But you always lose
Some people like to rock and roll
But you’re always singing the blues.
If you have been following the news at all in the last few weeks then you may have heard that one of the Navy Seals that was on the operation to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, under a pen name wrote and published a book on his experiences. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but there has been some gripe in the fact that the Seal community is a tight knit as well as a very tight lipped organization. When books are written by Seals or any other ranking or special forces military individuals, there is a certain protocol to be followed in that the publishers will supply a copy of the books/manuscripts to the pentagon to be scrutinized for any potential classified information and other facets of operational security breeches.
In this case the book was never shown to the pentagon as it were, but the author and publisher are stating that in fact they ran portions by the pentagon or other such authority and was given clearance for publication and sale.
Personally, President Obama used the mission and subsequent death of Bin Laden as political capital and with that I applaud the Navy Seal that wrote the book to get the story and truth told. Now with that being said, I can tell you there wont be anything in the book that will be shocking. There wont be classified information. At best for this one particular operation there may be detailed examples how the Seals may have prepared and trained for the mission on down to the tactics used during the operation. So the only thread the Pentagon is holding onto is that the book may somehow explain how the Seals operate from a tactical standpoint and that the book may compromise future missions and or operations for the Seals.
When I was over seas in the Marine Corps in the early 90’s I shared some living space with a couple Navy Seals when we were on ship. They were a couple of cool fellas. I couldn’t tell you their names if I wanted to because I can’t remember them. As I think back about it I doubt they ever mentioned them past radio call signs. It was interesting times back then. There was only three or four Seals on the ship that I was on. They spread the Seals out on all the ships in the force which at the time may have been 6-8 including a sub, destroyers, and aircraft carrier. Being in the Marines I never even saw the aircraft carrier or destroyers that were in our group. I heard the sub ping our ship one time in training but thats a story for another time.
As you can probably guess being in the military especially the Marines everything is uniform this regulation that. Always neat, clean uniformity hurry up and wait. The Seals lived by another rule of the land. You’d think they were a couple of college dropouts that were taking the summer following the Grateful Dead selling hippies burritos out of the back of a VW bus. I was on ship with these guys for the better part of eight months, I do not think I every saw them in anything but shorts and a teeshirt. Hair was anything but military regulation, beards, mustaches you name it.
The Seals were in great shape. When on ship and you’re not in the Navy, meaning you’re a Marine, Seal, some other special ops or military catching a ride, there pretty much is nothing to do but work out and check and recheck (you read that as clean) your gear, weapons, vehicles. Some times I would work out with the Seals and it always amazed me how long and hard these maniacs could just keep going. Its tough training to become a Seal, but if you pass it and get in you can pretty much run iron man contests seven days a week.
At the time I was on this ship I was also with a Marine who was a plumber for the engineer battalion I was attached to. On ship just to pass the time this Marine would help the Navy that ran the boat work on stopped up drains and toilets. This Marine was hardcore as anyone I met. Hardcore and semi retarded I do believe. This one time on ship the head (bathroom) in the berthing area (living space) next to ours was all plugged up and there was about eight inches of water sloshing around in there. When I say water I mean pretty much liquid raw sewage. Now when I walked by this catastrophe my buddy was standing in the sewage in his skivvies (underwear) with nothing else on except his dress blues barracks cover. (famous white and black Marine Corps hat worn in dress uniform) An unlit cigar hanging out of his mouth and he was running this big industrial sewer snake down this drain line. He looks over at me and with a straight face, “Shitters Full!!” I swear to god it was right out of Christmas Vacation with uncle Eddy flushing his chemical toilet down the storm drain. Except this Marine never saw the movie Christmas Vacation. The story doesn’t end there. No sir. Lcpl Brown (name changed to protect innocent and stupid) was never one to not accept a challenge. So I told him for a free round of beer when we get to port taste the water sloshing around at his feet. He looks at me like I was some third rate Busch League amateur in life’s game of “bet you won’t”. Takes a canteen cup (metal cup issued with canteen to drink, shave, heat food) dips in the water at his feet and drinks about a pint. (where i knew he was semi retarded) between gagging and laughing Lcpl Brown says to me, “damn, all you Marines and your workout supplements, some serious iron and amino acids in that sewage.”
So now reader you know a little about real Seals and real Marines.
Fast forward a couple months. The ship pulls into Rota, Spain. Its basically a Naval station in the west coast of Spain that the Navy stops in on the way to Mediterranean and on the way home from the Med. to refuel resupply and wash everything down. We had this shed on the ship that we would crane down to the pier and fill it full of beer. We would drink around this shed at night on the pier next to the ship when work was done for the day.
Lcpl Brown and I were having a few beers, on my tab of course. The two Navy Seals that were on the ship joined us. Two beers probably turned into a case or more between the four of us. Stories were told about how screwed up some of the operations we were on turned out. There were some stray feral cats on the pier. One of the Navy Seals, clearly shit faced by this time makes the statement on how he can do anything in the world but his distaste for cats especially feral cats knew no bounds. Lcpl Brown being semi retarded says nonchalantly “you’re a big bad Seal kill it”. This Seal looks at Brown with a look like you’re retarded jarhead but then leaves. Conversation continues. Later on the Seal comes back looks at Lcpl Brown and drops what I think is a cats eyeball into the beer stein in front of Lcpl Brown. Seal says something snarky like “Do you know what I do for a living?” the Seals have straight faces, Lcpl Brown and I have straight faces, I am thinking well were going to fight, but at least I can say we fought a couple of Seals. Lcpl Brown looks at his beer stein looks at the Seal and then looks at me. Takes the beer stein with eyeball and drinks it, flashes the eyeball in his teeth at the Seal, sucks it down and swallows it. Laughs at the Seal and calls him a bitch. The Seals start laughing hysterically and tells Lcpl Brown how it wasn’t the cats eye it was from a dead fish floating in the water around the pier. Lcpl Brown looks at the Seals and says, “Well at least you didn’t kill any innocent cats. I still have something to stick my pecker in later.” (no Brown didn’t ever screw the cat, to my knowledge)
Laughs, beers and some real esprit de corps were born that night.
I say buy the Seals book. Its an easy read and if you want to know what really happened this is your chance. Know that your money on the book will probably pay for lawyers to keep the guy out of trouble. I think its the least we can do to honor one of the men that killed that SOB Bin Laden that took so much from us.
Remember my Pearl Jam salute? Rocking it with Jay-Z. 99 Problems. Pretty cool. Respect.
