Even The Best Are Vulnerable

Recently I ran into a friend of mine at a once favored watering hole. It was nice to see him. We said hello and then progressed into a conversation of a serious nature because that is what we do. Never in any of our conversations have we ever actually solved the worlds problems, but damn if we didn't talk as if we could do just that if motivated.

Kevin mentioned that he reads this blog which for some reason surprised me. I don't track who or how many access what I write here. I just write it, post it, and leave it for the blog historians.

"Why haven't you written on the deaths of those SEAL team members in Afghanistan", he asked.

I had no real answer for him. I have been busy, and in reality that is not the purpose of this blog. It was meant to be more personal, a way for me to put thoughts and ideas as to what my writing is or could be out there for others to see.

My earlier post about SEAL Team 6 seems to have resonated with him and a few others. Give them what they want is what entertainment is all about. If writing, even about serious issues is not entertainment then nothing is entertainment.

The military has training from the day you enlist and it never stops until the day you are separated. There are many levels of this training. At boot camp it is done at its most basic. You learn to listen as one in order to respond as a unit. Marching is the most elementary of the training methods and they march you until you don't even have to think about it any more.

As you progress in the military the training also progresses to higher levels while maintaining and re-enforcing the simple and basic. You never escape the marching, you just do less of it.

SEAL training is the peak of the training mountain. All of the Special Forces units are physically difficult and intellectually demanding. Air Force Combat Controllers, Marine Recon and the Army Special Forces demand all a warrior has to offer and more.

1-SFOD-D and the Navy Sea, Air, and Land Teams take it to another level.

A special sort of warrior is required. While physicality is desired, it is really intellect that is the difference between someone at that level and everyone else.

It's great if you can run three miles with a 40-pound rucksack over unknown terrain with nothing but a canteen, a compass, and a map. It's fantastic that you can go three days with only quick catnaps for sleep. It's wonderful that you can bring a man 40 pounds larger and six inches taller to his knees. You are a warrior of exceptional ability.

Can you emerge form the water after mile long swim, find many of your men and weapons lost, maps useless because the Navy dropped you at the wrong spot, communications cut off and still re-form what is left of your team and proceed with your mission? If you can you are that one in 100,000 that the SEALS are looking for.

The fact is you more than likely are not that guy.

The Navy spends a lot of time and money finding and training these warriors. It also spends a lot of money and effort trying to retain them. They are in high demand in the civilian world. there are many corporations that maintain quasi-military units in order to provide intelligence and security for their international business business interests.

Colonel Arthur D. "Bull" Simons is probably the modern prototype for this sort of military/civilian hybrid. He was what Blackwater looks for before Erik Prince was out of grammar school.

All of that money and when the time comes we sometimes choose to put these valuable assets (yes I called them assets) in a thin skinned, slow moving behemoth like a Chinook helicopter.

A warrior is never more vulnerable than when he, and others with him, are confined within a moving piece of metal and mechanical parts. Concerned citizens here express outrage that hum-vees and other military vehicles are without armor. Armor is wonderful in some situations but a hindrance to awareness and mobility in most situations.

While confined within a vehicle a warrior is useless. He cannot defend himself from many of the threats that he faces. All the training, toughness, and smarts in the world will not save him once that vehicle is compromised. All he has then is fate, the luck of the gods of war will either be with him or against him.

A lumbering beast like a Chinook is a death trap if they know you are coming, and it is not difficult to know that a Chinook is coming.

The Taliban either knew, or got very lucky.

I don't feel that luck had anything to do with it.