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Name: Sea Stories
Rating: 4.3 (112 reviews)
Author: William H. McRaven

William H. McRaven

My Life in Special Operations

4.3 (112 ratings)

23 mins

Topics

Memoirs

Table of Contents

Sea Stories
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What’s in it for me? Dive into the adventures of a retired four-star US Navy SEAL and admiral.

As the son of an American Air Force officer, William H. McRaven had an appetite for adventure from an early age. On Friday nights, the five-year-old McRaven would crawl into the American Officers’ Club in Fontainebleau, France where his family was stationed. Hidden behind the bar, he would listen as his father and other officers sitting around an oval table took turns telling stories of World War Two battles, life during combat and the courageous acts of noble warriors.

As it turned out, McRaven would soon grow up to have a few of his own stories to tell. The sea stories in these blinks draw upon McRaven’s life and his long career as a Navy SEAL officer and commander of America’s Special Operations Forces. They are the kind of stories told by sailors on long voyages away from home – or at a table in Fontainebleau.

Along the way, you’ll learn

what McRaven has to do with taking your shoes off at the airport;
why McRaven hopes that US war efforts in Iraq were worth it; and
what lesson from SEAL training helped McRaven surmount his most difficult challenges.

William McRaven was an adventurous child and once snuck into a high-security nuclear site.

In 1963, William McRaven’s father was reassigned from Fontainebleau, France to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas after suffering a minor stroke. There, in the military complex known as Medina Annex, McRaven was free to roam outdoors. But at the height of the Cold War, one area of the complex was strictly off-limits.

Surrounded by three eight-foot-high barbed wire fences, the high-security ammunition storage facility in Medina Annex was alleged to hold nuclear weapons. And in 1966, with the help of his friends Billie and Jon, McRaven had a plan to break into it.

“Operation Volcano,” as they called it, was inspired by spy stories and the volcanic-shaped Gravel Gertie bunkers in which the ammunition inside the facility was stored. The playful mission was to detect if activities that were a threat to their country were going on inside.

Armed with toy guns and hot-dogs as protection against the facility’s K-9 guard dogs, McRaven and his friends found a forested area of the fencing where they would attempt their entry. They slid long wooden planks against the chain-linked barrier, building a makeshift bridge to the other side.

Though Jon and Billie got cold feet, McRaven made it all the way to the top of the third fence before the sound of sirens and the advancing barks of guard dogs sent him into panic mode.

Air Police announced over a bull horn that the trespassers were in a restricted area and that the use of lethal force was authorized. Rather than turning himself over, McRaven sprinted back up the planks, dashing over the remaining two barriers. His Roy Rogers pearl-handled six-shooter cap gun fell behind in the process, but he and his friends managed to escape back to McRaven’s house undetected and unharmed.

One day not long after, McRaven’s father came home and asked his son if he knew anything about an attempted break-in at the ammunition storage facility. For the first time in his life, McRaven lied to his father, claiming to know nothing about it. A look of disappointment filled his father’s eyes. But to his relief, he was let go without further questioning.

That night, as he climbed into bed, his six-shooter cap gun was on the nightstand beside him. And though the incident taught him never to lie to his father again, it certainly didn’t quash his appetite for adventure.

During Navy SEAL officer training, McRaven learned to never give up and survived a helicopter crash.

The mental and physical vigor of the six-month-long Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training is notoriously the most difficult part of becoming a Navy SEAL. In fact, in 1977, when McRaven started his training, less than half of all trainees made it through. That’s in part because quitting is deceptively simple: all you have to do is ring a bell three times.

Arguably the most challenging time of BUD/S is the infamous Hell Week. Hell Week is six days of no sleep, constant harassment and vigorous physical exercises. Many commands were devised to be impossible to accomplish. One officer would grill McRaven with questions such as whether he thought his girlfriend was pretty. When he said yes, the instructor would call him a liar and assign more push-ups.

McRaven’s service in times of war began with the first naval clash of Operation Desert Storm.

