The Operator Read online

  I worked my contacts, asked friends to put in a good word. Every member of the squadron participated in the selection of new members—another unique thing about Team ****. We never knew in what order we were picked, who spoke for us or against us. One day the assignments simply appeared as if they’d been plucked from the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts.

  I looked at the list and saw the name of the right squadron by my name. I still get goose bumps thinking about it.

  I remember entering the “Team Room” for the first time and being in awe. It wasn’t just because of the memorabilia all over the walls; it was because of the men, the “Shooters.” I could tell they were a bit excited to have us. It’s always exciting to get your new guys. That means there are new folks to take out the trash and clean up the place. It also means that the former new guys are being “promoted” out of the role of carrying the breaching ladders on patrol and/or the sledgehammer and/or the crowbarlike Hooligan tool or “Hooley.” When the newest new guys show up, guess who gets those honors?

  The first thing we did was sit down with the enlisted leadership. We met our Leading Petty Officer, Leo; our two Troop Chiefs, Ralph and Cole; and our Master Chief, Decker. They basically told us what to expect and how to act but that, because we’d just successfully completed selection training, there’d be no slowing down for us. We were expected to perform at the level of all the more experienced men. Then we got to ask questions. The first was, “What about grooming standards?”

  Every other SEAL in Virginia Beach had to keep “Navy Standards” while stateside. Leo pointed to his beard with his index finger and thumb and, as cool as ever, said, “Let it goooo.”

  We’d arrived.

  *

  IN THE FIRST FEW DAYS, we were given our “cages” where we could keep all our gear and we moved our weapons to the squadron’s spaces in the armory. The cages in the locker room were always a place of interest, sometimes fun, sometimes disgusting, always clever. The squadron had been known to prank each other and some of the senior guys were definitely masters. They were unbelievable in their creativity but even better at denial. I don’t know if it was the training or what, but they could deny anything. If someone said, “You stole the cookies,” they’d say, “No, I didn’t.” If someone said, “I see your hand in the jar!” they’d say, “This is not my hand!”

  A common prank was the stink bomb. Guys would put area rugs down in their cages and tape down the sides to avoid slipping. Usually when they were in the shower, the perps would roll up, untape the rug, and slip one of those MAD magazine stink bombs under there—the kind that look like marbles but crack open when you step on them and then instantly fill the entire area with a stench that smells like you sold your ass to the devil. When the guy came back wrapped in his towel, he’d step into his cage and then it was on. Everyone in the locker room had to evacuate except the victim, who in the name of public decency had to put on some clothes while breathing in the fumes.

  But stink bombs were a light warm-up. Some guys waited until the weekend so that they had two days to mess with a cage. That would give the perpetrator enough time to dye every single one of the victim’s uniforms pink, dry them, and then hang them back up in proper order.

  I’ve been pranked more than once in my career, in ways both funny and downright mean, but the prank that stands out the most hit me when no one was around to see it. The physical therapists at the command kept some industrial grade “liquid heat” lotion in the rehab room. They’d administer it to us on a limited basis to help us deal with injuries and recovery. One of my teammates got hold of the stuff and decided to hook some of us up with a good deal. He liberally applied it to the groin section of our PT shorts. I don’t know how long this particular pair had been sitting neatly on my shelf, but I put them on and headed to the gym a few hundred meters across the compound. The funny thing about this vile concoction is that it really doesn’t heat up until it gets wet. I was not wet yet.

  It was a Saturday and the gym was empty. I decided to do a twenty-minute warm-up on the elliptical machine. About five minutes into it, I started to sweat a bit and “things” started to heat up, not warm up. I sensed that something was wrong but thought I could tough it out for the remainder of the workout. I was wrong. Seven minutes into my workout, I felt like there was a leprechaun standing under me with a blow torch aimed at my special parts. It burned so bad that I had to sprint back to the locker room, across the command. Halfway there, the heat was too intense to keep the shorts on. I was able to rip them off without disturbing my headphones and ran the rest of the way to the main building like Porky Pig: T-shirt and no pants, my crotch burning like a B-list porn star, with Demon Hunter blasting in my ears.

