From Publishers Weekly
A fine conclusion to the author's valuable oral history of the Navy SEALs, this volume actually covers most of the history of the Teams. Dockery, a former soldier in the President's Guard under Nixon and Ford, uses the personal narratives of at least a dozen well-known and obscure SEALs to weave together the story of how, after Vietnam, the organization faced drastic cutbacks even as it enjoyed new and improved weaponry and delivery techniques. Eventually, the SEALs were merged with the old Underwater Demolition Teams and incorporated (much to their benefit) in Special Operations Command. Through it all, they have swum out of submarines, jumped out of airplanes and rappelled down cliffs. They have died in the waters off Granada, in firefights in Panama and in last stands in Afghanistan. Dockery's history covers all the major post-Vietnam military engagements, but this volume also spends more time than the first two did on modern SEAL training. The book's last chapter, "The Building of an Operator," provides a detailed description of the 26-week long training course, which includes an aptly named Hell Week, in which would-be SEALs must survive malfunctioning experimental equipment, flesh-eating bacteria and attack-trained dolphins. The course is designed not only to cultivate tactical sea, air and land skills but also to develop a SEAL's total commitment to his or her Teammates. "There is no 'I' in SEAL Team," Ensign Erick Peterson points out. "Everything you did was for the betterment of the Team and not for yourself." Dockery's whole series deserves praise for letting some accomplished warriors tell their own stories.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Dockery has worked up interviews conducted by Bud Brutsman and his own insights into another valuable oral-history-derived contribution to the literature of the navy's special warfare force. Contributors range from Scott Lyon, who joined the SEALs-forerunner Underwater Demolition Teams in 1952 and was one of the first into Vietnam, to Jesse Ventura, who joined the teams as that war wound down but will never forget being in one of them. The best single narrative is probably that of corpsman Greg McPartlin, a team medic, but a variety of other types and specialties are represented, including that of the ubiquitous but, it seems, not universally popular Rogue Warrior, Richard Marcinko. Activities covered include everything the teams did on or near "brown water," plus their erstwhile secret activities working off submarines, and tribute is rendered to the Seawolves, the navy's dedicated attack-helicopter squadron. Dockery makes his books accessible to any reader with a basic knowledge of the subject without compromising their status as treasure troves for serious students.
Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
