The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen (11 page)

I didn’t argue, but I was annoyed as hell. Now I had a negative mark on my record. In retrospect I realize that I shoulder some of the blame here: I had probably pushed too hard to take the test before being fully ready for it. Then again, if they’d already decided I wasn’t ready, why did they let me take the test?

*   *   *

A few days later an event occurred that gave me one of the most vivid experiences in my life of great leadership and terrible leadership, side by side.

We were out on nighttime maneuvers over the Persian Gulf. Our pilot that night, Lieutenant Burkitt, was the sort of officer you can’t help disliking: a slimy guy who alienated officers and enlisted men alike. Lieutenant Burkitt’s copilot, Kennedy, was a good guy and quite smart, though a little on the geeky side. Rich Fries and I both served as crewmen; Rich was senior to me. In terms of rank and experience, I was the low man on this totem pole.

It had been a long night, and in order to make it all the way back to the
Lincoln,
we had to stop and refuel on a nearby destroyer. The night was pretty calm, but visibility was against us, as there was absolutely no moon out, and it was damn close to pitch black out there.

A destroyer’s deck is pretty tight to land on, especially as compared to an aircraft carrier like the USS
Lincoln,
and even more so at night with such low visibility. Because of this it was common operating procedure to slow the helo down to 90 knots (just over 100 mph), then open the cabin door and have one of the crewman spot the deck, that is, assist the pilot with verbal commands. On this occasion, the crewman doing the spotting was me.

As the helo slowed down to under 90 knots, I passed a message over the ICS (internal communications system) that the door was coming open. The door cracked open, and I looked out to get a visual on the destroyer’s lights. For some reason, I couldn’t make anything out. I kept straining to see something and finally caught a glimpse of light—but it was at eye level, which I thought was strange. I looked down and realized that we were not where we were supposed to be. We were not slowly descending and approaching the deck. Our pilot had put us down at water level.

We were about to crash into the ocean.

“Altitude! Altitude!” I yelled. All hell broke loose. Rich immediately realized what was happening and joined in with me. I will never, in all my life, forget what happened next. Suddenly we heard Lieutenant Burkitt’s voice shrilly piercing through our yells. “What’s happening?” he screamed. “I don’t know what’s happening! Oh God, oh God!”

He kept repeating that:
Oh God, oh God
.

For a split second Rich and I gaped at each other in disbelief. This was our pilot. This was our aircraft
commander
, screaming like a frightened schoolgirl.

We were done for. I held tight onto the cabin door. By now there was a foot of seawater in the main cabin, and any second we would be swamped and overrun with ocean: the point of no return. In my mind’s eye, I could see the rotor blades sabering into the water and splintering into a thousand pieces, the helo flipping upside down and sinking into the Gulf. Everything slowed way down and a stream of contrasting thoughts tore through my mind:

So
this
is why we go through the helo dunker training blindfolded.

Is this is really how it’s going to end?

No—I am
not
going to let this jackass Burkitt kill me!

Then something happened that turned it all around in an instant. Kennedy, our copilot, somehow torqued his shit together and hauled us and that damned helo up and out of the water. It was inches short of miraculous. Hell, maybe it
was
miraculous.

The crew on the destroyer thought we had crashed and were goners for sure, and they were shocked and thrilled to see us suddenly popping back up on radar.

Rich immediately replaced me on the door, exactly as he should have (he was senior to me and had thousands of hours in the H-60 under his belt), and he rapidly talked Kennedy down onto the deck after a few missed approaches. Burkitt was an utter disaster the entire time, mumbling to himself like a street person with a drug habit.

Despite our reports, nobody on the destroyer believed that we had actually put the bird into the drink. Not, that is, until the maintenance chief tore the tail section apart—and seawater started pouring out. A short investigation followed, but it went nowhere. The CO of HS-6 didn’t want his career to end over this incident, and he kept things tightly under wraps.

