Extreme SEAL Experience Blog

I received an E-mail and spoke with the guy who sent it; he wanted to attend a course here and mentioned that he met the SEAL who Commanded SEAL Team THREE during Vietnam.

Problem is, there was no SEAL Team THREE during Vietnam and the name he gave me didn’t check out either.

I get inundated with bullshit having the website, much more than I ever did meeting phony SEALs when I was active duty.

My neighbor was in SEAL DEFCON SIX… Bullshit…
My Uncle was a SEAL in Iran…. Bullshit…
My friend went through SEAL Training in the Army… Bullshit…

It just keeps coming and unfortunately for the phonies, I have the names of every guy who has ever FINISHED training. Not the fault of the guys telling me these things, they just believed someone who is a very convincing bullshitter.

The 2008 estimate of the United States population is 303,824,650 and fewer than 10,400 guys have ever finished training to become UDT/SEALs dating to our inception during WWII.
Doing the math, 303,824,650 / 10,400 = 29,214. That means your chances of actually meeting a SEAL are 1 in 29,214., if they were all still alive and many are not.

According to a website famous for exposing phony SEALs, there are 300 phonies for every guy who actually finished training.

My first real encounter with a phony was at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.  Not normally stopping to refuel there, two Platoons of us were eating on base waiting to go home from a long deployment. In through the door walks two enlisted Airman, one young and one old in uniform. The old one looked like Patton and filled with decorations on his snappy uniform.  He was also wearing a SEAL Trident, Navy jump wings and a Master Diver Pin.

As the young guy sees us, he elbows the older one and mouths the words “Their wearing the same thing you are!” Meaning the Trident…
The old prick takes one look at the pile of us and heads for the door… Fast…

Not fast enough though, and we surrounded him.

I’ve seen a lot of guys under stress before, but I’ve never seen anyone begin to sweat so quickly, as his face went white and moisture rolled down it under questioning.
With the young guys mouth wide open in disbelief, it became clear that he had heard one too many SEAL throat cutting stories from Vietnam from this guy and couldn’t believe he had been lied to for so long.

My Platoon Chief finally held out his open hand and said, “Right now Mother F&%ker,” and the Air Force shitbag proceeded to unpin all the crap from his uniform and handed all of it to him.

I was famous in SEAL Team for swimming more than a few miles wearing a handcuff one-night, escaping from the Provost Marshal. It all started with a pool game and a guy who had a couple of bottles of Loudmouth and a shot of Bruce Lee and ran me a ration of shit. Asking him where he was stationed at, he slowly scanned the room as if he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was about to say, all secret like, and whispered “SEAL Team SIX.”

I’m sure the first thing he did after he woke up was search for all the teeth I knocked out of his mouth and the night was still young, as I escaped to the only sanctuary a SEAL knows, the water, and wearing a handcuff on one wrist from the Provost Marshal boob who made the mistake of trying to put it on me for my involvement in the short fight.

I have a good friend who was stationed as the SEAL Motivator in Great Lakes, Illinois, and the home of Navy Boot Camp… There are only a couple SEALs there.
He told me he went to the Base Exchange to buy a new Trident for his uniform and they had none. He asked the cashier if he could order one and she replied they would be getting more in a day or so and that they couldn’t keep them on the shelves.

They were the best selling item in the uniform shop… WTF…

Ordering a beer at a hotel bar in Long Beach, California, an older man asked, “What does that writing say on the backs of your arms ”  He was referring to Oriental writing I have tattooed down the backs of both arms.
I replied,  “Hard Fighting Sailor,” and he quickly said “SAILOR…” We got a SEAL right here,” and he points his thumb at some skinny, pasty faced, punk sitting next to him.

I hoisted the “Bullshit Flag” fast and began a heated tirade of questions that shocked the older man who sat silent and dumbfounded.

The skinny prick had it together; he knew names, evolutions and places. He had been to the BUD/S compound before in some fashion or another, but was not a SEAL and had never gone through Training. His BUD/S class number was too old for his age and he finally said that he went through BUD/S Training while in the Army.

Horse Dick… And I let him know who I was…

Turns out, the older guy owned a large business and Pasty Face was there for a job interview.

He didn’t get the job…

Some guys study hard to live the lie and can carry a bag of bullshit a long way to the untrained eye.

My buddy was stationed at the Naval Academy as a parachute rigger. One day he was introduced to a SEAL who would be temporally assigned to him and was just back from “Desert Storm,” the first Iraq war.

He evaded questions to my friend and made himself scarce knowing my friend was a SEAL, but he spouted off enough bullshit to other non-SEALs about his war exploits that the Academy asked him to speak.
In front of a packed auditorium of Midshipmen he enthralled them with acts of heroism.

