Horological Meandering

We didn't have reason to get into the higher regions of supersonic flight when we were flying missions at our home base in the US. In Spain, however, an opportunity arose where we were asked to take our F-104s out to the maximum velocity of Mach 2. The controllers wanted to know what kind of turn radius our airplanes carved out at that speed. We told them it would be around a ten-mile radius according to the F-104 charts, but they wanted us to have some practice at it. I had not been out to Mach 2, so I really looked forward to my flight.

Roy Blakely was assigned as the target. Poor guy, he just hated that. As I rolled into his 6 o’clock position, twenty miles behind him, I was accelerating rapidly in full afterburner. By the time I closed to ten miles I was at Mach 2. My head was buried in the cockpit, concentrating on the radar display. I did not try to get a visual on him at that point, but I could see him on my radar and the closing speed was much faster than I had anticipated. 

As I reached Mach 2, I was a bit “behind the airplane.” I had been concentrating on keeping Roy centered on my radar screen and was mesmerized at how fast I was catching up to him. I did not realize that I had suddenly shot right through the F-104’s maximum Mach number. As I glanced at the Mach meter, I had already accelerated to Mach 2.25, and was still on a roll! (After I got on the ground and had access to my E6-B computer, I figured that I had topped out just a tad shy of 1500 mph.) 

The second I came out of afterburner and pulled the throttle back, I realized how much drag I was overcoming going that fast with all four stages of afterburner ignited. I was thrown violently forward against my shoulder straps. Fortunately, the harness reel locked like it was designed to do, otherwise my head would have probably buried itself on the glare shield. At Mach 2 it only takes 40 seconds to go ten miles. Just like Superman, I was, for a short period of time, faster than a speeding bullet…at least from a handgun. 

At the last second I looked up, and had to make an abrupt course correction to keep from flying up Roy’s tailpipe. I blew by him about 50 yards off his port side. He said that the shockwave was tremendous, flipping him over on his back. I had the feeling that if I had not come out of afterburner my aircraft would have kept accelerating until it came apart; either that, or the engine would have burned up. The F-104 had a small, red warning light that would tell us if the engine was getting too hot, but it never came on.

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Although I had three rotations over to Spain, I only flew an airplane back to the States one time. When we did fly our birds home, we would take as much contraband with us as we could afford. Not surprisingly, most of what we brought back was booze. Toward the end of our three-month rotation a couple of our guys would take orders from the rest of the squadron and then drive down to Gibraltar fill the orders. I think they purchased it from the British Navy store; for some reason it was a very good bargain. A fifth of Beefeaters gin was only ninety-five cents at Gib’. With a price like that, how could you not drink, right? At least that was our thinking at the time. Such folly!

At some point an unknown pilot had purchased a used Mercedes Benz 300, leaving it there for all three squadrons to use as they rotated in and out of Morón. It was called the “squadron automobile” and was sufficiently capacious to haul a huge cache of hooch. Once back at Morón, we would take our stash to the plane we were assigned to fly home and load it into places that no customs inspector would ever find.  Back at base, one of the crew chiefs would meet us on the flight line after dark and unload the plane. It was understood that he would be gifted a couple of our treasures for the effort.

A brand of perfume, Maja, was made in southern Spain. I decided it would be nice to bring home one of their largest bottles for my sister Joan. I wrapped masking tape around the neck, put it in my B-4 bag, and put the bag in its place in the unpressurized electronics bay behind the cockpit. With sea level air pressure trapped in the bottle, the liquid was really anxious to get out in the rarified air at our cruising altitude….which it did. Unfortunately for me and the aircraft crew chief, the bottle somehow ended up being stored mostly upside down inside my bag. Very unfortunate!

The alcohol in the perfume eventually ate away at the tape (I should have known that would happen!) and out poured an entire economy-size bottle of Maja perfume. I think about half of it leaked into my personal effects and the other half dripped into the bottom of the electronics bay. Not only did it stink up my clothes and B-4 bag, but that was the sweetest smelling F-104 to ever come off Lockheed Aircraft's assembly line! For months after our return, every time the mechanic would open the electronics bay the scent of Spanish perfume would waft out of the innards across the flight line. The poor crew chief took the brunt of this error in my judgment. The other crew chiefs would walk by his plane, saying something like “How is your airplane today, sweets?” 

And a story or two from Derrick

In addition to being a retired Navy SEAL Senior Chief, I am also a former paramedic and a man of faith. I have starred in a major motion picture and am an author and poet. I have traveled the world several times, mostly with a gun. I can tell a joke and cook an animal I harvested, over a fire that I started. I hate thieves. I know how to sew and play cards, but I don’t gamble. I open doors for all people, use good manners, and can arrange flowers. I have been knocked out fighting and have knocked other men out. I do not respect positional authority and encourage others not to. I am a fan of human rights and have risked my life defending them. 

