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    <title>Extreme SEAL Experience</title>
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      <title>Navy SEAL Training. The Beginning.</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Navy-Seal-Training-The-Beginning</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:56:42 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Navy-Seal-Training-The-Beginning</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[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, tonight would be an explosion.
The jump was about to go very bad . . . 
THERE ARE THREE things you can do as a SEAL that are a cut above the average SEAL, if there is such a thing as average in the Teams.
1. Our Counter Terrorist Team, as the mission is different and it’s another demanding screening process.
2. SEAL Delivery Vehicles, as anyone who can stay underwater for 10 hours is a cut above. I think the record is 14 hours.
3. In a Winter Warfare Platoon, as just being so severely cold for so long is at the top of food chain in SEAL Team for above average and that’s what I spent much of my time doing.
I spent 24-years in the Navy and most of that as a SEAL. I can’t say I was the best SEAL ever, but I was a damn good one. I can say that I was one of SEAL Teams more aggressive frogmen and it shows in my colorful past.
I did two things as a SEAL; I carried a gun, and when I wasn’t doing that, I taught others to carry one. That’s where the aggressive side comes from. I stayed very busy my whole time.
SEAL Team is the big boy’s club. It’s a testosterone filled society of tough guys and bad asses and the job you do is a difficult one. 
To survive as a "small unit," you learn to go around large obstacles rather than through them. You look for another way in, a back door that isn’t being watched so to speak, and when you find one, you fully exploit it. That attitude follows you inside and outside of SEAL Team as you search for the easiest way to do a hard thing in everything you do. 
I accomplished some amazing things as a SEAL with that attitude. I also pulled some really dumb moves. In the end, I came out ahead and as one of my Executive Officers told me once
"Shipley, you’re in the hole, but you’re smiling up at me," at times, sums up my career. 
While I could write about the many successes my teammates and I enjoyed, they’re not as entertaining or funny as the many things that went wrong. I also write of a dark humor SEALs share and use on each other to get us through tough times. The tough times I refer to is any single day as a SEAL as there are no easy days. None.
I started as a "Deck Ape " on a Navy Frigate at the lowest rung of the Navy ladder and rose to Platoon Chief in a SEAL Team. The whole experience, all of it, was worth every push up I ever did and every mile I swam to get there. 
This is my SEAL Blog... - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Navy-Seal-Training-The-Beginning">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Kick Some Ass, Nick. Thank you, Bro</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Kick-Some-Ass-Nick-Thank-you-Bro</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:55:00 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Kick-Some-Ass-Nick-Thank-you-Bro</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[
I graduated BUD/S training and was assigned to SEAL Team ONE, Foxtrot Platoon and began SBI (SEAL Basic Indoc) now called SQT (SEAL Qualification Training). Our Land Warfare, Tactics, and Demolition training was conducted at a small SEAL Camp in the Sonoran Desert in Niland, California and SQT’s are still conducted there today. 

