds of oil lakes, contaminating forty million tons of earth. Sand mixed with oil created “tarcrete,” covering 5 percent of Kuwait. Putting out the fires cost Kuwait $1.5 billion. They burned for more than eight months, polluting the ground and air. Many Kuwaitis and Coalition troops developed respiratory difficulties. The thick billows of black smoke filled the Persian Gulf and surrounding areas. Wind blew the smoke to the eastern Arabian Peninsula. For days, the smoky skies and black rain saturated nearby countries. The environmental and human suffering caused by the fires continues to be felt to this day. If it hadn’t been for Schwarzkopf’s underestimating their ability to light fires, the belief among the Team guys was that, we could’ve eliminated many of the booger-eaters before they reached the six hundred oil wells, lessening the suffering.
One evening, we were awakened around midnight to muster in one of the jet fighter wing’s ready rooms. Intel told us that a cargo ship disguised under an Egyptian flag was laying mines in the Red Sea. Our mission would be to take the ship down. SEAL Team Six did this kind of mission with Black Hawk helicopters and state-of-the-art gear. As Team Two SEALs, we’d have to make do with the bumblebee-looking SH-3 Sea King helicopters and our wits.
We started our mission planning. How many helicopters? Who’s going to be in what bird? Who’s going to be in what seat? Which helicopter will hover over the ship first? Which helo is second? How will we set up sniper positions? Escape and evasion plans if we have to bail? Meanwhile we continued to get new intelligence, and the aircraft carrier moved us closer to striking position.
The ship’s whistle blew—lunchtime. We ate, not knowing when we’d have a chance to eat again. Then we went to the intelligence center to update our intel and check out blueprints of the cargo ship we’d take down. How many decks? How many rooms? How many crew members? The amount of intel and planning that goes into a mission is mind-boggling.
As the air rep, I prepared the portable wire ladders (caving ladders) for climbing back up to the helicopter if we needed to, fast ropes, and other air-related gear. I attached a ninety-foot braided nylon rope to a clevis pin on a bar bolted to the interior roof of the SH-3 Sea King, a twin-engine antisubmarine-warfare helicopter. Not designed with our type of work in mind, the helo would later be replaced by the SH-60 Sea Hawk, the maritime version of the Black Hawk. SEAL Team Six had the Black Hawks, but we blue-water SEALs had to make do with what was available. I placed the coiled rope inside near the helo door.
We divided up other responsibilities. Serving as lead member of the prisoner handling team, I had to carry an additional ten pairs of flexicuffs in my backpack, in addition to the standard two pairs for the prisoners, and plan where to put prisoners as we took down the ship.
We geared up, wearing black BDUs. On our feet, we wore Adidas GSG9 assault boots. They’re soft on the bottom and grip well, like wearing a tennis shoe with ankle support. You can get them wet and fins slip on easy over the tops. To this day, that’s my favorite boot. Black balaclavas covered our heads, and paint covered our exposed skin. For our hands, we customized our green aviator gloves by dying them black, then cutting off two of the fingers on the right-hand glove: the trigger finger down to the second knuckle and the thumb down to the first knuckle. With the fingers cut out, it became easier to squeeze the trigger, change magazines, pull the pins on flashbangs, etc. Casio watches on our wrists kept time. On my belt, in the small of my back, sat a gas mask. During Desert Storm, everyone prepared for gas or biological weapons; Hussein was reported to still have chemical weapons that he wouldn’t hesitate to use. I also took along two or three flashbangs.
I carried the Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun with a SIG SAUER 9 mm on my right hip. I kept a thirty-round magazine in the MP-5. Some guys like to carry two magazines in the weapon, but our experience was that the double magazine limited our maneuverability, and it’s hard to do a magazine change. I carried three magazines on my left thigh and an extra three in my backpack. We test-fired our weapons off the fantail, on the back of the ship.
Although we had sixteen guys in our platoon, one would remain as a sniper in each of the two circling helicopters. That left only fourteen of us to take down the entire ship—two more helos with seven assaulters in each. Mine would be the lead helicopter.
The helicopter crew members were familiar faces—I’d served with their squadron, SH-7, during my earlier navy days as a SAR swimmer. As ropemaster, I sat inside the helo door in the middle of the coil of the rope with my left hand on the part leading up to the hoist mount sticking out of the helo. When we became airborne, I felt the outside wind try to pull the rope away from me. I closed my eyes and took a rest.
“Fifteen minutes.” The air crewman’s voice came into my headset, relaying information from the pilot.
I opened my eyes and relayed the message to my Teammates. “Fifteen minutes!” Then I closed my eyes again.
“Ten minutes.”
I was used to the routine.
“Five minutes.”
Getting close now.
“Three minutes.”