I don’t know how he did it, but Kennedy saved all our lives that night, and he deserved a medal for it. However, that wasn’t what happened. Instead,
both
Burkitt and Kennedy had their helicopter aircraft commander (HAC) papers suspended. Kennedy, the guy who had saved us all with his heroism and remarkable calm under pressure, got punished right along with Burkitt, the guy who cracked apart like an eggshell and nearly guaranteed our watery demise.

I came away with from that near-disaster with a resolve never to judge a person based on appearance. Kennedy had always seemed like a smart and very competent guy, but not one I would have figured for a hero. You never know what people are capable of until you get to work with them, side by side.

I hope I get the chance to shake his hand again one day.

*   *   *

In the long run, my fast-track-to-BUD/S strategy backfired on me. I had thought that if I gave everything my best, I would prove to my superiors that I was a hard worker and they would approve my assignment to BUD/S. In fact, the opposite happened. The better I did, the more valuable I was to my superiors—and the more reluctant they were to let me go.

And when I say “they,” who I’m really talking about is Chief Bruce Clarin.

Chief Clarin was an East Coast guy who hated being out on the West Coast and among what he described as “the fruit loops.” When he looked at me and some of my buddies, all he saw was guys who spent their whole lives surfing: We were all slackers. A few guys in the shop sucked up to him. Nobody else could stand him. To this day, I am amazed that this guy made chief and was put in charge of an aircrew shop. Clarin was a walking, talking textbook illustration of how
not
to lead. He played favorites and rewarded people he liked, based not on any accomplishments but purely on the fact that he happened to like them. The guys he happened to like the most were also those who did the least amount of work and continually dragged down the rest of us.

In March 1996, about five months after returning from the USS
Lincoln
WESTPAC, I submitted my first BUD/S package, that is, my application along with all the necessary supporting documentation. It was quickly denied.

Instinctively, I knew that Clarin had screwed me. It was only months later that I would learn in full detail what had actually happened.

In order for me to get out of my AW job and get orders to BUD/S, permission needed to come from the appropriate rating detailer, the person who controls where people transfer to or work next in the navy. As it happened, our rating detailer was a man with the mind-blowingly unfortunate name of Petty Officer A. W. Dickover. (Someone, somewhere, must have seen the humor in this and assigned him the job based on his name alone.) Chief Clarin had put in a call to Petty Officer Dickover and asked him
not
to approve my request for orders to SEAL training.

You are probably wondering how I learned what had happened. I learned it because Clarin himself actually admitted to me what he’d done.

The truth was, I was the only third-class petty officer in the squadron who was NATOPS-qualified (Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization), which meant I could do things like give annual qualification tests or test someone who wanted to become a crew chief. After failing that first check ride, it hadn’t taken me long to test again—and pass. Now my rapid advancement came back to bite me.

“You have all these quals,” Clarin said. “Sorry, Webb, but I need you for this deployment.”

The son of a bitch. Now I would have to stay with the squadron for at least another year and do a whole other six-month WESTPAC deployment.

A few months later, in July, I applied to attend a one-week pre-SEAL selection course, held at the navy’s boot camp facility in Illinois, called Naval Station Great Lakes (or, unofficially, Great Mistakes). This is not a pass/fail kind of course, and going through it wouldn’t give me any technical qualification. Still, depending on how I did, I could come out of it with a recommendation to the real BUD/S—or without one. In a sense, it would be an informal entrance exam. If I flew through pre-BUD/S, it would boost my chances of getting orders to the real deal. And if I couldn’t make it through the week at Great Mistakes, I could forget about surviving the seven months of the genuine article.

Calling pre-BUD/S a condensed version of the real thing would be a stretch. It is designed to give you a glimpse of what the actual BUD/S training experience would be like, but only a glimpse. I knew that. Still, it was one way to demonstrate that I was serious, and hopefully I would come out of it with an endorsement.

