Cold War Navy Seal

For the first time, a Navy SEAL tells the story of the US's clandestine operations in North Vietnam and the Congo during the Cold War. Sometime in 1965, James Hawes landed in the Congo with cash stuffed in his socks, morphine in his bag, and a basic understanding of his mission: recruit a mercenary navy and suppress the Soviet- and Chinese-backed rebels engaged in guerilla movements against a pro-Western government. He knew the United States must preserve deniability, so he would be abandoned in any life-threatening situation; he did not know that Che Guevara attempting to export his revolution a few miles away. Cold War Navy SEAL gives unprecedented insight into a clandestine chapter in US history through the experiences of Hawes, a distinguished Navy frogman and later a CIA contractor. His journey began as an officer in the newly-formed SEAL Team 2, which then led him to Vietnam in 1964 to train hit-and-run boat teams who ran clandestine raids into North Vietnam. Those raids directly instigated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The CIA tapped Hawes to deploy to the Congo, where he would be tasked with creating and leading a paramilitary navy on Lake Tanganyika to disrupt guerilla action in the country. According to the US government, he did not, and could not, exist; he was on his own, 1400 miles from his closest allies, with only periodic letters via air-drop as communication. Hawes recalls recruiting and managing some of the most dangerous mercenaries in Africa, battling rebels with a crew of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and learning what the rest of the intelligence world was dying to know: the location of Che Guevara. In vivid detail that rivals any action movie, Hawes describes how he and his team discovered Guevara leading the communist rebels on the other side and eventually forced him from the country, accomplishing a seemingly impossible mission. Complete with never-before-seen photographs and interviews with fellow operatives in the Congo, Cold War Navy SEAL is an unblinking look at a portion of Cold War history never before told.

The U.S Navy SEALs were created in the 1960s as an elite team to fight along the rivers and coastline of Vietnam. Since that time, the SEALs have become the world's best at surviving and operating at sea. They are some the foremost fighters the American military has in its arsenal, able to engage any enemy, at any time, in any conditions. Come inside this top military unit, exploring what it takes to become a SEAL, as well as the dangers of the missions these highly skilled soldiers carry out. This book explains the history of the SEALs, including the creation of the unit and the first Navy SEAL ever to serve in the U.S. military. Also learn about: • How the SEALs helped contain communism during the Cold War. • What each recruit must go through in order to become part of the Navy SEALs. • The techniques the SEALs use to survive at sea. • SEAL tactics for remaining undetected when completing missions on land.

A close-up, action-filled narrative about the crucial role the U.S. Navy played in the early years of the Cold War, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Fleet at Flood Tide “A lucid, fast-moving and fitting finale to [Hornfischer’s] career.”—The Wall Street Journal This landmark account of the U.S. Navy in the Cold War, Who Can Hold the Sea combines narrative history with scenes of stirring adventure on—and under—the high seas. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the victorious Navy sends its sailors home and decommissions most of its warships. But this peaceful interlude is short-lived, as Stalin, America’s former ally, makes aggressive moves in Europe and the Far East. Winston Churchill crystallizes the growing Communist threat by declaring the existence of “the Iron Curtain,” and the Truman Doctrine is set up to contain Communism by establishing U.S. military bases throughout the world. Set against this background of increasing Cold War hostility, Who Can Hold the Sea paints the dramatic rise of the Navy’s crucial postwar role in a series of exciting episodes that include the controversial tests of the A-bombs that were dropped on warships at Bikini Island; the invention of sonar and the developing science of undersea warfare; the Navy’s leading part in key battles of the Korean War; the dramatic sinking of the submarine USS Cochino in the Norwegian Sea; the invention of the nuclear submarine and the dangerous, first-ever cruise of the USS Nautilus under the North Pole; and the growth of the modern Navy with technological breakthroughs such as massive aircraft carriers, and cruisers fitted with surface-to-air missiles. As in all of Hornfischer’s works, the events unfold in riveting detail. The story of the Cold War at sea is ultimately the story of America’s victorious contest to protect the free world.

After Eric Davis spent over 16 years in the military, including a decade in the SEAL Teams, his family was more than used to his absence on deployments and secret missions that could obscure his whereabouts for months at a time. Without a father figure in his own life since the age of fifteen, Eric was desperate to maintain the bonds he’d fought so hard to forge when his children were young—particularly with his son, Jason, because he knew how difficult it was to face the challenge of becoming a man on one’s own. Unfortunately, Eric learned the hard way that Quality Time doesn’t always show up in Quantity Time. Facebook, television, phones, video games, school, jobs, friends—they all got in the way of a real, meaningful father-son relationship. It was time to take action. As a SEAL, Eric learned to innovate and push boundaries, allowing him to function at levels beyond what was expected, comfortable, ordinary, and even imaginable, and he knew that as a father he needed to do the same with his son. Meeting extreme with extreme was the only answer. Using a unique blend of discipline, leadership, adventure, and grace, Eric and his SEAL brothers will teach you how to connect, and reconnect, with your sons and learn how to raise real men—the Navy SEAL way.

Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author Brandon Webb’s personal account of eight of his friends and fellow SEALs who made the ultimate sacrifice. “Knowing these great men—who they were, how they lived, and what they stood for—has changed my life. We can’t let them be forgotten. We’ve mourned their deaths. Let’s celebrate their lives.”—Brandon Webb As a Navy SEAL, Brandon Webb rose to the top of the world’s most elite sniper corps, experiencing years of punishing training and combat missions from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan. Along the way, Webb served beside, trained, and supported men he came to know not just as fellow warriors, but as friends and, eventually, as heroes. This is his personal account of eight extraordinary SEALs who gave all for their comrades and their country with remarkable valor and abiding humanity: Matt “Axe” Axelson, who perished on Afghanistan’s Lone Survivor mission; Chris Campbell, Heath Robinson, and JT Tumilson, who were among the casualties of Extortion 17; Glen Doherty, Webb’s best friend, killed while helping secure the successful rescue and extraction of American CIA and State Department diplomats in Benghazi; and other close friends, classmates, and fellow warriors. These are men who left behind powerfully instructive examples of what it means to be alive—and what it truly means to be a hero. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

In a groundbreaking, narrative-driven book for businesses, managers (and those who aspire to the managerial ranks), and entrepreneurs, a veteran Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer shows how the skills that enable SEAL teams to achieve the impossible in the battlefield can help business executives and career-minded individuals make better decisions and get the best out of their teams. Anyone can make good decisions when everything is in their favor. But in life, as in war, it’s in chaotic, challenging times that genuine leaders distinguish themselves. As a Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer, Rob Roy learned this lesson over twenty-five years of combat, in which the difference between life and death was his team’s ability to decode complex environments, take decisive action, and seize opportunities when they presented themselves. In The Navy SEAL Art of War, Roy decodes the leadership lessons of the battlefield for today’s business leaders and individuals: how to make good decisions under pressure, how to utilize and leverage the strengths of others while minimizing the weaknesses of the individual or team, and how to act instead of react, anticipating events despite having minimal information and effectively communicating tasks and priorities. Illustrated with countless stories from the front lines, and featuring unprecedented exercises and drills from the SEALs’ training program, The Navy SEAL Art of War is destined to take its place aside It’s Your Ship as a bestselling business classic.

At the height of the Cold War, a cashiered SEAL officer living in Japan is retained by a world-famous Russian dissident to rescue a friend from the Siberian Gulag. The SEAL officer recruits and trains a group to undertake the cold weather operation and even finagles an off-the-books diesel submarine . . . for a price. The rescue is grueling and the withdrawal harrowing. Red Ice takes place in Japan’s Honshu and Hokkaido Islands, South Korea, Russia’s Kuril Islands, the Sea of Okhotsk, and Siberia. It is a relentless tale of cross-cultural naval intrique as it is practiced in rubber boats and kayaks, in pup tents and snow caves, on skis, and aboard submarines. Red Ice is savagely authentic in its description of this brand of unconventional warfare and of the individual tensions that haunt the men who practice it.

During the Korean War and the Vietnam War, US Navy Special Warfare units played a variety of vital combat roles amid two of the deadliest conflicts of the Cold War. In Korea, underwater demolition teams (UDTs) surveyed beaches for amphibious operations, cleared sea mines from harbors, conducted seaborne raids against inshore targets, and served as scouts for the infiltration of Korean guerrillas and British Royal Marine Commando raids along the North Korean coast. In South Vietnam, UDTs surveyed beaches and demolished Viet Cong bunkers, supply caches, and river obstacles in the Mekong Delta. The SEALs (Sea Air Land teams) deployed entire platoons into the Mekong Delta and the Rung Sat Special Zone to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Viet Cong that included ambushes, reconnaissance, and capturing leaders and supply caches. In addition, the SEALs also played important roles in the Phoenix Program and in rescuing prisoners of war. Fully illustrated throughout, this study explores how the US Navy's specially trained naval commandos accomplished their missions in Korea and Vietnam.

New York Times bestselling authorDon Man and Lance Burton tell the history of the most respected and feared fighting force every created—The US Navy SEALs. “For those brave souls—past, present, and future—and those who wish to honor them—their story is in the pages that follow.” From their birth in World War II as combat swimmers clearing the beaches of Normandy to their evolution into fighting men who could operate anywhere in the world by sea, air, or land, the intrepid story of the US Navy SEALs is one of courage, sacrifice, and world-renowned toughness that echoes of other great military units of history—the Spartans, the Roman legions, or the samurai. Take a look inside to find out what makes the SEALs America’s deadliest warriors. This is a narrative history; stories based on either direct experiences or exhaustive research. Mann and Burton take the reader through the inception of the Naval Combat Demolition Teams (NCDU) and Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) during World War II, their testing and development in Korea and into the Vietnam War, where the SEALs truly laid the groundwork for their legendary status, and on into the present day. The authors highlight the major steps and operations along the way, discuss the training and what it takes, and explore some of the most important moments in SEAL history.

An “infuriating, fast-paced” (The Washington Post) account of the Navy SEALs of Alpha platoon, the startling accusations against their chief, Eddie Gallagher, and the courtroom battle that exposed the dark underbelly of America’s special forces—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter WINNER OF THE COLORADO BOOK AWARD • “Nearly impossible to put down.”—Jon Krakauer, New York Times bestselling author of Where Men Win Glory and Into the Wild In this “brilliantly written” (The New York Times Book Review) and startling account, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times correspondent David Philipps reveals a powerful moral crucible, one that would define the American military during the years of combat that became known as “the forever war.” When the Navy SEALs of Alpha platoon returned from their 2017 deployment to Iraq, a group of them reported their chief, Eddie Gallagher, for war crimes, alleging that he’d stabbed a prisoner in cold blood and taken lethal sniper shots at unarmed civilians. The story of Alpha’s war, both in Iraq and in the shocking trial that followed the men’s accusations, would complicate the SEALs’ post-9/11 hero narrative, turning brothers-in-arms against one another and bringing into stark relief the choice that elite soldiers face between loyalty to their unit and to their country. One of the great stories written about American special forces, Alpha is by turns a battlefield drama, a courtroom thriller, and a compelling examination of how soldiers define themselves and live with the decisions in the heat of combat.