We had approached the ship from the rear, slowing from 100 knots to 50 knots.
“One minute.”
Flaring the helo’s nose up at an angle, the pilot put on the brakes. As we leveled out to a hover over the ship, I had enough daylight left to see the deck. We were in position. I kicked the 90-foot rope out the door and called, “Rope!” It hit the fantail on an area too small to land a helicopter.
“Go!” Wearing thick wool inserts in my gloves, I grabbed the rope and slid down it like a fireman’s pole. With more than 100 pounds of gear on my back, I had to grip the rope tight to prevent myself from splattering onto the deck. Of course, with six guys behind me waiting in the helicopter, one big hovering target, I didn’t want to descend too slowly, either. My gloves literally smoked on the way down. Fortunately, I landed safely.
Unfortunately, our pilot had a hard time holding his position over the ship in rough seas with darkness falling and gusts of wind blowing. To add to the difficulty, the pilots weren’t used to hovering over a target while a 200-pound man and his 100 pounds of gear come off the rope—causing the helo to suddenly gain altitude. The pilot would have to compensate by lowering the helo for each man who dismounted the rope. We had practiced with the pilots earlier, but it was still a tricky maneuver. Without the pilot’s compensation, the first operator would slide off the rope with three feet of rope on the deck, the second guy with only a foot, and the third guy with the rope off the deck—it wouldn’t take long before some poor bastard dropped ten feet through the air with nothing to hold on to, the metal deck giving a lot less cushion than dirt. Even for the more experienced Black Hawk pilots, it’s a tricky maneuver. The helicopter pulled away. Crap. There I was, in the middle of a war, in the middle of the Red Sea, on a strange enemy ship by myself. I felt naked. If this goes really bad, I can fight my way through it. If this goes really, really bad—Mother Ocean is right there. Kick, stroke, and glide. The helicopter had to circle around, reestablish visual, make another approach, and hover again. It probably only took two minutes, but it felt like two hours.
I scanned the area with the muzzle of my MP-5 while my platoon fast-roped down. Once we were all together, we set our perimeter. Mark, who was our team leader, and DJ, our communications (coms) guy, took a group to the wheelhouse for command and control. Two shooters went to after steering to disable the ship—making it dead in the water. My team went to the cabins to get the crew.
Inside the ship, we approached the first cabin. You’re soft until you’re hard. Stay quiet for as long as possible. If I’d heard a shot or a flashbang, I’d be thinking, Aw, crap. Here we go. From then on out I’d be hard. Kick in every door and flashbang every room. Manhandle everyone. Violence of action turns up exponentially. We try to match the level of violence to the level required for the situation. No more, no less.
I opened the door, and four of us slipped in quietly while two stayed behind in the hallway to cover our rear. Speed is key, as is moving together. Two of us cleared left and two cleared right. The two crew members inside froze. We dominated the area. They couldn’t speak English, but we knew some Arabic: Down.
They assumed the position.
Another SEAL and I stood next to the wall covering while two SEALs said, “Moving.”
“Move,” I answered, controlling the room.
They cuffed the two crew members on the deck.
I shouted, requesting to know if the hall outside was secure for us to come out. “Coming out?”
“Come out,” came a reply from the hall.
We took our prisoners out into the hallway and moved on to the next door. Most rooms averaged two crew members. Some rooms were empty.
In one room, we went in and cuffed the crew. I said, “Coming out?”
“No,” the two shooters in the hall replied.
The four of us stayed put with our two prisoners—waiting. I could hear arguing in the hall.
“Wasdin,” one of the guys in the hall called.
I stepped into the hallway and saw a crew member standing in a T-intersection at the end of the hall. In his hand was a fire extinguisher. One of our shooters was about to cap him for noncompliance.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“This guy won’t listen,” the shooter said.
Maybe he thinks we’re sabotaging the ship. “Down,” I said in Arabic.
The crew member spoke Arabic. “No.”
I looked in his eyes. He seemed confused, not like he was being hostile for the sake of being hostile. Thinking it was simple miscommunication, I lowered my MP-5 submachine gun a little.
He lunged at me with his fire extinguisher.
Damn.
I sidestepped just as the fire extinguisher glanced off the side of my head. Back then, we weren’t wearing assault helmets. If I hadn’t sidestepped, the blow would’ve caught me straight in the face.
Wow. He almost killed me with a fire extinguisher. How would that look? Try to be nice and get taken out with a fire extinguisher. I was furious. I caught him sideways and buried the muzzle of my MP-5 under his right ear, pushed him back, then gave him a butt stroke for good measure.
One of Mr. Fire Extinguisher’s buddies, a skinny little man, put up his hands as if to take me on.
My Teammate was about to cap him.