Of all the things I mentioned above, I guess that the one you are most interested in is the Navy SEAL bit. I make this assumption because I can’t remember the last time someone asked me how to cook a squirrel or make a centerpiece for the dinner table, but people ask me about being a SEAL almost every day. There is a natural curiosity surrounding my former profession and a ton of books that have been written by and about us lately. This may be a work worth mentioning or a fart in the wind; only time will tell. 

How To Sew

You may be asking why a Navy SEAL should be qualified to tell you how to sew. The reason is, prior to September 11, 2001 and a drastic increase in the budget, SEALs had to make a lot of their own equipment. In each SEAL Team there is a “para loft,” which means a parachuting loft used for packing and repairing parachutes. Inside this space there are large industrial sewing machines. We used to sit around with our equipment and try to figure out how to make it better. Once we figured something out, we would either manufacture the pouches for rifle magazines, or radios, or medical equipment, or other ideas. Then, we'd figure out how to sew them onto our load-bearing vests in order to be able to carry the maximum amount of equipment with the greatest amount of comfort.

A lot of this went by the wayside with the advent of several different companies that manufacture pre-made equipment. In a way, I'm glad that this happened because you no longer have to spend time in the para loft, but, as an older guy, I'm also a little bit unhappy at the same time. By sewing and working on our own equipment, I think it helped all of us achieve a better understanding of the construction and function. We knew everything inside and out, because, in fact, we had manufactured it from the inside out. 

There are many garments that can be repaired by basic sewing, but one in particular that SEALs never need to worry about is underwear. You may have heard the term "going commando," and this is exactly what it means. However, SEALs weren't the original commandos, so I don't know where this phrase came from. Anyway, most SEALs don't wear underwear. That's just a fact. For us in particular, since we are in the sand so often, if we wore underwear it would chafe the skin and nether regions. 

During one particular training mission, while we were conducting Military Operations in Urban Terrain or (MOUNT) operations, we were in a gunfight at night with the Opposition Force (OPFOR), and it was time for me to run across the street. It was dark, and I was not wearing night vision goggles, so I didn’t spot the single strand of barbed wire that had been stretched across the street and ran into it right at crotch level. I figured since I was a hairy-chested freedom fighter, that I should be able to power through it. I made it about ten feet, stretching this thing tight like a rubber band, until finally I couldn't move any longer, and it shot me backward. I skidded on my ass across the street, just like you would see in a cartoon. Although it was embarrassing, what was most disconcerting was that the barbed wire had caught my pants, and ripped the entire front from my belt to about midway down my thigh.

As this was SEAL training and not a little league game, I didn’t get to call time out and ask for a new pair of pants. So, I continued to fight all through the night with my friends, and then I extracted the next morning. The entire time, things were a little breezy, if you understand what I'm saying. I definitely took some ribbing from the other guys.  After I returned home, I gave the pants to my wife who is a fantastic seamstress, and thought nothing more of it.  

When it came time for me to return to training, I happened to have the same repaired pants with me. When I put them on, I spotted a colorful patch on the inside—my wife had used some heart-pattern fabric that said, "I love you."  Now, granted, I greatly appreciated the sentiment; however, my Chief didn't feel the same way. He really couldn’t understand the fact that here was a new Navy SEAL training for combat wearing "I love you" pants.

Navigation

Mistakes will be made when navigating, and some will be bigger than others. Some will also take place at higher altitudes than others, and this can definitely be dangerous.

If, for instance, you are a guy I knew—we will call him John in this example of bad navigating—you find yourself making a critical error way up in the air. There are two different types of parachuting that we do in the SEAL Teams. One is called HAHO (High Altitude, High Opening) and the other is called HALO (High Altitude, Low Opening). 

On this occasion, John was doing a HAHO, so, once he exited the aircraft, he pulled his ripcord open fairly quickly, which left him very high above the earth. You need supplemental oxygen for this type of parachuting so you are able to fly for a very long distance through the air without a plane. You’re not really flying; it’s kind of a Buzz Lightyear thing, falling with style. Anyway, John opened his parachute safely and was flying through the air but looked at the wrong side of his compass. This high-altitude error caused him to fly the reciprocal of the bearing he was supposed to be going toward. In other words, he was going in the exact opposite direction from the rest of his team. 

So why is this a bad thing? 

Well, it is a much better idea to jump into combat joined by all your armed friends than to land out on your own. And, it is never a super idea to fly so far away from the rest of your team that you are out of radio range. Granted, this occurred during a training mission, but you can understand how this might lead to a little ribbing later on. In this situation, it would be very important that John understand how to do a resection in order to get back to where he needed to be. Or have a phone, or, land in a town and catch a cab, or just be able to walk a very far distance. John decided to walk. 

I have learned through the years that, no matter how much time you put into teaching some people, they just can’t get it right. Understanding the special relationships of the earth around you is not a skill that everybody has, and it's not a skill that everyone can learn. We've had difficulties with this in the past where guys are incapable of navigating on foot because they simply don't understand the concept of a map or even a GPS. Forget even referencing a map, some even found it nearly impossible to describe the environment around them in a way that was even remotely useful.

