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Posted on 10/14/2001 12:44:59 PM PDT by Pokey78

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of five articles on special forces troops in the U.S. military.

By David Josar, Stars and Stripes

Photo courtesy of the Department of Defense Navy SEALs are cross-trained in specialties such as foreign languages and medical skills, allowing them to operate unassisted in any environment. Just five percent of the men who start the training eventually make it onto a SEAL team.

Evolving from the frogmen who cleared beaches during World War II, the Navy SEAL teams — the acronym comes from their Sea, Air and Land assault specialties — have become some of the most legendary of America’s special operations forces.

During SEAL training, recruits have their "flappers" — the ragged skin from blisters — torn off by their instructors. They don’t wear underwear, and routinely have "skivvy" checks to prove it. All to promote cohesiveness.

A routine SEAL mission, according to the Navy, might include free-fall parachuting from 10,000 feet, riding a small rubber boat for 100 miles, traveling 30 miles out to sea to rendezvous with a submarine.

"That is all very true," said Bill Salisbury, a former SEAL commander who lives in California. "There is a mystique and it’s there for a reason. The SEALs are very, very good."

Salisbury spent 16 years as a SEAL, starting in the Vietnam War-era, when the elite force was officially created to combat guerrilla and terrorist tactics. Salisbury’s unit would go into jungles to rout high-level political and military leaders.

Comprised of volunteers, the Navy SEALs are part of the Special Operations Forces that will play a pivotal role in the United States’ war on terrorism.

"If you are their enemy, they are a very scary group," said Michael O’Hanlon, a military expert at the left-of-center Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington, D.C.

SEALs, like the Army Rangers and Green Berets, are experts in stealthy attacks, surveillance and penetration. Although Afghanistan is a land-locked country and the SEAL specialties highlight their water skills, SEALs still are expected to be factors, military analysts say.

"Just because there isn’t a river or an ocean doesn’t mean you should underestimate their potential as military machines," O’Hanlon said. "If the enemy would do that, they would surely be defeated."

Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who says he is a former Navy SEAL, said his experience was the most challenging and difficult thing he has ever done, and that he has complete confidence his former unit will be successful in the war in terrorism.

"I think you become a SEAL because you know it will be the toughest thing you ever do, and when you’re done you know there’s nothing that will ever compare — you’ll be able to handle absolutely anything," said Ventura, via e-mail to Stars and Stripes.

"It’s going to be a long, hard battle, but our military will prevail because of its superior training, resources and firepower."

Still, as with all special operations units, little is known about the SEAL successes.

SEALs trace their beginnings to World War II, according to the Navy, when volunteers were selected from the Naval Construction Battalions (Seabees) in the spring of 1943. They were organized into special teams called Navy Combat Demolition Units. The units cleared beaches of obstacles before troops went ashore during amphibious landings.

They fought in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. Then, in 1947, the Navy organized its first underwater strike units, the Underwater Demolition Teams.

During the Korean War, they demolished bridges and tunnels that were accessible from the water and conducted limited minesweeping operations in harbors and rivers.

The SEALS officially were formed in the 1960s when President Kennedy resurrected the Army’s Special Forces and ordered the Navy to commission a force of commandos called Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) teams. The acronym represented the elements through which the commandos could assault or recon their targets.

Initially, two teams of 10 officers and 50 enlisted were drawn from experienced members of Underwater Demolition Teams 11 and 12 stationed in Coronado, Calif., and Teams 21 and 22 in Little Creek, Va. All SEALs were frogmen, trained in under water demolition.

January 1962 marked the commission of SEAL Team One in the Pacific Fleet and Seal Team Two in the Atlantic fleet. They were developed to conduct unconventional warfare, counter-guerrilla warfare and clandestine operations in both the ocean and inland bodies of water.

The SEAL teams more than doubled in size during the Vietnam War, during which they were used to carry out offensive operations.

"This was an elite unit unlike any other," Salisbury said.

During Vietnam, their high-risk missions often entailed high casualties.

"There was definitely fear, but you would never show it," he said.

Currently, according to information released by the Naval Special Warfare Command, there are six active SEAL teams. The teams are still based in California and Virginia, but elements are maintained in Stuttgart, Germany; Rota, Spain; Puerto Rico; and Panama.

