In all, six more men joined the first at the swamp's edge. Two donned NVGs and slipped away into the reeds, providing security for the other five as they broke out the rest of their gear.
Blue Squad, Third Platoon, SEAL Team Seven, had arrived, armed and ready for war.
1455 hours (Zulu -5)
Meeting of the House Military Affairs Committee
Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.
"The name SEALS," Captain Granger explained, sitting alone at the long table and reading from his notes, "is an acronym standing for 'Sea, Air, Land' and symbolizes the three elements the teams infiltrate through in pursuit of their mission objectives. The first two teams were formed in January of 1962, at the order of President John F Kennedy. Their commission called on them to operate up to twenty miles inland, serving as naval commandos with the express missions of gathering intelligence, raiding, capturing prisoners, and generally raising havoc behind enemy lines."
Opposite Granger's table, the members of the House Military Affairs Committee sat listening or spoke together in low-voiced murmurs. There were cameras in the room as well. These hearings were being reported by CNN and C-SPAN, and much of the speech-making and posturing was for their benefit.
"Their baptism of fire came in Vietnam," Granger continued, "where they served with distinction. Between 1965 and 1972, forty-nine Naval Special Warfare personnel were killed in action in Vietnam. During this same period, naval records credit SEAL direct-action platoons with over one thousand confirmed kills and nearly eight hundred probables, as well as close to another thousand enemy personnel taken prisoner. Three SEALs won the Navy Medal of Honor during the Vietnam conflict, while five SEALs and two UDT frogmen won the Navy Cross. Immediately after the war..."
"Ah, Captain Granger." Congressman Rodney Farnum, head of the House Military Affairs Committee, leaned closer to his microphone. "If I may interrupt."
"Yes, Mr. Chairman?"
"The House Military Affairs Committee is second to none in its, ah, deep admiration for members of America's special-warfare community, and we recognize their significant contributions to this nation's defense in the past. However, as the purpose of this special meeting is to review future funding levels for the Navy's special-warfare needs, and since several of the congressmen on this panel have commitments elsewhere this afternoon, perhaps it would be helpful if we could limit the session this afternoon to the present and to the, ah, future in the near term."
"As you wish, Mr. Chairman. I thought an overall background might be useful."
"I think we're all adequately familiar with the subject. Are there objections from my distinguished colleagues at the table? No? Then perhaps we could cut straight to the chase in this matter, Captain Granger. Let us begin by hearing your views on the necessity for maintaining an expensive and force-redundant unit like the U.S. Navy SEALs in this modern, post-Cold War era."
2301 hours (Zulu +3)
Hawr al-Hammar, Iraq
Chief Machinist's Mate Tom Roselli, the SEAL squad's point man and the first one ashore, donned his communications headset, fitting the earpiece snugly inside his left ear and securing it beneath his knit cap. The wire ran down the back of his neck and through a slit in his black fatigue shirt, where it plugged into the Motorola unit secured to his combat harness. The filament mike rested below his lower lip. He touched the transmit key and tapped lightly twice. A moment later, he heard an answering tsk-tsk through his earpiece as the squad's CO replied. Radio check okay.
Excitement burned, burned in Roselli's veins like liquid fire. He was pumped, he was psyched, he was ready to kick ass and take names. This was it, the real thing, the combat mission he'd been training endlessly for throughout his seven years as a U.S. Navy SEAL. He'd been on combat ops before, during the Gulf War, but never one like this.
Less than an hour earlier, Chief Roselli and thirteen other hard, combat-ready men, each shouldering over one hundred pounds of equipment, had stepped into darkness thirty thousand feet above southern Iraq. Silently, they'd fallen through the thin, cold air over the Hawr al-Hammar, a long and meandering, swamp-bordered lake that stretched for sixty miles along the lower reaches of the Euphrates River, from An Nasiriya to where the Euphrates joined the Tigris just above the city of al-Basra. Opening their steerable, parasail chutes at eight thousand feet, they'd glided for miles above the silent waters, splashing at last into the eastern end of the lake. From there, the fourteen men, one SEAL platoon organized into two seven-man squads, had made their way to the southern shore.
Roselli was with Blue Squad, six enlisted men under the platoon's CO, Lieutenant Vincent Cotter. Gold Squad, if all had gone according to plan, should be forming up separately about a mile further to the west.
By 2310 hours, the squad was ready to travel, its high-altitude breathing equipment and swimming gear wrapped up and stashed at the water's edge, the men rigged out in their first and second-line CQB rigs. Lieutenant Cotter lightly touched Roselli's shoulder. You're on point. Roselli nodded, pulled his NVGs back down over his face, and started off, taking the lead.
They moved south, wading through mud and silt that gradually thinned beneath their boots until they were pressing ahead across firm, almost-dry ground, their passage screened by the dense sea of man-high reeds that stretched away endlessly into the darkness on all sides. They spaced themselves at five-meter intervals. Next in line after Roselli was Master Chief George MacKenzie, a long-legged, man-mountain Texan big enough to hump the squad's sixty-gun and carry an MP5SD3 slung over his shoulder as well. The number-two man was also the squad's navigator, checking compass and GPS frequently to keep the team on course. Cotter, the L-T, walked the number-three slot, and behind him came Electrician's Mate Second Class Bill Higgins, the team's commo man. Slot five was walked by the squad's medic, Hospital Corpsman Second Class James Ellsworth; inevitably, everyone just called him "Doc." The niceties of the Geneva Convention meant little to a SEAL team deep in enemy territory; Doc wore no red crosses and he packed an H&K MP5SD3 like Roselli's, though his personal favorite for a primary weapon was a full-auto shotgun. Behind him, lugging an M-16/M203 combo, was Hull Technician first Class Juan Garcia, "Boomer," the squad's demo man. The tail gunner slot was occupied by Quartermaster First Class Martin "Magic" Brown, a black kid from inner-city Chicago whose expertise on the range with a Remington Model 700 had earned him a position as the squad's sniper. Though each man was a specialist, their training and their skills overlapped. Two of them, the man on point and the man bringing up the rear, wore NVGs at all times, while the rest relied on night-adapted, Mark-I eyeballs. They traded off those positions frequently, though, to prevent night-goggle-induced eye fatigue, so the only slots that remained unchanged throughout the hike were three and four, the CO and the commo man.
No words were exchanged between the members of the team. Communications were limited to hand signs, touch, and rare, non-vocalized clicks and cluckings over the technical radios. Mutual trust and coordination within the group were perfect, almost effortless. These men had worked, trained, slept, and practiced with one another for months, until each could sense the others' positions and movements even in total darkness.