SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper [Hardcover]

I was honored to get a pre-release copy of this book and I was very excited to read it. Then I read the news a couple of days later that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Killed by SEALs from Team Six! Damn, now I could not wait to get my hands on this book! Talk about great timing.

This book is the memoir of Howard Wasdin, a sniper from SEAL Team Six, and co-authored by Stephen Templin, who met Howard when the two of them were going through BUD/S training together. While neither of the authors were on Team Six at the time of the OBL takedown, the book does give an excellent account of SEAL training and is one of the few books that actually talks about SEAL Team Six, which is an elite team inside the already incredibly elite world of the Navy SEALs.

The book is very exciting, written well, and gives in-depth accounts of Wasdins childhood. You can feel the pain he goes through at the hands of an abusive step-father. While that is a bad situation, you can see how Wasdin internalizes that pain and suffering and uses it to help him get through BUD/S training, which is hands-down the toughest training on this planet.

The chapter titled "The only easy day was yesterday" tells about a portion of Wasdin's time at BUD/S training. It goes into details about the rigorous training but can only cover some of it because the training is so intense and varied that it takes whole books to even come close to detailing it. If you are interested I highly recommend The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228 and The Finishing School: Earning the Navy SEAL Trident by Dick Couch. Those two books will give you an inside look into what it takes to become a Navy SEAL. After you read them you will never again question the dedication that these men have and you will be humbled in their presence because they are pretty amazing people.

Wasdin walks us through his Navy career, tells about his time in SEAL Team Two, and how he tested and interviewed to become a member of Team Six. It then goes on to give detailed accounts of his time at Marine Corp Sniper school, almost too much detail because the "deer tic" story is a visual I could have lived without. But I Guess that is something you never really think about when you are crawling into position to take a shot. Taking hours to crawl a hundred yards has got to be intense, when even the slightest movement can be picked up by the enemy. It is just another look into the intensity and dedication these professional operators have.

This book kept my attention from cover to cover, but the sections on Somalia were especially riveting. Wasdin was a key member in the Battle of Mogadishu which many of you know from the book Black Hawk Down and the movie by the same name. In this intense battle he was shot three times, almost losing a leg, but as a testament to his professionalism and training he continues to fight to save his fellow warriors.

The book wraps up with a few chapters detailing his recovery and re-insertion back into civilian life. He also tells how he finally came to peace with his retirement from the SEALs and has been guided into doing what he feels he is destined to do, helping others. I highly recommend this book.

Another great book you will enjoy is Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell which details Operation Redwing in Afghanistan. Another amazing book.

You read a book like this because you love the action, the scenarios and the pure learning curve it provides about one of the deadliest combat forces in history. Author Howard Wasdin was an actual member of Seal Team Six and retired out on a medical discharge after he sustained severe injuries on a mission.

This book simply gives you details of the life of a Navy Seal that you will not find anywhere else, and I believe I have read most of what is on the market. Wasdin was involved with missions such as the Battle of Mogadishu, and the first Gulf War. He pulls no punches and he minces no words. What is is, and he is unafraid to tell you about it within the bounds of protecting his fellow Seals.

As an example, he mentions that during the first Gulf War he thought it was reasonable that the Seals should have been put in charge of protecting the Kuwaiti oil fields from the retreating Iraqi army under Saddam Hussein. The generals in charge thought otherwise. As a result Hussein's troops set fire to the fields during the retreat. Some 600 oil wells were fired up. Kuwait lost 5 to 6 million barrels per day. Five percent of the physical country was a mixture of land and oil, and it cost $1.5 billion to clean up, and nobody talks about it.

Wasdin is also very clear about what service to his country does to a marriage - it simply destroys it. It does not take long for a wife to realize that a Seal is more married to his team than he is to a woman. Most marriages suffer as a result, including his own, but training and the mission come first and as Seals like to say, the more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war.

The book contains 307 pages in 17 chapters plus an epilogue. My favorite chapters were:

7) Desert Storm

8) Seal Team Six

13) Battle of Mogadishu

If you have an interest in the training and specific operational procedures that these professionals face, then this is the book for you. Whether it is learning to operate a .300 Caliber Win Mag sniper rifle or H&P MP-5 Sig Sauer 9 mm handgun, this book is full of absolutely fascinating state of the art information. From swimming in high seas to doing high altitude-low opening jumps from airplanes, these men are among the best trained warriors in history. Yes there are others such as the Army's Delta Force, or Air Force Search and Rescue, but now with the death of Bin Laden, Seal Team Six will enter into the stuff of legends.

If you have any interest in war and special operations groups than I urge you to read Seal Team Six, and thank you for reading this review.

Richard Stoyeck

Post Script:

When I was learning to shoot weapons many years ago, I sought out the best shooter in the world. I found him in Florida, and he was a former world champion. I traveled down from New York and upon arrival, I met a handful of Navy Seals who were training with this gentleman as well. Over a period of days we all hit it off. What I noticed which has never been written about anywhere is the brainpower that these warriors possess. Any of these individuals could have been doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers. They are extremely bright, and handle themselves in a highly professional and at the same time in a private manner. No braggarts in this group.

It's an exciting albeit clunky read. I enjoyed it for the story and the information it covered. There are lots of intriguing historical and anecdotal references throughout that keep it moving along. But it really could have used some additional editing and/or co-writing from someone who truly is a skilled writer. There are passages that are a bit too tangential and thus disrupt the flow. Information sometimes seemed crammed in out a sense of stream of consciousness rather than serving pertinent narrative value at that point in the book. They are often interesting or significant asides regarding historical events or referencing other operatives, but they seem jarring in their placement and all too often so brief that you feel left hanging for the rest of that piece of story.

That said, the story of Howard Wasdin's journey from being a kid with an abusive step-father to becoming an elite operative and how his experience as a youth directly influenced and guided his ability to excel at training was fascinating. And of course there is plenty of exciting reading when he recounts the various missions (both training and "real world") he was involved in leading up to his involvement in the Battle of Mogadishu. I also found the section of the book about post-operative (pun unintended) life to be a very nice surprise that really gives the whole book a very real and personal arc. The internal battle he had transitioning into a civilian life without team camaraderie and his path to finding a new career that he genuinely loves and his passion for helping people are endearing.

My only real criticism of the book is it's rather inelegant and blatant product placement. It is one thing to mention the arms maker and model of weaponry and equipment used in operations and training. That type of information is required for a properly detailed book on this subject matter. However, the book is riddled with brand name references to minor pieces of equipment and clothing that are just too prominent, and at times it is almost comical. There are whole portions of paragraphs that run on like some pieces advertising copy for things like sunglasses and casual pants and at times I found myself surprised that they didn't included the manufacturers model number and a "Buy It Here" link. In other spots the brand names are conspicuously not referenced, thus making you wonder whether they aren't named because they didn't pay a product placement gratuity or something. It's certainly not a deal breaker, but by the end of the book I did find it a bit tedious and amateurish.

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