As we floated on the ocean, an immense blue sea around us, we bowed our heads as the chaplain spoke. "This has been a wonderful day, and we have fulfilled a great Navy tradition in the best possible way. I also believe that crossing the equator like this demonstrates that sometimes you first have to believe in something to make it real."
I hadn"t thought about the equator that way before. There was no magic line in the sea. Everywhere we looked there was nothing but open water.
At the beginning now of our longest journey, Crazy T said to me, "You sure, LT? Those were some good crackers."
We flew over the waves for hours that night. Borneo was far enough away that we had to refuel at sea, and so we had arranged to be met by a civilian refueling ship at a specific time and location in the middle of the night. This part of our operation was not secret. It was, in fact, well publicized because we wanted to demonstrate a growing relationship between America and Malaysia. But when our chief, Steve MacIntyre, met with the civilian refueling ship captain, he found that the civilian crew was very excited to be working with a group of American special operations forces. The captain and his men had shown up to the meeting in the belief that they they were now being called upon to fight the war on terror. were now being called upon to fight the war on terror.
Steve indulged them. He told the crew that we would link up at night using a "secret" code. When we came over the horizon and got within six nautical miles, Steve would come over the radio on a prea.s.signed frequency and say, "Got milk?" The captain of the refueling craft would say, "No, just cookies." And we would then drive in to meet them.
When the time came for Steve to make contact, he came up on the radio: "Got milk?" There was a brief pause, and then we heard the captain, in South-Asian-accented English: "Oh no, no milk. No. No. Just cookies. No milk here, no milk, just cookies, just cookies." The captain was fl.u.s.tered in his excitement, and so Steve said, "What kind kind of cookies?" This was not part of the script that Steve had given the captain, and the captain said, "Oh my, oh my G.o.d, I don"t remember, I have cookies, cookies." of cookies?" This was not part of the script that Steve had given the captain, and the captain said, "Oh my, oh my G.o.d, I don"t remember, I have cookies, cookies."
Steve said, "Do you have Oreos?"
"Oh, yes, yes, we have Oreos, all of the Oreos you want."
"OK, then," Steve said. "I like Oreos."
"Me too," the captain said, and our secret refueling was under way.
After we"d taken on fuel, we made for Borneo, and as we shot through the dark night, the men at work, the waves rolling under us, I was possessed of a deep sense of happiness.
I had twenty-one good men racing two special operations boats across the sea at night destined for a port where no special operations craft had ever been before, and we were at the beginning of a groundbreaking transit the likes of which had never been attempted. My closest boss was nearly three thousand nautical miles away.
I leaned over to talk with my navigator and we checked our actual location against the course we had plotted. We were right on course, right on time. But as we flew I was thinking about more than just our speed, our location, our communications, and our plan. I was also thinking about my team, and most importantly, my guys" state of mind.
We had a great journey ahead of us, but we had also just overcome what was-certainly for me-the most difficult challenge of the deployment. Our first operation had been in Thailand, where we had partic.i.p.ated in one of the largest military exercises in Southeast Asia with our Thai counterparts.
Thailand is a gorgeous country with white beaches and mountains overrun by green foliage. In Thailand, I visited humble stone temples paying homage to the Buddha, and intricate temples built by Thailand"s royalty that housed giant golden statues. Sitting ringside in a packed Bangkok arena, I watched a Muay Thai fight, and on days off, I encouraged my crew to see as much of the country as they could.
One free Sat.u.r.day, Kaj La.r.s.en and I planned an elephant trek in the Thai jungle. Kaj and I had been through BUD/S; Jump School; Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape school; and SEAL Qualification Training together. He was a fellow lieutenant (jg-junior grade), a fellow SEAL, and the commander of a RHIB detachment with eight guys and two eleven-meter boats. Their primary mission was to conduct boarding missions of other craft at sea. Kaj and I had sweated through more than three years of swims, jumps, dives, and all-night operations together, and we were good friends. We boarded a tourist van on our way to the elephant trek, and a few miles in, Kaj turned to me and said, "So, I"ve got a heavy one for you, brother."
"What is it?"
Kaj explained that two of his guys had woken him that morning and asked to speak with him. "They told me that last night, they"re out in town, and they see Calvin."
"Calvin, the SEAL lieutenant?"
"Yeah, Stuart Calvin, and his eyes are wildly dilated, and they say something to him like, "Dude, your eyes are blown" and Calvin flips out on "em, tells "em, "What the f.u.c.k are you, some kind of master-at-arms?" And Calvin tells "em to "stay the f.u.c.k away." Later, they"re in the bathroom, and they see Calvin come in with two other guys in his SEAL platoon. Calvin has a baggie and Calvin and his guys walk together into one of the stalls. Then Calvin orders this new SEAL in his platoon to hold security on the door."
