Master Chief (32 page)

Amazingly, no one was hurt other than the normal scrapes and bruises. After our muster, we spent the remainder of the night patrolling to our target, which we successfully destroyed. The following day we found out that the Combat Talon C-130 commander had decided that he would not rely on the computer but spot visually. Sound wisdom, I thought.

We spent the next few months training a group of Filipinos in an exercise called Palah, diving and getting in quite a few free falls. Chief W. D. Powers, previously with SEAL Team 2, was SpecWar’s REMF for all air operations. Shortly after Bravo Platoon’s arrival, I bought WD’s Para Commander parachute and steerable reserve. I hadn’t jumped with a Para Commander in over a year, since my trip to Yuma, Arizona. The Para Commander was one of the first civilian high-performance canopies, made in about 1960.

It wasn’t long before WD and I organized a group of guys to go free-falling whenever possible. On one particular day, WD had me jump first as the base man while he moved in from above as the pin man. The idea was for the pin man to come in slowly, face-to-face with the base man, until we grasped hands. As the base man, I had to be patient and not look upward because I would tend to slide backward and force WD to chase after me—so I just waited. Suddenly, WD hit me hard from behind and grabbed onto one of my legs, causing us to spiral out of control. WD had inadvertently come in too fast and certainly too hard. However, neither of us was hurt and, in spite of our tumbling, WD managed to hang on and pull himself up my flying suit pants leg toward my shoulders. We flipped through the air for a couple thousand feet before we managed to grab each other’s hands and stabilize. The number three, four, and five men moved in quickly for a linkup before we had to separate at 3,500 feet. When our altimeters indicated that we had reached 3,500 feet altitude, we each made a 180-degree turn and moved away from each other with the use of our hands and feet, followed by the standard wave off. For safety reasons, each jumper was required to wave his hands back and forth three times prior to pulling his rip cord. This would give warning to any daydreaming jumpers who might be directly above to get out of the way. At three thousand feet, all hands pulled their rip cords and were in the saddle usually no lower than 2,500 feet. For those of us who were fortunate enough to own our own personal Para Commander, we were soon flying circles around the rest of those who had the military-issue 7-TU thirty-five-foot conical canopies. All of us enjoyed a nice ride down to the old World War II Japanese runway near the Philippine village called Castillejos. After the day’s last jump—some days we had Marine CH-53s long enough to make
three jumps—we traditionally stopped by a small Filipino open-fronted palm frond refreshment stand where we each purchased a couple of San Miguel cool ones before our hot trip by truck back to Subic Bay. Those were exciting and euphoric times.

In March and April we deployed to Korea, where we participated in the Foul Eagle-77 FTX with the ROKN’s UDU (Republic of Korea Navy, Underwater Demolition Unit). The Korean UDU, unlike the Korean UDT, is closely associated with the Korean CIA. Their CO was a very handsome, dynamic, and charismatic individual, of heavy muscular build, five feet eight inches tall and 180 pounds. He reminded me very much of the Republic of China’s Navy UDT/EOD commanding officer, Captain Feng Chien.

We spent the better part of our visit on the island of Che Ju Do—located a short distance off the southern coast of Korea—doing what we normally do—raping, pillaging, and burning, symbolically speaking. One particular day we watched the indigenous women free-diving down to one hundred feet for small abalone, octopus, urchins, and a variety of mollusks. They usually swam for four to five hours and earned up to forty dollars a day. Some of them wore dry suits versus wet suits, as did some of the UDU divers. As long as one didn’t get a hole in his dry suit, it was superior to a wet suit because the diver could wear multiple layers of dry underwear and heavy socks. However, I generally preferred wet suits in combat situations, except in extremely cold weather.