Our Camp back then were old metal buildings with uneven floors and just plain crappy living, but I loved it there. Bunkers for the bullets and demolitions, classroom, showers, bunks and a dilapidated part we called a chowhall. No cooks in white hats and jackets in the chowhall, we were on our own each day for meals which consisted much of Macaroni and Cheese, Ramen Noodles and a bowl of cereal for breakfast; bachelor type foods
My brain does much Ctrl, Alt, Delete these days as whatever doesn’t seem very important is erased from my memory but one of the clearest memories I have of being a SEAL was having a bowl of cereal in the chowhall for breakfast one morning at Niland 
June, 8th 1985The chowhall was full of chatter that morning as some 50 of us sat at tables having breakfast and trading insults with each other, ready to begin a very long and very hot day in the desert heat running tactics training. I was having a bowl of cereal and it was 0745 in the morning. 
Exactly 0745, I remember, when our lead SEAL Instructor entered the chowhall 
We were out of BUD/s and our Instructors now were just fellow SEALs from Team ONE. No dropping for pushups, no Goon Squads, we were far past that, but they were deeply respected and when one of them said something we all listened intently
While we all sat with a mouthful of food, our Instructor waited for everyone’s attention and total silence before he spoke. He said, "Todd Hahka was killed last night " 
He waited for a few brief seconds and finished by saying, "Get your shit and be on the range in 15-minutes." And he turned and walked out of the chowhall leaving all of us dumb struck 
Todd was returning to the SEAL Camp and took a sharp turn driving one of the old Military Jeep’s we had at Camp. The Jeep rolled and Todd was killed. 
None of us noticed Todd wasn’t at chow that morning and Todd slept right next to my bunk, we were friends. 
The chowhall became ghostly quiet as we all stared in disbelief for a moment. 
In those days we went through SBI as Platoons so not everybody was a new guy like myself, but most of us were. For most of us that day it was the first death in SEAL Team we’d been exposed to. For the older SEALs present it was far from a new experience for them after spending so many years in SEAL TeamIt happens
I was a new SEAL but I’d been in the Navy already for 5-years. Guys had died on ships I was on before and things just stopped when they happened for the most part. The Captain would speak, the Chaplin and much focused around the guy that died in the daily activity onboard ship.
There was NONE of that when Todd died"Get your shit and be on the range in 15-minutes."
I CLEARLY remember thinking what a truly HARD fraternity of HARD men I had joined and the Instructors reaction quickly made sense to me. There was nothing we could do for Todd. No day off, no counseling was needed. As SEALs we had a job to do. We needed to push past this and finish training
We needed to finish the missionAnd I grew up much that day as a young SEAL 
I’ve attended too many Memorial Services for SEALs killed. I remember attending one in Arkansas while training there and we left our weapons at the door of an Army Chapel and listened to the service wearing our assault gear and covered in mud
I ran SQT Demolition Training for Class 234, made famous in the Discovery Channel special about BUD/S Training at Niland, 16 years after Todd was killed there. Our Demolition Training was being conducted on September 11, 2001 when planes struck the World Trade Center as we watched in horror. 
I called the class together just like my Instructor had 16-years earlier and said there was nothing we could do and that all of them (The Class) were going to War shortly. We needed to finish training and we did 
We loaded all our demolitions in 6x6 trucks and began to drive out of the same gate I passed through the day Todd was killed. I stopped short of the gate and yelled for one of the guys to run back and lower the Flag to Half Mast for the folks in New York
I’ll attend another Memorial soon for Nick Checque (Check) who was killed during a hostage rescue in Afghanistan last week. Nick graduated SEAL Training with my Son in Class 247 in 2004 and I was very proud to attend his graduation. 
Nick spent time at our Cabin over the years for parties and we have his old camouflage uniforms which you guys still wear during the courses here
A very gifted, good looking young SEAL; and after 28 years of attending SEAL Memorials it never gets easierHis service will be very tough on Diane and myself
Kick Some Ass, Nick. Thank you, Bro - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Kick-Some-Ass-Nick-Thank-you-Bro">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>The Water Fountain Incident</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_The-Water-Fountain-Incident</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:51:05 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_The-Water-Fountain-Incident</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Everything in SEAL Team BITES. From the minute you walk through the door everything around you is dangerous. The parachutes, dive gear, weapons and demolitions all have a nasty nip if you arent being careful. And the end result of doping o...ff for even a brief second can be "Catastrophic." 
Outside of killing yourself, or worse yet, a buddy is the potential trouble, (punishment kind of trouble) you can find yourself in using that equipment. And I always said SEAL Team is the "Most Forgiving" unit in the Military because weve all had run-ins and made mistakes using our equipment. 
All our Admirals and Master Chiefs have been "Spanked" a few times for doing something that seemed like a good idea at the time... Do something right and you learn nothing, do something wrong and you are educated by VOLUMES in SEAL Team... We learn from mistakes...
Hopefully the trouble you find yourself in is contained to SEAL Team and never leaves the Command. But the biggest trouble Ive found myself in normally involves the US Army or the US Marine Corps and Ive found myself in BIG trouble with both... Neither the Army or Marine Corps are known for their sense of humor and they have NONE when it comes to Navy SEALs. 
Take the "Water Fountain Incident" for example... 
I was running demolition training for a couple SEAL Platoons at an Army base a few hours away from Little Creek. I took a couple New Guy SEALs up a week before the Platoons arrived to "Set Up."
Much of "Set Up" in demolition training involves getting enough material for the Platoon to Blow Up. 
You just cant train in a bare field. You need metal, any kind of metal, and lots of it as each charge placed destroys that particular target and normally there is little, if anything, left for another charge. 
My normal "Load Out" of demolitions for a single Platoon for one week of training was over a ton of various types of demolitions and we worked long hours, day and night for that week...
A ton of demolitions is a LOT... 
To find my materials Id head to the base dump. Not a trash dump, it was a place where EVERYTHING else was piled and stacked and free for the taking for training. From vehicles and old generators to file cabinets and bunk beds, it was all there. 
The biggest problem was hauling and carrying the stuff... 
Most demolition ranges are vast areas and littered with sharp metal from previous demolition training that spans DECADES. There is always a good clean up but youll never get everything picked up. One sure way to get a few flat tires is to drive off the roads on a demo range.
Bottom line... Most stuff you blow up needs to be light enough to carry by hand and placed as targets...
Most Operations in SEAL Team have us carrying some sort of demolitions. Breaching Charges, Claymore Mines or the typical "Standard Charge."
A Standard Charge was 1.5 pound block of C-4 Explosive. The block was cut in half and taped together with a "pig tail" of detonating cord rigged in a variety of ways in it. And much of my training was the classic "Demolition Raid" using Standard Charges. 
The Demolition Raid involved assaulting a Target (shooting the place up) and sending pre planned teams to place charges on critical points. Generators, fuel supply, ammunition, radios, computers, anything that needed destroyed. One pair carried a large roll of detonating cord and theyd run through the target unspooling det-cord for all the pairs whod then tie their Standard Charge on to the det-cord using the Pig Tail. Blasting caps were placed at the end of the det-cord and a 5-minute fuse was pulled. 
When the caps detonated the entire field and all charges went together... It was AWESOME...
Anyhoo... Picking up at the dump my eye caught about 20 Water Fountains pushed together. The classic ones you had in school to get a drink of water; about four feet tall and light as a feather which surprised me. 
They were perfect from their size and weight. I took everyone of them and loaded the truck.
On the range they were easy to carry and place and I configured them into a target for an easy daylight assault to work the Platoon bugs out before a larger, tougher night assault with all the bells and whistles... 
The Platoon looked over the target, built charges and did a very simple brief on who was doing what and then they began their assault.
Taking mental notes so I could debrief them afterwards they placed all their charges well, pulled fuses and began to patrol back out. At 4:30 seconds everyone stopped and turned looking back at the Target and then came 5-4-3-2-1 BOOOOM...
It was a great shot but in seconds I began (everybody began) wondering "What the Hell is that "
"What the Hell is that," turned out to be why the Water Fountains were so light in the first place... I dont manufacture Water Fountains, how the HELL would I know they are each packed tight with MILLIONS of tiny white styrofoam balls to keep the water cool. 
20 of them produced enough snow to ski on and they were unsightly on the large open green range... You could NOT miss them and there was no way to hide or clean them up...
At the conclusion of training the range had to be inspected by the Army before we could leave to ensure "most" scrap was cleaned up and they could get anal about it sometimes. 
A young sergeant shows up to inspect and clear us off the range. I made a point to have all the vehicles we had parked where he could see them filled with trash and scrap so hed know we made a big effort. 
He never saw the vehicles...
Instead, he stared for a moment at what looked like Mt. Kilimanjaro a hundred meters from us. Turning his head toward me I grinned like an idiot, shrugged my shoulder and said "Water Fountains." 
"Youll need to see the Range Officer," he said and he got in his truck and left...
The Range Officer was a portly retired Army guy who didnt like me much. He didnt like anybody much but he really didnt like Navy guys and my frequent visits to explain myself and my actions worsened his ulcer Im sure...
Special Forces dealing with Conventional troops never worked very well as everything we do is everything they dont do and every rule they have is a rule we dont have.
By the time I walked though the door of the Range Office everyone had heard the Water Fountain story and watched me as I walked to the Range Officers door. 
Behind his desk his face was red, his glasses hung low on his nose and his hands were closed tightly together as he looked up at me. What he said surprised me but was just the difference between SEALs and Conventional troops. Hed spent his life in the Army and Im sure had no idea what a "Demolition Raid" was or how to practice for one. Just no idea.
What he said, in a LOUD gruff voice was "SHIPLEY... WHY THE F&amp;*K DO NAVY SEALS NEED TO KNOW HOW TO BLOW UP WATER FOUNTAINS " - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_The-Water-Fountain-Incident">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Bottom of the Barrel...</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Bottom-of-the-Barrel</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:49:37 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Bottom-of-the-Barrel</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Bottom of the Barrel...
We receive a lot of gifts from guys who attend the courses and all are appreciated, and mean a lot to Diane and myself. It means a lot that guys take the time to send a small token of the time they spent here and a simple "thank you." Weve received knives, glass from the World Trade Center, tee-shirts, hand crafted arts, coins, books, flowers, cakes, booze, cookies, coffe......e, cards and native ornaments from their Countries, and all mean much to us… 
Today… I received a case of crappy wine that means a TON to me. I dont know who sent it, but I know they heard the story behind the wine from me and it brings back decades worth of my fondest memories in SEAL Team… 
Beaujolais Nouveau… The bottom of the barrel wine…
Young Officers in SEAL Team MUST earn respect and more so than young Enlisted men. All New Guy SEALs struggle to earn the respect of their peers as the older veterans in SEAL Team are hard on them. Never given out, you MUST earn that respect…
From being in the Fleet before becoming a SEAL, I can easily say that leading SEALs is the easiest leadership in the Military or the hardest; It all depends on "Respect." 
Young Officers in SEAL Team know nothing when they arrive. Nothing much more the Enlisted guys they attended BUD/S training with and we are hard on them. One day, theyll become Captains and Admirals, and were tough on them for a reason…
Ensign Burgess joined my SEAL Team TWO Platoon straight out of BUD/S and he should have arrived waiving a sword over his head when he did. Motivated to take charge and lead us to Hell and Back, Ensign or Mr. Burgess (Mister, Mr. is an old Navy address for young Officers. Past the rank of Lieutenant, they are referred to by their rank) shortly woke up to a rude awakening from the Platoon as to the pecking order… Mr. Burgess had to earn our respect first before wed just Goose Step around for him.
I was a young SEAL in my third Platoon at SEAL Team ONE years before. Wed finished our deployment and were assigned a new Platoon Commander, who we had never met. All of us were lounging around the Platoon Hut one morning when the door FLEW opened and in walked a HUGE SEAL Officer, a Lieutenant. He quickly looked at all of us and swiftly kicked a small trash can across the room and a foot away from my head before it crashed into a wall.
LT. Hopkins ordered us outside to our Conex Boxes where he dumped and trashed everything in sight. It was reminiscent of the SGT Hartman foot locker inspection in the movie "Full Metal Jacket, and we all wondered "What just blew into town " 
LT. Hopkins was an X-Enlisted SEAL, a former BUD/S Instructor and held a pull-up record. Immediate respect, LT didnt need to prove anything to us and he became my favorite Platoon Commander during my career.
Ensign Burgess could NEVER have done that…
Mister Burgess learned to relax and became a welcome member of the Platoon but he longed to show "What he had," he longed to contribute and gain that respect. His chance came when we went to France in 1995.
Ensign Burgess was an experienced rock and mountain climber. And he fully set up a major trip for us to the beautiful Aix-en Provence part of France to climb. Hed run the whole ten day trip and instruct us each day. It was his baby, it was his time to shine…
We arrived at a beautiful hotel, old and rustic, it had cast iron tubs in each room and huge, soft beds. Everything was a brilliant white. 
16 of us were ushered into a large sitting room by the owner. An older woman, I still remember how beautiful she was. Large Victorian tables and chairs, the walls were covered in paintings from the oldest French eras. 
It was small and swank… It was NOT a Crazy Eight motel…
The center table was full of cheese, crackers and meats. Jellies, butter and breads, it was also full of bottles of red wine and we helped ourselves. And I remember thinking, "Wow… Were getting the First Class treatment, we must be special guests," and we all toasted Mr. Burgess… 
The owner informed us shortly that the "Spread" was meant for all the guests. By that time all that was left was whatever we had dropped on the floor…
The wine, we discovered was called "Beaujolais Nouveau," and we had arrived for the start of the "Wine Festival" in Provence. Beaujolais Nouveau came from the bottom of the wine barrels and was not aged, just served kinda raw and the whole area celebrated… 
They celebrated in a BIG WAY…
Mister Burgess told us wed all meet the next morning at 0800 in the lobby and for all of us to get a good night sleep. Wed be scaling some large mountains the next morning, the best climbing in all of Europe…
Mr. Burgess showed up promptly at 0800, well rested and acted like it was Christmas at an Orphanage. He was dressed in his BEST climbing clothes and reminded me of something out of the movie, "The Sound of Music," like a little Austrian Boy who lived in the Alps. He had all his climbing gear and chalk bag on a belt, and wearing his best, brand new climbing shoes and shorts. 
I only remember seeing him with one eye opened, while I laid on a lobby couch with a bucket next to me to throw up in. 
The rest of the Platoon was scattered around the lobby in cammies and Jungle Boots dry heaving after a night of the wine festival. We were useless… And I saw the blood drain from Mr. Burgesss face as his shining moment evaporated before his eyes. Kinda like driving to Wally World and the park is closed.
Undaunted… Mr. Burgess loaded us in vans for a drive through the French Countryside to the mountains. The drive was occasionally interrupted when one of us opened a van door to throw up before we went back to sleep… 
In the ten days we were there, we climbed a total of zero mountains, but we never missed a night out for the wine festival. 
In total… We had 15 very happy SEALs, one pissed off young SEAL Officer, and memories for a lifetime…
We worked very hard through our workup and deployment… We rated a trip to blow off some steam…
By not overreacting. For excepting our good, with our bad… Mr. Burgess earned our undying respect and wed have done anything for him…
Mr. Burgess became a fine SEAL Officer… - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Bottom-of-the-Barrel">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Secure from Hell Week!</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Secure-from-Hell-Week!</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:48:09 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Secure-from-Hell-Week!</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Secure from Hell Week!
Its a sad fact that nobody ever hears anything good about BUD/S (SEAL Training). Its also a fact that most of the horror stories come from guys that dont make it through. I wouldnt want to spend five more minutes...... at BUD/S, but I can honestly say BUD/S holds my fondest memories from my SEAL days and I had a great time in training.
I spent six-months there. I cried for three months and I laughed hysterically for the other three months. 
BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training is SEAL school, and its the "Big Boys Club." We were given a lot of rope to run with and we had few rules. Nobody told us when to go to bed, where we could go, how much we could drink. We were just expected to show up on time and ready to perform each day. 
Training was where we had rules; a dull knife, a dirty weapon or a life jacket that wasnt maintained meant a "Beating," as we called it. A beating wasnt a beating as in instructors punching us, but a lengthy physical evolution and they SUCKED, but it corrected the students deficiency QUICKLY. 
There are three distinct parts of BUD/S Training where you are dressed differently to reflect a new milestone achieved. Each change brings more respect from the instructors and a longing from the classes behind you, to wish they were with you, to wish they were in your shoes. 
The first is finishing Hell Week and you take off your white tee-shirt and replace it with a green one, a brown one now at BUD/S. It tells everybody that youre tough enough to be there, you proudly wear it and you are treated differently. 
The second is going from First Phase into Second Phase, the diving phase. You lose the green helmet and don a blue one. Its a great feeling, more respect, and even the West Coast SEALs wed run past each day would lighten up a little on the insults theyd hurl at us EVERY DAY, but just a little…
Lastly is losing the Second Phase blue helmet and wearing a Third Phase red one. Unless you do something stupid, youve made it, and everybody knows it. Eight more weeks of weapons and demolitions and YOU ARE a SEAL… The feeling is indescribable, youve made it through BUD/S.
Hell Week was easy… But nobody ever hears that about BUD/S. Point A to point B, just still be there 5.5 days later. No stopwatches, no grading, Hell Week was pass or fail. If you wanted to be a SEAL, you just had to finish Hell Week. It was an unimaginable pain and complete exhaustion highlighted by moments of extreme triumph. Ive done harder things as a SEAL than Hell Week in BUD/S, but nothing was more rewarding than being told "Secure from Hell Week." 
First Phase sucked, but Second Phase sucked more. By the end of the 8-weeks before you even got to Second Phase, you were just plain broken down physically and mentally. We were tired. Second Phase was the diving phase and we were in the water day and night, it was December. Long days and long nights of constant diving only broken up with extreme, detailed classroom work in the rigs we were diving, dive medicine and dive physics. 
The only thing worse than having to pass the numerous written tests, was trying to find time to study and staying awake doing it. We were wiped out…
By the time you entered Third Phase, the weapons and demolitions phase, you were so beaten and exhausted that you were use to it. The days and nights were even longer, the PTs and runs were longer and harder, but the end was near… You could taste it. Obviously, shooting machine guns, throwing grenades, and blowing stuff up was a lot of fun, but we also had a lot of fun in Third Phase by pushingggg the limits with our instructors a little farther each day to see what we could get away with.
We didnt get away with much… 
Nobody hears anything good about SEAL Instructors, and that comes from guys they didnt like. In at least the thirty Instructors I had during BUD/S, I cant say I didnt like or not respect a single one, not one.
First Phase Instructors are a bit moody, but that comes from the fact that 75-80% of that BUD/S Class doesnt belong there and tempers are short from constant stupidness from Trainees. After Hell Week, as the class number drops, the Instructors lighten up "Slightly." You spend long days and nights with them, and there is plenty of time for some one on one. You ask questions and get answers, you find out about their families, their careers, why they became SEALs, and they find out about you. 
Next minute… You get a beating for doing something stupid…
Second Phase Instructors are a bit stressed, but we get to know and love them. The only reason I became a SEAL was from a very understanding Second Phase Instructor who helped me, one on one, when I should have been thrown out for failing two dive physics tests. The diving is dangerous, and the dives are complex and difficult. They are there to teach you the most demanding part of BUD/S and its quite an accomplishment to see them successfully launch 50-men on a long night dive and recover you safely. As student divers, our job is to make it as hard on them as we can by doing endless stupid shit and trying to kill ourselves each day. 
I think the Second Phase Instructors have it harder than the other phases.
Third Phase Instructors are the coolest. Most of the guys that make it to Third Phase belong there and we only lose a few, and no SEAL ever minds shooting and demo, or instructing it. Part of their coolness comes from the fact that we spend much of our time on San Clemente Island, and far from watchful eyes that San Diego has. The Instructors pretty much do whatever they want to successfully conduct the training. Nobody can hear us scream on San Clemente Island and Third Phase was a lot of fun.
I got a call from a young man today that said he knew a SEAL named Chuck that was missing a few fingers. I replied back with Chucks last name and he was shocked. "How do you know Chuck, he asked " 
Chuck was one of my Third Phase BUD/S Instructors, thats how…
I still see and stay in touch with many of my Instructors. Ive served in Teams and on SEAL Platoons with them, and we always have a laugh.
SEAL Instructors teach you how to be a SEAL. If they like you, and respect what your capable of, they will do ANYTHING, right or wrong, to see you become a SEAL. 
If they dont like and respect you… The exact opposite happens and you will NOT make it through training… 
You quickly learn there is nothing fair in Special Forces. BUD/S is BUD/S for a reason…