"What was in the baggie?"
"They don"t know. They think it was ecstasy, or some drug, this stuff called Special K."
"What"d you tell your guys?"
"I told "em that I"d talk with you, and then let "em know what we"re going to do about it."
Kaj"s men knew me and trusted me, and as the elephant-trek van bounced over dirt roads, I called them on my cell phone and his men relayed their story to me exactly as Kaj had told it to me.
Kaj said, "What do you think?"
I said, "We should p.i.s.s test everybody. Do urinalysis on the whole squadron. All of the SEAL platoons, all the boat detachments. Anybody who"s doing drugs"ll pop positive, and we"ll get rid of "em. Any other way, and this"ll just become a bunch of accusations flying back and forth about what some guys saw in a club."
Kaj called his men. "Guys, we"re going to ask for a urinalysis of the entire squadron. Mr. G and I"ll be back soon and we"ll talk more then. You guys are doing the right thing."
As Kaj and I made a plan, his cell phone rang again, and I could see the worry on Kaj"s face as he listened. He hung up the phone and said, "I hate to tell you this, brother, but my guys said, "We just want you to know, that if you do a squadron-wide urinalysis, the Mark V guys might not come out so well.""
There wasn"t just a drug problem somewhere in Naval Special Warfare; there was a drug problem in my detachment. I told Kaj, "Tell "em that we"re going to do a squadron-wide urinalysis, and tell them that I"m going to start an investigation into my detachment."
A few minutes later Kaj"s men called back again and they told Kaj that one of his men "thinks that someone might have slipped something into one of his drinks."
"OK," Kaj said, "we"ll talk about this when I get back." It just got uglier. Now Kaj knew that he had a drug problem in his detachment as well.
Kaj and I asked the van driver if he could drive us back to the hotel, but the driver had other stops to make. We discussed having our guys drive out to pick us up, but then we would have to explain to all of the men why we"d suddenly bailed on our outing. We wanted to put a plan together first. We climbed aboard the elephant.
As the elephant thudded through the jungle and we ducked overhanging branches, Kaj and I made calls to Bangkok, to Pattaya, to San Diego. Occasionally the elephant curled its trunk over its head and we fed it a banana, both of us on our cell phones.
It remains my most surreal moment in the United States military, this crisis aboard the banana-eating elephant. I thought briefly of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who marched war elephants through the Alps at the beginning of the Second Punic War. Did Hannibal feel this ridiculous?
It was a liberty day, and when we made it back to the task unit, we found that most of the men were gone. The next morning, we put our crews on lockdown. Kaj, Chief MacIntyre, two other chiefs, my maintenance officer, and I set up a row of chairs in the common room of one of the hotel buildings. We set out paper and pens to take notes.
I said to Kaj, "You ready for this?"
"I f.u.c.king hate that we have to do this. But let"s go." We called our men in one by one.
One of the young men in my detachment stepped through the common room door with a big smile on his face-he thought he was about to be briefed about an upcoming operation-and when he saw the line of stern-looking chiefs and officers seated before him, he lost his smile. As we asked him questions, his cheeks went white and his hands started to shake such that he set down the pen he was holding and held onto his thighs. We called in men that we loved, one after another, and we questioned them.
Later, back in San Diego, people would ask me if it was hard to do this: was it hard to investigate my own men, hard to take statements about the conduct of fellow SEALs? I said then, and feel now, that whether or not it was hard was not relevant. It was necessary. No matter how many people we might upset, no matter how many supposed friends we might lose, our duty was to protect our men, the men who were doing the right thing. We couldn"t have men using drugs and firing live ammunition, using drugs and executing complex operations, using drugs and representing the United States. We couldn"t have officers selling drugs to young enlisted men. All of this was as obvious then as it is now. It wasn"t hard. But when I had to call in front of me men whom I had worked with-some of them for over a year-and when I had to call in front of me men whom I had traded jokes with, whose families I knew, who had asked me to help them plan their careers and their educations-it was sad. I felt-and I know that others felt-deep disappointment that these men who had sweated with us through hours of lifesaving drills on the sun-beaten back decks of our Mark V on the open ocean, men who had shared food with us as we stayed up on all-night operations, men who fired live ammunition just feet from our bodies-it was with deep disappointment that we found that these men who had pa.s.sed so many tests with us, had failed this one.
By the end of the investigation, three of my men were kicked out of the Navy, one of Kaj"s men was kicked out of the Navy, several SEALs were kicked out of the Navy, and Calvin-the SEAL officer at the center of this fiasco who had been using ecstasy and cocaine and was selling drugs to young enlisted men-went to jail.