  I finally got back to the cage area and headed to my locker. I wanted to grab my soap and towel so I could rush to the shower and wash the fire off. As I grabbed the bag that held my shower kit, dust flew up and I heard boom as a flash-crash grenade blew. God, these guys were good.

  Pranking was a part of life in the squadron. Some sections of the locker room were better than others. My row was the worst. I was assigned to an area with the best prankers, guys who’d been around for a long time and honed their craft. They called it “The Gaza Strip” because stuff was blowing up all the time. One guy got so tired of getting hit and never catching anyone doing it that he finally figured he would commit a “Suicide Prank.” This didn’t mean that he hurt himself or anything; it would just be very obvious that he did it and then it would be open season on him.

  He’d just finished work and was taking his gear off … BOOM! Everyone throughout the cage area started laughing and hollering and whistling. “What did you do?!” There were the obvious prankers doing most of the cajoling but no one admitted it. The laughter died down, the guys got undressed and got in the shower. The victim did not. He waited. Once all of the “usual suspects” were in the showers he grabbed a flash-crash grenade of his own, walked to the showers and announced, “Hello, gentlemen.”

  He pulled the pin and under-handed the grenade into the team shower. Then he turned and walked off. BOOOM!! A crash in a shower is several times louder than one in a locker room. I thought this was great revenge but he paid for it later: His locker was soon full of all the shredded paper in the squadron … with a few flash crashes under the bags beneath.

  I was very happy to be a part of this group. At the time, morale was the highest I’d ever seen at any command. Even though there were arguments now and then, everyone got along. The camaraderie was incredible. The older guys really took care of the new guys and everyone worked hard together.

  When we did our first CQB house run, I remember being in the middle of the train when the initial breach charge went off. Then the squadron was simply gone. The other recent selection training grads and I—all of us thinking we were hot shit at this—had to sprint to keep up. These guys were faster than I’d ever imagined anyone could be, but at the same time impeccably safe. The run was over before I knew it, and it was flawless—to me, anyway. The Safety Officers had nitpicky debrief points, but, come on. These guys were astounding. Once again, I would need to pick up my game.

  Like the other new guys, I’d been in a kind of probationary period. Now that deployment was around the corner probation was over. It was time for … the Yard-In Party. (Cue Jaws theme.)

  It’s a tradition that, to be given your patch, you must drink a yard of beer without stopping. The yard is measured in a thirty-six-inch-long tubelike glass with a fat bulb at the bottom. I believe that a yard holds three beers, but there is a catch here, as always. The bulb at the bottom of the yard is filled with whiskey and the beer is ICE freaking cold. If your lips leave the glass, or if you throw up before you are done, better luck next time. It is preferred that you accomplish this feat in under one minute—while wearing a truly embarrassing hat with a big mat of hair and buffalo horns sticking out the side.

  We were all so pumped up that we knew we’d knock it out on the first attempt, bu
t two buddies and I decided that it would be smart to go to a bar before the Yard-In Party, which was being held at a buddy’s house. The thought was: If we get a bit of a buzz and a bit of a base in our stomachs, we’ll be good to go. I’m still not sure how good of an idea this was, but at least we were thinking outside the box.

  So after a few beers at AJ Gator’s, we went to the party. The entire squadron was there and we were lined up in alphabetical order. That was good for me because I could watch first and see how the low-alphabet guys handled it. We watched the “Beer Meister” fill the yard as the boss gave a speech. I shouldn’t have watched: Good Lord there was a lot of whiskey. He must have put ten shots in there because it pretty much filled the bulb. Then he topped that with very cold Killian’s. The first guy up gave a toast, and knocked it out in good time. When he finished, he looked like he was taking a standing eight count, but he didn’t puke and he walked around getting handshakes and hugs.