“No, I got it.” With my left hand, I gave Fire Extinguisher’s buddy a karate chop just below his nose, backing him off. I put enough force into it that he probably needed to get his teeth retightened. He quickly became compliant, not wanting any more.
Then Fire Extinguisher got cuffed the hard way: arm bar, knee behind the neck, grabbing a handful of his hair, lifting him up by the cuffs until his arms almost came out of their sockets, and kicking him in the ass down the hallway. Our guys took him and the other prisoners to the holding area.
Blood trickled from my head down into my ear. Now I was really pissed. Try to be a nice guy, and that’s what happens. In retrospect, Fire Extinguisher should’ve gotten two to the body and one to the head. He’s a lucky sonofabitch.
We found most of the men in the crew’s quarters, which doubled as a chow hall—interrupting their Turkish tea and cigarettes.
We cleared nearly every inch of the ship, top to bottom, stern to bow. SEAL Team Six would take the same ship down with thirty assaulters. Since we had fewer guys and were not as specialized as Six, it took us two hours. My team stayed on the bow with the prisoners in the darkness. Mark commanded our platoon from the wheelhouse while DJ ran coms next to him. Nobody got hurt. Other than me being an idiot. Now the ship belonged to us. Warships surrounded us as we sat dead in the water. Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs) floated beside us carrying Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET), the lead agency for apprehending drug traffickers on the high seas. To a large degree, the dangerous part was over.
We mustered the prisoners. The ship’s captain, up in the wheelhouse with Mark, sent his master-at-arms down to do a head count. We found out we were missing one of the ship’s crew. Somebody’s hiding.
We asked the prisoners if they knew where he was.
Nobody knew nothin’.
So we had to clear the whole freaking ship again. Leaving four men to guard the prisoners, we went back to after steering and started over. We were beyond pissed, tearing through every inch of the ship we thought we’d already searched. Halfway through clearing the ship, I got a call that we’d found the guy. He had been hiding tucked up between some pipes in an engine compartment—scared.
We took him to join his comrades on the bow, and we cut the flexicuffs off all the prisoners. Except Fire Extinguisher. I made him sit on the capstan, which looks like a giant motorized thread spool, the most uncomfortable seat on the bow.
Meanwhile, Mark spoke through DJ to an interpreter on one of the ships in order to communicate to the captain standing next to Mark.
“Were you laying mines? Where were the mines? Where are you going? Where are you coming from?”
“We’re not laying mines.”
“If you’re not, why don’t you have any cargo? Why are you on a course going away from Egypt when you should be going home?”
These guys were not giving us the right answers. Something was definitely fishy.
Fire Extinguisher complained, “My butt hurts.”
My head was still pounding. Sonofabitch, you’re lucky you can feel anything.
One of the prisoners on the bow reached for the inside of his jacket, going for a gun in his shoulder holster. The snipers in the helicopter aimed their infrared lasers at him as the rest of us clicked the safeties off our MP-5s, about to blow him away—but there was neither gun nor holster, just a white pack of cigarettes.
“No, no, no, no,” pleaded the prisoner. His eyes looked like two fried eggs. He was lucky we had such tight trigger discipline—not like the four policemen in New York who shot Amadou Diallo forty-one times reaching for his wallet.
One of the crew spoke English, and we translated through him. “No sudden movements. Don’t be reaching inside your clothes for anything.”
Fire Extinguisher whined, “My butt hurts.”
I hope you give me a reason to shoot you.
Later, a teenager burst onto the bow running. We took him down rudely and abruptly. After calling Mark, we found out the kid was the captain’s messenger coming to get the keys to something. Maybe whenever the captain gave him an order, he was supposed to haul ass, but we made it clear to him: “No fast movements, and no running.” I felt sorry for the poor kid because we took him down so hard.
The captain and crew still weren’t giving us the right answers, so LEDET, armed with shotguns, came aboard and high-fived us, and we turned over the ship and prisoners to them. They would sail the ship to a friendly port in the Red Sea, where it wouldn’t be the end of the story for the prisoners by any means.
Fire Extinguisher still had his cuffs on as LEDET took over. I hope he still has them on to this day.
Our job was done. The weather worsened, so we couldn’t take a helicopter out. Instead, we lowered ourselves on caving ladders and left the vessel on LEDET RHIBs. The RHIBs took us to the LEDET’s amphibious ship.
We boarded the amphibious ship in the early morning, having been awake for more than twenty-four hours. The last time we’d eaten was lunch the day before. Add to that the physical exertion and adrenaline dump—we were starving to death. In the chow hall, even though it was before breakfast hours, they brought out an amazing meal for all sixteen of us. I don’t remember exactly what they fed us, but it seems like they fed us breakfast and dinner: quiche, grilled ham, buttermilk pancakes with blueberry topping, orange juice, hot coffee, steak, creamed asparagus soup, steamed cabbage and white sauce, mashed potatoes, and hot apple pie.