Kaj and I had to deal with a few idiots-like the SEAL lieutenant in the Philippines who told Kaj and me that we should have punished our guys who "ratted" about the drug use (that same lieutenant later asked us to lie to our commander about our missions and ended up receiving a letter of reprimand for his conduct). But in general, we received incredible support, and my chain of command had my back.
Every culture will encounter its problems. At the end of the day, the Naval Special Warfare values won out. The Navy SEAL Code says that we must "serve with honor and integrity on and off the battlefield."
Another line of the SEAL Code says, "Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of your teammates."4 Of the three men in my detachment who left the Navy, two were young men on their first deployment. I don"t believe that they would have ever sought drugs in Thailand. They were trying to find their way, trying to be warriors, trying to be men, and when they saw Calvin-a SEAL lieutenant whom they admired-using and selling drugs in Thailand, they both made a bad decision and they followed Calvin"s lead. Of the three men in my detachment who left the Navy, two were young men on their first deployment. I don"t believe that they would have ever sought drugs in Thailand. They were trying to find their way, trying to be warriors, trying to be men, and when they saw Calvin-a SEAL lieutenant whom they admired-using and selling drugs in Thailand, they both made a bad decision and they followed Calvin"s lead.
Before those two men left Thailand, I sat down with them. "You guys have made a serious mistake, and you"re going to suffer serious consequences for your decision. That"s the bad news. This is going to stay with you for the rest of your lives. The good news is that you can both decide how this is going to affect the rest of your lives. You have two options. One choice is to pretend that this isn"t your fault, to act like you"re a victim, to pretend that you were misunderstood, to pretend that you didn"t make the choices that you did make. If you do that, this decision is going to haunt you for the rest of your life. The other choice, the better choice, is to be honest about what happened here. Be honest with yourself and be honest with everyone else. If you"re honest about what happened here, this can be a mistake that you learn from, a mistake that you grow from. It doesn"t feel like it right now, but you can make this a source of strength for yourself." At the time they said, "Thank you." They said, "We"re sorry that we let everyone down." I shook their hands. As I walked back to my now-diminished crew, I wondered, Was there something more that I could have done, should have done to prevent this? Was there something more that I could have done, should have done to prevent this?
I"m still in touch with both men. They send me pictures of their just-born and smiling-in-the-backyard kids. We talk about their careers, their families, and as they"ve matured over the years, I"ve been pleased to recommend both of them for schools and for jobs. They put their bad decision behind them in a positive way and they found a way to move on. They both learned-and we all were reminded-that to be a warrior is as much a question of moral character as it is a question of physical courage.
My detachment and the Naval Special Warfare community also moved forward. My commander in San Diego sent men out from California to bring us back to full strength, and I intensified our physical training to build crew cohesion. I took a page from my Oxford boxing coach Henry Dean"s book, and we woke each morning before the sun, ran to a nearby hill, and, still shaking off yawns, sprinted as a pack through the gra.s.s to the top of the hill and down again. We attacked the hill again and then again and again and then we ran back to the pool on base and broke into two teams for a game of Bull SEAL, a rough form of water polo that threw the whole pool into a churn.
Riding now for Borneo, I felt like the men had left Thailand behind them and were focused on the immediate mission ahead, which was to conduct reconnaissance and serve as American amba.s.sadors of goodwill as we traveled throughout Southeast Asia.
En route to the Philippines, we were tasked to stop at a number of ports in Borneo, many of which had never before been host to an American naval vessel. We were part of a long American tradition of sending the Navy forward to act as one part war machine, one part diplomatic mission. Theodore Roosevelt had once said in a State of the Union address to Congress, "A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace."5 Malaysia and Indonesia both control parts of Borneo and both countries are important potential strategic partners of the United States. Combined, Malaysia and Indonesia are home to 263 million people.6 Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country on earth. And in 2001, 11.7 million barrels of oil per day and 40 percent of the world"s trade pa.s.sed through the Strait of Malacca, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country on earth. And in 2001, 11.7 million barrels of oil per day and 40 percent of the world"s trade pa.s.sed through the Strait of Malacca,7 where there"s a serious piracy problem. where there"s a serious piracy problem.8 We went to establish and build relationships. If you think of the complex drama of America"s strategic relationships in Southeast Asia as an intricate three-hour movie, our crew had only one line to say, but we wanted to say it well. We went to establish and build relationships. If you think of the complex drama of America"s strategic relationships in Southeast Asia as an intricate three-hour movie, our crew had only one line to say, but we wanted to say it well.
