SEAL Warrior: Death in the Dark - Vietnam, 1968-1972 »

THOMAS H. KEITH retired as a Command Master Chief with thirty-one years service in the U.S. Navy, twenty-nine years with the U.S. Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams and SEAL Team 2. During his three tours of duty in the Republic of Vietnam with SEAL Team 2, he received two Purple Hearts, three Bronze Stars with combat V for valor, two Navy Commendation medals with combat V for valor, one Navy Achievement medal with combat V for valor, two Presidential Unit Citations, and two Navy Unit Citations among his many awards. He devoted twenty-nine years of service to Naval Special Warfare and is still involved in active special operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as a civilian contractor.

J. TERRY RIEBLING has been writing technical articles for major firearms magazines and journals for thirty years. He is the winner of the Erskine Caldwell Award for Short Fiction and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

During the Vietnam era, many of the U.S. Navy SEALs (SEa, Air, Land commandos) never filed for a Purple Heart unless they were severely wounded. Thomas H. Keith, Master Chief, SEAL Team 2, is living proof. He carries a piece of shrapnel behind one lung, a reminder of the day he called in 40 mm mortar fire on the enemy that was trying to catch up to his crew as the crew hauled ass out of the bush. Not only did he never report it, it was never removed—-it just wasn’t serious enough.

SEAL Warrior is the vivid, gritty, transporting memoir of a man destined for combat, a third-generation soldier for whom serving his country was not only an honor, it was tradition. While his grandfathers fought in France, and his father’s position as a U.S. Navy Chief took him all around the world, Tom Keith fought his first war in the jungles of Vietnam.

Fighting a guerilla war on foreign soil for the first time in American history, the SEALS found that there were no front lines; the enemy was an integral part of the entire society. This atypical form of warfare demanded that new tactics, new strategic applications of force, and a new understanding of a complex social and cultural enmity be found.

SEAL Warrior goes beyond the horror and bravado of battle to offer a deeper insight into the ways in which the SEALs fought, learned, reacted, and expanded their understanding of guerilla warfare during the Vietnam War. It’s also a personal, riveting account of how one young American survived, and, over time, grew to trust and revere many of those who once had been his enemy.

With America again deeply involved in guerilla warfare, there is no better time to honor the unique abilities, understanding, and courage of these warriors who sacrificed it all to fight for nothing less than peace.

Kirkus Reviews

An unsentimental personal account of the Vietnam War. With the assistance of magazine writer Riebling, retired SEAL master chief Keith chronicles a tale that's oddly refreshing in its clear-eyed bluntness. The author and his tough-as-nails team had jobs to do, he writes, carrying out missions protecting friendly villages from Viet Cong attacks; they simply did not have time to let the brutal surroundings affect them. The narrative opens with the SEALs surrounded by explosions and tracer fire as they wait to be extracted by helicopter. Keith was not consumed by fear, as most people would be. Instead, he reflected on how the red tracer fire was "as beautiful as any Fourth of July fireworks display" and how lucky he felt to be doing a job he loved. The son of a Navy chief and the grandson of two Army veterans, from an early age Keith dreamed of entering the military, and his determination and skill led him to the elite Navy SEALs. There's little doubt that he was born to be a soldier, as his hard-nosed, complete-the-mission training comes through on every page of this memoir. When one of his soldiers died, he took lessons from the circumstances of the death rather than spend precious time mourning or dwelling on the life-or-death scenarios he faced on a daily basis. Keith's prose leans toward Mickey Spillane-like hypermasculinity-he describes a beautiful woman as having "hit the jackpot" on the "genetic wheel of fortune"-and the author dwells on technical aspects of weaponry to the point of distraction. Nonetheless, he provides a tough, unphilosophical account of the job of war. A direct, dispassionate memoir by one of the Navy's most highly decorated soldiers.