![]() Our job was to make sure that NSW sniper training stood up to the challenge and reflected the new world in which we now lived and fought. Which meant the demands on SEAL snipers had intensified dramatically. War itself had in effect morphed into Spec Ops warfare, and our Special Operations warriors - Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Green Berets, Marine Force Recon, Air Force Combat Controllers/Pararescue Jumpers, and others - had gone from life as bastard stepchildren of the DoD to being the pointy tip of the spear. Now we were pitted against shadowy leaders like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and forces that faded into the scenery like the morning mist and flowed over national boundaries like water. There was a reason for the “special” in Special Operations.īut that distinction had now been turned on its head. ![]() ![]() In the past, Spec Ops was a relatively fringe element in our arsenal, called upon for unusual assignments here and there but used mainly to support the missions carried out by our conventional forces. The nature of modern war changed during those first few years of the new century and with it the role of Special Operations. We had stepped into the age of asymmetrical warfare. A full decade after the crash of the Soviet Union, we finally realized we were no longer living in an era where nations battled head-on like gladiators. Eleven months later the scope and force of that shift were carved into concrete when two hijacked planes were shot, like steel-jacketed rifle shells from colossal rifles, into World Trade towers one and two. ![]() We saw the shift foreshadowed in the bombing of the USS Cole when an “insignificant” little two-man boat had taken out a billion-dollar warship. And you’ll be expected to deliver at that level of perfection day after grinding day without misstep, hiccup, or fuckup…”Ī lot had changed since Glen and I had gone through the course with Mike Bearden in the pre-9/11 days. “You will come to know perfection as your new normal. In effect, Naval Special Warfare Command was putting an entire generation of snipers in our hands. The day we were called into our master chief’s office and were handed our new assignment still ranks as one of the greatest moments of my life. The following summer, my friend and BUD/S classmate Eric Davis and I were tasked with the responsibility of helping completely revamp and transform the entire SEAL sniper course. When Dave Scott died in the fall of 2002, I was already back from my tour in Afghanistan and part of a training detachment, teaching a range of specialized classes as a sort of continuing-education program for our snipers. This was our cave complex, where we trained the guys who cleaned out those other cave complexes on the other side of the world. I savored the irony of being in this underground warren right off the southern California beaches. Standing in that bunker always made me think about being tunneled deep in the Hindu-Kush mountains, threading our way through the Zhawar Kili cave complex in Afghanistan a few months after 9/11. We had our own classrooms and offices, even our own armory where we stored all our cameras, guns, ammunition, and other gear behind a huge combination-lock safe door inches thick, like the door to a bank vault. You could keep walking and travel a good quarter-mile under there. Enter and walk through a breezeway, pass through another set of industrial double doors, and you were in our Naval Special Warfare complex, buried underneath south San Diego. Put your back to the Pacific and you faced a monster set of doors, big enough to drive a truck through. For our sniper class headquarters, we had recently converted a set of old World War II-style bunkers built into the landscape on the south strand of Coronado. I loved this underground setting and everything it represented. We will push the limits of your performance to such high levels that even when you are rusty, tired, or unpracticed you will still outperform the enemy…”Īs I spoke, the good citizens of San Diego were going about their lives several dozen feet above our heads, heedless of our subterranean presence. “You’ll be expected to deliver at a level of perfection that will at first seem unrealistic, unfair, and unreasonable.
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