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Authors: Robert A. Gormly
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In December 1965, the Navy River Patrol Force CTF-116 was established in the Mekong Delta. Using thirty-two-foot fiberglass river patrol boats, they sought to gain control of the main rivers in the vast delta and contribute to the âpacificationâ effort against the Vietcong. SEAL platoons started operating in 1966. Based in Nha Be, SEAL Team One established a superb record, interdicting Vietcong sappers who attempted to ambush vessels in the main Saigon shipping channel. Deploying for four months at a time, SEAL personnel in the Rung Sat set a tempo of operations that few units in the war could match. After four months platoons rotated back to their base in Coronado, California, to rest, recuperate, and reconstitute, usually for no more than five consecutive months. Then the men went back to Vietnam to pick up where they had left offâkilling Vietcong. SEAL One was so successful that SEAL Team Two was offered the chance to expand SEAL operations into the southern Mekong Delta region.
In 1966, U.S. military strength in Vietnam more than doubled, from 180,000 at the beginning of the year to 385,000 by the end. Yet the U.S. Navy was the only American force represented in the Mekong Delta when SEAL Team Two platoons arrived at Binh Thuy in late January 1967. We were full of piss and vinegar, ready to win the war. Fire one!
4
GETTING READY TO FIGHT
I wanted to join SEAL Two, both for the sake of a change and because Vietnam was heating up; I figured SEAL Team Two was the best way for me to get there. (SEAL One, based in California, offered a better chance of going to Vietnam, but I didnât want to break my ties to Virginia Beach.) In those days, the mid-1960s, you didnât get to join a SEAL Team just because you wanted to. Fortunately, the commanding officer, Lieutenant Tom Tarbox, okayed me.
Back then all SEAL business was classified âSecret.â Even people in UDT didnât know exactly what SEALs did. Every piece of paper I saw when I got there was classified Secret, right down to the personnel roster. In fact, SEAL Two was doing very little. From its heyday of the early sixties and the Bay of Pigs, the command had fallen into the doldrums.
SEAL Team Two was small then, ten officers and fifty enlisted; it had no routine deployments, no money, and no real mission. The Naval Operations Support Group Atlantic, which controlled the UDTs, SEAL Team Two, and Boat Support Unit Two, was so unimpressed by its capabilities that, shortly after I arrived, the commodore called me over to his office and chewed me out royally for no other reason than that I had decided to go there. Still, I never thought I had made a mistake in joining SEAL Two; there, I worked with some of the best people I ever met, and Tom Tarbox was high on that list.
When I checked in, Tom told me I would be assigned to one of the assault groups, as the platoons were called then, and my administrative duty would be as ordnance officer, in charge of the Teamâs first NWAI, nuclear weapons acceptance inspection.
I replied, âGreat. Whatâs that?â
Tom said, âFind out and get back to me.â What he didnât say (and didnât have to) was âDonât flunk.â
Thanks largely to Chief Petty Officer Bob Gallagher, we didnât. Bob was my âassistant.â In his usual diplomatic style, he said, âLieutenant, you go learn how to be a SEAL, and Iâll get the department squared away for the inspection.â I took his advice, and we did so well our program was cloned for UDTs 21 and 22 so they could pass their later inspections. Bob Gallagher went on to be probably the most-decorated man ever to serve in SEAL Team Two. On his third tour in Vietnam he was an assistant platoon commander, the only enlisted man from SEAL Two ever to hold that position. During one particularly nasty operation, his platoon took on what they thought was a VC company; it turned out to be a battalion. In
In December 1965, the Navy River Patrol Force CTF-116 was established in the Mekong Delta. Using thirty-two-foot fiberglass river patrol boats, they sought to gain control of the main rivers in the vast delta and contribute to the âpacificationâ effort against the Vietcong. SEAL platoons started operating in 1966. Based in Nha Be, SEAL Team One established a superb record, interdicting Vietcong sappers who attempted to ambush vessels in the main Saigon shipping channel. Deploying for four months at a time, SEAL personnel in the Rung Sat set a tempo of operations that few units in the war could match. After four months platoons rotated back to their base in Coronado, California, to rest, recuperate, and reconstitute, usually for no more than five consecutive months. Then the men went back to Vietnam to pick up where they had left offâkilling Vietcong. SEAL One was so successful that SEAL Team Two was offered the chance to expand SEAL operations into the southern Mekong Delta region.
In 1966, U.S. military strength in Vietnam more than doubled, from 180,000 at the beginning of the year to 385,000 by the end. Yet the U.S. Navy was the only American force represented in the Mekong Delta when SEAL Team Two platoons arrived at Binh Thuy in late January 1967. We were full of piss and vinegar, ready to win the war. Fire one!
4
GETTING READY TO FIGHT
I wanted to join SEAL Two, both for the sake of a change and because Vietnam was heating up; I figured SEAL Team Two was the best way for me to get there. (SEAL One, based in California, offered a better chance of going to Vietnam, but I didnât want to break my ties to Virginia Beach.) In those days, the mid-1960s, you didnât get to join a SEAL Team just because you wanted to. Fortunately, the commanding officer, Lieutenant Tom Tarbox, okayed me.
Back then all SEAL business was classified âSecret.â Even people in UDT didnât know exactly what SEALs did. Every piece of paper I saw when I got there was classified Secret, right down to the personnel roster. In fact, SEAL Two was doing very little. From its heyday of the early sixties and the Bay of Pigs, the command had fallen into the doldrums.
SEAL Team Two was small then, ten officers and fifty enlisted; it had no routine deployments, no money, and no real mission. The Naval Operations Support Group Atlantic, which controlled the UDTs, SEAL Team Two, and Boat Support Unit Two, was so unimpressed by its capabilities that, shortly after I arrived, the commodore called me over to his office and chewed me out royally for no other reason than that I had decided to go there. Still, I never thought I had made a mistake in joining SEAL Two; there, I worked with some of the best people I ever met, and Tom Tarbox was high on that list.
When I checked in, Tom told me I would be assigned to one of the assault groups, as the platoons were called then, and my administrative duty would be as ordnance officer, in charge of the Teamâs first NWAI, nuclear weapons acceptance inspection.
I replied, âGreat. Whatâs that?â
Tom said, âFind out and get back to me.â What he didnât say (and didnât have to) was âDonât flunk.â
Thanks largely to Chief Petty Officer Bob Gallagher, we didnât. Bob was my âassistant.â In his usual diplomatic style, he said, âLieutenant, you go learn how to be a SEAL, and Iâll get the department squared away for the inspection.â I took his advice, and we did so well our program was cloned for UDTs 21 and 22 so they could pass their later inspections. Bob Gallagher went on to be probably the most-decorated man ever to serve in SEAL Team Two. On his third tour in Vietnam he was an assistant platoon commander, the only enlisted man from SEAL Two ever to hold that position. During one particularly nasty operation, his platoon took on what they thought was a VC company; it turned out to be a battalion. In
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