Posted on 07/19/2009 5:43:09 AM PDT by csvset
VIRGINIA BEACH
What started in J.C. "Tip" Tipton's garage 40 years ago has morphed into one of the best live-action shows in town. Trouble is, it's not open to the public.
Tipton was the first president of the UDT-SEAL Association, a support group for members and veterans of the Navy's underwater demolition and sea-air-land commando teams.
The group has been celebrating its 40th anniversary this weekend during its annual East Coast reunion at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, where 4,000 active and retired SEALs, their families and guests saw a dramatic display of the clandestine warriors' skills and equipment Saturday.
Watching from bleachers on the beach, the crowd cheered as SEALs shimmied down a rope from a hovering helicopter to the strains of the "Mission: Impossible" theme, then clambered back onto the rope and dangled from it as the chopper carried them away.
Minutes later, a shot rang out from the beach and a stuffed dummy, its head wrapped in a checkered scarf, blew apart. Then a pair of SEAL snipers in painted faces and fringed ghillie suits - camouflaged with straw, netting and long rope braids - emerged from the sand where they had been hiding for hours, waiting for their moment.
Next, an eight-man SEAL squad stormed a small structure on the beach and brought a dark-robed figure out to one of two waiting Humvees, which then sped off, guns blazing, as two helicopters streaked low overhead.
The closing act was six jumpers from the Navy's San Diego-based Leap Frogs parachute team, who jumped from a chopper 5,000 feet up, streaming colored smoke from their heels, to a pinpoint landing on the beach.
The event has become an effective recruiting and retention tool for the Navy, said Capt. Charles Wolf, commodore of Naval Special Warfare Group 4.
"It's like the Fourth of July," he said. "It never disappoints."
The four-day reunion, which concludes today, also featured golf, skeet and tennis tournaments, several running and swimming events, and a beach beer bash.
One recognizable face in the crowd Saturday was that of Richard Phillips, the cargo ship captain held hostage by pirates off the coast of Somalia in April. He was freed when SEAL snipers, operating from the Norfolk-based destroyer Bainbridge, killed three of his captors.
That incident was one of the rare times when the SEALs' secretive operations became public.
Phillips declined to be interviewed.
The SEALs trace their heritage to the underwater combat and demolition teams of World War II - the "naked warriors" of pre-wetsuit days who covered themselves in grease or Vaseline to ward off the cold.
The SEALs were organized as an official branch of the Navy in 1962. Tipton, a retired chief torpedo man, and his fellow organizers of the SEAL as sociation are Vietnam War-era vets.
Jack Lynch, a retired lieutenant and the current president of the group, said the reunions are therapeutic.
"It offers these guys a place to come back and tell their stories and vent their anxieties," Lynch said. "They're mending."
Tipton added: "And the stories get better every year."
Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com
Since this is a thread about SEALS, any SEALS like to comment on him.
Jesse was not a SEAL and never in Viet Nam.
That's a nice touch. I always have a faint urge to do likewise when I see a pampered college puke wearing one of those dishrags.
He seems to think so. Personally, I can't stand the buffon
“Seals never disappoints.” HERO’S
From September 11, 1969 to September 10, 1975, during the Vietnam War era, he served in the United States Navy. While on active duty, Ventura was a Navy SEAL and part of Underwater Demolition Team 12.[3] He was awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Vietnam Service Medal but was not in combat to qualify for the Combat Action Ribbon. In his autobiography, Ventura described SEAL training as the toughest experience of his life. Ventura always mentioned how much he respected his SEAL instructor Master Chief Petty Officer Terry “Mother” Moy. He asked Moy to stand by his side when he was sworn in as governor of Minnesota. He ended his inaugural address with the SEAL war cry “HOOYAH!”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ventura
...neat story...
Thank you. What a phony he is. I never knew he was lying;
“We’re a proud organization. If anyone tries to pretend they’re a SEAL, God help them.”
Jesse Ventura Autobiography: I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed
Wipidia entry probably submitted by Jesse. He left the Navy UDT ten years before UDTs and SEALs were merged. And he was stationed in the Philippines, not Viet Nam, at his choice.
Ventura is a liar who was never a SEAL for one day in his life. He was a UDT frogman, and that’s great, but he was NOT a SEAL, and UDTs were NOT the same as SEALs when he was in. SEALs were in combat taking casualties, while UDTs (like Ventura) were getting drunk and laid in Subic Bay, PI.
Wikipedia lies. Ventura was never a SEAL one day in his life. Wardaddy, got that link handy?
God Bless our troops and their families
Thanks for the link to the truth about the liar Ventura.
A few years ago, a school teacher in Chesapeake , VA., claimed he was a SEAL. Lo and behold, unbeknownst to him, there was a fellow teacher , (different school), who actually had been in the SEALs.
They met up and the fraud was exposed for what he was. He declined the offer to confess on his own, so the authentic SEAL went public and the local TV station did an expose of the fraud. The chump resigned from his teaching position.
Ventura is a psychotic bully destined to end his days in a mental hospital threatening the people who live behind the padding in the wall and drooling on himself.
I was at the reunion in 2007, the beach demo sounds about the same as then.
Has CAIR or the ACLU complained yet?
So, which was it, UDT or SEAL, Jesse?
And they were NOT the same when he was in.
Lol. Not yet. I’m sure if they do complain, it would be from their ivory towers.
Self described conspiracy theorist Rolleye James Interview with Ventura. He’s so nuts, she won’t have him on again.
http://www.mystreamingserver.com/Archives/JesseVentura070108.mp3
hope ya had a good time... if you went that is.
Last I heard, he was shouted down and out of McP’s several years ago...May just be scuttlebutt since I wasn’t actually there — I just heard about it.
My mother, in her 80’s, was relaxing on a beach in Hawaii, when lo and behold, the SEALs stormed up from the surf on a training exercise. The thrill of her life, but she never goes back to beach anymore!
He’s sporting a trident pin too.
When it absolutely positively must be destroyed overnight - Navy SEALS.
Those guys are great.
man, what a nut....he needs to get back to that beach in Mexico and hang out like he’s been doing
Please correct Wiki so others are not mislead.
I knew a guy who claimed to have been a SEAL who did “ops” in Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.
I’ve spent a lot of time in both countries and know basic Khmer and even more of the Vietnamese language, but this guy (who again allegedly worked in both countries) didn’t know the name of a single town or village and not even one word of either language. And he got very evasive when even very slightly pressed about any place he’d been there.
I guess it was all Super Special Top Secret Eyes Only classified!
...omlette du fromage...
???
Thats all I got...;-)
But then again, I admit I did not go to S.E. Asia...I was a little too young for that one...
I did wave when we steamed by it though...But I doubt that counts...hehehe
I thought life in Subic was kinda like combat...I don’t remember much of it...
And getting laid was not on Stevie-D’s menu...I have too much respect, and more appreciation, for the domestic market...
The fun part was to watch the line outside the corpman’s office 72 hours after a port visit there...
BTW, I did read parts of Ventura’s book, and I cannot recall if the story he told about showing an interest in the UDT/BUD’s training in bootcamp was the beginning of his time in that outfit...No where do I recall the SEaL issue mentioned in that timeframe, unless it was a literary faux-paux made by the author assisting Ventura in his memoirs...
But that’s beside the point I suppose...Ventura should not be misleading folks on this...And wearing that Trident is not being one...Jump wings as well...
But at least he served...
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