Our port stops included visits to crocodile farms and orangutan sanctuaries. We pulled into port to visit the Kingdom of Brunei, and after we met with the American amba.s.sador, we floated down the Brunei River in a wildly painted wooden taxi and saw the Istana Nurul Iman palace, home of the sultan of Brunei. We ate terong belado terong belado (spicy eggplant) and (spicy eggplant) and mei goreng mei goreng (fried noodles) at restaurants and we talked with locals. Growing up, we"d seen Navy commercials that promised us that sailors would get to see the world. As we walked through exotic cities and sampled the indigenous cuisine, I felt that the Navy was keeping its promise. Our ultimate destination, however, was a far less scenic spot. (fried noodles) at restaurants and we talked with locals. Growing up, we"d seen Navy commercials that promised us that sailors would get to see the world. As we walked through exotic cities and sampled the indigenous cuisine, I felt that the Navy was keeping its promise. Our ultimate destination, however, was a far less scenic spot.
When we pulled into Zamboanga, Philippines, we arrived at what was-in comparison to Iraq and Afghanistan-a little-known outpost in the Global War on Terror. On a Filipino base, the United States ran a small compound. The entire American footprint was probably no larger than half a football field, the compound hidden behind high walls piled with green sandbags and guarded by Marines. Inside, SEALs, SWCC, Marines, and Army Green Berets lived a spartan life. Four meals-breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midrats-were served every day. Men slept in bunk beds lined next to each other. At the center of the compound, basic benches and bars were set out on a concrete slab to make a gym. The routine was simple: wake to a watch alarm and eat a big breakfast of pancakes, sausage, toast, cereal, fruit. Work out at the weight pile for an hour, then head to the boats and prepare for the upcoming operation. Eat a big lunch of soup, meat, fruit, salad, then work again. Plan an operation, and then eat a big dinner.
As the sun fell, we would either head to the boats to conduct a night operation or spend another hour working out. Filipino families lived on the base outside our compound, and they usually disposed of their trash by burning it, and so the air was often full of smoke. Bits of plastic refuse floated down on us from above. The air was unsuitable for running, and as a result of the lift, eat, sleep routine, guys" shirts started to stretch as we each put on "Zamboanga prison muscle."
Todd Leclair, an Army Special Forces major and accomplished athlete, ran the American compound. Leclair was a graduate of SAMS-the Army"s School of Advanced Military Studies-where the Army sent some of it sharpest men and women to become expert war planners. Leclair was in charge of the wider mission in Zamboanga, which was to work with Filipino forces to disrupt and interdict terrorist organizations operating in the southern Philippines, especially those a.s.sociated with the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group.
In the 1980s the Mujahideen recruited Islamic men from around the world to join the fight against the Soviets. One of the young recruits was Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, a university-educated son of a Filipino ulema from the island of Basilan, located ten miles south of the Filipino mainland.9 After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Janjalani returned to the Philippines to continue his war. He gathered around him a group of young extremists and started the terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Janjalani returned to the Philippines to continue his war. He gathered around him a group of young extremists and started the terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf.
Abu Sayyaf launched grenade attacks against nuns, priests, and innocent civilians, among them American missionaries. Terrorists bombed Christian missionary ships and cathedrals. In its first four years, from 1991 to 1995, Abu Sayyaf murdered 136 people and injured hundreds more. After Janjalani died in a firefight with police in 1998,10 the group focused its energy on thuggish kidnappings and attention-grabbing media stunts. In one highly publicized kidnapping in 2000, they held international travelers for ransom and extracted $20 million from the Libyan government. the group focused its energy on thuggish kidnappings and attention-grabbing media stunts. In one highly publicized kidnapping in 2000, they held international travelers for ransom and extracted $20 million from the Libyan government.11 To spread terror, Abu Sayyaf also engaged in be-headings that were videotaped and later broadcast on Filipino TV. To spread terror, Abu Sayyaf also engaged in be-headings that were videotaped and later broadcast on Filipino TV.12 On May 27, 2001, a group of men from Abu Sayyaf raided Dos Palmas, an expensive resort in the Philippines. They kidnapped three Americans, including Gracia and Martin Burnham, a missionary couple from Rose Hill, Kansas. The leader of the raiding party-Aldam Tilao-had been involved in many of Abu Sayyaf"s killings and raids. Tilao was a showy figure who enjoyed taunting the government on the evening news, dressed in his trademark black do-rag and sungla.s.ses. Tilao threatened to kill his hostages unless he was paid a ransom.