Interestingly, UDT was issued green, lightweight, rubber dry suits for extremely cold water swimming during the Korean War. While we were aboard the USS
Diachenko
, APD-123, off Vietnam during my tour with UDT-12’s Fourth Platoon in 1965–67, SF1 Ronald E. Saillant told us about some of his experiences during the
Korean War while he, as a member of UDT-3 (later changed to UDT-12 in 1953) was aboard the USS
Diachenko
. During the winter of 1952–53 they were tasked to destroy or take North Korean fishing nets at night during “Operation Starvation.” During those frigid nights, they worked out of LCPRs (Landing Craft Personnel Ramps) and IBSs when possible, cutting and rolling up the fishing nets, which were later given or traded to South Korean fishermen. All that the swimmers had available were dry suits similar to the old Jack Brown surface-tended diving suits, but made instead from a lightweight rubberized fabric. While the guys were working on the fishing nets, several of them unfortunately tore holes in their dry suits and suffered severely from hypothermia. RE’s final comment was, “A dry suit isn’t worth a damn after it gets a hole in it. I’ll take a wet suit any day.” He should know; he was one of the guys that inadvertently tore a hole in his dry suit.

In late March, Bravo Platoon and a few Korean UDU men were dropped off with four motorized Zodiac boats approximately ten miles off the coast of a supposed Marxist country (Che Ju Do Island) from a South Korean PT boat on a cold, black night. Our two-day-and-three-night training mission’s objective was to rescue a group of U.S. and allied civilian political hostages held inside the Marxist country’s international airport terminal by members of a notorious terrorist organization. Our intelligence briefing told us that the terrorists were a well-trained and disciplined force and they were holding the seventy-odd hostages within a specified area of the terminal. We were also told that the tyrannical leader of that country had added an additional battalion of crack infantry troops to the airport’s security forces to respond to and discourage any rescue attempts.

The Zodiac coxswains took us to within 1½ miles of the beach. From that point, we entered the water with our gear and weapons attached to flotation bladders and swam for over an hour until we could hear the surf pounding on the beach. One UDU man and I had been assigned as the points. Then Lieutenant Keith, who was a very powerful swimmer, towed my gear in addition to his own, while my Korean mate passed his gear to one of his UDU teammates. The two of us swam on to the beach with only our weapons and basic web gear. Once there, we scouted the right and left flanks and a short distance into the hinterland above the high-water mark for any signs of recent enemy activity. Finding none, the two of us set security and signaled with red-lens flashlights for the remainder of our force to swim in. After everyone arrived, we split into two groups, with one changing from their wet suits to dry clothing while the other set security, and vice versa. Once everyone had changed into his longhandles, cammies, heavy coat, and gloves, and had concealed his swim gear, our Korean point guided us toward our bivouac.

Because we were carrying a lot of ammo, munitions, grenades and artillery simulators, food and water, our gear was very heavy. As an example, my personal rucksack and web gear weighed 105 pounds before we entered the water. It was a long night for all of us until we finally reached our clandestine bivouac, which was located in the midst of a reproduction pine tree grove and brush. For the remainder of the night and during the next day, we set observation and listening posts and lay low because of the intense farming activities that surrounded us.

The second night, we split up into small elements: one to reconnoiter for potential vehicles to be used on the third night, others to surveil the airport’s terminal for any activity patterns, and the remainder assigned to covertly
probe the airport’s security forces for strength and response time.

On the third and final night, the consensus was to frontally assault the airport terminal with all hands loaded aboard two vehicles. We had learned that the security forces preferred staying around a warm stove to responding to false alarms. The only hitch was the narrow gateway into the main entrance of the airport. The gate stanchions appeared to be made of reinforced cement and volcanic rock and were judged too narrow to admit a 2½-ton truck. Because the recon element of the previous night had located one 2½-ton truck and a weapons carrier that could be easily stolen, the plan was for the weapons carrier, loaded with the initial assault element, to drive through the gate and get as close to the front doors of the terminal as possible. The 2½-ton truck would have to stop just outside the gate, and the remainder of the guys would assault from approximately seventy-five meters to the rear.

The initial assault element’s objective was to gain access to the hostages within a matter of seconds, eliminate the terrorist guards, and secure the safety of the political prisoners—tactical surprise, speed, and execution would be crucial. The second assault element’s objective was to eliminate or neutralize the security guards at strategic areas of the terminal with speed and maneuver, and set blocking subelements against any counterattacks.

At 0215 hours on our third night, both assault elements were aboard the two borrowed vehicles and driving at normal speed to the airport gate. BM2 C. J. Dunn, who was driving the weapons carrier, drove the vehicle perfectly between the narrow gate and its cement and lava pillars, where it came to a sudden, screeching halt with a loud crash. Our weapons carrier was stuck solidly between the gate pillars! At that moment, the gate’s
immovable stanchions reminded me of the courageous Macedonian warriors who were renowned for their frontal attack in the form of a massive wedge.