When I was in BUD/S, there was a guy called Luke who wasn't an outdoors type. He was raised in the inner city, so he wasn't real good at map and compass. On a trip to the National Forest, we had practice compass courses that we had to complete in order to graduate. Luke had his map and his compass and his PRC-77 radio which is the same radio that everyone used in Vietnam, and he started going from one compass point to the next to the next. When you reached a compass point, you checked in with your radio for accountability. Well, eventually Luke stopped checking in on his radio. 

So we knew Luke was either lost or dead. Around dusk, one of the instructors jumped on an ATV and drove way out until he finally got Luke on the radio. Remember I said that people often times do not conceptually understand their place on the earth and how things relate to each other?

A prime example of this shortcoming would be using an aircraft flying over you as a point of reference in describing your location. When the BUD/S instructor finally got him on the radio, he asked Luke if he could see a plane that was flying overhead. He was doing this to see if he was close to Luke’s location. If the instructor was on a different side of a large terrain feature (a mountain), Luke would be able to hear but not see the plane.  

"Yes, I can see the plane," Luke said.  "Okay, it is directly over me right……NOW!”

I think all of you can see the complete uselessness of this information. Luke then gave even more helpful information by telling the instructor he could see a woman on a horse in the distance. 

You can’t make this stuff up! 

If the party trying to locate you can't see the woman on the horse, it is not helpful. It makes no sense to use visual references that someone else can’t see themselves. What the instructor needed to hear from Luke was, "I'm standing next to a road," and then a description of it. The airplane is not on a map. The woman on a horse is not on a map. However, the road, a “linear terrain feature,” is on a map, and you can use it to actually find where you are.  

Knives, the Other Weapon 

Another weapon you can get that reflects that fact you’re growing into manhood is a knife. Not a kitchen knife but a real knife, like a folding pocketknife. The chances of you having a knife and never cutting yourself with one are zero, so be prepared for that. Having a knife and having it dull is just like having a weapon and having it not sighted in. Regardless, any knife that you have should be sharp.

When I was in BUD/S training, they used to give us the MK 3 Mod 0 K-Bar, pronounced “Mark three Mod O.” It was the "official Navy SEAL knife" and happened to be the world's largest piece of crap ever. I have no idea where they got the steel for making these things, but it was just pathetic. I had a friend named Rick who once had his knife in the scabbard, which is a sheath for the blade that is made of plastic with a little metal clip that held the knife in place. We went swimming in the ocean…with your knife, as you do. When he pulled it out, the blade actually broke off and stayed in the scabbard as he pulled the handle out. They were that poorly made. 

These knives were also nearly impossible to sharpen to an effective edge, because their steel was such poor quality. When we were in BUD/S, the first weapon knife-sharpening systems came out, and one model was by Lansky. It had fixed angles that you would run the blade on and different levels of grit in order to sharpen it. It would start with that coarser grit and then slowly work its way to a finer grit. My roommate, Rob, was a parachute rigger, meaning he was responsible for folding up the parachutes in the proper way so that when you jumped out of an aircraft, they would open and you wouldn't die. Rob, being the stickler for detail that he was, purchased this Lansky knife-sharpening system, and his Mark 3 Mod 0 was like a lightsaber, it was so sharp. Luke Skywalker would have been proud to have this thing.

Prior to any water evolution (that is a fancy name for an “event”) in BUD/S, you do what's called a “swimmer inspection.” You'd stand with your small CO2 cartridge in one hand that would go into your life vest and your knife in the other. The instructors would come by to make sure that your CO2 cartridge was clean, polished, and that there wasn't a hole poked in the bottom of it, meaning it hadn't been actuated yet and it would still function. Then, they would pick up your knife and check it to make sure it was sharp and not at all rusty. Of course, no one's knives were particularly sharp because they're such pieces of crap. However, as we know, Robert's was. 

One of the instructors was walking by— he was a corpsman—and he was picking up people's knives and feeling the edges, and they were obviously dull. He'd throw them into the surf zone or bang them on a rock on a beach while he yelled at everybody for not taking care of their equipment. As the instructor moved his way down the line, he finally got to Robert. By this time he was nearly in a rage, and he picked up Robert’s knife and did something you should never do. He rubbed his thumb right along the blade of the knife to prove that this knife was not sharp. Unfortunately for him, Robert's knife was, in fact, a surgical instrument, and he sliced his thumb open.

As a BUD/S instructor, he was, by definition, a tough guy, and being a corpsman, he knew first aid. Well, this corpsman looked at his thumb and saw that it was gashed open and would require several stitches. Then he looked at Robert. He handed Robert his knife back and said, "Nice knife." Then he turned and walked away and got his thumb sewn up. 

When something like this happens in BUD/S, you really never know if you're able to laugh. You're obviously able to laugh, but you don't know if you should laugh because there is a guy in front of you who is your superior both in rank and experience. He has something you don't, in this case a Trident. However, he does something that is so goofy, you really want to laugh, but you are afraid that if you laugh you'll spend the rest of your day in the surf zone. 

So we quietly chuckled to ourselves and carried on.