reviewed my ROEs (“rules of engagement”), which covered how I was supposed to act.
“What are you, the popo?” he asked, sticking his face out toward mine.
“Popo” (a thug’s term for police) wasn’t in the ROEs, but I figured he was ad-libbing. The next thing on my list was to throw him down. So I did. He started to resist, and reached under his jacket for what I assumed was a weapon, which is exactly what a SEAL playing a bad guy would do. So I reacted in kind, giving a good SEAL response as I wrestled him into the dirt and busted him up a bit.
Whatever was under his jacket broke and liquid went everywhere. He was cussing and carrying on, but I didn’t take the time to think about all that just then. As the fight ran out of him, I cuffed him and looked around.
The cops, seated in their patrol car nearby, were just about doubled over laughing. I went over to see what was up.
“That’s so-and-so,” they told me. “One of the biggest drug dealers in the city. We wish we could have beat him like you just did.”
Apparently, Mr. Popo ignored all the signs and wandered into the training exercise figuring he’d carry on business as usual. There are idiots everywhere—but I guess that explains how he got into that line of work in the first place.
HAZED AND HITCHED
For months, the United Nations Security Council pressured Iraq to comply fully with U.N. resolutions, especially those requiring inspections of suspected weapons of mass destruction and related sites. War wasn’t a foregone conclusion—Saddam Hussein could have complied and shown inspectors everything they wanted to see. But most of us knew he wouldn’t. So when we got the word that we were shipping out to Kuwait, we were excited. We figured we were going to war.
One way or the other, there was plenty to do out there. Besides watching Iraq’s borders and protecting the Kurdish minority, who Saddam had gassed and massacred in the past, U.S. troops were enforcing no-fly zones in the north and south. Saddam was smuggling oil and other items both into and out of his country, in violation of the U.N. sanctions. The U.S. and other allies were stepping up operations to stop that.
Before we deployed, Taya and I chose to get married. The decision surprised both of us. One day we started talking in the car, and we both came to the conclusion that we should get married.
The decision stunned me, even as I made it. I agreed with it. It was completely logical. We were definitely in love. I knew she was the woman I wanted to spend my life with. And yet, for some reason, I didn’t think the marriage would last.
We both knew that there is an extremely high divorce rate in the SEALs. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard marriage counselors claim that it is close to 95 percent, and I believe it. So maybe that was what worried me. Perhaps part of me wasn’t really ready to think about a lifetime commitment. And of course I understood how demanding my job was going to be once we went to war. I can’t explain the contradictions.
But I do know that I was absolutely in love, and that she loved me. And so, for better or worse, make that peace or war, marriage was our next step together. Happily, we’ve survived it all.
One thing you ought to know about SEALs: when you’re new to the Teams, you get hazed. The platoons are very tight-knit groups. Newcomers—always called “new guys”—are treated like hell until they prove they belong. That usually doesn’t happen until well into their first deployment, if then. New guys get the shit jobs. They’re constantly tested. They’re always beat on.
It’s a kind of an extended hazing that takes many forms. For example: on a training exercise, you work hard. The instructors kick your ass all day long. Then, when you’re done, the platoon will go out and party. When we’re out on a training mission, we usually drive around in large, twelve-passenger vans. A new guy always drives. Which, of course, means he can’t drink when we hit the bars, at least not to SEAL standards.
That’s the mildest form of hazing. In fact, it’s so mild it’s not really hazing.
Choking him out while he’s driving—that’s hazing.
One night soon after I joined my platoon, we were out partying after a training mission. When we left the bar, all the older guys piled into the back. I wasn’t driving, but I had no problem with that—I like to sit up front. We were speeding along for a while and all of a sudden I heard, “One-two-three-four, I declare a van war.”
The next thing I knew, I was pummeled. “Van war” meant it was open season on the new guys. I came out of that one with bruised ribs and a black eye, maybe two. I must have gotten my lip busted a dozen times during hazing.
I should say that van wars are separate from bar fights, another SEAL staple. SEALs are pretty notorious for getting into bar scrapes, and I was no exception. I’ve been arrested more than once through the years, though as a general rule the charges were either never filed or quickly dismissed.
Why do SEALs fight so much?
I haven’t made a scientific study of it, but I think a lot is owed to pent-up aggression. We’re trained to go out and kill people. And then, at the same time, we’re also being taught to think of ourselves as invincible bad-asses. That’s a pretty potent combination.
When you go into a bar, you’ll always have someone who will poke a shoulder into you or otherwise imply you should fuck off. Happens in every bar across the world. Most people just ignore things like that.
If someone does that to a SEAL, we’re going to turn and knock you out.
But at the same time, I have to say that while SEALs
When we go into bars, we don’t just cower down in the corner or lay low. We go in extremely confident. Maybe we’re loud. And, with us being mostly young and in great shape, people take notice. Girls gravitate toward a group of SEALs, and maybe that makes their boyfriends jealous. Or guys want to prove something for some other reason. Either way, things escalate and fights happen.
But I wasn’t talking about bar fights; I was talking about hazing. And my wedding.
We were in the Nevada mountains; it was cold—so cold that it was snowing. I had gotten a few days leave to get married; I was due to take off in the morning. The rest of the platoon still had some work to do.
We got back that night to our temporary base and went inside to the mission-planning room. The chief told everybody that we’d relax and have a few beers while we mapped out the next day’s operation. Then he turned to me.
“Hey, new guy,” he told me. “Go grab the beer and the booze out of the van and bring it in here.”
I hopped to.
When I came back in, everyone was sitting in chairs. There was only one left, and it was kind of in the middle of a circle of the others. I didn’t think too much about it as I sat down.
“All right, this is what we’re going to do,” my chief said, standing in front of dry-erase board at the front of the room. “The operation will be an ambush. The target will be in the center. We will completely encircle it.”
I looked at the chief. The chief looked at me. Suddenly, his serious expression gave way to a shit-ass grin.
With that, the rest of the platoon bum-rushed me.
I hit the floor a second later. They cuffed me to a chair, and then began my kangaroo court.
There were a lot of charges against me. The first was the fact that I had let it be known that I wanted to become a sniper.
“This new guy is ungrateful!” thundered the prosecutor. “He does not want to do his job. He thinks he is better than the rest of us.”