The head cook came out and shook each of our hands. “I’ve made some of my secret recipes. Hope you like it.”
“Incredible,” I said.
“We just found out you guys were coming, and this is all we had time for.”
The debrief took place while we ate. All the officers on the ship seemed to be present. They treated us like kings. It seemed like everyone who could cram into the chow hall had come. People just wanted to meet, talk to, and be a part of us. Their hospitality meant a lot to me. Made me feel important.
Near early afternoon, our birds landed on the fantail of the amphibious ship, we waved good-bye, and flew back to the Kennedy.
Later I would receive the Navy Commendation Medal, which read:
The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Commendation Medal to Hull Technician First Class Howard E. Wasdin, United States Navy, for services set forth in the following citation: For professional achievement and superior performance of his duties while serving as air operations specialist for SEAL Team Two Foxtrot Platoon while deployed to the Red Sea in support of Operation Desert Storm from 17 January to 28 February 1991. During this period, Petty Officer Wasdin consistently performed his demanding duties in an exemplary and highly professional manner. As the air operations specialist responsible for all SEAL helo fast-rope operations his consistent hard work was instrumental in maintaining the assault team’s capability to conduct rapid and efficient insertions onto designated targets. During one SEAL mission, he expertly directed the insertion and was the first man on deck to provide critical cover for his shipmates. He continued as lead member of a prisoner securing element displaying superior war fighting skills which proved critical to mission success. Petty Officer Wasdin’s exceptional professional ability, initiative, and loyal devotion to duty reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Naval Service.
“I’ve been asked to select three men for a classified op, but Intel won’t tell me what it’s about until I select the men,” Mark said.
Outside the Carrier Intelligence Center (CVIC), Smudge, DJ, and I stood in the passageway as Mark disappeared inside for a moment. Mark reappeared and said, “OK.”
We walked in. There was a small break room off to the right with a coffee machine and a refrigerator. The left opened up into the main room with a conference table and chairs around it. On one wall hung a whiteboard, and in front of another stood a TV and video player. A couple of dark leather couches sat off to the side. In the middle of the room stood the ship’s intelligence officer. Beside him was a man we’d never seen before. I didn’t know if he was a spook or what. Without identifying himself, the man said, “Morning, gentlemen.”
“Good morning, sir.” We didn’t know his rank, but it was safer to be overly polite than disrespectful.
“A Tomahawk missile was fired that missed its target and did not detonate. It landed in friendly territory, but there are enemy forces in the area. We need you to detonate the missile so the Iraqis cannot get the technology, which is invaluable. Also, we don’t want them converting the explosives into an IED [Improvised Explosive Device].”
We returned to the berthing, where our beds (racks), lockers, and a small lounge were located, and began gearing up. “What’s up?” other guys excitedly asked.
“The four of us are going out on an op.” It sucked not being able to tell them the details.
Their excitement level dropped once they knew the twelve of them wouldn’t be included.
I’d be using my CAR-15, which had a telescopic buttstock and held thirty rounds of .223 (5.56 mm) ammo in the magazine. Inside the stock, I put a few hundred dollars. In my left thigh cargo pocket, I stuck my E&E kit: pencil flare, waterproof matches, compass, map, red-lens flashlight, space blanket, and MRE entrée. Into the right thigh cargo pocket went my blowout kit: 4" × 4" gauze bandage with tie straps, a cravat, and a Vaseline-coated dressing for a sucking chest wound—all vacuum sealed in plastic to be waterproof. This was a minimum kit, mainly for a gunshot wound/bleeding trauma. Although SEALs often dress differently and carry a variety of weapons, the location of our blowout kit is universal. This way, if one of our shooters goes down, we don’t have to play a guessing game of where his kit is to patch him up. Of course, I could use my own blowout kit to patch up an injured Teammate, but later if the need arose for me to patch myself up, I would lack the materials to do it.
The four of us boarded the SH-3 Sea King with light brown and sand-colored stripes and blotches painted on our faces. Smudge carried 4 pounds of the off-white colored modeling clay with a slight odor of hot asphalt—C-4 plastic explosives. I carried the blasting caps, fuse, and fuse igniters. The C-4 couldn’t blow up without the smaller explosion of a blasting cap, which is why we separated the two. Smudge had the safer cargo. Although blasting caps alone aren’t powerful enough to blow off a hand, they have been known to blow off a careless finger or two.
We traveled light because this would be a quick in-and-out. The helo flew a few miles before slowing down to 10 knots, 10 feet above the water. I stepped out the side of the bird with my swim fins pointed straight down, falling through the stinging ocean spray kicked up by the helicopter. I couldn’t hear my splash over the sound of the rotor blades chopping the air overhead.