I had a great time… - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Secure-from-Hell-Week!">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>R.I.P, Warrior...</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_RIP-Warrior</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:46:13 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_RIP-Warrior</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[R.I.P, Warrior... I was little, but I remember all the kicks my Aunts and Grandmothers would give my Uncles and Grandfathers under the Thanksgiving table in a desperate attempt to shut them up when theyd speak about the War. They told a lot of stories, really good ones, and it was the only time I ever chewed my food slowly so I wouldnt miss a word. I was a set of eyeballs and ears at meal t...ime… My Grandmother traced our family back to the Revolutionary War. My descendants and family have been involved in every conflict this Country has had since then. Some of my best memories was my Uncles vacation home on Lake Erie, where wed often spend a few weeks in the summer. Under his bed was a box filled with captured German Lugar pistols and knives with Swastikas on them that Id marvel at. My Mothers sewing room on our farm doubled as a War Museum and contained my Grandfathers steel helmet with Captains bars painted on it from WWII. A very LONG Bayonet from the Civil War, a Trench Knife from WWI, and my Fathers leather flight jackets and uniforms from his days as a Fighter Pilot, to name a few. I grew up a loner. Our farm was large and isolated and I didnt have many friends nearby. If I did feel like playing with a friend, Id saddle a horse often and ride to his distant house. I read a story awhile back that talked about somebody who said they hunted game before they could write their own name. I remember thinking how strange that was, how young he must have been, maybe 5 or 6 years old. It dawned on me quickly, that I was hunting with my Father when I was 5-years old; I couldnt write my name yet either… My Father started me out with a single shot 410 shotgun, the very same gun I started my Son with when he was 5. I quickly graduated to a single shot 20 gauge and then an Ithaca 20 gauge pump where I became lethal with small game.My grades in schools sucked. I stared out the windows knowing there was a big world out there and I longed to see it, all of it. My routine after school was to quickly load a box of shotgun shells and drag my two stupid dogs on my daily hunting trips after I fed and counted the cows. Home work never entered the picture.Bad grades or doing something to piss the Old Man off meant "restriction," as he put it. A Military term, I was never grounded, I was "restricted," and being restricted by the Old Man was the worst…He didnt lock me up, he didnt ban me from seeing my friends, he didnt take away my allowance… He did far worse, and it struck deeply into the core of everything I was and everything, the only thing, that was important to me…He took my guns… Even a day of restriction was painful, but he was pretty forgiving and understanding. Of course my pouting and being around him all day with nothing to do helped sway him to giving them back, sometimes… When restriction ended… I hunted, all day, everyday…My Father went from Air Force Fighter Pilot to commercial Air Line Captain. He sold the farm, my beloved farm and we moved to Maryland when I was 16. I lasted about a year in Maryland, quit school and joined the Navy. Quitting something as important as school and joining up, I can look back now and say was the smartest decision I ever made… I was going nowhere and headed for trouble…I will admit… If my Father hadnt sold the farm, Id have probably never served a single day in the Military. Id be bailing hay, setting fence posts, and raising cattle today.I write this as we deal with the tragic killing of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who I shared more in common with than just being a SEAL. Chris grew up much like I did, much like many SEALs did. Chris loved being a SEAL, and he loved his guns. R.I.P, Warrior… - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_RIP-Warrior">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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      <title>Marines only like other Marines...</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Marines-Only-Like-Other-Marines</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 09 Mar 2013 15:43:49 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Marines-Only-Like-Other-Marines</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Marines only like other Marines...I've worked for some great Officers in my time. I really can't think of a bad officer I ever served under. One of the finest Officers I ever work for was a Marine Colonel in Liberia, Africa. 8 SEALs and a few hundred Marines were involved in Liberia when our Embassy was attacked and we all worked for the Colonel.He was a big man, cut, defined and a total Marin...e. Everything you'd think a Marine Officer would look like, and he never smiled which is standard operating procedure for Marines. He commanded respect. Anything that anybody though might help the Mission, the Colonel was all ears. He took time to listen to everyone and he kept an exhausting schedule. The coolest thing about the Colonel was his matter of fact way he had commanding, as in, "You won't win a firefight throwing a rule book at the enemy."He assembled all the Marines and us eight SEALs on the Flight Deck before we went into the Embassy and said, "MEN, I won't lose a single Sailor or Marine to a bunch of Fu*#in savages. Your rules of engagement are simple, he said, If you feel threatened, ENGAGE." We loved him. I've always loved and deeply respected Marines and my brother was a Devil Dog. Lovable Lugs with Huggable Mugs, Marines are tough and have a long history of Honor and Valor that dates back 237 years compared to SEALs at just 70 years. Marines NEVER SURRENDER. Unless you shoot them with a big hunk of electrical tape. We did a huge exercise in Guam one year. One of our missions was a POW Rescue of Navy Pilots being held in a remote camp by enemy forces. The enemy forces were a half dozen or so Marines. Marines only like other Marines, they don't think much of Navy guys for the most part and that fact in well known in the Navy. So it's surprising that when the Marines approached a few Navy Pilots and asked them to play POW's for a SEAL rescue that the Pilots didn't just run away and hide. Instead, a few of them thought it would be fun and volunteered for the worst three days of their lives at the hands of the Marines. A dozen of us U.S. and Thai Navy SEALs parachuted in for the mission one night. I landed so hard I broke everything in my rucksack I jumped with and buried my M-14 into the dirt when I hit. We quickly bundled up and hid our parachutes and began patrolling towards the distant target. Some time into the patrol I realized my "Blank Firing Adaptor" had been ripped off my weapon when I landed. In short, I was out of the fight as a "BFA" was needed to fire any blank rounds we carried and I was supposed to enter the main gate of the POW Compound first. The plan would soon change and I'd be stuck watching the rear or something worse. Before dawn, we found a beautiful cleared out area in the thick Jungle, just small enough to comfortably hold us all. Overturned dirt and void of vegetation, we all flopped down in the soft ground and awaited sunrise a few hours away. Then the pig attacks started.We quickly found out our cozy clearing was a wild pig camp and from all corners the pigs attempted to get us to leave. We didn't go anywhere but we should have as we accumulated every pig tick, lice and bug they carried and we were miserable from bites.We sent out Recon Teams in the morning to watch the camp. What we found was disturbing.The Marines had constructed cages for the Pilots and built a reinforced POW Camp at the far end of an old WWII runway that held them. It really was a spectacular camp and they worked very hard to build it. While one Team watched through the Jungle and recorded everything, the other teams slowly made their way around the camp to record a "Full 360 degree" picture of the place. Two large guard towers and enough barbed wire to fence in Montana, the Marines were never going to just let us take it without a fight. The assault was planned for the following night so we had nothing to do except watch and record what the Marines were doing. What they were doing kept our attention and was entertaining to everyone except the Pilots. The Pilots weren't having any fun. Not even a little… Isolated and alone, the Marines had stocked up lots and lots of beer. They'd consume a bunch and terrorize the Pilots for a few hours as only Marines could do. When finished, they'd throw the Pilots back in their cages and lock them away. Then the Marines would sleep and do it all again a few hours later. It was pretty rough stuff and the Pilots would rebel saying "I'm an Officer, we've had enough, let us go, you can't do this." The reply back from the Marines was a pretty standard "SHUT THE F*$K UP," and the harassment continued throughout the day.I spent my time witling a stick down to fit the barrel of my M-14. A Blank Firing Adaptor attaches to the bayonet lug on the barrel and slides inside the weapon to restrict the gas flow of a blank round enough that the weapon would cycle for another shot when fired. I figured I could make one out of a stick and get back into the fight that night.6 inches long, the stick fit perfectly and I wrapped the sticks end, front sight and bayonet lug with an entire roll of electricians tape I always carried for demolitions. When finished it looked like a little boxing glove. Stupid looking, but I knew it would work.As the sun began to sink low in the Jungle, the Recon Teams made their way back with intel for final planning.Through broken English, a pair of Thai SEALs said they believed the Marines had seen them sneaking around the Target. When we asked why they thought that, one of the Thai's dropped his pants, aimed his ass towards us, put his hand between his legs and began waving at us. He said "Marines do to me!" Yep… They got busted. The plan was simple. We'd separate into a few teams. Two pairs would stalk close to the two Guard Towers while the rest of us would come online straight down the runway to the front gate. Timing would be critical. At exactly 2200 the snipers would command fire on the Guard Towers and we needed to be right at the gate at the exact moment to hit the gate guards and enter the compound. Hoping the Marines didn't have night vision, we began a slow, quiet walk towards the gate side by side. We were mere meters from the gate as the snipers shots went off and the assault was on.I didn't see anyone guarding the gate when the shots went off and I sprinted towards it to get inside. A second later, a Marine jumped up from behind some oil drums and our eyes locked.He had the most surprised look on his face and was completely taken off guard at how fast things had just happened. I leveled my M-14 at his chest from 10 yards and fired. The noise from an M-14 blank is very loud anyhow, but this shot was epic and rattled me. BOOM.The M-14 basically blew up in my hands and the bolt flew out of the weapon destroying it. My boxing glove flew from the barrel and hit the Marine square in the chest. He made a long, loud, AWWWWWWWW sound as the air was forced out of his lungs and he fell to the ground.We ripped the gate down and entered the compound expecting a big fight but nothing happened. The other Marines had saw and heard what happened and wanted "NO PART" of what we'd done to their buddy thinking we'd shoot them all with the painful projectiles. They surrendered.Approaching the cages, the Pilots all had their arms stuck out like monkeys begging for a banana. They'd been through hell at the hands of the Marines for three days and all kept saying, "THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE. GET US OUT." They were very happy to see us, right until we opened the cages, threw them to the ground, blindfolded and handcuffed them and quickly drug them away. They weren't happy about it, and we didn't care.It was old WWII stuff where captured American Airman were sometimes substituted by German Agents for infiltration. Each of our Pilots had left a ISOPREP card behind. An ISOPREP Card has each mans photo, fingerprints and questions only he could answer for verification. Name of his first dog, girlfriend, car and the like. In the Jungle we verified each flyer, uncuffed them and extracted into the night towing the dumbass Pilots with us.The Navy Pilots learned a valuable lesson. The lesson that US Marines don't play nicely with others in the sandbox most times. Especially with Navy Guys...  - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Marines-Only-Like-Other-Marines">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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      <title>About 150...</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_About-150</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:13:40 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_About-150</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[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.A no nonsense guy who simply believed in the “work hard, play hard” mentality with his subordinates. If you worked hard for Chief Lafond, then nothing bad would happen to you and I tested him on many occasions. I was always in trouble for fighting on liberty. Yokosuka, Japan was a Sailor town and the standard practice was going before the Captain to receive punishment at “Captains Mast.” After the charges were read and pleading my case of “total innocence” to the Captain, the Skipper would ask Lafond standing behind me if he had anything to add that might change the punishment. &nbsp;Blah, blah, blah… Lafond would go on about how great a young Sailor I was to the Captain, and I’d normally get off with a slap on the wrist because of him. Before “Mast,” we’d wait our turn outside the Captains Quarters and Lafond would continue to light a Zippo lighter over and over. It signified I was about to be “Burned” by the Captain for getting in the trouble again and it intimidated the hell outta me. In the end… he’d always save me and I will never forget him and all he did for me… My first SEAL Platoon Chief was named Mike and we addressed him as Mike. A really big man, Mike was part Indian. Dark completion, big white teeth and a huge head… Mike ran SEAL Team ONE and all respected ANYTHING that came out of Mike’s mouth. He’d been a SEAL for a long time and if there was anything you had any question about, Mike had the answer… He was a great Platoon Chief and protected all of us like a wet mother hen as well. In Foxtrot Platoon, there was no doubt who was in charge and that Mike had our backs no matter what happened. I always felt protected being around Mike…My second Platoon Chief was named Frank and he was the most orneriest SEAL I have ever met. A tall SEAL with a medium build, Franks nose had been broken so many times in fights that it was a noticeable disfigurement on his face. Where Mike was known as Mike, Frank was known as “Pig” and that’s what everyone called him. Frank said he got the nickname because he liked standing Shore Patrol as a young SEAL and roughing Sailors up in the performance of those duties. &nbsp;In any case, Pig had an incredible background as a SEAL, a fist fighter, and an arm wrestler. &nbsp;He was also a scary guy who’s solution to performance problems from us was a major ass beating. Pig did not MESS around, but we trusted and loved him…Andy became my third Platoon Chief in SEAL Team and I made Chief myself in his Platoon and I had no other Platoon Chiefs after Andy. It was my turn as Platoon Chief now… Andy was the best demolition guy and SEAL sniper I’d ever been around and I learned a lot from his low profile demeanor, as Andy never had a lot to say unless it needed said. When he did speak… you could hear a pin drop as he was always right and made sense in bad situations all SEAL Platoons find themselves in. &nbsp;As my wife says… Andy was also the best-looking SEAL in the Navy…Taking the “Best” from all the finest examples I had growing up with in the Navy, I struck out on my own as a Chief Petty Officer with nine years in the Navy. A very young Chief, I made it after so much trouble for fighting, but I made Chief so early because of so many other Chiefs who looked after and protected me. Protecting others was in my blood. The Chiefs that looked after me all those years’ simply excused stupid mistakes all young Sailors make and believed that there are, and should be, second chances for good guys who screw up. I was a classic example of that… My guys were my guys… My Platoon was my Platoon… and I didn’t like anyone f**king with my Platoon or my guys. What ever happened was my responsibility and you could have my “Head,” but do not mess around with my young SEALs… There is so much that can go wrong in a SEAL Platoon… Piles of weapons, ammo, demolitions... Parachute jumps, submarine work, and just untold amounts of dangerous work day and night, in the US and abroad, that it becomes difficult at times to balance “work hard, play hard.”You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror each morning as a Platoon Chief and know “I did the right thing,” even if that means doing wrong… We all make mistakes, but a smart guy learns from those mistakes and improves himself and others around him. You don’t learn ANYTHING until you’ve made a mistake, and I’m very proud of giving guys a second chance that needed one.While my SEAL Son is back at it again, I take great comfort in knowing his Platoon Chief is one of the most decorated and fiercest fighters SEAL Team has ever known and that he has my Sons back “No Matter What.”Another Chief he has is also a great friend of mine, and he gave a brief to all of SPECWAR before I retired about his exploits in Afghanistan. He and a British SBS Commando, for three days, virtually singly handedly, fought a huge numerically superior force. When he finished nonchalantly describing the carnage they endured, the JDAM Strikes he called in on their own position, the never-ending machine gun and rocket propelled grenade fire they survived, and the endless Taliban attacking them with hand grenades from 30 meters away… I asked my friend when he took questions, “DUDE… How many of those f**kers did you kill ” He shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Aaaa… I don’t know for sure.” I asked again, “Really Bro… How many  ”He took a deep breath and said, “About 150…”Awarded the Navy Cross for his actions, he was also awarded Great Britain’s Highest Award for Valor as well, and the only SEAL ever to be Knighted in England for his Heroism.These are the guys my Son deals with everyday… These are my Lafonds, My Mike’s, My Pig’s, and My Andy’s… &nbsp;Looking back… After all these years… I have no regrets whatsoever…  - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_About-150">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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      <title>SEAL PARAMEDIC</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Seal-Paramedic</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:02:02 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Seal-Paramedic</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[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.” &nbsp;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 Virginia. I was painting a shitty cabin cruiser fishing boat I had and watched my 3-year-old daughter get run over by a truck in our driveway. A terrible accident with horrible injuries, she was revived from cardiac arrest three times by Paramedics before the Nightingale helo got her to a Trauma Center. &nbsp;18 now and getting ready to graduate, she has no marks, no scars, and no memory of it at all…As SEALs, we were taught in-depth medical skills, but all skills were based on dealing with a very big Navy SEAL who had been shot. My daughter was three…I requested a new EMT course that SEALs were being sent to, and after graduating a short time later I requested Paramedic school. A 13-week accelerated course of nothing but eat, study, and sleep Paramedic, I became SEAL Teams first ever non-corpsman (Medic) to graduate the Paramedic NIGHTMARE of written and practical testing. &nbsp;During the ENDLESS classroom and hospital work, our weekends were spent as a “Nug” running rescue calls under supervision in some of the worst areas of the surrounding cities.I drew the WORST area you could draw… &nbsp;In crisp Paramedic pants and shiny boots, I was forced to wear an emblazoned collard shirt that signified I was a “Trainee” and knew NOTHING about ANYTHING. Arriving for duty at 8am on a Saturday, I had just enough time to shake hands with the Paramedics I’d spend the next 12 hours with when the “Bell” went off and we were in route to my first call as a Paramedic Trainee…Getting out of the back of the ambulance when we arrived, I figured out FAST we weren’t in Kansas anymore. This was a bad neighborhood.A WALL of FUNK hit me as I walked through the front door of the dimly lit shithole and in front of me laid an emaciated old man on the floor with his shorts around his ankles.I said nothing being a Nug and just looked and listened to the experienced Paramedic handling the call. The old guy wore a filthy tank top tee shirt and was supporting his head with one arm as a pillow and was facing us. Each question asked by the seasoned Paramedics was answered a bit incoherently and he began rambling about his money being stolen. I never took my eyes off the guy lying there trying to determine what was wrong with him by looking and listening intently… &nbsp;I was there to LEARN…Within a couple minutes of questioning the guy, one of the Paramedics asked, “Sir… Where’s your Penis?” “I ain’t got one” came the raspy response, and my eyes shifted to his crotch where he laid in a pool of blood and I realized he had no penis. I’d been looking this guy up and down since we arrived, from head to toe… but in the dimly lit room and untrained eye, I just never noticed anything… Hard to believe a pool of blood and I didn’t notice it…I had honestly thought afterwards that with the rambling “my money, my money” thing, that he’d been robbed and the bad guys had ripped it off with pliers or something. We called the hospital later to see how he was doing. He had died we were told and that he had cancer and just allowed his penis to rot off. He had opened the large infected wound that day to urinate and began bleeding. Not long after graduating Paramedic, I deployed to Liberia with a SEAL Squad, when the Liberians got drunk again and began cutting off each others heads and shooting up the American Embassy. (You can read about Liberia on my website section “SEAL Blog”)It seemed strange that after all those years in SEAL Team, the most rewarding thing I’d done and the highest decoration I’d received, was for saving lives on a burning merchant ship as a SEAL Platoon Chief/Paramedic.Back home a few months later I began the long process of becoming a qualified Paramedic in the largest all volunteer rescue squad in the Nation… Virginia Beach. I worked alongside a Paramedic as a trainee, until he decided I was ready to be “released” and could go it alone. My release came a few weeks later when we were called to an “Accident with Injuries.” Around 2 am on a Saturday night we arrived on scene to an overturned car on a busy boulevard. Opening the Zone Car door, I could hear the screaming immediately. On my knees, I looked inside and could see each seat contained a very large young lady; all were still hanging from their seat belts upside down; all were badly hurt…They looked like movie stars on the red carpet the way they were all dressed. Decked out in their best clothes, they had obviously just left a nightclub. After they were extricated from the vehicle, I did a good job treating and quickly getting them off-scene to a trauma center. My papers were signed that night; my next shift would be on my own…SEAL Team TWO was great supporting me. I’d finish work at the Team around 4pm and a couple times a week I’d begin a 12-hour shift at the largest Fire Station in the city from 6pm to 6am. I checked my gear in the Zone Car, picked up a radio, called in that my station was manned and ready, and received an immediate call back for a Cardiac Arrest a few blocks from the station.My first call as a released Paramedic would be an attempt to revive a dead person…I found the mother lying on the floor and her daughter was doing chest compressions. The daughter quickly explained that she was a nurse, the mother had a history of heart problems, and that she had not ventilated the mother who had aspirated. (Thrown Up) &nbsp;With the ambulance a few minutes behind me I grabbed my defibulator and shocked her chest. &nbsp;Nothing…I shocked her again at a higher power… Nothing…I shocked her a third time at the highest setting allowed and got a pulse.I intubated her giving much needed oxygen and started an IV line giving drugs to keep her heart going. She walked out of the hospital a few weeks later.Having worked DOZENS of Cardiac Arrests since then, she was the only person I ever treated who survived one. The daughter gets the credit for the chest compressions she was giving before I arrived that saved mom. Luckily I was only a few minutes away, and a few minutes are all someone has when they arrest. I deployed as Platoon Chief of Golf Platoon at Team TWO spending much time in Bosnia and would visit a refugee camp treating the sick and injured and passing out candy to the kids with a couple other SEALs.Returning home, I began running rescue again and became “seasoned” and saw some extremely strange things. I rarely got a wink of sleep during my shifts, as the station stayed very busy all night. Payday nights, weekends, full moon, and especially a hot, muggy night, something interesting would always happen. I responded to a stabbing one hot night. Walking through the door I couldn’t help but notice a very dead guy lying on the floor with a Buck Knife protruding from his chest that had been shoved into his heart by a neighbor. BLASTING his music, he answered a knock on the door where the neighbor stabbed him and then went home. &nbsp;He never moved an inch and just fell straight over dead.While that was strange enough, his girlfriend’s reaction was even stranger. A beautiful woman, she was sitting on a couch looking at him with her legs crossed and nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. Before I could even say a word or ask a question, she yelled, “GET THAT DEAD MOTHERF**KER OUTTA HERE…”A less than loving relationship I guess…I did a lot of good and was steadily paying back a debt of gratitude for those who saved my daughter. Being a Paramedic was very rewarding and I had a great bedside manner. I responded to a Cardiac Arrest one day to a yard full of concerned neighbors and a frantic, screaming, throwing herself on the ground woman, who turned out to be the daughter of the woman in arrest. Going into the bedroom of the older woman, she was clearly dead and had been for a couple days. She was in bed with her comfortable covers pulled to her neck and lying on her side facing a small TV on her dresser as “The Price is Right” with Bob Barker played. Her body had begun to decompose with a dark fluid from her mouth that stained her pillow. The daughter found her and FREAKED with guilt. “I SHOULD HAVE CALLED HER, I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED ON HER, SHE SUFFERED, IT’S ALL MY FAULT…”Seeing her elderly mother like that with the fluid, she believed her mother had suffered an agonizing death and imagined her calling for help needing her daughter who never came.I pried her off a caring neighbor in the yard and stopped her screaming… “LISTEN TO ME…LISTEN TO ME… Your mother died watching her favorite TV show, your mother simply went to sleep and died peacefully. Nothing was your fault… NOTHING…”She looked me hard in the eyes for a moment making sure I wasn’t lying to her. When she realized I wasn’t, she dropped her head and walked away without saying a word, but I could sense a huge burden of guilt had just been lifted. &nbsp;I’ve seen so many people take their last breath and my face was the last face they saw before closing their eyes for the final time. Tragic accidents with kids, simple allergic reactions that turned deadly at dinner for a father, waking in the morning to the person you’ve slept beside for 50 years, who died in their sleep, drunk drivers and gunshot wounds… I had seen a lot in those years. I retired from the Navy and deployed with Blackwater, before their name turned to mud, and found time to treat Afghan Bedouins when we’d train in the desert they lived in. They’d recognize the vehicle I’d drive, and would line up waiting to show me a cut finger or infected foot that needed cleaned and bandaged. &nbsp; I was teaching a booby trap course to some cops in Las Vegas once and witnessed a very old man with a bucket of quarters in a Casino violently fall down an escalator spilling his money and got badly hurt on the metal stairs. Keeping people away from his money that spilled and treating his beaten frame until medics arrived, I was asked for my room number and much personal information by hotel staff. I figured they were going to comp me a free room or something for what I’d done for the old guy. Turns out, they wanted my information in case of a lawsuit and it pissed me off. &nbsp;The first thing that struck me dumb in the IHOP Restaurant wasn’t the fact that there was a dead guy on the floor, it was the fact that most people were still eating breakfast and the cooks were calling out orders as if nothing was happening.An older man, he’d gone into Cardiac Arrest while eating breakfast and collapsed. I began treating him while patrons circled me, and many had a plate of food just standing and watching. Treating a “Code” is a pretty brutal thing to watch. The tearing open his shirt and shocking, the intravenous lines, the intubation, the chest compressions, and just the blue facial color and vomit of someone in arrest makes the scene ghastly to watch. &nbsp;Having no luck reviving him, we quickly moved him to an ambulance and continued a monumental attempt to save him while his wife rode with us and I could tell they had been together for many years by her reaction. She was very calm, and a calm I had seen many times before with couples that had spent a life together. She knew it was over and had known for many years that the ride would end sometime for one of them.I was standing with her when the doctor pronounced him dead and the first thing she did was to calmly thank me for helping him. She was devastated, but never shed a tear. &nbsp;It hit close to home for me being married for so many years and I knew either my wife or myself would be standing where she was standing one day. With the Virginia Beach and Norfolk area being home to the largest Navy Base in the World, I asked her if he’d been a Sailor many years before. Looking me straight in the eyes she proudly said, “No son… He was a Paratrooper…” - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Seal-Paramedic">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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      <title>Spiders, Snakes, and Sharks.</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Spiders-Snakes-And-Sharks</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:31:53 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Spiders-Snakes-And-Sharks</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[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. 

