MEN WITH GREEN FACES

[Music] these men are members of one of the most unique military organizations in history behind these green faces are men who have accepted the challenge of some of the most daring assignments given to american fighting men these are the navy's seals [Music] seal teams were organized at the suggestion of president john kennedy who realized that it would take special operations to win special kinds of war for years the existence of these teams was a defense department secret now parts of their story can be told in an age when most military engagements have become distant and impersonal seals operate in the midst of the enemy their purpose is to disrupt his supply lines choke his communications learn his secrets if you really want some exciting work come to clt and you'll be involved in it we're more or less of an unsung soldier in a lot of respects because they can't write up a lot of the things we do but i say that within yourself you'll know you'll have this personal pride that know you is there and you did the job after the war they're probably right about it but if you're in here for just getting the bronze star and your name on the front page no you won't because they don't put our name on the front page you'll know within yourself you'll know what your buddies have done you'll know our record and you'll know what a great unit we are you'll be there all our volunteers from the famed frogmen of the navy's underwater demolition team but once out of water most similarity with frogmen ends we are basically an intelligence gathering unit we gather every bit of information that's possible whether it be a small piece of paper with some vietnamese writing on it or trails bullet traffic anything that might be of real significant value to your intelligence obviously when you get back every man's got to have the physical strength to get through the mission and the mental strength not to waver when the going gets rough and it gets pretty rough pretty regularly you've got to want it inside of here gentlemen i told you that we throw things at you rather fast you've got to react immediately because later on if you don't react to me immediately you will be a casualty and you're doing us no good we have to put you in an old pine box because you didn't use your noodle you'll be exposed to pain and punishment and other little devices that we'll think of for one reason and one reason only to make you the type of person we need to get the job done no matter what the job is these men are preparing for the grim reality of a personal war [Applause] counter guerrilla jungle fighting and rugged hand-to-hand combat lies ahead [Music] for this they must stay in prime physical condition those who can't take it would be a liability in combat in utt training they very definitely push you to your limits in fact beyond what you thought was your own it's an eye-opener it was an eye-opener for me i'm sure it was for most people please do it weekend what training does for us is it gives us a stamina teaches us to know ourselves you know that we could if we had to run for three hours 18 miles though we could move across 600 meters of mud on our stomachs and be ready to fight when we get there it's not a breeze i think it's more of a mental problem than it is physically i mean if it's a normal average athletic type person that has nothing physically wrong with him then it's all up to him if he wants udt bad enough he can endure the runs they don't punish you to where you can't walk again or you don't have to swim so far that you're going to cramp up and drown [Music] [Music] physical training certainly you work different parts of the body on different obstacles you work coordination as a matter of fact and a great deal of confidence in yourself [Music] it's just that well i want udt and i can do all these things and then you get a positive attitude about the training and there's nothing they can do to make you quit you can endure and all the extra push-ups and the instructors hollering at you and just take it with a grain of salt and just say well that's part of the program always think ahead well in another hour this problem is going to be over and i'll be back in the bags in the hot shower and a hot meal the temperature in the shade is 193. there isn't any water and there isn't any grass all there is is cactus and it sticks you into glorious one gig of glorious for the four of us sing and glory be to god that there are no more of us or one of us could drink with all alone from near you [Applause] yeah booyah [Music] seals are specialists in being where they are least expected getting to the job may mean jumping out of a boat a helicopter or an airplane you have to want this type duty in order to to survive this training some people i suppose want to prove something to themselves some people maybe they want to prove something to somebody else i think it's a psychological aspect the hardship while you're doing all this in other words you think about things a little bit differently you start realizing that probably one of the greatest things you ever had which is sitting in a warm room with a cup of coffee you just don't know how much you can appreciate something like that it prepares you well for when you go in combat you learn that a little rain's not going to hurt you a little mud's not going to hurt you you don't like it but you learn that you can live with it okay this morning gentlemen we're going to take up what was known in the teams as an emerson scuba rig this means it is a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus this rig is used any type of clandescent or sneak attack operations it is desirable for this use because of the fact that there are no bubbles coming out of this rig when it is submerged and we