Customer Reviews

The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book contains a great deal of information about the SEAL training program and how mindboggling difficult it is to accomplish. The author is obviously very interested in the actual training program; what gets lost are the people themselves. I was expecting the book to be something of a Survivor-type story, where we would meet some members of the class of 228, get to know them and their motivations and see which ones failed and which ones survived. Instead, the characters are introduced in a very perfunctory way, and almost none of the quitters are gone into in any detail.

My title says it all. I could not put this book down. Even after seeing the Discovery Channel's documentary on Class 238, this book adds so much more to the real life experience. I think this is the very best book written on BUD/s. Makes my 1972 Marine Corp boot camp experience feel like kindergarden. Hooyah to all past, present, and future Seals.

I got hooked on these type of books by a friend reading Warrior Soul at the beach and couldnt take his eyes off the book. I thought the book was fantastic! Dick Couch really goes into detail of class 228 going through BUD/S. He really immerses you in the experience of training to become a navy seal and the mind sets of the class. By the end of the book I felt like I really knew some of the students like burke & birch. These guys are no joke! Reading about all the training that goes on in 1 day alone is unbelievable. If you are looking for a book that really goes into the training involved along the path to becoming a seal then this is a must have.

I first became interested in the Navy SEALs during a Learning Channel 5-part series that follows class 324 thru BUD/s (Basic Underwater Demolition, Seal training) To see the various evolutions these young men had to go thru was inspiring. Thus when I was on Coronado Island I decided I had to get a book that dug deeper into the forging of a Navy SEAL. I was recommended this book by the owner of a Coronado bookstore. Dick Couch, the author and former Navy SEAL was given access to BUD/s class 228 to tell the story of the men who make it to graduation and beyond. Throughtout the book you get a real sense of what it would be like to go thru the training, and all the internal thoughts that you need to fight off to make it. There is a great deal of detail put into Indoc., First Phase, Hell Week, Second Phase and Third Phase. While that entails all phases of BUD/s graduation there is much more training ahead for the graduates, that most likely gets told in Finishing School.

I highly recommend this book, to at the bare minimum understand the trials these men go thru, and at the max. to push yourself to achieve things you never thought possible.

Leading my team to excellance within my company seems much more achievable today. This book is a primer on how will and commitment can achieve the unthinkable. An amazing book in any perspective.

I am so impressed with the story told by Dick Couch about the training and selection process for Navy SEALs. He shows that guys who make it through 'Hell Week' are not just strong, tough guys who won't quit, they're lucky too. Avoiding injury through such physical stress is the real limiting factor for those who are mentally tough enough. The mental toughness though, that's the really fascinating part of the story. Every guy, in some part of his mind wonders, 'If it came down to it, do I have what it takes?' This book shows that Navy SEALs do! I wish I had this book when I was younger. I wouldn't be so cocky as to say that I could do this, but I would have loved to have tried. Great book for a young man, but entertaining for anyone. The trials that these warriors endure puts our every day complaints into perspective.

This book is one of the best books I've ever read. I couldn't put it down. These guys are the real deal!! it makes me feel safe that we have specialist's that are trained that well protecting our country!!

After reading this book, you will have a good understanding of just what it takes to be a SEAL.

The book is supplemented with many color photos, to give you just a taste of the real life behind those mental images you have built up.

This is a MUST READ for SEAL enthusiasts and fans of hard charging, tough as nails military reality.

Hooyah!

This book is definitely written from an conventional Navy officer's perspective. Despite Couch's past SEAL career, he basically comes across as one of the "conventional" thinking SEAL officers that Richard Marcinko repeatedly complains about in his many best selling books. Dick Couch paints the modern SEALs as like some prima donnas and discounts their past "badboy" image and history. He even goes so far as to call the SEALS of the Vietnam era, seventies and eighties era as "streetfighters" rather than warriors. I found this disrespectful to the many enlisted SEALs and mustang SEAL officers who developed the SEAL mystique during the post Vietnam era.

Couch obviously favors Naval Academy grad officers from the things he says in his book. His Naval Academy bias comes thru loud and clear. He talks little about the many fine "Mustang" SEAL officers who have made the SEAL community what it is today. Many of the more innoative SEAL officers are former enlisted SEALs, who after first becoming enlisted SEALs went onto college, then went to OCS and became SEAL Commissioned Officers. Richard Marcinko is one of these "Mustang" SEAL officers, who earned everything he had and was given nothing.

Couch's opinion at the end of the book that the earlier era SEALs were "streetfighters" rather than real warriors is just plain disrespectful to the many sixties, seventies and eighties era SEALs who built NAVSPECWAR into what it is today. Those men were the pioneers...who rebelled against the conventional Navy and built the current SEAL reputation. Those "streetfighter" SEALs Couch talks about were doing SEAL things long before special ops became popular or hip or cool. In fact they were doing it when special ops was actually UNPOPULAR in the Vietnam and post Vietnam era.

Thank Goodness I rented this book from my local library. Rather than shelling out the cash to buy it. I actually thought it was a good book initially, but due to the author's disrespectful opinions and slants which come thru clearly in this book, Im glad I didnt buy it with my own cash.

This book to me displays a very conventional side of the Navy SEALs and its a side I doubt would be very useful in the war against terrorism. We need more "streetfighters" SEALs to fight dirty in this war against terrorism.

I was in 228, got rolled to 229 after twice failing the Survival Swim (one of the 'easy' evolutions), got injured and quit. 238 I just got injured and quit, and two years later my back is still messed up. Whopdeedo, eh? Not much to brag about, but I do know that Mr. Couch did a good job, though he missed a few things. One of those things is exactly how we did our surf-runs that first PT on the first day of trng. Too funny to print, I guess.
Good book, though. If anyone knows how to get ahold of Harry Pell, one of the best guys ever not to make the Teams, tell him parl2001 at yahoo is looking for him.
And, just in case anyone believed that earlier review, this book does not take place during "the Vietnam Era," but rather in the fall of 1999.