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C
HIEF
P
ETTY
O
FFICER
K
YLE
B
y now, my guys had left al-Qa’im and were at a place called
Rawah, also out west near the Syrian border. Once again they’d
been put to work building barracks and the rest.
I got lucky; I missed the construction work. But there wasn’t
much going on when I arrived, either.
I was just in time for a long-range desert patrol out on the
border. We drove out there for a few days hardly seeing a person,
let alone insurgents. There had been reports of smuggling across the
desert, but if it was going on, it wasn’t going on where we were.
Meanwhile, it was
hot
. It was 120 degrees at least, and we
were driving in Hummers that had no air-conditioning. I grew up in
Texas, so I know warm; this was worse. And it was constant; you
couldn’t get away from it. It hardly cooled off at night—it might fall
to 115. Rolling down the windows meant taking a risk if there was
an IED. Almost worse was the sand, which would just blow right in
and cover you.
I decided I preferred the sand and IED danger to the heat. I
rolled down the windows.
Driving, all you saw was desert. Occasionally, there would be a
nomad settlement or a tiny village.
We linked up with our sister platoon, then the next day we
stopped at a Marine base. My chief went in and did some business;
a little while later he came out and found me.
“Hey,” he told me, grinning. “Guess what—you just made chief.”
I
had taken the chief’s exam back in the States before we
deployed.
In the Navy, you usually have to take a written test to get
promoted. But I’d lucked out. I got a field promotion to E5 during
my second deployment and made E6 thanks to a special merit
program before my third deployment. Both came without taking
written tests.
(In both cases I had been doing a lot of extra work within the
Team, and had made a reputation on the battlefield. Those were the
important factors in awarding the new ranks.)
That didn’t fly for the chief’s exam. I took the written test and
barely passed.
I
should explain a bit more about written tests and promotions. I’m
not unusually adverse or allergic to tests, at least no more than
anyone else. But the tests for SEALs added an extra burden.
At the time, in order to get promoted, you had to take an exam
in your job area—not as a SEAL, but in whatever area you had
selected before being a SEAL. In my case, that would have meant
being evaluated in the intelligence area.
Obviously, I wasn’t in a position to know anything about that
area. I was a SEAL, not an intelligence analyst. I didn’t have a clue
what sort of equipment and procedures intel used to get their jobs
done.
Considering the accuracy of the intel we usually got, I would
have guessed dartboard, maybe. Or just a fine pair of dice.
In order to get promoted, I would have had to study for the test,
which would have involved going to a secure reading area, a special
room where top-secret material can be reviewed. Of course, I
would have had to do this in my spare time.
There weren’t any secure reading areas in Fallujah or Ramadi
where I fought. And the literature in the latrines and heads wouldn’t
have cut it.
(The tests are now in the area of special operations, and pertain
to things SEALs actually do. The exams are incredibly detailed, but
at least it has to do with our job.)
B
ecoming a chief was a little different. This test was on things
SEALs should know.
That hurdle cleared, my case had to be reviewed by a board and
then go through further administrative review by the upper echelon.
The board review process included all these chief petty officers and
master chiefs sitting down and reviewing a package of my
accomplishments. The package is supposed to be a long dossier of
everything you’ve done as a SEAL. (Minus the bar fights.)
The only thing in my package was my service record. But that
had not been updated since I graduated BUD/S. My Silver Stars
and Bronze Medals weren’t even in there.
I wasn’t crazy about becoming a chief. I was happy where I
was. As chief, I would have all sorts of administrative duties, and I
wouldn’t get as much action. Yes, it was more money for our
family, but I wasn’t thinking about that.
Chief Primo was on the review board back at our base in the
States. He was sitting next to one of the chiefs when they began
reviewing my case.
“Who the hell is this dipshit?” said the other chief when he saw
my thin folder. “Who does he think he is?”
“Why don’t you and I go to lunch?” said Primo.
He agreed. The other chief came back with a different
attitude.
“You owe me a Subway sandwich,
....
,” Primo
told me when
I saw him later on. Then he told me the story.
I owe him all that and more. The promotion came through, and,
to be honest, being chief wasn’t near as bad as I thought it would
be.
T
ruth is, I never cared all that much about rank. I never tried to be
one of the highest-ranking guys. Or even, back in high school, to be
one of the students with the highest average.
I’d do my homework in the truck in the morning. When they
stuck me in the Honor Society, I made sure my grades dipped just
enough the next semester to get kicked out. Then I brought them up
again so my parents wouldn’t get on me.
Maybe the rank thing had to do with the fact that I preferred
being a leader on the ground, rather than an administrator in a back
room. I didn’t want to have to sit at a computer, plan everything,
then tell everyone about it. I wanted to do my thing, which was
being a sniper—get into combat, kill the enemy. I wanted to be the
best at what I wanted to do.
I think a lot of people had trouble with that attitude. They
naturally thought that anyone who was good should have a very high
rank. I guess I’d seen enough people with high rank who weren’t
good not to be swayed.
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