  The next dude, same result. This happened all the way up to me. I sure didn’t want to be the first to have a spectacular fail. There was a famous story about a friend of mine named Lance who may have had the most spectacular Yard of all time. Lance had been through the BUD/S class immediately after mine, and had gotten through selection a year before I did. For some reason Lance went to get a big spaghetti dinner before his Yard-In, which is a horrible idea. Not surprisingly, when he was about three-quarters of the way done with his yard he threw up, and the bulb filled back up again—only not with beer or whiskey.

  The first rule of yarding is that you can never take your mouth off the glass once you begin. Even in this “special” circumstance. Lance was a SEAL, so he refused to quit. He sucked all of that nastiness down again, got about three-quarters of the way. Same unfortunate result. Bulb filled once more. It was so bad, people all around were losing their own dinners.

  It became known as “the good yard gone bad.”

  Trying to banish any thought of a “gone bad” disaster, I put on the big-ass “Buffalo” hat and waited for my yard to arrive. When it did, I raised the glass and gave a toast to The Tribe and put the yard to my mouth. It smelled and tasted like a huge glass of Jack Daniel’s that someone had spilled some beer in. Normally the key to dealing with a bad smell is to breathe through your mouth; not gonna happen here. Time to chug it!

  When you drink a yard, it’s very important to mind the bulb at the bottom. The bulb will begin to fill with air very slowly as you tip it up and up. The issue is, once it gets too full, the air will rush in and push the liquid straight out of the glass at a high rate of speed. Did I mention that during a Yard-In you aren’t allowed to spill a drop? If you do, disqualified, better luck next time. So it’s imperative that the drinker lift the glass but also spin it at the same time. This avoids the problem.

  So I worked this technique for a little over a minute and finished my yard. It was a tough drink but well worth it. I have a fuzzy memory of walking (or possibly stumbling) around getting handshakes and hugs. I was finally part of The Tribe.

  We walked back into the living room and stood against the wall as the rest of the squadron watched. Our Command Master Chief said a few words that I doubt any of us remember, then gave us each our patch. I stared in awe at that thing for several minutes, feeling a sense of honor. That was one of the best days of my life. I was surrounded by all my best friends; we’d just finished nine years of the most difficult training imaginable. We were officially part of the team. And we were going to war.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Before my daughter was even a year old, I found myself kissing her goodbye thinking I might never see her again, and if that were true, how to her it would be as if I’d never even existed.

  I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but that’s the kind of thought that runs through your mind when you’re flying off to face combat for the first time.

  It was April 2005 and we were headed to Afghanistan. SEAL Team **** hadn’t yet been sent to Iraq, or even been authorized to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, if you can believe that. They were sending us over there to hunt high-value al-Qaeda targets. Some of the guys had already been there in previous deployments and explained that some parts of Afghanistan were like “going through a time warp to the tenth century. You need to see it to believe it.”

  We would definitely see it.

  When Nicole dropped me off at the command, some of my team members were there already. We watched each other say our goodbyes and went inside. Guys were sitting around the Team Room having a beer, waiting for the buses to come get us. Most of our gear had already been loaded in huge metal shipping boxes and sent out a few weeks earlier. All each of us had with us was something like a North Face backpack with a sleeping bag, a ground pad, a few changes of clothes, a computer, and some other personal items.

  We drained our beers, then boarded the bus for the short ride to the big C-17 cargo plane that would fly us there. A C-17 is just this big open bay with benches on either side and about a half dozen of our huge shipping boxes lashed down tight (we hoped) in the middle.

  Once the plane takes off, it’s always funny because it becomes a race to see who can get their ground pads blown up first. You want to claim the best spot to lay it out (the ideal spots are on top of the boxes; the senior guys get dibs) so you can sleep your way to Germany. Not that any spot is going to be that comfortable. It’s cold and loud as hell. We all wear ear protectors or just jam in earbuds and turn up the volume. Occasionally, we strap ourselves in with a big cargo strap as a protection against air turbulence. Then we take an Ambien. SEALs love Ambien—a very effective aid for falling asleep under any conditions, including on hard, cold, rocky ground when you know you’ll be eating enemy fire for breakfast.

  We got out at Ramstein Air Base long enough to grab a meal and refuel, then boarded again. After that, another race to dreamland, and bam, we were in Afghanistan.