On May 28, the Philippine president declared war on Abu Sayyaf and vowed to "finish what you [Abu Sayyaf] have started."13 Two weeks later, on June 11, Tilao made good on his threat and beheaded one of the hostages, Guillermo Sobero, a Peruvian American tourist. Despite the president"s bold claim, there was little that the government or the army could do. The FBI had already tried to pay a ransom of $300,000 for the couple, but the money was lost before it got into the hands of Abu Sayyaf. Two weeks later, on June 11, Tilao made good on his threat and beheaded one of the hostages, Guillermo Sobero, a Peruvian American tourist. Despite the president"s bold claim, there was little that the government or the army could do. The FBI had already tried to pay a ransom of $300,000 for the couple, but the money was lost before it got into the hands of Abu Sayyaf.14 In the dense jungles of Basilan, the Filipino Marines were having trouble tracking Tilao, and because the population of Basilan viewed Abu Sayyaf favorably and often provided Abu Sayyaf operatives with aid, it was difficult to gain any valuable human intelligence from anyone living on the island. In the dense jungles of Basilan, the Filipino Marines were having trouble tracking Tilao, and because the population of Basilan viewed Abu Sayyaf favorably and often provided Abu Sayyaf operatives with aid, it was difficult to gain any valuable human intelligence from anyone living on the island.
After September 11, 2001, the United States placed Abu Sayyaf on its list of terrorist organizations because of the group"s early connections to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Destroying Abu Sayyaf and rescuing the Burnhams became priority missions for the U.S. Navy and the CIA. With the help of a tracking device provided by the CIA, the Philippine Army was able to identify the general vicinity of Tilao as the location of the hostages, and they launched a mission to rescue the Burnhams. Although Gracia Burnham survived the firefight, Martin Burnham died and Tilao escaped into the jungle.15 The Filipino Marines knew, however, that soon Tilao would be making a run back to his home island. With the help of Navy SEALs stationed at Zamboanga, the Marines tagged Tilao"s boat with infrared sensors that could be tracked by plane. A raid was readied. The night before, four ships left from Zamboanga base. One was the "lure" boat, sent to pick Tilao up and draw him into the open water. Another boat was manned by Filipino Marines. The last two boats were manned by Navy SEALs and SWCC.16 Once Tilao"s boat was far enough away that his crew could not swim back to sh.o.r.e, the Filipino Marines gunned their engine, rushed the fishing boat, and crashed right through it. In the ensuing firefight, Tilao was killed. It was a critical blow to Abu Sayyaf. But as terrorist groups often do, Abu Sayyaf recruited new members and kept operating.
Abu Sayyaf was still our main local enemy in the area. The Americans had a good force of advisors at Zamboanga, but the Sulu Archipelago where Abu Sayyaf worked is a string of islands 215 nautical miles long. Without fast, agile boats to move through the islands, the American force was stuck on the mainland. With a range of 550+ nautical miles, the Mark Vs gave us the ability to project force and conduct missions throughout the entire Abu Sayyaf area of operations.
For us to be successful in defeating Abu Sayyaf, however, we needed more than fast boats. We had to build capable Filipino partners who could fight on their home turf for years to come. Our Filipino counterparts were Special Warfare personnel who had been trained by Navy SEALs. We first met their men on a sandy beach, and as the members of their team walked over to meet us, I was struck that the Fils walked with the same carriage as our men. Our counterparts" complexions were different and their camouflage was a different pattern. The Fils were smaller than our guys, and their a.s.sault gear, canteens, compa.s.ses, and backpacks were all older and more deeply worn than the gear we carried. Yet they had the same "fierce friendly" look and the same "relaxed ready" posture that made my men stand out in a crowd, even when they were sitting in a restaurant in civilian clothes. Some of the Fils had grown up in slums outside of Manila and some of my men had grown up on small farms in the American South, but we sat down together with the universal shared understanding of those who have been toughened in the world"s hardest schools.
On our first patrols, we took the Fil commandos with us to familiarize ourselves with the surrounding islands. Aboard the Mark Vs, the engines at a low rumble, we crept past a row of thatched bamboo huts, some patched up with corrugated boards and pastel-colored walls, seemingly tottering on their stilts. The fishermen retired here in the evening after a day of pulling in nets. Dogs ran over the bamboo planks of the pier, stopping occasionally to be petted by the local children. Throughout the Philippines, 43 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.17 Here in the southern islands, poverty was even more widespread. We took photographs of areas of interest-a squat home, for example, with a bundle of antennas emerging from it-a freshly built pier near a newly built mosque. We tuned our equipment to collect signals intelligence, and we asked our Filipino counterparts to tell us about the habits and life patterns of those who lived in these villages. Here in the southern islands, poverty was even more widespread. We took photographs of areas of interest-a squat home, for example, with a bundle of antennas emerging from it-a freshly built pier near a newly built mosque. We tuned our equipment to collect signals intelligence, and we asked our Filipino counterparts to tell us about the habits and life patterns of those who lived in these villages.
