McRaven's Book "Sea Stories"

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I ordered Adm. McRaven's new book "Sea Stories after seeing him talk about it on a video.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1538716437

I'm through the first three chapters and it's pretty good so far. The chapters are self-contained short stories and are pretty entertaining. Looking forward to his reading his thoughts about Bin Laden and Saddam.

Thought I'd share in case someone is looking for a new read.
 
I worked under him for a couple years when he was the CG of SOCEUR. Good dude.

As I was on the MC side of the house, he had no influence on me. That said....many people in NSW didn't trust him; he threw a lot of people under the bus and there's still some bad blood. The prevailing sentiment is that once he pinned the chicken he went all political and career-saving mode.

That said, I'd read it.
 
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As I was on the MC side of the house, he had no influence on me. That said....many people in NSW didn't trust him; he threw a lot of people under the bus and there's still some bad blood. The prevailing sentiment is that once he pinned the chicken he went all political and career-saving mode.

That said, I'd read it.

Huh. I'd never heard that, but we only had a couple of Navy Os in the J3 & were weren't exactly buddies. He was super cool & down to earth with me the handful of times we interacted.
 
I've heard people try to pin him as all political and threw his former teammates under the bus....destroyed (or allowed to be destroyed) the image of the SEALs...etc. Hell, Trump even tried to pin him as a "Clinton supporter" during an interview a while back.

There will always be a percentage of political-ness at his level. If he didn't have it, he wouldn't have been appointed to command SOCOM, and the dude who would have been appointed would have made up for his lack of political-ness.
 
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There will always be a percentage of political-ness at his level. If he didn't have it, he wouldn't have been appointed to command SOCOM, and the dude who would have been appointed would have made up for his lack of political-ness.

Sadly, very true. There is no lack of erstwhile politicians in the military & this is no less true of special ops than conventional forces.
 
I've heard people try to pin him as all political and threw his former teammates under the bus....destroyed (or allowed to be destroyed) the image of the SEALs...etc. Hell, Trump even tried to pin him as a "Clinton supporter" during an interview a while back.

There will always be a percentage of political-ness at his level. If he didn't have it, he wouldn't have been appointed to command SOCOM, and the dude who would have been appointed would have made up for his lack of political-ness.

Under his watch BUDS was changed, and not for the better. He swept a lot of stuff under the rug, oversaw promotions that should not have happened. We had maybe a half dozen HMs crossdeck to Recon when he was the Boss, and maybe a dozen SEALs (that I knew) got out and go SF or Recon. All stars require turd polishing and bone robbing and making deals with the devil, but something about him was different. That said, I do know he changed ST6 for the better (he and Marcinko hated each other) and his alignment of NSW streamlined how they worked with other kids in the community, and opened up their schools to us.

Again, as I was under the MC umbrella I was never under his command but the whole six degrees of separation got me a tad closer than others.
 
I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book. Very interesting and entertaining reading so far. I was unaware of the parachute accident that he was in.
 
I'm about 1/3 of the way through the book. Very interesting and entertaining reading so far. I was unaware of the parachute accident that he was in.
I just reached the end of the Iraqi tanker. The ghosts of Tifoli story was very interesting.
 
Just finished the book. Overall a great read. The chapter about the UBL raid was fascinating. His final chapter was very worthy reading as well.

Definite recommend.
 
I just got done with the Ghiyardi raid into Syria. His comments about Saddam were interesting. Also eyebrow-raising was him being the initiator of “take off your shoes” at the airport—and apologizing for it. But it was apparently a serious threat.
 
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