There also is the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, which according to the Navy, was established to oversee development of Naval Special Warfare tactics, equipment and techniques. However, former SEALs maintain it is actually the current form of the legendary SEAL Team Six, the Navy’s counterpart to the Army’s Delta Force, an elite hostage-rescue, anti-terrorism team.

A book by Richard Marcinko, a former Navy SEAL who asserts he created SEAL Team Six, said the unit engaged in highly classified counter-terrorist missions in Central America, the Middle East, the North Sea, Africa and beyond.

The U.S. military has distanced itself from some of the claims made by Marcinko, who was convicted on charges of conspiracy, conflict of interest, making false claims against the government and bribery. He was sentenced to nearly two years in a federal penitentiary, in addition to being forced to pay a $10,000 fine.

Now the SEALs, like other special operations units, have increased attention because of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"When this happened, [the SEALs] were already in place throughout the world," Salisbury said. "They were always on the move, and that’s what bin Laden’s got going for him in this rock pile in Afghanistan. So small units are the best to go after him."

Navy SEAL training is considered to be some of the toughest military conditioning in the world. The Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, which takes about eight months, is conducted at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado.

"It is hellish," said Dan Snow, a military expert at the University of Alabama.

There is an aura of awe around most special operation forces training, but the SEALs regime is considered special.

"They’re expected to not only jump out of planes, survive in the desert and mountains, but they’re supposed to be superhuman in the water," Snow said. "That’s an added element that the other services can’t touch."

The Navy does nothing to keep the extreme expectations and difficulty of the BUD/SEAL training secret, going so far as to provide a suggested pre-training itinerary and publishing the timed swimming and running distances recruits must meet.

Each week, SEAL hopefuls need to complete two-mile ocean swims and four-mile runs in shorter and shorter times.

Emphasized repeatedly by the Navy is that the running is done in boots and that men should be prepared to deal with stress injuries, like fractures, to their lower body parts from the unending conditioning.

During the first phase of training students endure Hell Week, during which they will participate in 5½ days of continuous drilling with a maximum of four hours sleep the entire week.

"Hell Week proves to those who make it that the human body can do ten times the amount of work the average man thinks possible," the Navy writes in describing the experiences for potential recruits.

Those who pass Hell Week go on to learn two different types of scuba diving and get trained in land warfare, which includes rappelling, and land and underwater explosives. Each SEAL also spends three weeks in Army Airborne School.

Still, after the roughly eight months of training, a recruit still must pass a six-month probation period before officially becoming a SEAL. Only about 5 percent of the recruits make it onto a SEAL team.

SEALs get roughly $800 a month in extra pay, which includes $175 dive pay, $300 Seal Delivery Vehicle (which is like an underwater vehicle the SEALs use) pay, $225 jump pay and $110 for special-duty pay. SEALs also can earn between $50 and $100 more a month for speaking a second language.

U.S. commandos, including SEAL teams, reportedly arrived in Pakistan on Sept. 13 — two days after the bombings — and began moving into Afghanistan with orders to capture or kill the Saudi-born Islamic militant, or pin him down until the United States can launch air strikes.

Salisbury, whose son currently is a SEAL, said he hopes in this conflict the SEALs and other special operations personnel will take their time and be pragmatic in executing their missions.

"We’ve learned by experience in Grenada and Panama that ‘Go fever’ will kill you," he said. "I think we’ve learned that lesson, a lesson that I think the Rangers and Delta Forces learned in Somalia."

Salisbury hopes that the military is not the only part of equation, saying Operation Enduring Freedom also will take a concerted effort on the political and diplomatic fronts as well.

"My main concern right now, my son being a SEAL on his way to the Middle East, is that they have good intelligence, the element of surprise, good back-up, and no ‘Go fever,’ " he said.

But whatever their role in the war on terrorism, Ventura, who became a professional wrestler after his six years in the Navy, said being a SEAL will significantly shaped someone’s life.

"The experience had as much influence on me as my mother and father did. It taught me teamwork and discipline," he said. "It turned me from a boy to a man. We all know that as a SEAL, every day you are defying death. And that’s something not everyone can say."

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