The draft of the Mark V was only five feet, but our jet engines pulled water from even deeper, and so as we crept past the villages and the shade of the water shifted to light blue, I kept a close eye on our depth. I was reminded of the coastline of Cambodia. There, too, boys gathered in the shallow sea to collect nets, small cl.u.s.ters of homes made a fishing village near the water"s edge, and people still suffered, some of them visibly, from the effects of war.
After a few patrols, it was obvious that the Mark V, while well armed, fast, and with excellent range, was far too conspicuous-even at night-to do some of the close reconnaissance that was required here.
The Fils" boat also had its problems. The Fils had captured from smugglers a fifteen-foot flat-bottomed wooden boat rigged with two huge motors. The boat had a red mouth and sharp white teeth painted on both sides of the bow. The Fils called the boat the Shark, but the only menacing thing about it was its name. The boat had a short range, and if the sea was rough, it became hard to handle.
If we were going to conduct close, quality reconnaissance, we had to find another platform. Even our Zodiacs, black and small as they were, cut an unusual profile in the water. We needed to blend in.
I remembered from my time in Cambodia that local fishermen often used small boats in shallow water to fish off the coast at night. We asked our Fil counterparts about the fishing patterns here, and they confirmed that the Fil fishermen did the same. We purchased a few local bangka boats. They were simple wooden boats built like narrow canoes with an outrigger. They had small motors and were typically used by one Filipino man to fish close to home. The boats were often painted zany yellows and greens and purples and turquoise, and at night, dozens of the boats lingered off the coast as men fished, or-as we often saw through our night-vision goggles-napped.
One of the enduring qualities of Naval Special Warfare warriors is creativity. We are taught tactics, but more than tactics, we are taught how to adapt our tactics and take advantage of opportunities to complete our mission. When the instructors yelled "Drop!" we had to drop. But when they were holding a fire hose and the compound was filled with smoke and the night was dark and they yelled "Drop!" we kept running.
The men went to work. We outfitted a few wildly painted bangka boats with GPS units, radios, weapons, and strobe lights. The SWCC operators jumped in the boats and gunned the motors and they learned how the boats handled in the choppy waters just off the coast. We drove the Mark Vs out to sea and practiced launching and recovering the bangkas from the back deck of the Mark V.
I went on the back deck and talked to Kaj.
"We"re all clear, bro. Let"s launch your team."
Kaj"s men stepped into the bangka boats and made a final radio check.
"Calisto, this is this is Dolphin, Dolphin, radio check, over." radio check, over."
"Dolphin, Calisto, I read you loud and clear, how about me, over?" I read you loud and clear, how about me, over?"
"Calisto, I have you same. I have you same. Dolphin Dolphin out." out."
A group of us bent and grabbed the wooden gunwales of the bangka boats.
"Ready, one, two," and at "three" we pushed all at once and the bangka boats slipped off the back deck and into the sea. They lit their infrared strobes and we watched on night vision as two Filipino fishermen made their way for the coast. On the deck, the Mark V guns were loaded and men sat ready to push the throttle forward if our guys got in trouble.
The night of our first mission, we launched the Mark Vs from the pier. Our bangka boats launched later from the beach, and we rendezvoused at sea and brought the bangkas onto our back deck and motored calmly through the night, our ships a black ma.s.s gliding quietly over a black sea. The back-deck chief scanned the waves using night vision, and our navigator studied the radar. Armed with cameras, our operators were able to conduct close reconnaissance of several areas of interest.
Slowly, like a family sitting down to snap together a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, we gained a clearer picture of our area of operations. We shared our intelligence with our Filipino counterparts, and after several patient weeks, the Filipino forces decided to launch an a.s.sault on Jolo Island in the hopes of capturing the remaining Abu Sayyaf terrorists.
The morning of the operation, we pulled away from the pier before sunrise and drove south. The Fil Marines were going to a.s.sault a suspected terrorist compound of huts and houses on the island. Abu Sayyaf had a history of running from trouble via motorboat, and our role in the operation was to cut off any of the Abu Sayyaf gang that tried to flee while the Marines pressed their attack. We set up off the coast and listened to the progress of the operation over the radio as the Marines made movement to contact. We then had to engage in what is one of the most difficult of military disciplines: wait at the ready.
It was a peaceful day. The sun rose and reflected off the sea. We bobbed in our boats. We listened to the crackle of the radio. The day grew hot and we sweated through our brown T-shirts. We drank from our canteens. We ate MREs. A boat might make a run at any minute, but besides keeping an alert lookout, there was little to do. We checked our weapons again. Checked our radios again. We checked the position of our sister ship. Then we heard more calls come over the radio.
