AS THE RAMP of the C-130 opened during a SEAL Training exercise, a freezing blast of cold air filled the aircraft under the glow of red lights and my body was shocked back to reality. Above the Arctic Circle, a bitter Norwegian Fjord waited below. I checked each man in my squad, then myself, as we approached the drop zone and I wondered what my family was doing at home as I hooked my parachute to the static line cable and took my position behind the gear laden boats.

Nothing but blackness looking out of the windy ramp and well past midnight as the eight of us were about to repeat Hell Week again, only this time, much worse. This would be my final jump, in my final exercise, and in my final platoon, and while I love going out with a bang,... ..

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ABOUT 150... Added: Wednesday April 29th 2009 - 15:13 PM EST -  By: Don Shipley

It’s been said, and I believe it, that guys who join the Navy model themselves after their first Chief Petty Officer they are assigned to. My first Chief when I was 17 and stationed on a Frigate in Japan was named Lafond.
The sun rose and set on the ship with Chief Lafond and he commanded respect.

Me… I was just scared of him…

He was a decorated “Brown Water” Navy vet from his time in Vietnam on Gunboats and every so often, he’d tell us about being ambushed on a river and doing CPR with his foot on his buddy who had been shot during the firefight.
Lafond stayed in the fight manning a deck mounted .50 machine gun returning fire and used his foot on the wounded mans chest to perform chest compressions.

He was awarded the Silver Star…

A no nonsense... ..

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SEAL PARAMEDIC Added: Sunday March 15th 2009 - 11:02 AM EST -  By: Don Shipley

I entered the IHOP Restaurant around 6:00am and my ass was dragging after a very busy night in Virginia Beach. As wore out from a tough night as I was, the call that came over the radio was as serious as they come, “Code Red,” and a strange calm that always came over me in emergencies “sunk in.”  
The second I walked in the place I knew this “Code” was going to SUCK in a BIG way, and that the “Suck” would go on for hours.

It was a one of my strangest, but also a “hits close to home” type call I had being a Paramedic…

I’d been a SEAL for about 10 years and we lived in... ..

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SPIDERS, SNAKES, AND SHARKS. Added: Sunday September 07th 2008 - 12:31 AM EST -  By: Don Shipley

I’ve had three different guys over the past couple days express concerns and fears over spiders, snakes and sharks. No SEAL likes any of them either, but we don’t give them much thought. There is too much to do on a mission, too much to think about, to give much more than a fleeting thought to being bitten or attacked by one.