As a Navy SEAL, we rarely had the luxury of being able to offer any kind of excuse either. We were tasked with completing some of the most difficult missions that the US military embarked upon, and our job was to always find a way to get it done. Case in point, one of the most challenging situations that I ever faced in the early years of my career came when I, along with three other SEALs, conducted a highly sensitive demolitions and reconnaissance mission in the Middle East. It was my first real-world operation since joining the team, and the four of us had been handpicked by our commanding officer to conduct the operation.
This was such a sensitive job that we were going in without any backup, leaving very little room for error. To make matters worse, prior to the start of the mission each of us had eaten frogs, as well as several venomous and nonvenomous snakes, while on a survival training exercise. We would kill the creatures, or at least stun them, by swiftly striking their heads on our boots. Then we’d bite down under their head and peeling back the skin to gain access to what little meat that was found there. And while this did provide us with some much-needed nourishment, when coupled with the filthy environment we found ourselves in, we all ended up getting food poisoning. It would soon come back to haunt us.
The mission began when the four of us jumped out of a C-130 aircraft high over the Indian Ocean in the middle of the night. Under cover of darkness, we parachuted safely into the water below, gathered up our gear—which included a rubber raft called a Zodiac —and began motoring our way into shore. As we drew within 300 meters of the enemy beach, we cut the engine on the boat. From there, one of my teammates and I silently slipped into the water and swam towards the shore to conduct a beach reconnaissance. We had to ensure the beach was clear of enemy personnel and find a secure place to lay up there for three days.
In our mission briefing, we were warned by the intel forces to stay out of the water as much as possible. It seems the locals made it a habit to gut their camels near the shore and throw the organs and intestines into the water not far from the beach that we were approaching. This had the unfortunate consequence of attracting lots and lots of sharks, who would routinely break into a feeding frenzy while devouring the entrails.
When we splashed down into the water, we wasted no time getting into our boat. Needless to say, we were very concerned about those sharks, and my buddy and I did not like the idea of diving back in for a swim to shore. We didn’t say a word to each other, but swam as quickly and as quietly as we could, hitting the beach in near record time.
Thankfully we were able to reach the shore without encountering any of the aquatic predators. Once there, we quickly scrambled up onto the sand and began digging two holes, one to bury our non- operational gear and the other for us to hide in for three days while we conducted our reconnaissance mission. We buried the gear with sand and covered our approximately four-foot-by four-foot hole with a piece of desert camouflage netting, which somewhat helped to conceal our position. It provided us the means to see through the netting and gave us a secure place to lay low while we collected information on maritime traffic to and from a nearby shipyard, as well as the aircraft coming and going from a local airstrip.
Extreme heat made it almost unbearable during the day and high winds constantly blew sand and other debris in our direction. Our noses and ears were filled with sand but fortunately our goggles provided some protection for our eyes. Things got even more uncomfortable with the arrival of the high tide, however, as the rising water had a habit of filling up our hole, making it a miserable place to be huddled down. Getting any sleep was nearly impossible, and to make matters worse, since all four of us had contracted food poisoning, we were also filling our living space with vomit, urine, and feces.
Although we were not eating or drinking, I was able to get IVs into my three teammates, providing them with some much needed fluids. Not being medics themselves, they unsuccessfully tried getting a line into me, but all they managed to accomplish for their efforts was to cause a bad infection in my arm around the eight-to- ten unsuccessful sticks.
Our mission was to simply observe and record our findings from our lay-up site, so for the most part we remained quiet, each lost in his own thoughts. We were miserable and the conditions were terrible, but this was something we had all trained for. We knew what we were in for when we were handed this operation and we were prepared to deal with just about anything. After all, we were conducting a secretive mission halfway round the world with almost no one knowing where we were or why we were there. This is exactly the kind of thing that I had joined the SEALs for in the first place, and deep down inside I relished in the challenge.
On our third day in the hole, we spotted movement farther inland and soon identified a thin man dressed in flowing robes and sporting a closely-cropped beard. He was coming directly towards us, although it was obvious that he had no idea that we were there just yet. We quickly rousted one another and within a few seconds each of us was focused on the thin man, our weapons trained on him the entire time. There was a part of me that simply wanted to pull the trigger and eliminate the threat before he inadvertently stumbled across our position, but our rules of engagement clearly stated that we weren’t allowed to fire unless we were first fired upon. All we could do was wait and watch as he drew nearer, hoping beyond hope that he might turn in another direction.
When he was about ten meters from our position the man suddenly stopped. He had clearly spotted us in our sand- and sewage-filled hole, despite our desert camouflage netting. His eyes went wide with shock when he realized what he was seeing. We sat completely still for a heartbeat or two before he threw his arms up in the air, turned and fled. He was screaming something in Arabic at the top of his lungs as he sped away, and while we weren’t sure exactly what he was saying, we knew that it wasn’t good.
Our demolitions raid wasn’t scheduled to take place until the following night, but with our cover blown we knew we had to act fast. We waited until after nightfall and then proceeded to start digging up all of the gear we had buried nearby. Our plan was simple: collect all of our equipment, re-inflate the Zodiac, prepare our dive gear, and proceed into the harbor where we would attach a mine to a ship that was the designated target for our raid. We were accelerating the timetable since we were compromised and knew the thin man would no doubt be sending hostile forces our way.
Exhausted from a lack of sleep and weak from not getting enough nutrients, we were eager to be moving again. Under the cover of darkness, three of us went about recovering the buried gear, while the fourth member of the team kept an eye out for approaching enemy personnel. We were just getting our equipment sorted when our teammate on security duty told us in a calm, controlled voice, “guys, put your hands up.”
(To be continued...)
This excerpt is taken from “Reaching Beyond Boundaries: A Navy SEAL’s Guide to Achieving Everything You’ve Ever Imagined” by Don Mann and Kraig Becker.
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