One by one, the guys jumped out the side door and into the ocean. Similar to fast-roping, when each man jumped, it lightened the helicopter’s load, making the helo gain altitude—the pilot had to compensate. The last SEAL to die in Vietnam, Lieutenant Spence Dry, was doing a helo cast when the helo rose significantly higher than 20 feet while flying faster than 20 knots—breaking Dry’s neck.
Treading water, I looked around. Everyone seemed to be in one piece. A light blinked from the shore—our signal. I started to feel cold. We formed a line and faced the signal. Swimming the sidestroke, I kicked long, deep, and slow, propelling myself quickly, trying to stay in formation with the others. The swim warmed me. As we reached water shallow enough to stand in, we stopped, watching the shore. No danger signs yet. I removed my fins and hooked them to a bungee cord strapped across my back. Then we slithered onto the beach. Smudge and DJ spread out to the left and right flanks. I covered Mark with my CAR-15 as he approached the light source, a pear-shaped Arab who was our agent. They exchanged bona fides. Mark pulled his left ear. The agent rubbed his stomach with his left hand. So far, so good. Turning the agent with his back to me, I cuffed him and searched his body for a weapon, a radio, or anything that didn’t belong. Nothing seemed out of place. I cut off his cuffs.
Mark signaled Smudge and DJ to come in. After they joined us, I handled the agent while we patrolled inland. If he became unusually fidgety as we neared the objective, I’d know he might be leading us toward a possible ambush. If he succeeded in leading us into an ambush, I’d be the first to put a bullet in his head. I haven’t heard of a double agent living to tell about leading SEALs into an ambush. Behind the agent and me followed our leader, Mark. Next came DJ with the radio. Smudge brought up the rear.
After patrolling for half a mile through the sand, we stopped 100 yards away from a dirt road and went prone while the agent picked up a large rock, walked forward, and laid the rock beside the road. Then he returned to our group and lay prone with the rest of us. My wet body started to shiver. The desert is hot during the day but cold at night, and being wet didn’t help matters. I was eager to get moving again, but not eager to get shot for moving too soon. Fifteen minutes later, a local vehicle stopped on the side of the road next to the rock. We covered it with our sound-suppressed CAR-15s. A man in a white robe stepped out of the truck and walked the 100 yards in our direction.
“Stop,” I said in English. “Turn around.”
He did.
“Back up to my voice.”
As he walked backward toward us, we grabbed, bound, and searched him. Then we walked with the driver to his vehicle and searched it. He drove us twenty minutes to the target somewhere in the middle of the desert. The driver parked the car and walked the rest of the distance with us. There lay the missile. Even though it had crash-landed, it was still in good shape. We set up a loose perimeter while Smudge prepared two C-4 socks. Each large green canvas sock had 2 pounds of C-4 in the bottom. He slipped one sock over the tip of the missile and ran the line sewed into the mouth of the sock to a hook in the sock’s toe, cinching it tight. Finally, Smudge did the same on the other end of the missile.
He tapped me on the shoulder, taking my place securing the perimeter while I inserted a blasting cap into each block of C-4. In more ways than I had time to think about, I did not want to screw up. I crimped the two blasting caps into two timed fuses, keeping them straight. After that, I screwed two underwater fuse igniters (M-60s) tightly onto the two fuses. Holding the fuse igniters in one hand, I pulled both lanyards at the same time. Pop! “Fire in the hole.” I could smell the cordite of the fuses burning. Before the big explosion, there would be a three-minute time delay, give or take a few seconds.
I joined the others, and we patrolled away. Swiftly. We took cover behind a natural berm that looked like a giant speed bump. Kaboom! Sand rained down on us.
We returned to the missile, making sure it was in small enough pieces. Mark gave the OK signal, so we returned to the vehicle.
The driver took us back to the spot on the road with the rock, but Mark told him to drive us farther, to avoid our parking in front of an ambush. After the driver dropped us off, we waited for him and the agent to leave before we exfilled back to the beach. On the beach, DJ called the helo and told the pilot we were on our way. We unbungeed our fins and entered the water. I was happy to be out of the danger area and swimming fast. Everyone swam fast. The swim heated our bodies. What they told us in BUD/S was true: Mother Ocean is your comfort and safety.
As the helo neared, we lined up 15 feet apart, snapping infrared chemlights attached to our inflatable life vests. The helo hovered overhead, its main rotor stirring up the ocean. Saltwater cut at my face mask. From the helo dropped a caving ladder, and I hooked one of the rungs with the bend in my elbow. I climbed up. When my feet stepped on the ladder, I used them to drive me upward, rather than pulling with my arms, so I wouldn’t expend my arm strength. At the top, I used my arms to pull myself into the chopper.