We all have a few stories though.

For Team PT one day we all did a hydro recon of a beach in San Diego. It was an administrative daylight one, where we’d all line up parallel to the beach and swim in, taking soundings every 25 meters. The guy running the recon was in the middle of the long line of swimmers, and when time came to drop our lead weights and measure the distance to the bottom, (soundings) he’d wave his arm back and forth and yell, “MARK.”
The word “MARK” was yelled by each man up and down the line, and we’d measure and record the depth to the bottom.

It wasn’t easy to stay on line during the recons with waves breaking and currents raging, so we’d pay very close attention to the line, working hard to keep it straight. I passed another “MARK” as it was yelled to me and I watched the line begin to break into a curvy mess, as I dropped my weight and wondered what the problem was.

Turns out, it wasn’t MARK being yelled, it was SHARK, and the guys scattered quickly…

I hauled ass to…

We locked out of a Sub in Hawaii one night. The target was close to shore and the “Hump” in would be short. It was decided we’d just wear our wetsuits for the mission since it would be a quick one. 

Hours later, my body lost the last bit of moisture it held, by sweating it all into the wetsuit. 

We’d missed the target somehow and were patrolling around the rugged jungle in a suit of rubber, carrying weapons, demolitions, and no water. We call that being in the “Hurt Locker.”&nbsp; 

Worst of all, were the spiders. Ooooo they were monsters, and hung at face level on the dark trails. The size of a human hand, they felt like a crazed squirrel on your face when you ran into one. There were so many, and they were so creepy, that we began to switch out point men every half hour so everyone could share the torment.

Misery loves company… 

Snakes are often encountered, but very little thought is given to them either. Very little thought unless it’s the Persian Gulf.&nbsp; The Gulf is filled with them, sea snakes, deadly poisonous, and plentiful. 

We were operating off a barge in the middle of the Gulf during the Iran/Iraq War. A couple SEAL buddies and me were hanging out one day when a MONSTER sea snake swam close to the barge. I grabbed a fishing net and scooped the creature up and flopped him on the deck of the barge.&nbsp; 
A crowd quickly gathered around the snake as it slithered around. I looked up and here comes the barge “Geek” with a broomstick in his hand.

This guy was a weird dude. He was assigned as a communicator on the barge and was a technician in a Special Forces Unit. While not a Green Beret, he was allowed to wear one being assigned to the unit. The temperatures in the Gulf were “Africa Hot” and would break a buck-twenty each day and humid. 

The “Geek” would always wear a full uniform no matter what he was doing.&nbsp; Bloused shiny boots, creased trousers and top, sleeves rolled to perfection, and his Green Beret was always smeared down the side of his goofy head. 

What did we wear in the crushing heat?&nbsp; Shorts and Teva’s; we were SEALs for shit sakes…

Anyhow, here comes the “Geek” and he has everyone’s attention as he marches to the crowd. As he arrives, he begins to lower the stick to the snake’s head in a classic move to pin the snake and then he’d pick it up and impress us all with his prowess.

Loudly he announces “I’ll show you how we do it in Special Forces.”

Quickly, I announced “I’ll show you how we do it in SEAL Team,” and I grabbed the snake by the tail and swung it in circles chasing everyone including the “Geek” before throwing it over the side. 

The next morning our Captain very clearly informed the crew there would be no more snakes on HIS barge…

As the Captain was speaking, he never looked at anyone except me.

Kind of unrelated, but since I’m on the Special Forces guys… We were leaving the barge after being on it for a few months and we hadn’t had a drink, as alcohol on the barge was a no-no. We’d spend a day in Bahrain before flying home and a big, senior enlisted Special Forces guy came aboard the barge to give us a “Liberty Brief” telling us the do’s and don’ts of Bahrain.

Don’t go here, and don’t do this, his brief was endless and drug on for what seemed like an eternity. He preached “Not Drinking” in Bahrain as trouble followed those who do. 
In his impeccable uniform, and smeared Green Beret on his big head, we could tell he was a man of experience on the subject matter he was preaching.
The big f**ker had two huge black eyes from a fight in town… - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Spiders-Snakes-And-Sharks">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>My Worst Day of BUD/S.</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_My-Worst-Day-Of-Buds</link>
      <pubDate>Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:17:32 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_My-Worst-Day-Of-Buds</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I was asked in E-Mail “What was the worst day you spent in BUD/S?” 

Hell that’s easy, my last day…

No, it wasn’t sentimental; it was the “nothing is fair” thing we had been taught all through training that reared its ugly head on our final day and caused much pain.

Each phase had its own form of an organized beating for the Class caught doing something stupid. 

First Phase was the IBS Boat Hike, which amounted to hours of torture with the boats for some infraction. 

Second Phase was the “Jock Up Drill” which was hours of doing a variety of exercises with Scuba Tanks and an “I saw God” type of misery. 

Third Phase, we did “Flights” which amounted to running a long, steep hill over and over with a wooden or metal pallet on our backs, and very little fun was had…

What brought on an organized beating in BUD/S? Well, cheating was at the top of the list, but that was kinda funny as we were taught to cheat, and encouraged to do it in some cases. 
Being a “Small Unit” in SEAL Team, you often go after a “Larger Unit” in combat. 
How do you win against a Larger Unit being Commando’s? 

You cheat… 

We were taught, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying,” and “Cheat if you must, just don’t get caught.”

It was the “don’t get caught” part that was hard, and as SEALs, getting caught, was a bad thing in combat…

It was also a bad thing in SEAL Training…

It only took a couple runnings of the Obstacle Course in BUD/S before some smart guy in the class suggested a way we could cheat. There were balance logs that had to be negotiated. If you fell off, you had to start again, and he suggested we slip in at night and “shim” the logs so they don’t roll.

Brilliant…&nbsp; This guy was going far in SEAL Team.

Unfortunately, we never gave a second thought to the fact that all BUD/S Instructors had gone through BUD/S themselves. Even worse, was the fact that the Instructors knew exactly when we’d shim the O-course, which was after running it a few times, because they had also had a smart guy that figured it out as all classes do. 

We were beaten stupid…

We didn’t get away with ANYTHING in Second Phase either.&nbsp; We had become smarter and harder to the Instructors tricks, but again, we failed to remember that they had done the same things as students when they went through BUD/S. 

We were beaten silly stupid…

Third Phase, we had them. It was a bold plan to cheat, one we were sure had never been thought of before. We were smart, and would never be caught. 

Third Phase was OUR’S.

The plan was simple. We’d only shoot half of the class weapons.

During the weapons phase at BUD/S on San Clemente Island, we’d clean weapons we shot until very late at night. Each morning the weapons were checked to see how well we cleaned them and there was a steady stream of trainees headed for the surf zone carrying their “Failed Weapon” to get wet and sandy.

Meticulous, is the only word to describe how clean they expected the weapons to be, so we devised a plan to get some extra sleep and clean fewer guns at the same time.

Broken down into squads, the Instructors would take one squad at a time for “Contact Drills’ where we’d simulate enemy contact and we’d practice how to get out of it by maneuvering.&nbsp; 

The rest of us sat and waited for our turn and plotted our next move.

As the first squad came back, and the next squad went out, we’d quickly switch weapons with the first squad. 

Try and follow the bold thinking… 

Squad one now had clean weapons and squad three, who had not gone out yet, had the first squads dirty ones to shoot. When squad two came in with dirty weapons, they would switch them with squad fours clean ones. 

This would go on throughout the day and night, and at the end of the evolution, only half the class weapons were dirty, and the other half were clean, saving many hours of cleaning as we’d all pitch in and clean half the weapons. 

It worked, and we laughed and joked while cleaning them. Having gotten over on the Instructors we became giddy with excitement, that we’d continue this throughout Third Phase and become the “Best Rested” class in BUD/S history. 

The tent flaps opened a short time later and the Instructors entered.

We finished cleaning the weapons in the dark, cold, Pacific Ocean that night because we forgot that they had gone through BUD/S as well. 

Dam, we dum…

Back at the compound in San Diego, Third Phase was over except for one more O-Course. We’d graduate the next morning, no more runs, no more swims, just one more O-course and some paperwork that day and we were free men.

Each Phase in BUD/S the class is assigned a “Proctor.” Our Third Phase Proctor, as each Phase Proctors are, the closest thing to an Instructor friend you have. They take pride in how the class performs, they look out for you, they solve problems, there the first guys you go to when something is wrong. 
Proctors are there to help. 

Proctors are also Instructors. Enough said…

Our Third Phase Proctor was beloved by the class. A no-nonsense SEAL, he certainly helped me and the others get through training, and we learned much from him. 

He gave us our final brief that morning concerning gear turn-in, and graduation. He congratulated us and said it was his pleasure to Proctor such a fine class and he appreciated all our hard work.&nbsp; We were his last BUD/S Class, as he’d go back to a Team soon. 
We were his best Class, and he shook each mans hand and offered a final Hooyaa for us and a secret that he would share as we did our final O-course.

He said that it was customary in BUD/S that on the final O-course the class was allowed to cheat. He said, “BUD/S is over, have fun one final time, you’ve completed the “Toughest Military Training in the World.”&nbsp; 

We HOOYAA’D so loud I though the roof might lift off the building and we ran to the O-course.

On each O-course we ran, the Instructors for that phase stationed themselves at different obstacles throughout the course. Our final one would be no different. 

Being one of the fastest guys on the O-course, I started before most guys and blew past the hardest obstacles ignoring them and laughed and screamed, just as the guys in front and behind me were doing.

I’M A F**KIN SEAL…HOOYAA…&nbsp; I’M A F**KIN SEAL…

Half way through, I began to notice the Instructors were not laughing with us as I’d run past them with a grin, giving them the “Thumbs Up” signaling we were all fellow SEALs now. 

Turns out, our buddy the Proctor had duped us.

There is no custom in BUD/S that says you can cheat on the last O-course, but there is a custom that each Third Phase Proctor tells the Class there is!!!

Our last day in BUD/S, was our worst day in BUD/S.

One final lesson on “Nothing is Fair.” 

When I arrived home that day, my wife remarked, “I’m glad you’re back, I had a feeling something terrible had happened to you today!”