can have you step up here so we'll slip you into it [Music] seals must be able to turn off physical discomfort but their minds must be in top working order few jobs in the navy require more mature judgments to be made almost instantaneously in a combat zone these decisions can mean the difference between the success and failure of a mission between life and death our type of training now of course it includes diving and demolition work and parachuting and very extensive weapon training and tactics training so our people are well qualified or maybe even the most qualified troop there is [Music] up tight close it up tight go get up and out get up and out get up and out get up [Music] you put that chute on your stomach starts getting hard you first jump especially i say hook up check static line check your equipment the word comes to span on the door and i was i was scared it was a thrill it was challenging if not everybody's gonna get up and jump out of a perfectly good plane why i don't know every seal is trained in parachuting floating down from the sky is a good way of getting to a patrol area unannounced seals learn jump techniques with army paratroops at fort benning georgia bullet deep one he's coming down he's coming down like a feather what is he all right get on your feet jump on arm four prepare for a normal slip to your front to your front four your other front four drop four jumper on arm three prepare for a normal slip you get to the door and you leave it's it's one motion as opposed to being there for a couple of minutes you exit you can feel the shoot coming out of the bag off my back the pack then as the prop blast hits the chute you can really feel the tug you look up if your risers aren't crossed they're crossed you've got to uncross them by pulling them apart the harness which is uncomfortable as anything can be when you're wearing it on the ground is uh like a chair in the sky and you just float down canopy once you leave the door and you're out in the air then it's the greatest thing in the world because you know you've done it you know that you didn't have to be pushed out the door you did this thing on your own you're still apprehensive every jump because those thoughts always run through my mind what am i doing up in this airplane why do i want to jump out of this airplane when i know it's going to land but then once it's time to hook up and go then it's just hell i'd love it as you approach the ground on there's a man in a bullhorn saying take a prepare to land attitude grab your risers take a a slip into the wind so you're trying to stand still this is now bend your knees point your toes chin up eyes and horizon after your first when you're ready to jump the next four [Music] the seals call this halo high altitude low opening for seals a means of silent entry to the enemy's territory [Music] before deployment to a combat zone seal squads practice together the way it will be over there you never say anything on patrol from the time you leave that boat or the helicopter or however you're getting inserted the time you get back you don't even open your mouth we teach them hand and arm signals in cadre training it doesn't make any difference what type of signal you do use as long as everybody knows it to bring back information that will help reveal the enemy's story seals must be alert every minute an intelligence officer can do so much more with little facts than you have any idea of if he can find out for instance that there is large amounts of rice being moved down a river then he knows there are either people down there needing food or that there will be people down there soon when he adds this to other bits of information he's found out well a pattern of enemy activity begins to develop all the techniques they have learned are brought to bear in this realistic training as individuals they learn to function together they become a team well there's a certain amount of romance to it it's a sentimental glamour to being a member of what we consider without question the best best troops in the country has i think we're such a highly specialized group of people that we're in great demand there's just not enough of us to go around i think our record speaks for itself 70 or 80 bronze stars and numerous purple hearts and silver stars a couple of those in legion of merits and the awards have been just numerous as far as i'm concerned each and every one of them are highly deserved and i think it comes from teamwork togetherness the thing that motivates a lot of people is that again it is a challenge to a young man it is we feel and we are proud of the fact that we are one of the most highly trained efficient small units that there is in any service and i think it's the pride factor that uh motivates kids to volunteer for sales is just knowing that they're going to be in one of the most elite specialized trained units there is my own personal feeling that's the reason why i stay in it i have another eight year student in the navy and i'm going to spend it in sales soon [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] working on the land in other lands means using another language for men who go to southeast asia the vietnamese language is a necessity well our primary job is to gather intelligence we don't go in to kill charlie we're going to capture him and uh well we always tell him in his own language with a few words that we know in vietnamese things like stop surrender come here get your hands up you're surrounded it's this type of thing see the three short phrases that we use are dong lai which means stop lyi day which means come here and uh didi which is sort of a slang vietnamese phrase that means uh you know get the hell out of here move out the vietnam khan where i bought as often as possible