The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228 » (Reprint)

DICK COUCH graduated at the top of BUD/S Class 45 in 1969. He commanded a SEAL platoon in Vietnam and led one of the only successful POW rescue operations of that conflict. Mr. Couch is the author of four novels and lives in Ketchum, Idaho. This is his first nonfiction book.
CLIFF HOLLENBECK is an award-wining photographer and photojournalist. He served with Naval Special Warfare Units, including Underwater Demolition, and was a naval aviator. He has written numerous books on photography and has two novels in print. Mr. Hollenbeck lives in Seattle.

With a postscript describing SEAL efforts in Afghanistan, The Warrior Elite takes you into the toughest, longest, and most relentless military training in the world.

What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep? In The Warrior Elite, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young men into warriors. SEAL training is the distillation of the human spirit, a tradition-bound ordeal that seeks to find men with character, courage, and the burning desire to win at all costs, men who would rather die than quit.

Kirkus Reviews

A you-are-there-style narrative of the most extreme military training in existence, the Navy's six-month Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) program. Novelist Couch (Silent Point, 1993, etc.), an alumnus of BUD/S Class 45 and SEAL Platoon Commander in Vietnam, clearly brings the necessary fervor to this subject, as he understands why SEAL training is so severe, producing enormous attrition among the officers and enlisted men who attempt BUD/S each year. Couch follows Class 228 through every aspect of this strictly regimented training, conveying an unprecedented intimacy with the process, and documenting the camaraderie of men put to the test. The three phases of BUD/S combine harsh physical training (PT) and constant competition with the omnipresent escape route of Drop On Request (DOR), which allows overwhelmed trainees a face-saving exit, while insuring that each class is winnowed down to the most hardcore. The First Phase culminates in Hell Week-a period of sleep deprivation and constant, borderline-sadistic PT, much of it (like "drown proofing") in the water, which forces many DORs, including those who must withdraw due to Hell Week-related injuries, but may return in a later class. Those who continue into Second and Third Phases learn SEAL specialties, from night swimming to tactical shooting and covert demolitions, while continuing with PT evaluations, and increasingly realistic combat and emergency simulations. The author offers a good historical understanding of the SEALs, whose group identity developed in the crucible of Vietnam, where their loss rates were high, and also some anecdotes of real SEAL combat missions, which demonstrate why such severe training is necessary.While Couch's stylized macho prose (e.g., unease described as a "gut check") is nothing if not appropriate to the material, the superior element here is the empathy and texture within his character depictions, of the earnest, youthful trainees (many of whom sooner or later DOR) and the merciless yet knowing instructor cadre. An energetic read for sailors, SEALs, and the greater population of armchair SEALs.