Spirit of Adventure: Eagle Scouts and the Making of America's Future - Hardcover

Chapter One

Seals

 

Hours after American aircraft crossed into Iraq to begin the Second Gulf War, four gray Mark V jet boats skimmed across the Persian Gulf toward their target: the Mina- Al- Bakr Oil Terminal, a floating behemoth whose miles of twisting, metal piping carry a vast majority of Iraq’s total oil exports. Almost no other target had greater value and importance for the country’s future and well-being.

 

On board the Mark Vs, two platoons of elite Navy SEALs endured the constant jarring of waves and rechecked their gear. Their minds focused on their mission. Orders directed them to secure the oil platform and stop Saddam Hussein’s forces from creating an environmental and financial catastrophe by sabotaging miles of pipelines. Blowing the pipes would send thousands of barrels of oil cascading into the Gulf, suffocating marine life and crippling Iraq’s ability to recover economically after Saddam Hussein’s regime fell.

 

By the time the SEALs neared the terminal, darkness had settled over the sea.

 

"It was a beautiful night," Petty Officer Robert Sterling remembered. "Awesome night, no moon, and a beautifully lit target."

 

The night’s beauty did nothing to lessen the seriousness of Rob’s mission or calm his nerves. "Deep down inside, going into combat, everyone is nervous," he confided. "Anyone who isn’t nervous, isn’t really serious. Anyone who tells you they’re not scared has become complacent and forgotten the little things. There’s not an op I’ve been on where the hairs on the back of my neck didn’t stand up. On this op, the war had basically started early. We were supposed to be the first strike, but the air war had already opened. So we’re thinking, ‘Great, they’ll be waiting for us.’ We may get on final approach and get blown out of the water. Or what if the intel was wrong? Or a million other things that could go wrong. Every guy has a scenario running through his head— all different— but every guy is thinking about something."

 

The SEALs geared up on the Mark Vs, adding more than one hundred pounds to their weight in body armor, gear, and ammunition. Then they transferred to the smaller RHIBs (rigid- hulled inflatable boats) and went quiet. "Once you’re in that boat, there’s silence," Rob said. "There’s no turning back and everybody knows it. You flip the serious switch and rely on training and rehearsals and everything prior to."

 

Two boats, each carrying a squad of combat-ready frogmen with blackened faces, crept stealthily toward the towering platform, moving from the dark sea into the area illuminated by the rig’s lights. "We motored in, nice and quiet," Rob explained. "We didn’t see anything, and there was a ladder that came down to the water’s surface. I was number-one man, and I stepped onto the ladder, and moved right on up."

 

Petty Officer Sterling and those behind him remained silent as they pushed their way through the platform’s corridors and rooms, not knowing what lay behind each door. The United States was at war. Her enemies would shoot to kill. The SEALs ascended another flight of stairs, opened a door, and surprised their first Iraqi soldier.

 

"He immediately put his hands in the air and we told him to get down quietly and he did," said Rob. The SEALs bound the soldier’s hands and feet then moved stealthily into the next room. They found twenty soldiers staring at them. The sight of the battle-ready American soldiers alone proved enough for the Iraqis to throw their hands skyward. The soldiers’ cries and pleas intermingled with the SEALs’ shouts until Rob’s team established calm. They began interrogating the leaders and learned that Saddam Hussein’s government had paid them handsomely to blow up the platform and themselves along with it. Rob noted that the soldiers had carried the money with them, instead of sending it home to their families— a good sign they had little intention of sacrificing themselves. That said, Rob observed crates and crates of TNT and plastic explosives rigged to rip apart the platform. "The charges would have definitely blown all the pipes open," he observed. "Maybe collapsed the whole rig. Disaster."

 

Rob’s two teams cleared the entire structure, five kilometers of decking in all. Thankfully, neither side sustained casualties. The team secured the platform for the inbound Marines who would soon take over; new missions elsewhere demanded the special abilities of the SEALs.

 

"All that ties right back to this surf," Rob said as we stood together in La Jolla, California, a coastal village a thousand miles west of Philmont. The sun had just sunk into the Pacific Ocean, dragging the day’s remaining warmth with it. The Pacific surf crashed onto the darkening rocks below and sent a frigid mist up to where we stood.

 

"That story happened on the other side of the world, but it all relates to our training here in San Diego," the thirty-one-ear-old Eagle Scout observed, unfazed by the spray. "Sitting around in Kuwait waiting to go, people get sick of each other. That’s going to happen with a bunch of alpha males like us. But what’s funny is that when it’s time to work, we revert right back to training. It’s like being back in BUD/S—that’s our SEAL training program.

 

"When you’re on a mission, everything you went through in training—paddling, Hell Week, running with a boat on your head—it all comes back to you. You put differences aside. Everybody is there for each other. Whatever disagreements were, they’re put aside and once the task is done and over with, you don’t even remember what those issues were."

 

Rob smiled, noticing my reaction to the chill. "In BUD/S we got real used to this," he recalled, surveying the rocks below the low bluff where we stood. "We’d be in camies, and they’d run us out into the surf and we’d tread water until we were about frozen. Then, being merciful, our instructors would call us out of the water . . . and then tell us to roll around in the sand! We’d be shivering, exhausted, and entirely caked with grit and sand. We basically spent an entire month like that. It definitely changes your impression of Imperial Beach!"

 

Later, I arrived at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, which borders Imperial Beach, California, and houses active SEAL Teams One, Three, Five, and Seven. It also hosts hundreds of confident SEAL candidates each year. Of the hundreds that report for training, however, only one out of every three successfully endures the notorious thirty- week program. Along the Grinder, the bleak courtyard that serves as the center of SEAL candidates’ regimented training, a line of helmets confirmed the statistic. Nearly forty green helmets lined the pavement’s edge, each placed there by a sailor who had left the current class of candidates. Near the helmets hung an unassuming silver bell, rung by each candidate who withdrew.

 

On the morning I arrived, I found the Grinder empty and quiet. If I hadn’t known the feats of endurance it saw daily, I might have co