There was a mix of guys in the program, some straight out of boot camp, some who were already regular navy, like me. One guy there cut an especially intimidating figure: a six-foot-tall, blond, Nordic-looking dude named Lars. Lars had thighs like tree trunks and could do push-ups from sunup to sunrise. He just crushed everything they threw at him. I met up with Lars again a year later when I finally made it to BUD/S and will have more to say about him at that point in the story.

I passed the program with flying colors, and they recommended me for BUD/S—but my obstacle course wasn’t over yet.

After he admitted to his duplicity in tanking my first BUD/S package, Chief Clarin and I had for the most part stayed out of each other’s way. Our mutual animosity came to a head, though, during my second WESTPAC deployment, which started in October of 1996. I had now been part of HS-6 for exactly two years, and I was determined to make it to BUD/S before another full year went by. I submitted a second BUD/S package and was pretty confident that it would go through. After all, I had done the pre-BUD/S course and come out with a strong recommendation.

However, I also knew that if I wanted to pass the entrance qualifications for BUD/S when I got back stateside, I needed to get into shape. On the aircraft carrier, it was hard to keep up high fitness standards: I couldn’t swim, I couldn’t really run (running on a steel deck is not exactly great for the joints), and getting in a full workout routine was difficult.
Six months
in those conditions would really set me back.

I went to Chief Clarin and told him my situation.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll send you back on early detachment [that is, guys who were flown back early to prepare the home command for the rest of the group’s return]. In fact, I’ll send you back a month early, so you can train and get in shape before you have to qualify.”

I was a little surprised and quite grateful that he would go out of his way to do this. As it turned out, he was lying through his teeth. He never had any intention of sending me back home early. He didn’t want me to go to BUD/S and was determined to prevent it, whatever that took.

A few weeks later, a friend in our squadron admin took me aside and told me I was getting railroaded (navyspeak for “screwed over”) by Chief Clarin on my upcoming evaluation.

Evaluations go a long way in making rank in the navy; they’re put into the mix with your rating test to yield a final multiple that determines whether or not you are promoted. Normally you would not have a chance to see how your peers break out during an evaluation period unless you exchange notes. Through my friend, I learned that I was being rated as low as the brand-new check-ins.

I was not about to take that lying down. If I had deserved a low eval, that would be one thing, but that was clearly not the case. I had busted my ass to get every qual I possibly could and volunteered for every shit detail to prove to my peers and superiors that I deserved a shot at BUD/S.

Here’s how the process works: After receiving your written eval and having a one-on-one debrief with whoever wrote it, you sign your name at the bottom. There is a tiny box there by the signature line that you check if you intend to submit a statement along with your eval. Hardly anyone ever marks a check in that box. I still remember the look of utter horror on Chief Clarin’s face when he saw me check the box. He knew that
I
knew what he was up to. He knew he had fucked up.

At the time I was taking a few college classes on the ship (they even had professors on board; as I said, an aircraft carrier is like a small city) and had just finished English 1302. I thought this would be a prime opportunity to put my writing skills to use. I prepared a formal statement, which I took great care in writing. It contained not a single whine or complaint, nothing but the facts, line item by line item.

Apparently, my statement created quite a stir. After it landed on my department head’s desk, he ran it up to the commanding officer (CO). Pretty soon I got word that Chief Clarin and I were both wanted in Commander Rosa’s office.

When I arrived, Clarin was already there. I nodded at him without a word. It was obvious that he was not too happy with the situation. Chiefs run the navy, and in the navy culture it is extremely rare for anyone to go against a chief or question his judgment or leadership, but I would be damned if I was going to roll over and take this. Maybe this came from my time on the dive boat, when I often felt I had to prove myself to all the older guys. Maybe it was an echo of the times I stood up to my dad—or maybe I got it
from
my dad, and it reflects the times he stood up to
his
father. Whatever its source, there is a stubborn streak in me that refuses to knuckle under to what seems to me a poor decision or unfair judgment.