I replied… “WELL, NO F**KIN SHIT …” 

We were beaten SILLY, SILLY, STUPID, and graduated the next morning. - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_My-Worst-Day-Of-Buds">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Gear Grenade</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Gear-Grenade</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:50:40 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Gear-Grenade</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[August has been a nice break, with very nice weather, and very unusual for a typical August in Virginia. A nice break, but work never stops here, and my days for the next week or so are about getting prepared for the September guys.
What have I been doing 
I’ve been going through every single piece of gear and equipment I have, and no small task. 
While it’s not backbreaking work rifling through the many para bags and cruise-boxes I have, its always sentimental with much time spent reminiscing.&nbsp; 
Every piece of gear has a story or two behind it. 
I still have my Escape and Evasion belt for Combat Swimmer Operations. It was simply a web belt worn over my wet suit and held a bayonet, a one quart canteen, a pistol holster, chem-lite, strobe light, spare face mask, and rubber straps in case one of my fins broke during the dive.Diving all over the world, in all types of water temperatures, and in dark, murky harbors, its easy to remember that Combat Swimmer Operations were never any SEALs favorite missions to conduct, but they were the most challenging and I had a pile of close calls doing them. 
Big Aaron Griffin, who retired a year ago after 30 years, gave me all his old gear for the courses, including all his wet suits. 
In my last Platoon at SEAL Team TWO, Golf Platoon, we were measured for new wetsuits before a three-week Combat Swimmer Course in the cold waters of Rhode Island. 
My wetsuit never came in. 
Being the Platoon Chief, I had humped every mile, did every jump, and dove every dive, setting the example for my guys, and I was not going to sit in a boat while my Platoon got it’s ass kicked in Rhode Island because my wetsuit didn’t come in on time.
I needed a wetsuit fast and there was only one other guy as big as me at Team TWO, 
Big Aaron. 
Asking any SEAL to borrow his wetsuit is like asking to borrow his wife. Aaron was even worse, as he took Combat Swimming more serious than any SEAL ever, and asking to use his bubble-less, well broken in wetsuit, was like asking to borrow ALL the female members in his family. 
He wasn’t happy at the thought of my “boys” being snuggled securely in the dark recesses of his dive gear, but after MUCH begging, he relented and gave me the wetsuit and a final word of caution. DON’T F**KING PISS IN IT…
I promised not to, and headed to Rhode Island where I broke that rule each time I entered the bitter cold water. 
He knew I would…
Speaking of piss, I found my old Winter Warfare Piss Bottle. The piss bottle was a plastic nalgene bottle every SEAL Winter guy had. We carried several nalgene bottles for water, but on one we’d write the words “Piss,” to ensure we didn’t use it to prepare food. We’d melt snow each day by a stove and drank constantly to avoid dehydration in the Artic. Wrapped up in a thick sleeping bad in our tents, we’d piss in the bottle, as going outside to do it was no small event and just not happening. Once relieved, the warm bottle was placed inside our sleeping bags near our feet to keep them warm. We also slept with our ski boots in the tight sleeping bag to keep them from freezing, and our wet socks were placed on our chest to dry out during sleep. 
Winter Warfare was tough and separated the men from the boys…
A couple cruise boxes contain my old dress uniforms, medals, insignia pins, and a ton of papers from a life spent in SEAL Team.&nbsp; My favorite is a notebook I had in BUD/S and I laugh as I see the notes I took during classroom work where the writing started sliding down the page signaling I had been falling asleep. Other pages included Chief Ray my BUD/S Instructor who would enter the classroom with a can of spray glue and spray a few pages of our notebooks. He was also famous for entering the class of another Instructor and scribbling that Instructors name in our books with an off colored remark and alerting the Instructor what he had discovered. 
“Instructor Neno… Shipley has written that you’re a F**KING TURD in his notebook,” and I’d run to the surf zone to get wet and sandy laughing all the way.&nbsp; If you can’t appreciate the dark humor and “Nothing is Fair” mentality in BUD/S, you’ll not make it through training.
I had read something a SEAL had written that basically said, “We all think about quitting at some point in BUD/S.” While I’m sure he did, and many do, there are just as many who don’t, and I was one of those who never even came close to quitting.
Except Hydro Recon Week…
Hydro Recon Week was the week after Hell Week. Needing a week to heal up, we swam before sunrise in the morning until dark each day learning the WWII types of Beach Reconnaissance. While the cold water and pounding surf were tough, we were used to it. What we weren’t used to was doing Hydrographic Charts, which were detailed to say the least. 
Each student did the charts after swimming in under cover of darkness and gathering all information concerning the beach, backshore, obstacles, water depths, gun emplacements, and even the type of sand and gradient, as in “Would a tank or jeep become stuck during an Invasion.” This information was documented and detailed in a nightmarishly neat and by the numbers drawing that a Battle Group Commander would use to plan an attack. 
We’d work until the wee hours of the morning on the charts, sleep for a couple hours, and be in the water again before first light. The charts were graded each morning and mine always had in BIG RED LETTERS “FAIL… Do Another Chart!”&nbsp; 
How does this tie into quitting 
Well, a BUD/S buddy and me were the only guys in the class who had to do another chart each and every night. 3-4 hours doing the daily one, and another 3-4 hours doing the make up one. We were alone in the BUD/S compound each night as the rest of the class and Instructors were fast asleep, and to relive tension, we’d kick our helmets across the compound and scream I’M OUTTA THIS F**KIN PLACE, I F**KIN QUIT…
Very funny now, it helped us cope, and I still have my charts that say, “Do Another” on them…
I enjoy reading my old evaluations, many written by typewriter and smeared with Whiteout correction paste. My first evaluation in 1978 contained my only negative remark ever written about me. It said, “Seamen Apprentice Shipley occasionally needs to be told to get a haircut.”My favorite remark ever written in one of them said, “Petty Officer Shipley must be careful, lest his natural inclination to take charge be perceived as arrogance.”
Lead, Follow, or Get out of my Way.&nbsp; 
I gave my old Jumpsuit to my son and asked that he jump it one final time for me. When he does, I’ll hang it in the Cabin and remember all the airtime over so many countries the old suit has seen and smile at the ripped up knees and grass stains that mar the suit from so many hard landings.
The pictures in my cruise boxes are endless and show a strange progression from a knucklehead new guy, and they conclude with my retirement as a SEAL. Most of the pictures always have our arms across each other’s shoulders and with smiles from ear to ear, cammied up and carrying a machine gun or whooping it up in some foreign country kicking ass. 
I loved humping the M-14 as a SEAL, but it took two rounds from the weapon to kill a man. 
The first round knocked the tree over he was hiding behind.
The second round killed him…
My H-Gear still has my M-14 magazines neatly in the pouches and a map from my final operation in Norway. The sleeve that held an M-79 grenade launcher is still attached to the back of my H-gear, but sits empty of the launcher that I carried for so many years. 
It was one Hell of a ride!
It was a ride I’d do all over again if I had the chance…
All except Hydro Recons…
Ill see you September guys soon.
Kick Some Ass… - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Gear-Grenade">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>You believed that?</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_You-believed-that</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:56:41 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_You-believed-that</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I received an E-mail and spoke with the guy who sent it; he wanted to attend a course here and mentioned that he met the SEAL who Commanded SEAL Team THREE during Vietnam. 
Problem is, there was no SEAL Team THREE during Vietnam and the name he gave me didn’t check out either. 
I get inundated with bullshit having the website, much more than I ever did meeting phony SEALs when I was active duty. 
My neighbor was in SEAL DEFCON SIX… Bullshit…My Uncle was a SEAL in Iran…. Bullshit…My friend went through SEAL Training in the Army… Bullshit…
It just keeps coming and unfortunately for the phonies, I have the names of every guy who has ever FINISHED training. Not the fault of the guys telling me these things, they just believed someone who is a very convincing bullshitter. 
The 2008 estimate of the United States population is 303,824,650 and fewer than 10,400 guys have ever finished training to become UDT/SEALs dating to our inception during WWII. Doing the math, 303,824,650 / 10,400 = 29,214. That means your chances of actually meeting a SEAL are 1 in 29,214., if they were all still alive and many are not.
According to a website famous for exposing phony SEALs, there are 300 phonies for every guy who actually finished training.
My first real encounter with a phony was at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.&nbsp; Not normally stopping to refuel there, two Platoons of us were eating on base waiting to go home from a long deployment. In through the door walks two enlisted Airman, one young and one old in uniform. The old one looked like Patton and filled with decorations on his snappy uniform.&nbsp; He was also wearing a SEAL Trident, Navy jump wings and a Master Diver Pin. 
As the young guy sees us, he elbows the older one and mouths the words “Their wearing the same thing you are!” Meaning the Trident… The old prick takes one look at the pile of us and heads for the door… Fast…
Not fast enough though, and we surrounded him. 
I’ve seen a lot of guys under stress before, but I’ve never seen anyone begin to sweat so quickly, as his face went white and moisture rolled down it under questioning. With the young guys mouth wide open in disbelief, it became clear that he had heard one too many SEAL throat cutting stories from Vietnam from this guy and couldn’t believe he had been lied to for so long.
My Platoon Chief finally held out his open hand and said, “Right now Mother F&amp;%ker,” and the Air Force shitbag proceeded to unpin all the crap from his uniform and handed all of it to him. 
I was famous in SEAL Team for swimming more than a few miles wearing a handcuff one-night, escaping from the Provost Marshal. It all started with a pool game and a guy who had a couple of bottles of Loudmouth and a shot of Bruce Lee and ran me a ration of shit. Asking him where he was stationed at, he slowly scanned the room as if he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was about to say, all secret like, and whispered “SEAL Team SIX.” 
I’m sure the first thing he did after he woke up was search for all the teeth I knocked out of his mouth and the night was still young, as I escaped to the only sanctuary a SEAL knows, the water, and wearing a handcuff on one wrist from the Provost Marshal boob who made the mistake of trying to put it on me for my involvement in the short fight. 
I have a good friend who was stationed as the SEAL Motivator in Great Lakes, Illinois, and the home of Navy Boot Camp… There are only a couple SEALs there.He told me he went to the Base Exchange to buy a new Trident for his uniform and they had none. He asked the cashier if he could order one and she replied they would be getting more in a day or so and that they couldn’t keep them on the shelves. 
They were the best selling item in the uniform shop… WTF…
Ordering a beer at a hotel bar in Long Beach, California, an older man asked, “What does that writing say on the backs of your arms ”&nbsp; He was referring to Oriental writing I have tattooed down the backs of both arms. I replied,&nbsp; “Hard Fighting Sailor,” and he quickly said “SAILOR…” We got a SEAL right here,” and he points his thumb at some skinny, pasty faced, punk sitting next to him. 
I hoisted the “Bullshit Flag” fast and began a heated tirade of questions that shocked the older man who sat silent and dumbfounded.
The skinny prick had it together; he knew names, evolutions and places. He had been to the BUD/S compound before in some fashion or another, but was not a SEAL and had never gone through Training. His BUD/S class number was too old for his age and he finally said that he went through BUD/S Training while in the Army. 
Horse Dick… And I let him know who I was…
Turns out, the older guy owned a large business and Pasty Face was there for a job interview. 
He didn’t get the job…
Some guys study hard to live the lie and can carry a bag of bullshit a long way to the untrained eye.
My buddy was stationed at the Naval Academy as a parachute rigger. One day he was introduced to a SEAL who would be temporally assigned to him and was just back from “Desert Storm,” the first Iraq war. 
He evaded questions to my friend and made himself scarce knowing my friend was a SEAL, but he spouted off enough bullshit to other non-SEALs about his war exploits that the Academy asked him to speak. In front of a packed auditorium of Midshipmen he enthralled them with acts of heroism.
Turns out, he had just gotten out of the Navy, was broke, was never a SEAL, and just wanted to eat at the chow hall because he was hungry. 
I’m sure he gained a few pounds in the brig.
There was a great story a few years back that made big headlines. It was about a blind woman skier who was phenomenal. As with other blind competition skiers, she was followed by a person who would tell her when to turn. The crowd marveled at how she instinctively turned before being told to… ESP type stuff... She explained to reporters that she was a Navy SEAL and had swam through radioactive water and was rendered blind which the reporters ate hook, line, and sinker.
Of course, she was no SEAL and wasn’t blind either…
My favorite involved me directly and required a few trucks to haul away this bullshit.We had done a rescue mission off the coast of Liberia in 96 and received a very high decoration for Heroism for our actions that day and night. A few months passed and a support Diver at Team TWO asked, “Weren’t you on that rescue mission a few months back ”&nbsp; Yes, I replied. He said his Mother from small town Pennsylvania sent him an article from the local paper about a Marine who was on the mission with us. 
Oh God… Here we go again. 
With his picture in full dress uniform gracing the front page, Private Snowjob told of how he was picked to be part of a “Special SEAL Scuba Rescue Team” and saved the lives of countless souls that day, with the last one dying in his arms as he comforted and cradled him. 
He described the events and I could tell he had been on the USS Ponce with us as an attached Marine to the Ship, but probably cleaning pots and pans in the galley during the mission. He wasn’t with us, that’s for sure. Nobody was except eight SEALs.He also talked about being wounded in Liberia one night when an enemy took a shot at him and grazed his neck. He returned fire killing him and a buddy of the bad guy at 800 meters on a dark night.
That’s some shooting…
The reporter remarked about the still purple, scabbed over bullet wound on his neck and the fact that he turned down the Purple Heart out of respect. He went on to say that visiting his old high school how impressed his old teachers were that he amounted into something when he was so troubled before. 
They were wrong about that…
I called the reporter and sent the “After Action Reports” from the mission showing he had never been on it. I also explained that the wound on his neck is a common one and that I had the same wound myself as did many SEALs, Marines, and Army guys, and that its caused from standing next to another guy on a range shooting and a hot, spent shell casing the other guy fires goes down your shirt collar and burns the Hell out of you…
I was told Private Liar’s Mother worked for the paper and he wouldn’t re-print the facts.
No problem… My Lieutenant during the mission contacted the Marine Colonel, his Commanding Officer, sent him the article, and the Private First Class was busted a pay-grade and spent some time in the brig. 
People, just by human nature, believe what people tell them in most cases. 
How about the little girls Grandfather speaking at her school on Veterans Day a few years back. A reporter happened to be there and front-paged this guy’s exploit. The Grandfather told of being asked to blow up a Japanese Destroyer in an enemy harbor during WWII. The boats launched him alone five miles from the Enemy Ship and he swam at night carrying enough demolitions to do the job. Placing his explosives, he swam back five miles to the recovery boat and SCREAMED at the driver, “GET US THE HELL OUTTA HERE, SHE’S GOING TO BLOW!!!”He said the blast was so powerful that it blew the Ship across a channel. 
While most people reading that thought WOW, what a badass, let me shake your hand Hero, me and other SEALs cringed. 
Let me get this straight… Five miles in, alone, swimming enough explosives to blow a Ship across a channel. Five miles back and the charges went off just as he was safely away 
You believed that crap, Mr. Reporter 
That’s a lot of demo, that’s a lot of swimming, and that’s a lot of bullshit.&nbsp; 
While I can understand that some guys might spread the shit kinda thick to impress a girl in a bar once and awhile, guys who actually LIVE that lie have some real mental problems. 
Read the book “Stolen Valor” or check out the SEAL “Wall of Shame.”
There were no secret BUD/S classes; no Active Duty or Reserve Army or Marines guys attend BUD/S, no secret tattoos, no sealed records, no classified awards. 
The next time someone says they are, or were a SEAL, you should look with a bit of disbelief until verified. A BIG bit…
P.S. My daughters best friends Dad claims to be a SEAL and we let it go for their friendship. When our SEAL Son was hit in the plates by an Iraqi bullet though, Diane, my wife, sped to his house and LIT HIS SHIT UP for lying…
Now, that was ugly…
It’s a hard day of work to become a SEAL and a small community we live in. A dangerous place, a tough life, and we don’t like anyone who attempts to tarnish that reputation or steals that Valor with phony claims and obnoxious tales that make us look like clowns. 
We’ve all been to too many memorial services and watched Commanding Officers attach decorations for Valor to the children of fallen SEALs and listened to the cracking voices of wives saying goodbye for the final time to allow even the smallest lie to go unchecked.&nbsp;Fakes, phonies, and imposters have real problems. 
Topping that list of problems phonies have, are SEALs waiting to meet them. 