  It was actually refreshing, a solid fifteen hours of sleep before arrival at Bagram Airfield. It was the middle of the night, and we were wide awake after all our beauty rest. We broke down the big shipping containers and divvied up our stuff.

  Then we split up for our different outstations. I was selected to go to the safe house in Jalalabad along with two other SEALs, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) guy and a radio guy. We loaded up a C-130, which is a four-engine prop plane, and flew down to Jalalabad Airfield, which at the time was pretty rustic and not especially secure. The guys from the team we were replacing were waiting at the field. As we got off the bird, they got on. The situation was a little short on turnover protocol—unless you count some high fives over the roar of the engines that never turned off.

  Toyota Hilux pickup trucks had been left behind, still running. We put our gear in the back, got in, and drove off into the city. We’d been assigned an interpreter we called Larry, an Afghan who’d been fighting with the pro-government forces for years by then. Interpreters were always native speakers, contractors we hired. At first we let them carry guns because they’d all grown up fighting and we trusted them. But in later years of the war, not so much. They trailed behind us and were brought up when needed. Larry was my first experience working with a local. Since we didn’t get a proper turnover, I wasn’t sure what to think of this guy; he was the first Afghan I’d met. He was shorter than me and in average shape; dark features and dark brown eyes with no beard. Since it was my first trip there and I didn’t know yet whom I could trust, I was very short and curt with him. I was even thinking I might need to blast the guy.

  From that very first truck ride, whenever I drove in Afghanistan I kept a pistol in easy reach, either in my vest or under my leg. I put my rifle in the door in case I had to open the door and fall out. Your gun falls with you. You don’t leave it in the truck.

  It was a weird feeling suddenly being in the middle of Jalalabad, a major city in Afghanistan—a place where Osama bin Laden used to live. It was summer, hot and dusty, with the penetrating stink of trash and smoke saturating
the air. The pothole-laden streets were lined with drab low-rise buildings, “bazaars” on each side of the street for most of the drive, and weird speed bumps every few hundred meters. After several encounters with those bumps and all of the deep potholes, we learned it was best to keep your speed up and hit them fast. After about ten minutes, we turned into a narrow alley and stopped at the gate of a huge courtyard fronting a comparatively unimpressive two-story structure that reminded me of one of those old no-tell motels.

  My team leader, Adam, greeted us in the safe house. Adam was a master breacher. The door or barricade he couldn’t batter or blast through hadn’t been invented. He was one of the top performers in all of SEAL Team **** and had been awarded a Silver Star for his role in Operation Anaconda three years earlier. Even before the SEAL team that included Neil Roberts had attempted to insert on Takur Ghar, Adam had hiked through the snow for a number of days with a few other snipers and gotten the drop on some foreign al-Qaeda fighters as they were about to shoot down the first American helicopters to enter the valley. The terrorists had a huge anti-helicopter machine gun and were in perfect position. Adam and his team were better. Adam was a legend and I was thrilled to be with him on my first Team **** deployment.

  He showed us around, let us pick our rooms. The safe house was a former motel with a walled courtyard. And armed guards. I ended up sharing a room with the EOD guy, Harp, because he and I had gone through selection together and had gotten to know each other well. He’s one of the funniest guys I know, a master blaster, seriously, and just a cool dude. When I first met him I asked, “Where you from?”

  He said, “Texas. How about you?”

  I said, “Montana.”

  He said, “Montana, eh? … What part of Texas is that?”

  Adam read us in on our mission, confirming what I’d already heard about hunting high-value al-Qaeda targets. Then we waited for the sun to come up and he took us on a neighborhood tour. Our alley had a nickname—Chocolate Alley. It was just off the main street. To either side of our safe house lived Afghan families. Another house nearby was where the case officers worked their sources and produced targets for us. It was also where the kitchen and cook were. At that time we had a lot more food than targets. By then, three and a half years after the American invasion, al-Qaeda fighters had mostly been killed or fled Afghanistan to regroup elsewhere.