Navy SEAL Dogs by Mike Ritland Read Free Book Online Page A

these training exercises often, but when we found out that an upcoming mission would actually involve this kind of work, the training took on a new sense of urgency and importance for each of us.
    Six weeks prior to the onset of the ground warfare, we learned that we were being tasked with taking over two oil terminals in the Persian Gulf. This was going to be my first big mission. Because of the restrictions against Iraq put in place by the international community, these two oil terminals had taken on strategic importance. They were a bit dilapidated, but because of where they were, the Iraqis had used them increasingly to smuggle oil out of the country to sell it. Their supertankers would pull up and then sneak out again loaded with crude oil. The oil ran through two 48-inch pipelines placed along the floor of the Persian Gulf, and the two oil rigs were pumping millions of barrels of oil. The U.S. military’s concern was that, because the Iraqi regime suspected that the country would soon be invaded, they would blow up the pipelines to prevent their enemies from using the oil and also create a huge environmental disaster and distraction. They would blame us for the resulting explosions, fire, and oil spill and make us look like the bad guys.
    We also had some intelligence information that the platforms were rigged with explosives and that the Iraqis were going to blow them up as soon as we got on board. At one point we heard that there were over a hundred Iraqi Republican Guards stationed on the rigs and that they were going to stand and die fighting us if we came and tried to take over the platforms.
    So it was pretty harrowing, because we had thirty-two guys in a couple of small RHIBs that we were going to ride in on and assault this target. If the intelligence was correct, we were going to be pretty badly outnumbered in one of the best-case scenarios. In the worst-case scenario …
    Even without knowing all of that, we would have taken our training seriously, but we took it up a few notches. We actually built an exact replica of those platforms, which were separated by several miles of open water. Then we practiced and practiced a coordinated assault on them both, along with a metering station and pipeline manifold many miles away from those two rigs. We had three big targets in all to neutralize at the same time. We figured that the Iraqis would have a communications system in place that would allow them to notify each location to detonate any explosives placed at all three if there was any slipup in the timing on our end.
    This mission was, at this point in time, the largest operation in the history of NSW. All of my team—SEAL Team Three—and all eight SEAL platoons were assigned to take down these targets simultaneously. To put it mildly, this mission was a huge logistical nightmare. If we pulled it off, it would be a spectacular success. If we didn’t, it would be a spectacular disaster.
    The targets were enormous, each nearly a mile long with a docking station at one end and with smaller substations running the length of it—all places where Iraqi soldiers could be hiding out. We knew the place was manned, but we didn’t know the exact numbers. I can’t tell you how many times we rehearsed that operation, but people learn how to perform through repetition. Overrepetition doesn’t exist. We had multiple scenarios, some of which included using two helicopters to aid in the assault. Mentally going over and over the list of what-ifs, and what-to-dos in case those what-ifs occurred, became my waking and sleeping reality.
    By the time we set out from a naval base in Kuwait in our heavily armed Mark V boats, I was superexcited and definitely ready—our training couldn’t have been any more thorough. Thanks to the superior firepower and cruising speed of the Mark V boats, we made the journey to the RHIB transfer point in two hours.
    I was part of the team that stormed one of the