Kick Some Ass - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_You-believed-that">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Lack of Communication.</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Lack-Of-Communication</link>
      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:00:29 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Lack-Of-Communication</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Mikey W was a Thai SEAL Officer in my BUD/S Class. He was already qualified as a SEAL in Thailand surviving that arduous training and why elect to go through BUD/S with us; he was just tough. A small guy who always smiled, he was popular in the class and he came with another Thai Officer. During Hell Week one of our instructors told Mikey to tell a joke in Thai. Mikey began a rambling babble for 40 of us which no one could understand and when he hit the punch line the other Thai began laughing. While we didn’t understand the joke we almost threw up laughing when the other Thai did. 
A few years later my Platoon from SEAL Team ONE arrived in Thailand for Joint Training with our counterparts. The Thais compound was on an island that housed their only Team; SEAL Team ONE and Mikey was the Commanding Officer. Their BUD/S Training was in the same compound and they put one class through a year. 
We had a deep respect for the Thais as they did so much with so little. Very little support, they would operate alone without much of what we had in the way of Naval Gunfire, Gunships, Jet Fighters and the sort. They had common clashes with the Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians along their borders. They lined up a squad of Thais once armed and equipped for an operation. As the translator went down the line explaining what each man was responsible for and what he was carrying he pointed to a rifle and said "This man Kill, Steal." He’d point to a rucksack and say "This man Kill, Steal." With us finally understanding that most of what they were carrying from weapons and equipment was captured and taken from dead enemy. 
All of them were happy, honest and likeable. They were also vicious fighters and my worst nightmare would be being a captured enemy tied to a tree in the jungle with them sitting around a fire looking at me planning what they were going to do.
Scary guys...
There were always communication problems working with other Countries speaking different languages but none I remember so well as the Jungle Survival Training in Thailand. 
The Thais inform us of a couple day Survival Training we would go through. The Thais do a lot of foraging in the Jungle on operations and raiding villages for food. On patrols they were constantly pulling food from trees and vines as they moved quietly through the Jungle. 
We thought GREAT... Being experts, the Thais are going to show us how to catch a monkey and spear fish... Real survival stuff...
Cool...
We packed nothing to eat and began a long patrol through the thick Thai Jungles. Mikey came along with a squad of his guys and we humped all day. Exhausted and hungry we finally arrived at where the training would be conducted and began to string up hammocks. While doing this, all the Thais sat in a circle around a fire began cooking rice and eating things they had brought while we just watched knowing we had a problem from lack of communication. 
Mikey approached us and speaking great English he understood immediately and yelled something in Thai and all his guys jumped and got in a neat line. 
Mikey went up and down the line thumping guys in the chest and yelling wildly at all of them. After a couple minutes of the tirade two Thais ran into the Jungle and were gone.
We said nothing...
Wondering what was going on, we finally got the message when hours later the two Thais returned. On each mans head was a large wicker basket filled with chickens who’s heads were sticking out from every opening cackling and they each had the end of a large closed wooden box between them. 
Dinner had arrived...
The Thais showed us how to clean the chicken and work began. The only parts not eaten were the head and ass. All the intestines were opened with a bamboo sliver; cleaned, cut up and added to the rice. Feet were cooked along with everything else. 
When finished preparing the chickens the Thais gathered us around in a big circle and kicked the wooden box over revealing a MONSTER cobra who was not happy being a guest at the party. Where they got the chickens and cobra in the middle of the jungle has always been a mystery but we prepared for a show from the Thais as to the proper way to dispatch a cobra and expected something dramatic.
Instead of dramatic, one of them picked up a stick and clubbed the beast which was quickly cleaned and cooked. We stuffed ourselves like fat men eating every bit of snake and chicken and the survival training ended
Only in Thailand...  - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Lack-Of-Communication">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>SEAL Blog. A Turd in BUD/S.</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_SEAL-Blog-A-Turd-in-BUD-S</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:54:08 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_SEAL-Blog-A-Turd-in-BUD-S</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[Uncle Ray was my favorite BUD/S instructor. He was also the most feared in my class. Chief Ray could dole out punishment like few others to make his point but he was also a born comedian. If I think back to the funniest thing I ever saw or heard, Ray had done or said them. Ray liked me after I proved I was there for the long haul, but he let his affection for me show in strange ways. NOBODY in first phase passes uniform inspection, nobody and Ray would give them. They were conducted Monday mornings and you had the weekend to prepare. Starching hats, spit shining boots, all of it in a desperate attempt not to fail as punishment was a trip to the surf zone and sand berm runs and the hard work was ruined. Our numbers had shrunk after Hell Week and I was the class leading petty officer. First phase was ending and Ray shows up for our final phase inspection. Ray begins moving through the ranks picking guys apart for infractions and a steady stream of failures were heading for the surf zone. I busted my ass, I was perfect, all those inspections in the past came into play and I meant to set the example no one else had been able to. I meant to pass, this was my day. I can hear him approaching from a couple guys away, ‘’LINT ON YOUR COLLAR, HIT THE F****N SURF." "SALT ON YOUR BOOTS, HIT THE F*****N SURF," "UNBUTTONED POCKET, HIT THE F*****N SURF." Nobody was getting through, but they never did.Ray gets in front of me and goes head to toe very slowly. Keep looking Ray, I was thinking, there’s nothing there. He goes behind me and does the head to toe. Keep looking Ray, there’s nothing there I’m thinking. He comes back to my front and does another head to toe and I knew I had him. Perhaps I was his first ever and I could hardly contain my excitement as I thought how good this is going to feel being the only one dry in the class. He moves to the next man and fails him and the next and the next. I was the only man still in ranks that was dry as wet sandy bodies surrounded me and Ray begins to leave. I was BEAMING. It’s strange in BUD/S that the very small successes you have become so uplifting, ones that make you feel like you’ve really done something great in such a tough school. Our phase proctor began giving us the days routine briefing and I was hearing little of it being so distracted with my accomplishment when out of the corner of my eye I see Ray coming back. He’s heading right for me. He stops, he turns to face me and says "SHIPLEY, UNSIGHTLY NOSE HAIRS, HIT THE F****N SURF."Ray’s classes were a treat, like going to the Improv or other comedy club. Side-splitting laughter from start to finish and he taught a great class, very clear and concise as we all hung on his every word. Ray liked to use the overhead view when briefing an evolution. He’d draw the evolution from a downward view and would always start out saying "Imagine you’re a sticky booger hanging from the ceiling, this is what you’d see below you." Ray briefs the underwater knot tying evolution in the tower and neither Ray nor the class knew at the time, but today’s evolution was going to get ugly, fast . . . The tower was 50 deep. The water temperature was very warm and the water was clear. They’d turn out the lights at the top of the tower and you’d watch the guys below in the brightly lit tank, kind of cool. You’d get in the tower tank and begin treading water, no touching the sides, and when you were ready you’d give the thumbs up to your instructor and dive down 15 feet and tie a specified type of knot, five of them, on a line stretched across the tower.This was breath holding at its best for those who sucked at knots, and just a shitty time for most as you’d look at the instructor for a thumbs up and he’d see you needing air badly and would take his sweet time giving the thumbs up after tying your knot and many guys failed. Nothing is fair in BUD/S. While I was no breath holding champion, I was great at knots and finished quickly. I was hanging out a short while later when Ray surfaced like a maniac screaming "WHICH MOTHER F*****G ONE OF YOU SHIT IN THE MOTHER F******G TOWER."Our hearts sank. This was no joke, not a bit funny at the time, and it was going to be a long day.If you’ve ever held your breath for a long time you start making guttural gulping noises needing air and shaking around almost convulsing, so you can understand how it could happen but one of the guys lost control and gave birth to a Marine in the tower. Nobody knew who did it, and nobody ever confessed either, but Ray saw the sinking shit and ordered one of the guys to swim down and get it. We could see it clearly on the painted blue background of the tower and it was a monster, a really big piece of shit, and spiraling slowly downward like a leaf falling from a tree. As the swimmer approached the poop, he hesitated as if wondering how best to bring it up, but low on air and at 30 feet, he decided to manhandle the mess and placed one hand on the bottom of it and held the center like a can of beer and began his assent. Bad plan, as it began to dissolve and break apart and he reached the surface empty handed as it dissipated into tiny shit particles and had a new home in the tower forever. The cadre freaked, and they got much worse as reality set in over a short amount of time.
With many guys who had not completed the evolution yet, it continued, and all the instructors were back in the shit water and pissed. All three phases used the tower, and the Teams for different types of training and word spread quickly that someone from Class 131 had shit in the tower and we were beaten daily for it and by instructors from all the phases. It was the worst experience any of us had in BUD/S, but the most memorable and damn funny now... - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_SEAL-Blog-A-Turd-in-BUD-S">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>SEAL BLOG. Booby Traps</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Seal-Blog-Booby-Traps</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:48:45 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Seal-Blog-Booby-Traps</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I ran my first booby trap course as a new SEAL and smoked it doing very well. Trapping as a kid and access to demo in SEAL Team went well together setting up my own booby trap courses. The courses normally consisted of 100 meters of trail, ten traps and ten targets to shoot. 
Scattered along were ten military type objects laying off the trail and hung in trees for the guys to pick out. I’d do a wild ass explosive filled class teaching booby traps and then one at a time the guys would run the course. It began with "KIMS" Game or "Keep in Memory. I’d pull back a poncho with ten items under it like a bullet, ear plug, compass and allow a one minute study. After the course, the clock stopped, bullet holes were counted, time was added for traps that they had tripped, items they saw on the trail counted and KIMS played into it for an overall score. I always worked hard to trick them at the start of the class as guys coming had already heard "Don’t touch anything" before they showed up from past platoons. 
I once assembled the guys and told them that a General would be attending and to help me clean up before he arrived. Picking up trash I had scattered, there was a half eaten apple and when one of the guys picked it up I had wired it and the place turned ugly fast. BOOM BOOM BOOM...
Another time, I put out seats for the guys to sit in. On top of each seat I placed a pencil and a piece of paper that they would have to pick up before sitting down. Under one piece of paper was a pack of "Ear Pro" the size of a pack of matches and of course that guy picked up the pack that was wired and set off a large (HUGE) field of demo. 
The traps were pressure plates and trip wires leading to a pound and a quarter block of C-4. When the guys tripped them they absolutely knew what it was like tripping a booby trap without the shrapnel. Very intense, I’ve run them in the winter and guys would have sweat rolling down their faces worrying what was going to happen with each step. 
Booby traps are top of the list of effective, cheap, and easy to construct weapons there are. While some are top of the line and use Mercury and Infrared, most are simple and I taught the most common and the most common methods of placing them. 
Guys would spot a wire across the trail and signal me behind them that they see one and I’d cup my ears as soon as they’d turn back and brace for shock. The blatant wire would be a dummy and the real trap was on top of their boot and waiting for them to take a step or buried on the other side of the wire waiting for them to cross. BOOM... 
Dummy wires, fish hooks in brush, wires at forehead level, waist, shin and ones to snag your boot. The guys had a great respect for booby traps when they completed the course. 
Spending a day and putting twenty guys through was tough, as the constant over-bottom pressure from all the explosions took it’s toll on me and I’d be a shaky mess at the end of the day. 
I don’t ever remember a single guy ever getting through without tripping something. 
The traps were constructed with a length of wire, a nine-volt battery, cloths pin, a blasting cap and a charge. Simple stuff but proper placement both for the traps not being detected and the safety of the guys going through with the large shots going off was critical. No one was ever hurt but a few times things got ugly.I set up a course in Turkey for the Turkish SEALs once and the Turks were a little edgy as their compound had been attacked by Kurds a week before we arrived. I finished setting up early the next morning and the class would consist of a Turkish Officer translating for me. My friend Eric was helping me and I asked him to hold down the fort while I assembled the guys and pre-briefed the translator. My class consisted of many explosions, demonstrating simply that I could booby trap just about anything. I was using an easel and flip charts and each time I’d flip the paper another shot would go off and the ground surrounding the easel had very small bits of paper I’d step on, blowing another shot and keeping attention.Getting windy, I asked Eric to stay behind and not let the pages get blown as the shots would be fired prematurely. I also pointed out the pieces of paper and reminded him not to step on them. I was sitting with the translator explaining what we’d be doing when a series of explosions "Rocked" the compound. One after another they kept coming louder and louder. I knew what had happened immediately but the Turks, even after explaining about setting up the course never understood I’d be using live demo and FREAKED...The compound went nuts...The intercom system began blaring an excited Turkish call to arms and underwear clad Turks began running for weapons and manning defensive positions. The translator ran for the door and had forgotten every word of English he ever knew as I tried to get him to understand what had happened. As we blew outside, I looked up where the course was set and where everyone was pointing their weapons and through a settling cloud of dust I could see Eric. Knowing Eric very well, I knew he’d probably punch me out if he wasn’t shot by the Turks. I finally got the translator to understand and he went running for the intercom and shortly across it came the blah, blah, blah Turkish language I could not understand broken with BOOBY TRAP blah, blah, blah BOOBY TRAP blah, blah, blah.
Eric explained later that a gust of wind was lifting the papers and he stepped on one of the papers trying to stop it. It scared the Hell out of him and he knocked the easel over detonating those charges while dancing on a few more pieces of paper...I went all over the Country teaching a three day booby trap course to Police Departments and had a hoot. Great Guys... The problem Police Officers have is houses and cars they search already have a power source and booby trapping a house or car is easy and very dangerous work for these guys.. I’d always call ahead to the SWAT or EOD guys at the department I was instructing and have a load of demo waiting. It worked out well, but I quickly discovered my aggressive nature with demo was a bit more than theirs. I set up their demo range early with a pile of demo for the demonstration. As the guys showed up and gathered around I asked "Who’s ready for some DEMO?" and I stepped on a hidden pressure plate and shots began to fire. Loud and long the shots continued with nobody minding as everyone loves blowing things up.Everyone except the neighbors who I guess weren’t accustom to such big shots and so many. We moved to the next shot for a demonstration and the next, and the next. As I prepared to fire the Grand Finally a cop car shows up with the Captain and a Lieutenant who was dressed in the sharpest uniform I’d seen and setting a great example for the other Officers. Seeing how well they were dressed I fired the last shot quickly before they came closer as it was behind me in a big nasty mud puddle. 
The puddle was deeper than I thought and enhanced the effect and sent a wall of mud and puddle water skyward. It had been my intention to wet down the guys going through the course but it caught some wind and there was no escape for the Captain and Lieutenant who just watched it come down realizing running from it wasn’t going to work. Sploosh...Covered from head to toe they took it gracefully and explained they had come out after receiving complaints from citizens ten miles away. Shit... - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Seal-Blog-Booby-Traps">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Where the Hell Have you BEEN?</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Where-The-Hell-Have-You-Been</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:58:10 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Where-The-Hell-Have-You-Been</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I was putting a class of young SEALs through STT or SEAL
Tactical Training at Fort AP. Hill one summer. The training was land warfare
and included demolitions, marksmanship, tactics and a host of other skills and
we were using an isolated camp we called SEAL Camp and many SEALs had spent
many a training phase in the run down camp. 