When we all arrived safely on the helo, a crewman hauled in the ladder, and the helo flew us away. Inside the helo, we slapped each other on the back and breathed easy. The Kennedy must’ve moved in closer to us, because the return trip wasn’t as long. We’d completed a classified op that someone thought was extremely important.
* * *
A few days later, I stood outside the CVIC again. This time it was only DJ and I. Mark called us in and, once again, we met the Man with No Name.
He shook our hands and wasted no time. “Shall we get to it?”
We nodded.
He explained, “The PLO voiced support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Now they have set up shop in Iraq. The Iranians are working with the PLO to train terrorists to attack coalition forces. Recently, they planted a roadside IED that hit one of our vehicles. We want you to target the PLO-Iranian compound in Southeastern Iraq for a guided missile strike, then report a BDA [battle damage assessment].”
Mark discussed his plan with us, and then DJ and I went off to prepare our gear. As always, we made sure we had nothing shiny or noisy on us—nothing that a little sand-colored spray paint or tape couldn’t fix. After prepping our gear, we took a late-afternoon flight on a Sea King from the John F. Kennedy’s flight deck. I fell asleep during the flight and woke up when we landed at the forward operating base. The sky had become dark—time was ticking. A civilian named Tom with a plain face who wore blue jeans and a gray T-shirt handed us the keys to a Humvee. “I just had her washed and waxed.”
I looked at the dirty vehicle and smiled. Perfect.
With no clouds and a half moon overhead, DJ and I could see in the darkness. So could the enemy, but the clear skies would help the missile find its target. After driving 30 miles through the desert avoiding roads, buildings, populated areas, and telephone poles, we arrived in an area where the ground gently dipped 10 feet, just as we had seen on the satellite map in the CVIC. After creating false tracks past our location, we stopped in the dip and blotted out our real insertion tracks. Next, we covered the vehicle with desert camouflage netting. We lay on the ground next to each other, facing opposite directions. Quietly we watched and listened to find out if anyone would visit us. The first few minutes were maddening. Is that really a bush? Maybe they’re watching us. How many of them are there? Will the Humvee start up again if we need to bug out? Will we be able to get away fast enough? Thirty minutes later, I calmed down, and we moved forward on foot, using a GPS for navigation.
With only two of us, we had less firepower than a boat crew and exercised additional caution not to be seen. Our ears became sharply tuned to the slightest sounds. We crouched as we walked—slow and silent, avoiding high ground that might cause our silhouettes to stand out.
Three miles later, we reached the base of a hill. The PLO-Iranian compound lay on the other side. I walked point with DJ behind me, and we climbed nearly 600 feet until we neared a slope. Keeping the slope below us and the ridge above, we low-crawled around toward the other side of the hill. A mile ahead on the ground, I saw the wall of a compound form a triangle with guard towers in each corner surrounding three buildings inside. I also saw an enemy soldier sitting about 60 yards away to the right of our hill with binoculars around his neck and an AK-47 assault rifle slung over the back of his right shoulder.
I stopped and signaled DJ with a clenched fist: Freeze. DJ stopped.
The sentry remained still.
After pointing two fingers to my eyes, then in the direction of the enemy sentry, I crawled in reverse. DJ backed out, too. We stalked around the back of the hill until we found another slope. This time when we crossed over, we had a clear view of the target with no sentries nearby. Our eyes searched the immediate area around us, then farther out until the compound came into view. The only people visible were the guards in the towers.
While I guarded the perimeter, DJ sent an encrypted transmission burst over his radio to tell the USS San Jacinto we were in position. A burst message must’ve come back, because DJ nodded his head, giving me the green light.
I unpacked the lightweight laser designator (AN/PED-1 LLDR), which wasn’t very lightweight, and its tripod while DJ covered our perimeter. After marking our position with a beacon, I painted the middle building in the PLO-Iranian compound, marking it with coded pulses of invisible laser light. The light would sparkle off the target and into the sky for the incoming Tomahawk missile to find.
The cruise missile seemed to fly parallel to the earth. A trail of white smoke followed its flaming tail. The Tomahawk gradually descended until it shot into the center building, and 1,000 pounds of explosives burst in a ball of flame followed by clouds of black smoke. The shock wave and debris ripped apart the two other buildings and walls, causing a secondary detonation in one building—probably housing explosives used in making IEDs. Two of the three guard towers were ripped off. Through my binoculars, I clearly saw a soldier blasted out of his tower and sailing through the air like a stuffed doll. Only remnants remained of the compound wall. I could see no movement coming from the compound. From our hill the sentry ran toward the compound, probably hoping to find survivors among his friends.
We packed up and moved out, taking a different path to our vehicle. It’s easy to become complacent on the way home, so it’s important to be extra cautious. After removing the camouflage netting, we hopped in and drove away. Again we drove back a different route than we came in.