Once the element of surprise was lost, our tactics boiled down to two main principles—speed and execution. Simply put, it was all or nothing. All of us immediately started sprinting for the terminal doors for all we were worth, firing our M-16s, M-203s, and M-60s. Those of us who were carrying M-203s attached to our M-16s were firing 37mm Vari flare cartridges to simulate 40mm HE rounds. Just before I reached the terminal glass doors, I noticed that when the 37mm flare projectiles coming from behind me hit the large, one-inch-thick, plate-glass windows, they created two-inch holes through them. I bet the Korean authorities will love that, I thought, as several of us continued topside to the roof to eliminate any security forces and maintain a vantage point to frustrate any counterattacking forces. Within a couple of minutes our objectives had been achieved—the political hostages were rescued and the remainder of the enemy forces had been held at bay long enough for all of us to be airlifted to safety. The Australian SAS motto says it best: “Who Dares Wins.”

Several days later, after we had returned to Subic Bay, Philippines, we were notified that it cost over $35,000 to replace the plate-glass windows in the Che Ju Do Island’s airport terminal.

The members of Bravo Platoon were: Lt. J. S. Keith, ENS Unknown, RMCS G. R. Smith, HT1 T. L. McCullah, SM2 T. K. Davis, BM2 C. J. Dunn, GMG2 S. R. Ellis, QM2 R. W. Kennedy, RM2 W. W. Nehl, BM2 H. R. Nush, HM2 J. L. Shoemate, EN2 J. C. West, MM2 F. W. Wilson, and SM3 R. T. Quinnett. Bravo Platoon returned to CONUS and reported onboard SEAL Team 1 June 28, 1977.

By July, I was assigned to Cadre, and spent most of the
following eight months at our training camp near Niland. During those months we trained multiple platoons, one class of U.S. Customs Patrol officers, and supported a desert exercise with a contingent of Australian SAS troopers and a SEAL platoon near the Salton Sea during December, when the ambient temperature reached an official 100 degrees.

When I first returned to our training camp located on the Navy’s Chocolate Mountains Bombing Range, I found an eight-by-eight-foot, screened-in cage that contained approximately thirty rattlesnakes and several non-poisonous snakes. The cold-blooded reptiles were generally rattling and striking at the screen wire because the guys agitated them every time they passed by the pit. During that summer, the area had received an unusual amount of rain in a short period of time. As a result, snakes had become more common because of the temporarily flooded low areas. When the camp guards or platoon members were returning to the camp from Niland, they would stop and capture the snakes lying on the dirt road and later place them in the camp’s snake pit.

On a Thursday evening, at the end of one of SEAL platoon’s training phases at the camp, I decided to take one of the small eighteen-inch sidewinder rattlesnakes home with me and keep him in one of my large aquariums as a pet. I had gotten a broomstick and was maneuvering Bolivar II—the snake’s new name—to the edge of the cage, intending to carefully place the end of the stick directly behind his plated head, when GM3 Andy Nelson came over.

“What are you gonna do, Senior Chief?” he asked.

Continuing to concentrate on my task, I gently pressed the stick downward just behind the snake’s head without hurting him, but without success. The varmint was feisty and wiggled from under my stick. I looked at Nelson and
replied, “I’m tryin’ to catch this sidewinder so that I can take him home for a pet.”

Andy was young, motivated, enthusiastic, and full of energy, like all of the guys, but a little short on discernment. “Let me do it, Senior Chief. Let me do it,” Andy begged.

I just didn’t have it in me to say no, and replied, “Okay. But you’ve got to get the flat end of that stick directly behind his head and press hard enough without hurting him. And remember,” I admonished, “place your index finger and thumb directly behind his head so he can’t turn and bite you.”

Nelson shook his head and replied, “Yeah, I know, Chief. I know how.”

I handed Andy the stick and watched closely as he placed the flat bottom of it approximately one inch behind the rattler’s head. I warned him that the stick was too far behind it, and that he was going to get bit, but I was too late.