Hunters and Shooters by Bill Fawcett

Author:Bill Fawcett [Bill Fawcett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061734533
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was very rare for a trainee fresh out of basic UDT training to be accepted directly into the SEAL Teams. When the Teams were first forming, some promising trainees were singled out to go into them. Several men were still in training when the Teams were commissioned and did not enter the SEALs until after they had graduated. Even though they arrived some time after the commissioning date of the SEALs, these men are still considered plankowners of the Teams, as their names were on the original Team rosters.

It was also very rare for men to enter UDT training directly from boot camp. Today, it is possible for a man to enlist into the Navy specifically to try out for the SEALs. If these people cannot pass BUD/S, they can quickly find themselves members of the fleet Navy. But in the 1960s, it took a very determined man to enter the Navy solely to join the UDT or SEALs.

Training in the UDT was hard, and in the SEALs it was even harder and more dangerous. The SEALs were performing a very difficult job in Vietnam, and performing it well. It was the training they received back in the States that most SEALs state gave them the skills necessary to survive and excel at their mission.

One mission the SEALs completed almost amazingly well was that of PRU advisors. The Provincial Reconnaissance Units were paramilitary organizations made up of Asians, but not necessarily Vietnamese, supplied and supported by the U.S. intelligence community. Each province in the Republic of South Vietnam had a PRU, whose primary target was the Viet Cong infrastructure (VCI) of that province. By capturing or eliminating VCI, the actions of the Viet Cong could be choked off for lack of effective leadership. Advisors for the PRUs came from many sources—the Army, Marines, CIA, and Navy SEALs. Among the most successful PRUs were those run by SEAL advisors. An advisor billet became a very desirable goal for action-oriented SEALs, and only the best were chosen from the many volunteers.

Because of the PRUs’ standing as the action arm of the Phoenix program, their successes have been overshadowed by rumors and hearsay stories of excesses and assassination programs. The SEALs never ran an assassination program. To the SEALs, and the men they led, if someone had a weapon and refused to surrender, they were fair game. Vietnam was a war, no matter what some people might say otherwise, and a war of guerrillas at that.

The VC and NVA couldn’t have been much more frightened of the SEALs, or “the men with Green Faces,” as they were called, if the Teams were guilty of much that they were accused of. But to a SEAL or SEAL advisor, a captured VCI member was much more valuable than a dead one. Dead men will not give you intelligence that can lead to more and bigger operations.

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