During the drive back, I noticed what appeared to be an enemy bunker, halfway exposed out of the ground. As I drove around to avoid it, the Humvee bogged down in the sand. When I tried to drive out, the Humvee wheels dug deeper, making the situation worse.
Meanwhile, Iraqi soldiers exited the bunker.
DJ and I aimed our CAR-15s at them.
Fourteen of them walked toward us with their hands in the air. I saw no threat in their faces. They were dirty and stank. Their skin stretched tight over their bones; there was no telling how long they’d been without food. They put their hands to their mouths, the international gesture for food. During the war, some Iraqi soldiers had actually surrendered to camera crews, they were so willing to surrender and unwilling to fight.
On the ground, rags stuck from the ends of their rifles to keep the sand out. We stepped out of our vehicle and told them to dig a hole with their hands. Next we ordered them to toss in their weapons. As they did, they seemed more frightened, as if they expected us to execute them. We motioned for them to cover the hole. Their fear subsiding, they complied. Some of them probably had wives. Kids. Most of them were around my age. Their lives were totally in my hands. They looked at me like I was Zeus coming down from Mount Olympus.
Feeling sorry for them, I took out two MREs that I had broken down as emergency rations for escape and evasion. For fourteen guys, that wasn’t a lot of food, but they split the two meals up among themselves. One guy even ate the Chiclets. Well, you know, that’s really candy-coated chewing gum, but go ahead. Knock yourself out. We gave them most of our water. They put their hands together and bowed with gratitude, thanking us. Wisely, they didn’t try to touch us or get in our personal space.
The faint glow of the sun began to appear on the horizon. Time to move. We made them put their hands on their heads. I marked the position of our Humvee on the GPS and walked the point while DJ followed at rear security. If a pilot had flown over and seen us, it would’ve looked bizarre with only two Americans patrolling fourteen captured enemy through the middle of the desert. We looked like the gods of war. Two Navy SEALs capture fourteen Iraqi soldiers.
When we reached the base, Tom’s response was, “Why in the hell are you giving us these guys?”
“Well, what did you want us to do with them?”
“Keep them.”
“We can’t keep them.”
Soon our helicopter arrived, and we left our prisoners there, still bowing with their hands together and thanking us. The helo lifted off and took us back to the John F. Kennedy.
In BUD/S and up until that point, I had been in the mindset that everyone I went up against was a bad guy. We were morally superior to them. I used language to make killing more respectable: “waste,” “eliminate,” “remove,” “dispatch,” “dispose”… In the military, bombings are “clean surgical strikes” and civilian deaths are “collateral damage.” Following orders takes the responsibility of killing off my shoulders and places it on a higher authority. When I bombed the compound, I further diffused personal responsibility by sharing the task: I painted the target, DJ radioed the ship, and someone else pressed the button that launched the missile. It’s not uncommon for combat soldiers to dehumanize the enemy—Iraqis become “ragheads” and “camel jockeys.” In the culture of war, the line between victim and aggressor can become blurred. All these things helped me do my job, but they also threatened to blind me to the humanity in my enemy.
Of course, SEALs train to match the appropriate level of violence required by the situation, turning it up and down like the dimmer on a light switch. You don’t always want the chandeliers on bright. Sometimes you do. That switch is inside me still. I don’t want to, but I can turn it on if needed. However, the training didn’t prepare me for seeing the humanity in those fourteen men. It’s something you have to be in real combat to see. Not simulated combat. Maybe I could’ve put a bullet in every one of their skulls and bragged about how many confirmed kills I got. Some people have this concept of SEALs just being mindless, wind-me-up killing machines. “Oh, you’re an assassin.” I don’t like that. I don’t adhere to it. Most SEALs know that if you can do an op without any loss of life, it’s a great op.
Seeing those fourteen men, I realized they were not bad guys. They were just poor sonsofbitches who were half starved to death, underequipped, outgunned, having no clue, and following some madman who’d decided he wanted to invade another country. If they didn’t follow the madman, the Republican Guard would execute them. I suspect they lost the will to fight. Maybe they never had the will to fight in the first place.
They were human beings just like me. I discovered my humanity and the humanity in others. It was a turning point for me—it was when I matured. My standards of right and wrong in combat became clearer, defined by what I did and didn’t do. I did give the fourteen Iraqi soldiers food and take them to a safer place. I didn’t kill them. Whether you’re winning or losing, war is hell.
Back on board the Kennedy, my eyes had opened wide. Wearing shorts and a T-shirt, sitting on a chair and cleaning my rifle, I thought about how I had seen my enemy up close and knew I could match him and overcome him on a violence-of-action scale. Moreover, I realized it’s important to understand that our enemies are human.