Over his first 15 years of naval service, McRaven witnessed both the bravery of soldiers and the tragedy of loss, from failed missions and trainings that had gone awry. However, he had yet to serve his country in a way he felt would give his life meaning. Simply put, he craved to fight in an honorable battle.

His chance came in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. At the time, McRaven was on deployment on board the USS Okinawa, an amphibious assault ship. In the ensuing weeks, President Bush ordered Operation Desert Shield for the build-up of troops in defense of Saudi Arabia.

A parachute accident almost brought an end to McRaven’s career.

In 2001, McRaven was serving as the commodore of Naval Special Warfare Group One – a section of the US Special Operations Command – while intermittently also commanding every SEAL on the West Coast.

His career was going so well that his boss, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command Admiral Eric Olson, was positioning him to become an admiral. Olson had seen to it that his next assignment was to serve on the Navy staff in the Pentagon.

After the September 11 attacks, McRaven had a hand in orchestrating the War on Terror from the White House.

In the weeks after September 11, the White House National Security Council established the Office of Combating Terrorism. McRaven assumed the role of Director of Strategy and Military Affairs for the new organization, as his superiors felt that he would be of more use fighting the War on Terror from the White House than serving on the Navy staff in the Pentagon.

You might already be familiar with McRaven’s work in the White House. Early during his tenure, a man by the name of Richard Reid attempted to detonate an explosive created out of his shoe on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami.

In 2003, McRaven orchestrated the capture of Saddam Hussein.

By the time he was deployed to Baghdad in October 2003, McRaven had fully recovered from his parachute accident. His mission in Iraq was to command the Army special operations unit assigned with the task of capturing or killing the United States’ Top 50 High Value Targets – including Saddam Hussein.

In December, McRaven was flying in a C-130 military aircraft when he had an inexplicable feeling that his team was going to find Saddam that night. As soon as he arrived back in Baghdad, he learned that the Special Operations Forces C-Squadron had captured Saddam’s close associate, Mohammad Ibrahim Omar al-Muslit, that morning. What’s more, al-Muslit had a lead that the former Iraqi president was hiding in his cook’s house in Tikrit.

McRaven organized and oversaw the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.

By 2011, there had been many false leads in the hunt to find Osama bin Laden, the founder and then-leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. But this time, when McRaven was briefed on surveillance footage showing a man who fit bin Laden’s profile walking around a housing compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, something felt different.

The CIA had three proposals for approaching the compound. At the top of their list was a raid. And McRaven – who by this time was a three-star admiral and the commander of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command – was going to lead it.

McRaven’s 37-year career taught him about the need for teammates and the goodness of humankind.

In August 2014, McRaven was standing at the podium during his military retirement ceremony in Tampa, Florida. Looking down at the 700-person audience, he could see many of the people who had touched his life: fellow SEALs; teammates from the CIA, FBI and Green Berets; and even his high-school football coach.

Over his four decades of service, McRaven had learned that none of his successes would have been possible without the help of others. So it was appropriate that his final words that day began with a story about his most important teammate – his wife, Georgeann.

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What is Sea Stories about?

Sea Stories (2019) is a collection of William H. McRaven’s life tales, spanning from his childhood adventures through his 37-year career as a US Navy SEAL and commander of America’s Special Operations Forces. These blinks offer a personal look at the life of a courageous war hero as well as a first-hand account of some of the most famous missions in recent US history.

Best quote from Sea Stories

As terrible as it sounds, every SEAL longs for a worthy fight, a battle of convictions, and an honorable war.

—William H. McRaven

Who should read Sea Stories?

Fans of war and adventure stories
Leaders looking for inspiration
History and political science students seeking an inside look at the War on Terror

About the Author

William H. McRaven is a retired four-star US Navy SEAL admiral and author of the number one New York Times best-seller Make Your Bed (2017). During his almost 40 years of service, McRaven became commander of America’s anti-terrorist and hostage rescue operations, which included the capture of Saddam Hussein and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

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Biography & Memoir

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