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S
CUDS
I
n late fall, a SEAL platoon in the Philippines snuck alongside a
freighter. From that point on, the North Korean ship was literally a
marked vessel.
The 3,500-ton freighter had an interesting history of transporting
items to and from North Korea. According to one rumor, she had
transported chemicals that could be used to create nerve weapons.
In this case, though, the ship’s papers declared that she was
carrying cement.
What she was really carrying were Scud missiles.
The ship was tracked around the Horn of Africa while the Bush
administration decided what to do about it. Finally, the President
ordered that the ship be boarded and searched: just the sort of job
SEALs excel at.
We had a platoon in Djibouti, which was a hell of a lot closer to
the craft than we were. But because of the way the chain of
command and assignments worked—the unit happened to be
working for the Marines while we were directly under a Navy
command—we were tasked to take down the freighter.
You can imagine how happy our sister platoon was to see us
when we landed in Djibouti. Not only had we “stolen” a mission
they considered theirs, they had to suffer the indignity of helping us
offload and get ready for action.
As soon as I got off the plane, I spotted a buddy.
“Hey!” I shouted.
“
....
off,” he answered.
“What’s up?”
“
....
you.”
That was the extent of his welcome. I couldn’t blame him; in his
place, I’d have been pissed myself. He and the others eventually
came around—they weren’t mad at us; they were mad at the
situation. Grudgingly, they helped us prepare for the mission, then
got us aboard a mail-and-resupply helicopter from the USS
Nassau,
an amphibious assault ship out in the Indian Ocean.
Amphibs, as they’re called, are large assault ships that carry
troops and helicopters, and occasionally Marine Harrier attack
aircraft. They look like old-fashioned aircraft carriers with a
straight-through flight deck. They’re fairly large, and have command
and control facilities that can be used as forward planning and
command posts during assault operations.
There are several ways to take down a ship, depending on the
conditions and the target. While we could have used helicopters to
get to the North Korean freighter, looking at photos of the ship we
noticed that there were a number of wires running above the deck.
Those wires would have to be removed before we could land,
which would add time to the operation.
Knowing we’d lose the element of surprise if we went in with
helos, we opted to use RHIBs instead. We started doing practice
runs off the side of the
Nassau
with boats that had been brought out
there by a Special Boat Unit. (Special Boat Units are the SEALs’
dedicated taxi service. They run the RHIBs, Mk-Vs, and other
SEAL-related vessels. Among other things, the units are equipped
and trained to make combat insertions, braving fire to get SEALs in
and out of trouble.)
The freighter, meanwhile, continued sailing toward us. We
geared up as it came within range, preparing to hit it. But before we
could board the boats, we got a call telling us to stand by—the
Spaniards had moved in.
What?
The Spanish frigate
Navarra
had confronted the North Korean
ship, which had been fooling exactly nobody by sailing without a
flag and with her name covered up. According to later reports,
Spanish spec-op troops went in after the freighter failed to comply
with the frigate’s orders to stop. Of course, they used helicopters,
and just as we had thought, were delayed by having to shoot out the
wires. From what I’ve heard, that delay would have given the
captain aboard the vessel time to get rid of incriminating paperwork
and other evidence, that’s what I think happened.
O
bviously, there was a lot going on behind the scenes that we
weren’t aware of.
Whatever.
Our mission was quickly changed from taking down the ship to
going aboard and securing it—and uncovering the Scud missiles.
You wouldn’t think missiles would be hard to find. But in this
case, they were nowhere to be seen. The ship’s hold was full of
bags of cement—eighty-pound bags. There must have been
hundreds of thousands.
There was only one place the Scuds could be. We started
moving cement. Bag after bag. That was our job for twenty-four
hours. No sleep, just move bags of cement. I must have moved
thousands myself. It was miserable. I was covered with dust. God
knows what my lungs looked like. Finally, we found shipping
containers underneath. Out came our torches and saws.
I worked one of the quickie saws. Also known as a cut-off saw,
it looks like a chain saw with a circular blade on the front. It cuts
through just about anything, including Scud containers.
Fifteen Scud missiles lay under the cement. I’d never seen a
Scud up close before, and to be honest, I thought they were kind of
cool-looking. We took pictures, then waved the EOD guys
—“explosive ordinance disposal,” or bomb disposal experts—in to
make sure they were inert.
By that point, the entire platoon was completely covered with
cement dust. A few guys went over the side to clean off. Not me.
Given my history with dives, I wasn’t taking any chances. That
much cement, who the hell knows what happens when it touches
the water?
W
e handed the freighter over to the Marines and went back
aboard the
Nassau
. Command sent word that we would be pulled
out and returned to Kuwait in “the same expedient fashion you were
brought in
.
”
Of course, they were full of shit. We stayed on the
Nassau
for
two weeks. For some reason, the Navy couldn’t figure out how to
free up one of the umpteen helicopters they had sitting on the flight
deck to get us back to Djibouti. So we played video games and
pumped iron, waiting. That and slept.
Unfortunately, the only video game we had with us was Madden
Football. I got pretty good at it. Up until that time, I hadn’t been
much for playing video games. Now I’m an expert—especially at
Madden. That was probably where I got hooked. I think my wife
still cusses my two weeks aboard the
Nassau
to this very day.
A
footnote on the Scuds: the missiles were bound for Yemen. Or
at least that’s what Yemen said. There have been rumors that they
were part of some sort of a deal with Libya involving a payoff to
take Saddam Hussein into exile, but I have no idea whether that’s
true or not. In any event, the Scuds were released and went on to
Yemen, Saddam stayed in Iraq, and we went back to Kuwait to get
ready for war.
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