Navy SEAL Post -Boehm's List for Selecting SEALs

HooYah!!

It's Wednesday!
Time to Jump the Hump with a Navy SEAL Post!

The Oldest FrogHog on the Web (said only in the nicest way, of course!) received a fantastic email today.

It said that "You have been selected to receive a $20,000 in prize money. To collect your prize, just forward your bank account number and the money will be transferred into your account within 24 hours. This is NOT a scam or a joke. Act now!!!!"

Well, after some thought (about 1 second) I selected that email to be dumped in the SPAM folder.

You know, almost daily this week I am being selected to :take a survey, take a quiz, give my opinion, open a new bank account, get a new credit card, join a Cougar club, etc.

Except for that Cougar Club thing, I often wonder why I am so lucky to be "selected". Could it be that I am such a good consumer and Credit risk? Nah, that was the other Oldest FrogHog on the Web, not me. So what gives? I'm not special in anyway from that other FrogHog. This is beginning to get on my nerves, I tell yah!

With all these thoughts of being selected and all the sounds of the clicking of the emails being dumped into the SPAM file, I got to thinking about how the first SEALs in SEAL Team 2, were selected. How did it all begin?

Why, am I thinking about Navy SEALs and being selected?

Because it is Wednesday, and I am always thinking about Navy SEAL Teams, that's why. And oh, it is the beginning of the New year and time to select a good post to start off 2012, the Year of the Navy SEAL. .

So let's start before the TEAMs were commissioned, with the posting of the below.

>From the book "First SEAL" by Roy Boehm and Charles W Sasser

For the selection of the First SEAL Team Two

"Hamilton gave me a compliment of 10 officers and 50 enlisted. I devised a rough guide for selecting names. My men, I decided should be:

• Adept at all the skills, the more the better,
  
• Versatile and be a volunteer,
  
• Actors capable of playing any role convincingly,
  
• Strong of character. I preferred sinners, Sinners could be relied on. Saints could often rationalize dog turds in a drinking fountain.
  
• Able to preform.
  
• Loyal with a sense of obligation
  
• Deeply devoted to duty and team
  
• Mission oriented
  
• Drug Free
  
• Quick to Learn
  
• Streetwise
  
• Capable of making friends, not loners
  
• Free of overwhelming personal problems.

To help me determine which potential applicants met these criteria. I jotted down a list of questions to ask them nd my self about them:

• What are his strongest /weakest traits?
  
• What is his philosophy on life?
  
• What does he read?
  
• Do I like/dislike him? Why?
  
• How does he handle his liquor?
  
• What is his psychological motivation?
  
• What/who does he fear? Why? Are his fears a liability? Can he control them? Can he conquer them?
  
• Will he kick ass and take names? To hell with the names,
  
• Is he more apt to say "go" than "no go"? Does he have a "We ain't refused a job yet, why start now" attitude?
  
• Finally, would he react to a kill without hesitation? Could he forget the inbred fair play bullshit that could get him killed? Could I train that out of him?

I reported back to Bill Hamilton with a list of names I was considering from among the UDT. The officers were all young junior officers, lieutenants (jg) and ensigns. The highest ranking among them, John Callahan, was only a lieutenant who would eventually be our commanding officer. In the meantime, however, I was in charge.

For Operations officer, I figured Lt (jg) Dante Stephenson. Dante considered himself an intellectual, but had the bad, bad loaded-gun-with-hair-trigger streak I could use if I could control it. Then there was "Tex" Hager, George Doran, Dave Graveson, Jose Taylor... I wanted a cross section of the best, men more oriented than career oriented. many of them were like me, LDOs-so-called Limited Duty Officers, mustangs who had worked their way up through the enlisted ranks. Special Warfare was like the kiss of death to an officer's career in these early stage of its inception.

From the enlisted rank, I chose tried warriors whom I knew personally as good operators. Harry Dick "Lump Lum" Williams, of course. Louis "Hoss" Kucinski, "Leg" Martin, James Tipton, Rudy Boesch... Hamiliton promised I could get anyone I wanted. The best storekeeper and cumshaw artist in the U.S. navy, who could acquire anything you needed or wanted, was Hoot Andrews, then working for Admiral Rickover with a Presidential Priority One. I put in a request for him.

UDT's Special Operations Force looked formidable, on paper, when I presented it to Lt. Comdr. Hamilton . He went down the list, repeating a name here and there. He lifted a chiseled eyebrow,

"Rogues," he commented.

"These are the caliber people I want for what we're asking them to do. I don't want Jack Armstrong All-American types who'll say, 'Yessir, nosir, 2 bags full, anything you say, sir.' I want sonsofbitches who can and will think for themselves and will get a job done no matter what. We might not win popularity contests-but we'll be capable. I'm here to fight like hell for what I do want."

"That's one of the reasons you were chosen, Lieutenant Boehm."

He suddenly sat up straight. "make it happen." he said. "Start pulling out these men and training them the way you want. When the time comes for the unit to be activated, you'll get them." He hesitated. "Lieutenant, work fast, I don't know how much time we have."'

I think that Boehm had some great ideas and was off to a good start!