"Nothing here."
"They are gone."
The Marines had spent a day walking through the jungle of Basilan in a state of high tension. And then, when they hit the compound, they found nothing.
We turned our bows north and gunned our engines back for Zamboanga.
That night, the men in my detachment refueled our boats, and we cleaned our weapons. We stowed our charts and checked the batteries in our flashlights. We went to sleep ready to start again the next morning-or-if we were called-in the middle of that very night.
Abu Sayyaf had been on the run for two years, unable to threaten Americans or our allies, and we were going to keep it that way. The men in my detachment would have preferred a standup fight, but if Abu Sayyaf was going to hide, then we would seek-day after day-methodically, creatively. We"d become smarter every day. We"d guard and protect. We"d serve with strength and honor, and when it was time for us to go home, another group of Americans and our Filipino allies would take our place. We"d exercise bravery when called on and perseverance every day. The line would remain unbroken and we would win.
14. Kenya
IT MAY SEEM OBVIOUS, but it is often forgotten that our greatest victories come when we exercise enough courage, intelligence, and discipline to win battles without ever having to fight. In but it is often forgotten that our greatest victories come when we exercise enough courage, intelligence, and discipline to win battles without ever having to fight. In The Art of War, The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy"s resistance without fighting." Sun Tzu wrote, "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy"s resistance without fighting."1 The best preparation for battle will sometimes mean that we do not have to use force at all. I learned this lesson during a deployment to Kenya. The best preparation for battle will sometimes mean that we do not have to use force at all. I learned this lesson during a deployment to Kenya.
Upon arrival, we drove in a convoy of sport utility vehicles and flew north on the B8 highway from the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa to remote Manda Bay. There, we had a small base at an important strategic location in northern Kenya, just south of the border with Somalia. Our drivers were members of the Guam Army National Guard, who drove with sungla.s.ses over their eyes, a rifle at their side, and their foot on the gas; they served as a security taskforce for the base. We drove single file on the dirt road, following in the wide wake of each other"s dust. Manda Bay, I learned, was a place remote enough that when I told Kenyans in Nairobi or Mombasa where I was going, they raised their eyebrows. I was curious about what I"d find there.
As we approached a village, the man in the pa.s.senger seat turned to me and said, "Hey, LT, the people in this village hate us; check out how they look at us." Kids dressed in ragged shirts and shorts-sticks in their hand-stopped, stood, and stared at our convoy. Goats ran away in a bleating pack. Adults in the village stood from their work, turned, and looked at us with hard eyes.
"LT, remember when those guys bombed the emba.s.sy?" He pointed out the window. "Intel said that they stayed in that village on their way through. Kenya"s mostly Christian, but there are Muslims all up and down the coast, and in these villages they don"t like Americans."
I"d been in Kenya ten years earlier on my way to Rwanda, and it might have been my earlier nonmilitary experience in the country, but when I looked at the villagers looking at us, I didn"t see terrorist sympathizers. I saw angry parents. We had our windows rolled up, sungla.s.ses on, rifles in our hands, and we were driving dangerously fast through a village full of goats and children. I was new, though, just arrived. These men had been here for months, and so I kept quiet.
I had arrived as the new commander of Naval Special Warfare Task Unit Manda Bay. I had been sent to relieve the previous commander, who had damaged relations with the local leaders, the Kenyan Navy, and his own men. My mission was to serve as commander of the operational task unit and also as base commander. I would be responsible for U.S. and Kenyan relations on the base, and I would learn a lot about how to be an ally and a friend there.