Turns out, he had just gotten out of the Navy, was broke, was never a SEAL, and just wanted to eat at the chow hall because he was hungry.

I’m sure he gained a few pounds in the brig.

There was a great story a few years back that made big headlines. It was about a blind woman skier who was phenomenal.
As with other blind competition skiers, she was followed by a person who would tell her when to turn. The crowd marveled at how she instinctively turned before being told to… ESP type stuff...
She explained to reporters that she was a Navy SEAL and had swam through radioactive water and was rendered blind which the reporters ate hook, line, and sinker.

Of course, she was no SEAL and wasn’t blind either…

My favorite involved me directly and required a few trucks to haul away this bullshit.
We had done a rescue mission off the coast of Liberia in 96 and received a very high decoration for Heroism for our actions that day and night. A few months passed and a support Diver at Team TWO asked, “Weren’t you on that rescue mission a few months back ”  Yes, I replied. He said his Mother from small town Pennsylvania sent him an article from the local paper about a Marine who was on the mission with us.

Oh God… Here we go again.

With his picture in full dress uniform gracing the front page, Private Snowjob told of how he was picked to be part of a “Special SEAL Scuba Rescue Team” and saved the lives of countless souls that day, with the last one dying in his arms as he comforted and cradled him.

He described the events and I could tell he had been on the USS Ponce with us as an attached Marine to the Ship, but probably cleaning pots and pans in the galley during the mission. He wasn’t with us, that’s for sure. Nobody was except eight SEALs.
He also talked about being wounded in Liberia one night when an enemy took a shot at him and grazed his neck. He returned fire killing him and a buddy of the bad guy at 800 meters on a dark night.

That’s some shooting…

The reporter remarked about the still purple, scabbed over bullet wound on his neck and the fact that he turned down the Purple Heart out of respect. He went on to say that visiting his old high school how impressed his old teachers were that he amounted into something when he was so troubled before.

They were wrong about that…

I called the reporter and sent the “After Action Reports” from the mission showing he had never been on it. I also explained that the wound on his neck is a common one and that I had the same wound myself as did many SEALs, Marines, and Army guys, and that its caused from standing next to another guy on a range shooting and a hot, spent shell casing the other guy fires goes down your shirt collar and burns the Hell out of you…

I was told Private Liar’s Mother worked for the paper and he wouldn’t re-print the facts.

No problem… My Lieutenant during the mission contacted the Marine Colonel, his Commanding Officer, sent him the article, and the Private First Class was busted a pay-grade and spent some time in the brig.

People, just by human nature, believe what people tell them in most cases.

How about the little girls Grandfather speaking at her school on Veterans Day a few years back.
A reporter happened to be there and front-paged this guy’s exploit. The Grandfather told of being asked to blow up a Japanese Destroyer in an enemy harbor during WWII.
The boats launched him alone five miles from the Enemy Ship and he swam at night carrying enough demolitions to do the job. Placing his explosives, he swam back five miles to the recovery boat and SCREAMED at the driver, “GET US THE HELL OUTTA HERE, SHE’S GOING TO BLOW!!!”
He said the blast was so powerful that it blew the Ship across a channel.

While most people reading that thought WOW, what a badass, let me shake your hand Hero, me and other SEALs cringed.

Let me get this straight… Five miles in, alone, swimming enough explosives to blow a Ship across a channel. Five miles back and the charges went off just as he was safely away

You believed that crap, Mr. Reporter

That’s a lot of demo, that’s a lot of swimming, and that’s a lot of bullshit. 

While I can understand that some guys might spread the shit kinda thick to impress a girl in a bar once and awhile, guys who actually LIVE that lie have some real mental problems.

Read the book “Stolen Valor” or check out the SEAL “Wall of Shame.”

There were no secret BUD/S classes; no Active Duty or Reserve Army or Marines guys attend BUD/S, no secret tattoos, no sealed records, no classified awards.

The next time someone says they are, or were a SEAL, you should look with a bit of disbelief until verified. A BIG bit…

P.S. My daughters best friends Dad claims to be a SEAL and we let it go for their friendship. When our SEAL Son was hit in the plates by an Iraqi bullet though, Diane, my wife, sped to his house and LIT HIS SHIT UP for lying…

Now, that was ugly…

It’s a hard day of work to become a SEAL and a small community we live in. A dangerous place, a tough life, and we don’t like anyone who attempts to tarnish that reputation or steals that Valor with phony claims and obnoxious tales that make us look like clowns.

We’ve all been to too many memorial services and watched Commanding Officers attach decorations for Valor to the children of fallen SEALs and listened to the cracking voices of wives saying goodbye for the final time to allow even the smallest lie to go unchecked.
 
Fakes, phonies, and imposter’s have real problems.

Topping that list of problems phonies have, are SEALs waiting to meet them.

Kick Some Ass

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