in may a fresh batch of ncdu recruits arrived in maui per the direction of kohler and kaufman the men were told to abandon the bulk of their gear their green fatigues their boots their maywest life jackets even their helmets and sidearms and slip into a pair of black maui swim trunks and dive masks their rough rubber edges sanded down to prevent them from biting into their face what followed were nine seemingly endless days of training on how to systematically map an underwater landscape and blow it up rocks coral night swimming blast no rest no sleep suicide stuff one trainee remembered for fewer for no fewer than six hours a day recruits lived in the water perfecting their strokes until they could swim a mile before breakfast their only day off was monday when possible seeing that this was the first time many of them had handled explosive fused or tied prime recorded into a trunk line accidents were routine fingers blown clear off or hanging by bloody shreds of skin asked how long he could swim underwater with a hundred pounds of powder recruit kenorik replied with a hundred pounds of powder i could probably stay under forever so this is i highlighted that port because this is a point now where we’re starting to see you know the idea of the naked warrior they’re getting rid of all their gear they’re just wearing trunks um saipan is where we get this recon [Music] like a like a legit recon going on the closer his swimmers got to the beach the more nervous kaufman became at 100 yards he tried to turn them around but most of them kept going at 50 yards some began to pivot back but some didn’t closing to within 30 yards of the shore and 40 yards of the guns so close that they ceased swimming and dug their toes of their sneakers into the sand pulling themselves along with their gloved hands when that last line finally did run out of water each man backed off slightly turned left then sidestroked along the beach for 25 yards edging his mask out of the water with every breath breath careful to remember the locations of any gun positions under circumstances not an easy thing to forget on the swim back each man ignored his exhaustion and worsening leg cramps and stayed as close as possible to the bottom when the they neared the reef kaufman re-boarded his mattress and offered a nearby swimmer a toe get that damn thing out of here this is you you go over this earlier all the little rafts that they had were getting shot up on the other side of the now surf slammed reef each swimmer waited for pickup when the landing craft arrived the coxswains took turns motoring each man and either drop drop them at jacob’s ladder or reversed engines until he could grab hold and pull himself up throughout this cumbersome boarding a period packed with vociferous cursing said one survivor every man aboard fully expected a mortar round to drop square into the boat as soon as the last man was loaded kaufman tallied his numbers and realized that in addition to the officer killed on the air mattress two of his swimmers were still missing pulled in separate directions by his instinct to rescue his and his orders to rush back to the fleet kaufman looked around at his blue tinged black striped men and chose the more painful option with the fleet waiting for his information kaufman ordered his boats back to the apd’s when the men of udt7 arrived back at the humphreys they discovered something remarkable though several men had been wounded some with serious internal injuries from the mortar blast not a single one of their swimmers had been lost in fact the only men that had been killed have been the ones who had remained on the lcpr’s as they had waited for swimmers to return kaufman’s udt5 swimmers had been slightly left less fortunate with one killed several more wounded and two still missing but it was nothing compared to the bloodbath that occurred just one week before at normandy so this is another methodology of executing these things and it’s sort of a metaphor for you know what actually happened the the entire history so the you know the navy uh intentionally creates all of these units they create ncdus they create uh udts that create the scouts and readers all these units are created for a specific purpose they’re committed to action for a specific reason but once the navy creates these things the navy can’t necessarily predict how far the individuals that are that belong to these institutions are going to push them they’re going to push those envelopes so kaufman you know when he’s driving his men toward the beach or he’s pushing his men to swim he also is trying to stop them he’s trying to stop them 50 yards from sure they won’t they keep going 25 yards so you know the the seal teams are created by the navy they’re created by the navy for the navy but the you know you can sort of see it just in that moment the seal teams become so much more because of the seals themselves so the seals don’t create it we don’t we’re not responsible for our own institutions we think we are but we’re not but we are uh responsible for what that institution ultimately became yeah you know there’s an interesting time that you make in the book and i don’t remember if it’s in my notes to cover us i’ll just mention it now um the navy the navy just by nature of being disaggregated and being spread apart especially back in the day there was decentralized command unlike really unlike any other organization absolutely and that that spirit of decentralized command of like hey you go and you make you take the fight to the enemy you get in this ship or you get in this submarine you go overseas and you take the fight to the enemy that’s you have mission type orders right and that’s that’s the way the navy has had to exist back in the day and that vein and that that dna remains and that’s why you get these guys that are very proactive and will will will be default aggressive out there on the battlefield that’s that’s exactly right default aggressive latitude only works if your default orientation or uh default setting is aggression and if you read any uh like naval history book during like uh you know the napoleonic wars or if you read you know the patrick o’brien master and commander series like you’re you’re never you know connected to your chain of command whereas the army uh always is always this yeah so that uh you know as technology has improved or as technology has gotten better to connect commanders to their troops in the field that chain of command has only thickened whereas in the navy i mean we have all this history behind us or the navy has all this history behind it of latitude of mission type orders of relying on the aggressiveness of the individual commander you just have to trust your guys but you have to be specific about what you want oh for sure otherwise you get rogue exactly
My WordPress Blog