In 1998 two men drove a truck bomb to the gate of the parking garage under the U.S. emba.s.sy in Nairobi. The pa.s.senger jumped out of the truck, threw a grenade at the guard, and ran. The guard survived, the gate remained down, and when the terrorist driver saw the guard radio for backup, he realized that he would not be able to drive into the garage. Instead, he drove as close to the U.S. emba.s.sy building as he could and pressed the trigger.2 Two tons of explosives ripped apart a seven-story building next to the emba.s.sy, leaving only a pile of rubble and billowing smoke. All the windows of the Cooperative Bank House-a twenty-two-story structure a block away from the emba.s.sy-were shattered, as were the windows of other buildings as far as ten blocks away. Gla.s.s littered the streets. The emba.s.sy-built and used by the Israelis, who were accustomed to bombing attacks-withstood the blast and no one inside died.3 In all, 224 people died in the bombing (including 12 Americans) and an estimated 5,000 people were injured. In all, 224 people died in the bombing (including 12 Americans) and an estimated 5,000 people were injured.4 In 2005 we continued to receive reports of terrorist activity in Kenya, much of it a.s.sociated with the country"s neighbor to the north, Somalia. Ever since the collapse of the Somali dictatorship in 1991, Somalia had existed in what political scientists called the "closest thing to anarchy" in the modern age of nation-states. Warlords fought fiercely over territory, and their clashes caused 350,000 people to die of starvation and disease.5 When the international community tried to ship food aid to the Somalis, warlords stole 80 percent of the aid and traded it for weapons. When the international community tried to ship food aid to the Somalis, warlords stole 80 percent of the aid and traded it for weapons.6 The United States provided military and technical support that drastically reduced ma.s.s starvation, but when the local warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid killed twenty-four Pakistani peacekeepers, the U.S. role changed from peacekeeping to hunting down Aidid. It led directly to the "Black Hawk Down" incident in 1993, when local militia shot down a U.S. helicopter, leading to a seventeen-hour firefight during which eighteen soldiers and hundreds of Somalis were killed. The United States provided military and technical support that drastically reduced ma.s.s starvation, but when the local warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid killed twenty-four Pakistani peacekeepers, the U.S. role changed from peacekeeping to hunting down Aidid. It led directly to the "Black Hawk Down" incident in 1993, when local militia shot down a U.S. helicopter, leading to a seventeen-hour firefight during which eighteen soldiers and hundreds of Somalis were killed.
The suffering of Somalis remained severe. The country was still ruled at the local level by warlords who fought over scarce resources and terrorized local populations. Four hundred thousand people were still displaced and living in overcrowded and unsanitary refugee camps.7 Some foreign aid workers had been killed and many others driven out, and a severe drought created the lowest crop harvest in a decade. To the extent that it was possible to collect any reliable data, it seemed that 43 percent of the population lived below the Some foreign aid workers had been killed and many others driven out, and a severe drought created the lowest crop harvest in a decade. To the extent that it was possible to collect any reliable data, it seemed that 43 percent of the population lived below the extreme extreme poverty line. poverty line.8 Somalis needed food aid more than ever, but pirates continued to raid these shipments, creating the lowest levels of food aid stocks in five years. The problem of piracy was so severe that in 2005, the World Food Programme, the UN"s food aid branch, switched to transporting goods overland instead of by sea, despite the 25 to 30 percent increase in costs.9 With the history of terrorism in Kenya, instability to the north in Somalia, and piracy at sea, Manda Bay was an important outpost in the wider struggle against terrorism. Our American compound stood on the campus of a large Kenyan naval base. Our grounds were probably no larger than two football fields. We would later name the base Camp Simba, after the young hero in the Disney animated film The Lion King, The Lion King, because we thought of ourselves as small but ambitious. The chain of command told us, however, that "Camp Simba" wasn"t a tough enough name, so after that we just called the base Camp Lion. because we thought of ourselves as small but ambitious. The chain of command told us, however, that "Camp Simba" wasn"t a tough enough name, so after that we just called the base Camp Lion.
As I stepped onto our base, a dozen baboons rushed into the tree line. Our compound was centered around a small house that had once been in shambles-broken roof, smashed walls, trees growing through the floor-but was now, after several deployments of special warfare personnel, structurally sound with a new red roof and a fresh coat of white paint. Inside the house we had a closetful of MREs, a room for treating medical casualties, and a small cramped office loaded with desks and computers and radios.
Surrounding the main house stood five khaki-colored, ten-man tents that hummed with small air-conditioning units used to keep them cool at night. Our camp dog, Basa-short for Mombasa, the port city where we picked up supplies-had been a sick, wounded stray. The guys nursed him back to health, and he was now a vigorous thirty-pound mutt whose self-appointed mission was to deter baboons from stealing our MREs. Basa would bark and run at the baboons when they approached our camp, but the baboons didn"t fear Basa; one time I even saw a male baboon pick the dog up and toss him two feet through the air. Hippos cooled in a watering hole down the road.
We were a joint special operations task unit, "joint" because we had Army, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel, and "special operations" because the fighting portion of our unit was mostly Navy SWCC operators, who conducted operations with RHIBs, jet-ski-like vehicles, and indigenous craft, while also running a training school for Kenyan special forces personnel. The mission in Kenya, much like the mission in the Philippines, was to work with, by, and through local Kenyan forces to conduct counterterror training and operations.
In places like the Philippines, and here in Kenya, we aimed to build relationships of goodwill and mutual advantage. We needed to be prepared for a gunfight, but we expected to have few outright battles with terrorists. Our objective was to create positions of strength and to acc.u.mulate advantages that would help us defeat terrorists if they surfaced, hunt them if they were hiding, and minimize their ability to recruit others to their cause.