We lived in tents without running water but had an outhouse
that could seat 10 SEALs sitting side by side doing their morning business
together and it seemed like every day, at just the right time to inflict
maximum damage on the most guys using the shitter, someone in the class would
silently drop a grenade simulator inside while we held our breath and swatted
at flies.

Boom... Not the way to start the day.

The guys had been kicking ass and I decided to cut them some
slack on Friday after a couple weeks of being blown up in the outhouse and hard
Land Warfare Training. I told them to go home for the weekend and be back here
loaded and ready to hit the range hard on Monday at 0800. 

DON’T BE LATE...

0800 on Monday the bus is loaded ready to depart for the
range but we were missing Rodriguez and I was immediately pissed. By 0830 I was
twisted, by 0900 I went insane and by 1000 Rodriguez pulls up and I flipped.

I don’t get worked up much but I had trusted the guys. We
were behind schedule and two hours late was inexcusable. In front of all the
guys, I started at Rodriguez’s feet and chewed all the way to the top of his
head and back down again on a cussing tirade that rivaled ANY ass chewing the
Military had ever seen. 

I FREAKED...

Knowing I had made my point I finally calmed down a little
and asked "Where the F–K were you."

He replied “A car rolled over in front of me getting here
and I held a woman’s hand until the Fire Department could cut her from the
car." 

Shit... 

Looking back at my career after that incident I can honestly
say that I never pulled anything like that again. No matter how bad the
reports, no matter what was said, no matter how guilty someone appeared, I always
waited to hear it from them before I jumped to conclusions and I saved many a guy’s
ass by calming down others and saying "Let’s see what he has to say
first."

Issac Rodriguez was killed during the Invasion of Panama a
few weeks later... 

We took showers at another camp nearby. After a day of
training a couple guys got me and said they had gone to the camp and a couple
Army guards removed them from the vehicle at gun point and had them on the
ground f–kin with them for a while finally releasing them and telling them
there was an exercise and not to return. 

Tell everyone to get a full load out, their shower gear, and
get on the bus, I replied.

When loaded, I explained to the thirty or so guys what had
happened and that we were taking over the showers. One platoon would shower
while the other platoon holds them at bay and then switch out and this would
need to be done as quickly as possible.

A score needed settled and our reputation as SEALs needed
upheld. Their training was almost over and what better way to solidify that
training than to hit a pile of Army clowns hard. 

There was a roadblock manned by two Army guys a short
distance from the showers. The camp that had been vacant for weeks had in a
single day been transformed into a bustling tent city filled with Army guys and
concertina wire. 

At the road block the guards informed me I could go no
further, the camp was off limits for an exercise and to leave and not return. I
turned back and told the guys to lite these pieces of shit up and every weapon
on the bus went out the windows with a hail of blank fire and a pile of grenade
simulators and I crashed the roadblock speeding toward the showers.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT... The camp went
nuts...

Loud speakers blared and Solders were running out of the
way. I backed the bus to the main shower doors quickly as the guys blew out the
back and entered carrying machine guns and shower kits and we secured the
building. Half the guys took up defensive positions while the others quickly
stripped and hit the showers while one man called out "Time on
Target" every minute letting us know how long we were taking.

Two Army guys were using the toilets when we got there and
became prisoners. One, a senior enlisted guy seemed to be enjoying what was
happening and gave no resistance, the other was a Major and he flipped. He
tried pulling rank and threatening me with assaulting an Officer and to release
him immediately. 

Gagged and with his hands and feet tied we heard no more
from him.

The guys switched out as the 5 minute time on target was
called. The Army was regrouping and maneuvering on us. The guns never stopped
firing, the compound was heavy with smoke from the smoke grenades the guys were
throwing, and the explosions constant for what seemed like an endless supply of
grenade simulators the guys had brought.

The Army was out gunned big time. 

We quickly finished the showers, loaded the bus and hauled
ass with guns from every window and grenades exploding as the Army returned
fire and watched us cheering and yelling as we blew out of the camp and headed
back to ours.&nbsp; 

Back at camp the fire was lit and beers flowed as we laughed
and regaled each other with our raid. 

I awoke the next morning to a pissed camp supervisor who
asked "What the F–K did you do last night?" I explained, and he
replied you can tell it to the General, he wants to see you. 

Damn...

I took a truck and headed to the scene of the crime. The
guards sneered at me and allowed me to pass. As I drove through the compound
all eyes were on me and the damage was visible. 

Piles of spent blank rounds covered the place and were mixed
with burnt smoke grenades that scorched the maintained road in a rainbow of
colors and cardboard from the grenade simulators was scattered everywhere. 

I drove to the headquarters tent and entered.

The Major I accosted was there and sporting a grin on his
face that seemed to say I was about to spend some time in the brig and behind
him, leaning over a map on a table, was the General. 

His back was turned to me and I quickly noticed he was a
monster of a man and seemed out of place in the Army and should have been on
the line of a pro football team.

The Major announced "He’s here" and the General
turned and studied me for a moment saying nothing as I stood at attention. 

After that very uncomfortable moment, the General approached
me with an extended hand and introduced himself saying it seemed like we had
some fun last night. He made small talk and I watched the smirk disappear from
the Majors face in disappointment. 

The General explained that he was in Special Forces before
and in the reserves now and running the exercise. He took me to the maps and
asked "Where do you SEALs send enemy you capture during a conflict?" 

I’m not sure Sir, I replied.

He said, "You send them to me," and explained that
the exercise was training his troops to do just that. He told me that we were a
little out of his guy’s league and we disrupted his exercise. He finished by
saying that he had ignored his wife, kids and dog for over a year setting the
exercise up and asked if I would not F–k up all his hard work and steer clear
of the camp until the exercise ended in a couple days and was there anything I
needed. 

Very polite guy, I relied “No Sir, Sorry."

With a powerful slap on my back he said
"Dismissed."

I delivered a crisp salute and turned for the door of the
tent. As I was leaving I looked at the Major a final time. His mouth was wide
opened in disbelief as if he was trying to catch flies with it.

 - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Where-The-Hell-Have-You-Been">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Sorry General...</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Sorry-General</link>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:40:13 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Sorry-General</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[29 Palms is a huge Marine Corps training base in California and during the first Gulf War I made a few trips to teach Desert Warfare to SEAL Platoons deploying for the conflict. Vast, hot and barren, 29 Palms also had no shortage of Marines that made the trips even worse. 
There have always been conflicts between the Navy and Marines With SEALs and Marines, it gets even worse as the Marines normally view us as undisciplined pirates and would go out of their way to screw us any chance they got. 
Marines are hard guys, very disciplined and exact. We’re the same except we don’t wake up and begin our day by screaming in the mirror and to the outsider we tend to look a little laid back compared to the average Marine. 
When that Marine happens to be a General, it gets even worse.
Everywhere on the base, the laundry, PX, barracks, everywhere, were pictures of the base Commanding General named Livingston. 
Oooo he was a fierce looking Marine, very intimidating scowling picture, and he had the Medal of Honor. 
I went to the library on base (another picture) and looked up in a Medal of Honor book at what he had done to be awarded the Medal. He’s a badass...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Livingston
The Generals office was in the same building as Range Control where we’d make several trips a day checking out ranges for training and I’d always look for him. 
Anything out of the ordinary at 29 Palms was met by ANY Marine with stern corrective action and quickly. No matter if this kid was just out of boot camp, if he saw you with your hands in your pockets, he’d cross the street to tell you to remove them. Blouse your boots, square away your hat, whatever, it was constant. 
I had busted ass on the range in the terrible heat and was driving a Humvee to Range Control for something. It was high noon on the base and Marines were everywhere going to chow. I had my shirt off, filthy boots and pants, hair matted, unshaven, smelly and sweaty as I approached Range Control.
Standing in front of his office was the General in his uniform with a pile of other neatly dressed Officers about 100 feet away and I strained my neck to gawk at him in admiration and he looked right at me as I remembered I had no shirt on and cringed as I wondered how fast he could run and if he’d chase me down.
I didn’t have to wait long.
The Humvee lurched and shuttered and a terrible LOUD grinding, scraping sound began capturing the attention of EVERY Marine within 200 yards who all stopped whatever they were doing and looked in my direction. 
I had hit a stop sign.
I not only hit it, I ripped it out of the ground with a 100 pound chunk of concrete that had been used to secure it underground and was dragging it along the road stuck underneath the Hummer. 
Oooo Shit, was all I was thinking, now what?
I threw the Hummer in park and jumped out looking like an island castaway and pulled and tugged finally releasing the sign. I scanned the area quickly wondering what to do now and concluded that retreat was my only option. 
I performed a clean and jerk of the heavy sign and threw in the back of the opened bed Hummer and jumped back in. 
Total time from impact to retreat was no more than 30 seconds and I hit the gas.
I’m not sure why I did it, perhaps reflex, but I raised my hand sightly to the General much as you would someone you had just cut off in traffic, kind of a nonchalant "I’m Sorry."
I never heard anymore about it.
I set up a target for the Platoon to assault and needed opposing forces to man the target for realism and create activity for the Platoon to observe and plan the best way to assault. 
Not having enough bodies ourselves I asked the Marines to provide some OPFOR for a couple days. 
To my surprise, they were happy to oblige. 
They brought the OPFOR to the target the next day under armed guard and turned over to me ten Marines being discharged for various crimes and fresh from the Brig. 
This was going to be interesting.
There was no where for them to escape, which was probably why they gave them to me. They probably also did it to screw me just being Marines. The crimes were serious ones, striking officers, disobeying orders, they were rag-tag and had nothing more to lose. They also had attitudes. Bad ones...
Just me and them for three days, I read a gentle riot act and asked for some help. I have always been able to ask for help and get it, by not demanding or being overbearing. 
It went over well and they looked forward to a few days with me and the whacked out things I was about to do for three days and nights creating activity on the target with them.
Watching a target as a SEAL is normally boring work. You watch, you take notes, you study routines and you plan the "Hit" for the most opportune time. It’s equally boring sitting on a target knowing your being watched and not creating some activity for the Platoons, as it helps pass the time for everyone. 
I was a MASTER at creating activity on targets. Being the Gulf War, I had no limits to my creative mind and an endless supply of parody to entertain. 
I gave the Marines weapons with blanks and we set up routines and patrols. Every half hour the Marines would send a few guys on a quick patrol of the area and a few guys were put on watch around the perimeter at all times except when I called them in for a pep talk or to execute one of them. 
I had a map of Iraq and used the words of towns and cities from it to put together motivating speeches to the men. While the SEAL Platoon watched I used a bullhorn on the lined up OPFOR and would scream out the cities and towns as a speech like an Iraqi Officer might do. When ever I would say Saddam Hussein in the speech the Marines would cheer and dance shooting their weapons, when ever I said President Bush, they would boo and hiss. 
Very funny stuff.
I beat them often throughout the day and executed them over three days a couple dozen times each. I’d make a big production of an infraction and the Marines would bind the guy and blindfold him. I had a packet of fake blood we used in the Military for training and would make it thick and force some down the barrel of my M-14. 
With the guy being executed in a white tee-shirt I’d fire a blank at a close range and blood would splatter on the tee-shirt and he’d fall. 
From a distance it was as realistic looking as could be and very entertaining for all.
Tiring of that, I began to hang them. There was an old tank on the site with the turret barrel elevated high. I found some rope and made a noose and used a piece of fire hose that ran under the guys uniforms. I hung the noose from the turret and had the guys stand on an ammo box and snapped in the fire hose and placed the noose around their neck. 
When I kicked the ammo box out from under them it was as realistic looking as any real hanging. The fire hose hidden around the chest took the weight and not the noose and kicking by the victim and cheering and shooting from the guys added much to it. 
Day and night, speeches, prayers, executions, goose steeping, I was running out of steam as the assault was set for that night thankfully.
Around a fire, I briefed the Marines. I told the whacked out bunch that when the Platoon hit us it would be ugly. The SEALs were coming to win and that they’d be jacked up and aggressive. 
Give them a fight, but use caution in how far you go, as I didn’t want anyone hurt and I’d seen it happen too many times to count before.
The armed Marines were jacked up and going to release some Brig aggression. The Platoon saw this as well and planned a few surprises. 
In the middle of the night I heard the dull crumping thud in the distance and something fell from the night sky in our perimeter and blew up with a shaking explosion sending all the Marines for cover. The Platoon had a mortar and were using it with something I showed them a few days before. 
They were taking powerful grenade simulators and pulling the eight second fuses and dropping them in the mortar tube. Quickly, a rag was shoved in the tube and another fuse was pulled on a second grenade simulator and dropped on the rag. 
When the first grenade went off it propelled the burning second one a long distance where it would explode shortly on our position. 
We were taking heavies.
Soon, the assault started and the Marines were out of their positions and returning fire. Everyone was equipped with laser sensors that would emit a loud beeping sound when hit and soon the place was beeping away as the Marines dropped and played the game. 
All expect one Marine who entrenched himself in a hole and was not going down without a fight.
I had told them when their down, stay motionless, don’t stick your head up, don’t watch the show. Play dead and nothing more. It sounded good anyhow...
As the platoon worked to get the entrenched Marine out of the hole they quickly tired of the game and threw a bunch of grenade simulators at him.
The Marine was a huge Indian and he wore wire framed glasses. I saw him stick his head out of the hole wondering why the shooting had stopped. About a foot from his nose laid the burning grenade simulator and when it went off it reminded me of the Bugs Bunny cartoons where "Yosemite Sam" would raise his head looking for Bugs only to have a cannon fired in his face. 
The outcome for Sam was always the same afterwards. His face blackened and his hair blown straight back and on fire. 
As the Marine put the fire in his hair out and waited for his hearing to return I could see his broken glasses and blacken face and called "Cease Fire" and ended the operation. - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Sorry-General">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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    <item>
      <title>Pets.</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Pets</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:24:27 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Pets</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I grew up on a large cattle farm in Pennsylvania and I did three things as a kid; I hunted and I trapped and I accumulated pets. You name it, and chances are I’ve had it as a pet. That changed very little when I became a SEAL and continues today. 
My first pet in SEAL Team was a rattlesnake. The desert was filled with them and one night I caught a pile. I had them all in a trash can and they were laying on top of each other hiding. 
All hiding except one.
In the middle of the can he rattled and struck anything being fearless and I decided I’d keep him. I put him in and ammo box and attached screen on top and released the others. I put the ammo box under the barracks to keep my friend safe and cool. 
We were in the middle of a brief when the doors blew opened and in came a red faced super pissed Vietnam vet SEAL who was the camp guard. He yelled " WHO THE F__K PUT A SNAKE UNDER THE BARRACKS?"
Being a "New Guy" I came clean and waited to be punched out.
Apparently he went under to fix an air conditioner in the tight space and moved the box out of his way. When the snake rattled loudly he didn’t know it was in the box and thought it was hiding nearby and going to bite him. 
I guess he moved pretty quick. 
Close to our base in Puerto Rico was an island where they raised monkeys for labs. A few of us took a Zodiac boat for a visit. Landing the boat on Monkey Island, we patrolled through well worn paths looking for a friendly one. 
Fat Chance...
They followed at a distance and watched us through the brush and it seemed like word quickly spread that we were on the island as more and more showed up and started raising Hell and throwing things. One of the guys suggested we should leave and we began retracing our steps back to the boats.
The monkeys realized we were leaving and surrounded us. While this may sound funny, some of these guys were big and it was starting to get ugly as we armed ourselves with sticks and continued our retreat. 
They chased us on the beach as a few of us fought them off, while the others shoved the boat in the water and we jumped in paddling and trying to start the motor as the monkeys entered the water trying to get in the boat. 
I never knew a monkey could swim.
I had a Hedge Hog in Bosnia as a pet. He liked me and was comfortable, but anytime someone came around he’d jump and stick me with his sharp spines. I let him go and got a stray dog.
I named the dog Bihac, after a rough area of Bosnia and he loved all the guys and slept with me every night. We worked for a Army SF Colonel and he wasn’t wild about me having him, but said as long as I kept him low profile I could keep him.
Bihac’s last day came as I was entering Headquarters.
I opened the heavy door and just inside was a large briefing room filled with some serious "Brass" for a briefing. Bihac tried to follow and the door hit him. Stuck half way he began screaming and would not stop as I freed him. He hauled ass back to the barracks screaming all the way.
I stuck my head inside and said "Sorry" to all the nice Generals and Admirals as the Colonel sat stone faced and burned holes through me with laser eyes.
I didn’t need told what to do and found a new home for Bihac.
Pakistan blew chunks. A miserable place in every sense of the word and we were isolated far from civilization. We all suffered after awhile from "Desert Weariness" a medical condition coined by US. Troops fighting in North Africa in WWII. 
Desert Weariness was a dulling of the senses. Nothing changed in the Desert, no new sights, no new sounds, nothing. You didn’t see a Walmart, you didn’t hear a siren, the landscape was brown and barren. 
I needed a pet.
I began throwing out leftovers and in a few days I had large crows that would show up at certain times to feed. I made a snare from parachute cord and laid it out on the ground around the leftovers and led it back to a bunker where I waited concealed.
Soon, one of the most beautiful birds I had even seen landed and made its way to the food hopping like a rabbit. It was a Egyptian Vulture with a bright yellow head and he was big. I raised plenty of crows and hawks as a kid but not a vulture.
He stepped in the snare and I pulled hard. He went airborne and I struggled to pull him down as he flew circles from above raising Hell. I finally wrestled him to the ground as he hissed and swatted me with his huge wings and with all the commotion, I had attracted the attention of a few guys who laughed and cheered. 
Not wanting to have him hurt himself, I made a bold move and grabbed both his outstretched wings near his body. The move while bold was stupid as I wasn’t wearing a shirt and he LATCHED down on my nipple and most of my left pec with his huge beak. I winced in pain but avoided screaming as we now had a standoff. 
Smart bird, he knew he had me and relaxed and we stared in each others eyes. His look seemed to me that he knew he had the upper hand. He looked calm and content. Every time I looked away trying to figure something out he bit down a little harder.
Oooo the guys were laughing as I told them not to come any closer. Seriously, this bird ripped apart carcasses and was powerful. He, in one bite could have taken my breast off and I’m not sure why he didn’t.
The snare was still attached to his foot so I let go of his wings and he let go of my chest and he flew for it. A smarter guy would have just said good riddance but I could not let him fly with the cord still attached and the aerial battle continued as I pulled him to the ground again. 
I grabbed him by the neck and tucked in his wings with my arm holding him safely. 
I had him...Now what?
I just hoped he would show some compassion again as I let go of his neck and started to un-snare him. He didn’t, and bit down hard on my arm and shit the worst crap I had ever smelled all over my belly. 
With the snare undone, I let go and he flew away.
I caught a crow a few days later with the same tactic and had him eating out of my hand in an hour. He slept on a perch by my bed and I’d break a chemlite for him at night for him to play with. I let my friend go as I moved to Afghanistan and found a new pet that was the nastiest cat on the planet.
Chester was a bad ass tomcat. Our compound had working dogs used for a lot of things and the place was over run with cats. The cats really distracted the dogs from doing what they were supposed to do and the decision was made to destroy the cats. 
Chester was the only one who survived. 
He was mean, filthy, and hated everyone except me and the guard dogs were afraid of him. The chow hall served a variety of great chow to keep up moral and Chester ate three square meals a day of smoked salmon and other things I’d get him. He followed me to chow for each meal and waited for me to come out. The guys got a big kick out of it as Chester would follow me like a dog. Day or night, no matter what I was doing, Chester would just hang out. Returning from outside the compound I’d whistle and he’d come running, happy I was home and safe. 
As mangy as he was he helped me to no end keep some sanity in such a God forsaken shithole. 
A young SEAL in Iraq hit a target one night and came across a mother and a litter of pups. He took two of the pups back and raised them in their camp. The Platoon Senior Chief hated the dogs and told him to get rid of them but the guys revolted and he relaxed. 
Slightly relaxed...
The young SEAL named one of the dogs Master Chief and would say that he outranked the Senior Chief mocking him, the other dog he named Mujihadeen after the Afghan fighters. 
Clark, who took the dogs, was killed during an assault near the end of his deployment overseas. The dogs became a "Turnover Item" for the Platoon that relieved Clark’s Platoon and they loved and looked after the dogs. 
Mujihadeen viciously attacked a guard dog and had to be destroyed and was buried by the guys at Clark’s Memorial in Iraq. 
With a ton of paperwork and requests, Master Chief was flown from Iraq and resides with Clark’s family in the States.
As I write this I’m looking at my Sons dog he named Mujihadeen laying next to me. I should correct that and say my Son is a busy boy and that Mujihadeen is my dog now. 
Thanks Son...
My Son and Clark were in BUD/S together and close friends. My Son and his friends buried Mujihadeen at Clark’s Memorial and helped get Master Chief home.
Team Guys... 
 - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Pets">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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      <title>You&amp;#146;re going to Liberia. Part 1.</title>
      <link>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Youre-Going-To-Liberia-Part-1</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:25:45 -0600</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Youre-Going-To-Liberia-Part-1</guid>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Don Shipley]]></dc:creator>
      <description><![CDATA[I had just come off a "Cruise" on the USS Ponce, a MARG or Mediterranean Amphibious Ready Group and was teaching a demolitions course a few hours from the Team as the SEAL Platoon’s showed up for training. 
Putting the last minute touches on the course, a couple guys said they had a message from the Team that I was going to Liberia. 
Ok, Dude... Shut up and give me a break this morning and I continued setting up. 
A couple hours later the guy manning the radio said "Range Control just called and you’re going to Liberia, call the Team." I believed it this time but so unusual for information to be passed that way. I called our OPS Officer and he said "You’re going to Liberia get back here now." 
Every couple of years the Liberians would get a nice load of drugs and liqueur and start shooting the American Embassy. Civilians would be evacuated by helo and they would be shot at. The solution was to blow a beach lane for Assault Craft to be able to land and safely extract civilians. 
Oooo was I down for that. 
We took a squad of SEALs, eight of us and led by an x-enlisted Officer and as good a man as they come. I’d be his Platoon Chief and during the deployment we’d be referred to as the "Dream Team" back at Little Creek as none of us had worked together before and we pulled off some amazing shit. 
We loaded the USS Ponce and embarked a pile of Marines and helo’s. The Ponce had the same Captain from our deployment; he was a Bad Ass Skipper and he liked me. We were off to a good start.
Eleven days to sail there from Norfolk, the Marines and a SEAL Platoon already controlled the Embassy and had evacuated all civilians. We had a couple missions but the main one was to relieve they guys there and assume security. 
The Marine Colonel in charge was a rare Marine Officer as most would rather punch a SEAL as look at him. This one was different and it mattered none to him who was helping the mission as long as they’d kick ass for him.
We got along great.
During a brief on the Flight Deck he assembled all the Marines and us and gave our "Rules of Engagement." Very simple and to the point he said " I’m not losing a single Sailor or Marine to a bunch of F-----G Savages. If you’re threatened, Engage." 
I’ve heard a lot of rules of engagement but that was the most clear and concise. Very Simple...
A couple days out final planning was in place. The plan was for the Colonel to take most of the Marines and relieve the guys in the Embassy. A contingent of Marines would be left on the Ship to reinforce them if necessary. 
In the Wardroom our Officer and I joined all the seniors for a final planning session. The Colonel asked a Major who was in charge of the reinforcements "How long will it take to get Marines to the Embassy if things go to shit and I need them?" Quickly the Major answered "180 minutes Sir." 
You could have heard a pin drop.
"HOW THE F–K IS THAT MAJOR. WHY SO F-----G LONG?"
The Major explained that issuing radios, night vision, weapons and ammo would take that long once the order was given and they’d finally have to test fire their weapons and load the helo’s. 
180 minutes! 
Matt and I began whispering to each other as the Colonel burned holes in the Major as only a Marine can do with a stare. 
In the middle of this huge brief with all Senior heavy hitters attending, Matt stands up and loudly announces " I can have eight fully combat loaded SEALs off this Ship in 15 minutes."
You could have heard a pin drop!
How can you do that, the Colonel asked?
Matt replied that we were already fully loaded out. Our clothes and boots we’d go in with were hung on our bunks and just had to be put on. The first guy done would open our conex box which had our H-Gear with fully loaded magazines, grenades, night vision, everything and our weapons were with the H-Gear. The helos were pre-rigged with the ropes we’d need to insert and had been tested. All we had to do was dress, grab our gear and get on the helo’s. 
15 minutes Sir!
You could have heard another pin drop until the Major put the final nail in his own coffin by saying "You left out a test fire and that’s going to take a lot of time."
Matt replied "We don’t need a test fire, our weapons work."
The Colonel said the final words of the briefing with "The SEALs will go in first." 
We had one Sniper in our squad and we called him Wacko. Wacko approaches me and says he was talking with the Marine Snipers and they were short handed at the Embassy and could he work with them as a Sniper when we arrived. I asked how many they were short and he said he’d ask them.
I said "Tell them were all Snipers." 
We were welcomed by the Marines with a little white lie. We had all had some Sniper Training so it wasn’t a crazy fabrication and the Marines would not have cared anyhow. We go in as pairs for a week each and help man the Marine Sniper Posts.
Every helo that took off had one of us on it for security and communications. If the helo went down we were heavily armed and could make a major stand waiting for help to arrive and protect the crew. 
We were busy boy’s.
Dag was a character and a good friend. He was a charming guy and made friends with everyone. His idea of a good time was cooking for the whole crew on the Ponce as the cooks welcomed him in the galley and he’d serve lasagna for all. Dag was the only SEAL I ever knew that you could understand underwater and during dives he would carry on full conversations where you could understand everything he said and every song he’d sing, making diving with him anything but boring. 
Dag and I went in as a Sniper pair.
The Embassy was a wreck, buildings shot up and sand bags everywhere. As we arrived the Marine Sergeant Major met us and read us the riot act with his biggest point being that if we were caught not wearing a helmet or body armor he beat us up. Sounds funny, but he meant it and had no time for paper work and idle threats. Being Africa, being hot and being SEALs and not used to wearing that stuff I was sure the Sergeant Major and I’d be rolling in the dirt soon. 
The shooting at the Embassy was pretty well over but the clan fighting was not. Heads on stakes, checkpoints blocked the roads using intestines strung across from rival clans and the "Butt Naked’s" would paint their naked bodies white and wear life jackets as body armor. The beach near the Embassy was a grave yard and cannibalizing rival clan bodies was common. Freaks...
Dag and I manned Post One above the main entrance to the Embassy. Using a .50 cal and a Model 700 we’d watch the streets day and night, six hours on and six hours off for the next week. Being Africa hot, we’d pull off our brain buckets only to be told by radio from the main gate to "PUT YOUR HELMETS BACK ON." Dag being Dag at sunset would call the gate and ask " Hey, can you guys see us up here?" Not knowing why we asked they’d reply No, and off came the helmets. 
We were all together a few weeks later on the Ponce for the main reason we’d come there. The plan was to swim ashore at night and recon the beach. We’d take the information we gathered and go back in the next night with demolitions and blow a clearing for the Assault Crafts for the next time the Embassy went to shit. World War Two Frogman stuff, we were fired up.
Fired up until Charles Taylor, Liberia’s big cheese had a dream one night that the Americans were going to invade and he announced it to the Country by radio. At the briefing we pushed hard for the mission which was going well until the Marine Flight Surgeon who had nothing to do with it started going on about sharks, rotting corpses and hepatitis in the water.
Shut the F–K up...
Between him and Taylor we were put on hold and I was seeing RED. But I’d get payback a week later as another mission came up and the Flight Surgeon was at my mercy.  - <a href="https://www.extremesealexperience.com/weblog_Youre-Going-To-Liberia-Part-1">Read More &#187;</a>]]></description>
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