* * *
Desert Storm only lasted forty-three days. We were furious that we didn’t go to Baghdad and finish it. The Kennedy stopped in Egypt, where we unloaded all our gear and checked into a five-star resort in Hurghada. Not being tourist season, and with the recent war, we were the only guests. During dinner, our platoon chief came in and slapped me on the back. “Congratulations, Wasdin, you made First Class.” I’d been promoted from E-5 to E-6. Life was pretty good for Howard. We waited two weeks for a flight back to Machrihanish, Scotland, to finish our six-month deployment.
* * *
I didn’t have flashbacks, nightmares, trouble sleeping, impaired concentration, depression, or self-devaluation about having killed for the first time—seeing the soldier blasted out of the PLO guard tower and landing lifeless on the ground. Those kinds of feelings seem less common among special ops guys. Maybe most of the people susceptible to that stress were already weeded out during BUD/S, and maybe the high levels of stress in our training prepare us for the high levels of stress in war. I began to control my thoughts, emotions, and pain at an early age—it was a matter of survival—which helped me cope with challenges in the Teams. I had endured the trauma of my dad’s harshness, Hell Week, and other experiences, and I endured war.
I did have a moral concern about having killed for the first time, though. I was worried whether I’d done the right thing. On TV and video games, it may seem like killing is no big deal. However, I had made the decision to end someone’s life. The people I killed will never see their families again. Will never eat or use the restroom again. Never breathe again. I took everything that they had or ever will have. To me, that was a big deal. Something I didn’t take lightly. Even now, I still don’t take it lightly. During a visit home, I talked to Brother Ron. “I killed in combat for the first time. Did I do the right thing?”
“You lawfully served your country.”
“How is this going to affect me as far as eternity goes?”
“It won’t have a negative affect on your eternity.”
His words comforted me. My youngest sister, Sue Anne, who is a therapist, is convinced that I’ve got to have something wrong with me. There’s no way I’m functioning as normally as I am without repressing something. She just doesn’t get the fact that I really am OK with my decisions and mental peace.
* * *
There are few secrets among SEALs. We’re around each other constantly and know each other inside and out. I would know a guy’s daughter’s hair color, his wife’s shoe size, and everything that was going on. I knew more details about guys than I wanted to know. I also knew who wanted to try out for SEAL Team Six.
Smudge, DJ, four other SEALs from Foxtrot Platoon, and I handed in our applications for joining SEAL Team Six. Smudge, DJ, and I passed the application stage, but the others didn’t. One guy was extremely pissed because he’d been a SEAL longer than I had. Our applications were accepted, and when Team Six’s master chief visited our command, he interviewed us. The odds were that only one of us would pass the interviews and be accepted to the next stage, but all three of us passed—which meant some other Team would have a higher rate of failure.
We were given a time period to show up for our interview, which was only done once a year. In May, I underwent the main screening in Dam Neck, Virginia, even though Six usually required applicants to have been SEALs for five years. SEALs were lined up for interviews like kids at Disneyland anxiously waiting for a ride on Space Mountain. Guys like us had flown in from Scotland. Others flew in from California, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and other places. For some, this wasn’t the first time they’d interviewed.
Inside the interview room, my interviewers were mostly older enlisted SEALs—actual Team Six operators. They conducted themselves in a professional manner. The interviewers asked me a lot about my perception of things. About the combat I’d been in. “What are your shortcomings? Where do you need work?” It’s hard for a young SEAL to come clean with those answers. If you can’t recognize these and don’t have the will to work on them, how can you get to that next level?
One tried to rattle me a bit. “Do you drink a lot?”
“No.”
“But you go out drinking with the guys.”
“Yes.”
“You’re full of it.”
“No.”
“Do you drink a lot?”
“I don’t know how to answer that again. Other than to say I don’t drink for effect.” I didn’t drink for the purpose of getting a buzz or getting drunk. “If my buddies go into town and they’re drinking, ninety-nine percent of the time I’m going to be there drinking with them. If we’ve got something to do, we don’t drink. So I don’t know how to answer that again. I don’t drink for effect. I drink for camaraderie.”
He smiled wryly. “OK.”
I left the room wondering how I’d done. The screening and interview process was an incredible experience. Later, a senior chief came out and told me, “That was the best interview I’ve ever seen.”
“But I’ve only been in the Teams two and a half years.”
“You’ve got enough real-world experience. I’m sure that’ll play into it.”
If I hadn’t been a player in Desert Storm, I probably would’ve had to wait another two and a half years.
Two weeks later, Skipper Norm Carley called Smudge, DJ, and me into his office. He gave us our date to start Green Team, the selection and training to become a SEAL Team Six operator. “Congratulations. I hate to see you men go, but you’re going to have a blast at SEAL Team Six.”