forays on the ground are planned with a look from above the war in southeast asia is an unusual kind of war there are no front lines here the elusive enemy can appear as villagers or farmers to find out what is going on in unfriendly territory it takes men on the ground okay man this is a warning order for tonight's mission uh the mission tonight is going to be an ambush careful consideration of every eventuality has led to a specific plan for this patrol every phase of the mission has been thought through that platoon leader has a tremendous amount of load on his back uh a lot of people think well the squad leader he's just the man that gives the orders but while everybody else is sitting around uh shooting a bull and that man's getting the mission order he's got four or five hours of work to do he's got to coordinate everything his artillery uh his air strikes uh uh what he's what kind of support is he gonna have available he gets it all set up uh he works four or five hours before the people even get the word on it just done as a warning order the uh one primary danger area which we know about is this bridge you can see what it looks like here it's just a wooden bridge hard top but our actions at this danger area will be as follows we will come to this point we'll be patrolling down here in our file we will stop short of the bridge we have the capabilities being asserted from everything from submarines to pixeling aircraft but essentially the terrain is going to tell you whether or not you can use a helicopter or a pbr most of the men feel that name seal teams but carry your real reward you could give a medal out for 50 60 of the missions would go on since you can't have that many medals the value of being a seal i think is what they're really concerned with the actual medal they present to you at the end of a tour is a more of a token value i think if you don't have the element of surprise the lost you won't come out of the mission you have to have the element of surprise all the time as soon as you're compromised as soon as they know you're there you're in trouble and you have to be on the way out you've got a long way to go in a particular hostile area you won't make it out you're swimming across streams uh very frequently on long patrol you might swim 15 streams or more is not unusual at all and these will range anywhere from a few feet to uh maybe 50 yards this is carrying your all of your weapons and ammunition and it can become somewhat of a trouble especially for radiometer machine gunner but there's quite a few guys that like the element of danger the element of surprise in fact the only thing that really limits us is the imagination on the part of the people that assign us targets the philosophy i use is there isn't an impossible mission really i think people just want to be with the best group they've already made it to udt and they know that if they have the mental attitude they can be sealed and be right with the top doing the most exciting things and be treated as the elite i think a lot of people join the seal team to be with that with a group that can fight well and still be part of the navy what it is is i guess is a prestige of being a top man you know all the time you're going to be called to do the hardest job a job that nobody else will take we insist on very physically fit people a person that is mentally stable to be able to do the things we do because everything we do has a certain amount of risk involved in it and it has to be a person that accepts us not a thrill seeker not just a young kid that wants a bunch of thrills of jumping out of an airplane or this type of thing but one that expects danger and and knows how to handle it and how to live with it because it's the only thing you do live with danger it's part of your life in vietnam seals have learned that prisoners are a good source of information on the enemy's situation and intentions one prisoner can provide information that may lead to the capture of many more [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] after many hours ashore mud-soaked seals relax new information will be pieced together with existing intelligence the pattern of enemy activity brought up to date often a seal patrol returns with word of unsuspected enemy activity the location of new campsites or knowledge of enemy movement on an infiltration route troops are alerted both loads move up the river to strike back [Music] arm navy patrol boats and gunship helicopters answer the challenge [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] many military engagements are based on information the seals have brought back continuing the tradition of bold men who go behind the enemy's lines seals work as they say in charlie's backyard their success depends on their being where they are not expected [Music] for their dedication to duty seals have become some of the most decorated fighting men in history the awards citations retell some of their exploits on one occasion while conducting a clandestine combat patrol through hostile terrain the mission was to capture viet cong in order to gain intelligence on enemy supply movements in the area the patrol stopped while the forward security element was set out to reconnoiter a bridge the patrol would cross a viet cong ambush team had moved in to set an ambush at the crossing point the point man sensed it and charged their position repeatedly moving without cover leaving himself vulnerable to enemy fire his aggressiveness and quick thinking saved his patrol from suffering heavy casualties ribbons and metals represent the accomplishment of exceptional deeds but awards are not the reason for performance in combat what these men are and what they represent has sustained them and given them their purpose [Music] you