American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U. S. Military History

particular liking to my flipper. He had it in his jaw.
He wasn’t a huge shark, but what he lacked in size he made up
for in pure orneriness. I grabbed my knife and cut off my fin—no
sense keeping it now that it was all chewed up, right?
While he was munching on what remained of it, I swam up to the
surface and flagged down the security boat. I grabbed onto the side
and explained that they were taking me in RIGHT NOW!! because
there was a SHARK!! out here, and he was one hungry mother.
D
uring another training exercise—this one was before my first
deployment—four of us were inserted on the California coast from
a submarine. We came ashore in two Zodiacs, built a hide, and did
some reconnaissance. When the time came, we all got in our
Zodiacs and headed back out to meet the sub and go home.
Unfortunately, my officer had given the submarine the wrong grid
coordinates for the rendezvous. In fact, they were so far off that
there was an island between us and the sub.
Of course, we didn’t know that at the time. We just circled

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around, trying to make radio coms with a vessel that was too far
away to hear us. At some point, either our radio got wet or the
battery drained, and all hope of connection was lost.
We spent just about the entire night out on the water in the
Zodiacs. Finally, as dawn approached, our fuel was nearly gone.
My raft was starting to go flat. We all decided we’d just go back
ashore and wait. At least we would get some sleep.
As we were coming in, a sea lion swam up, all friendly-like.
Being from Texas, I had never really had much of a chance to look
at sea lions, so naturally I was curious and started watching this one.
He was a pretty interesting, if ugly, critter.
All of a sudden—
splop
—he disappeared below the surface.
The next thing I knew, he—and we—were surrounded by large,
pointy fins. Apparently, a number of sharks had decided to make
breakfast of him.
Sea lions are big, but there were way too many sharks to be
satisfied with just him. They started circling closer and closer to the
sides of my raft, which looked increasingly thin and perilously close
to the water.
I glanced toward shore. It was very far off.
Holy shit,
I thought. 
I’m going to get eaten.
My companion in the raft was a rather round fellow, at least for
a SEAL.
“If we go down,” I warned him, “I’m shooting you. You’ll be
something for the sharks to munch on while I swim to shore.”

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He just cursed at me. I think he thought I was kidding.
I wasn’t.