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Summary
Summary
America's most elite commando unit, the US Navy SEAL Team Six pulled off one of the most remarkable covert operations in military history when they infiltrated the secret hideout of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in the dead of night and killed the hated terrorist mastermind. Dennis Chalker was an original "plankowner" (founding member) of SEAL Team Six, and in One Perfect Op, he takes readers deep inside the remarkable world of America's Special Forces operatives. With an introduction by Richard Marcinko of Rogue Warrior fame, One Perfect Op describes, step by breathtaking step, one extraordinary SEALs mission, shedding fascinating new light on the training, the planning, the courage and the skill of these exceptional warriors.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Command Master Chief Chalker, a former Navy SEAL, tells the story of his personal involvement with one of the U.S.'s most secretive military organizations, formed to counter terrorism and perform operations in hostile territory. Writing with Dockery (Free Fire Zones), Chalker guides the reader through a three-year stint with the army's 82nd Airborne in the early '70s and a college football injury, quickly moving to his navy career, from getting himself into BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition, SEAL) training to hazing rituals and continued training to ensure that each mission can be a "perfect op" pulled off without discovery by the opponent. In the early 1980s, Chalker became a founding member of SEAL Team Six, which played a prominent role, described in riveting detail, in the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Readers who find the following sort of sentence poetic will not be able to put the book down: "If I had to dump the M4 and switch to my secondary weapon, I would be well served by my SIG P226 loaded with a full fifteen-round magazine of hot copper-jacketed serrated 9mm hollowpoints." But the perfect op is one where the SEALs do not have to fire a round, which is clearly Chalker's preference. After serving with Team Six, Chalker volunteered for one of the new Red Cell units, formed to test American bases for security often entering and leaving a facility without being spotted, which a base commander does not want to happen. Those looking for a larger-scale history of this secret branch of the service should turn to Orr Kelly's Brave Men, Dark Waters, but by the time Chalker's 20 years are up, he has indoctrinated quite a few of his own "enswines," and special ops buffs will be satisfied. (Apr. 1) Forecast: Our current operations in Afghanistan will cultivate interest in this title, of course, but Tom Clancy's Shadow Warriors, an overview of special forces due out in February, may steal many of Chalker's potential readers. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The war news on commando forces will broaden the appeal of this SEAL's memoir, written with the help of coauthor Dockery, about the elite warrior, his training, his skills, his motivation, and, ultimately, his exposure to deadly danger. The narrative, replete with the calisthenics, runs, and swims with which the military continuously hones its special operations personnel, relates Chalker's operations over his two decades in the military, which ended in the early 1990s. Assigned to an antiterrorist team, Chalker describes role-playing hostage scenarios, plus his team's assignment to breach security at naval bases, using, on occasion, amusing stratagems. The practical joker vanishes, however, when Chalker relates his major combat experience, the invasion of Grenada in 1983, in which close friends died. Chalker provides ample details on the risks inherent in military life, which makes this a timely, adventuresome, and interesting account. --Gilbert Taylor
Kirkus Review
As-told-to autobiography of a member of the Navy's elite SEAL special-force unit. Joining the Navy in 1977 after six years as a paratrooper, Chalker quickly volunteered for the SEALs and sailed through the brutal training program. (Besides acquiring the vicious combat skills of other elite groups like the Green Berets, Rangers, and Commandos, SEALs also swim, sail, and dive; being cold and wet is a matter of pride.) Then he volunteered for an even more elite and secret antiterrorism SEAL unit, where he remained until he retired 20 years later. His unit participated in the Granada invasion and secret actions in the Middle East, but inevitably most of Chalker's experience took place during peacetime: exercises followed by more exercises intermixed with Navy politics, interactions with colleagues in the unit, and a great deal of after-hours drinking and brawling. Deaths and injuries were not rare during both exercises and off-duty horseplay. Despite the lack of world-shaking events, Chalker's life makes good reading. Military buffs will enjoy the nuts-and-bolts description of weaponry, gear, and tactics required for each special action. Many exercises-simulated hijackings, hostage rescues, or attacks on ships, docks, barracks, or offshore oil platforms-are surprisingly exciting even in the absence of an enemy; plenty of things go wrong in either case. Military historian Dockery (SEALs in Action, 1991) makes no attempt to get beneath his subject's skin, so Chalker comes across as a super-bad macho dude devoted to deadly weapons, fighting, and his buddies on the team. Clearly he chose the right career, because these are perfect qualifications for a SEAL. Despite the absence of insights, an entertaining life of a member in good standing of a highly elite band of brothers.
Library Journal Review
A retired command master chief and member of SEAL Team Six, Chalker is more than qualified to give the reader an insider's account of the U.S. Navy SEALs, which are among our nation's elite special forces. He certainly makes readers feel that they are part of "one perfect op" an operation that comes off without discovery or intervention. He describes one such operation in 1992, though exact names and locations are of course classified. Chalker is more open when describing the invasion of Grenada, his short army "career" before becoming a SEAL, and counterterrorist activities at home and abroad. Together with coauthor Dockery, who has written a number of works on the SEALs and Special Forces, he offers a quick but accurate glimpse into the training and life of a navy SEAL. A brief glossary of military terms appears at the end of the text. One minor flaw is the lack of illustrations or an index. Recommended for casual readers as well as serious students of military history for its accessibility and realism. David M. Alperstein, Queens Borough P.L., Jamaica, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
One Perfect Op An Insider's Account of the Navy SEAL Special Warfare Teams Chapter One One Perfect Op Spring 1992 Speeding across a dark ocean, rain squalls coming and going and the wind in our faces, I had no way of knowing that I was now on my last combat operation, but if I had known, I couldn't have chosen a better crew to be with than the Teammates I had trained alongside for years. The mission was to rescue an American citizen--an eighteen-month old baby--and her family from an unfriendly shore. Two black rubber boats were speeding away from a darkened U.S. Navy warship, each boat full of SEALs (Sea, Air, Land) determined to see the operation through. We had 55-horsepower outboard engines on our Zodiac F-470 boats. With the weight and space factor tight, we had to consider limiting our extras, so we had only two 35-horsepower outboards as spares. A full crew was on each of the boats, and we had to save room for the cargo we were on our way to pick up. Each SEAL going in with the landing party was armed with a full loadout. I was geared up for a water op, just like everyone else. Wearing my "Farmer John's" wet suit would give me some additional buoyancy. Around my neck I had an inflatable UDT (Underwater Demolitions Team) buoyance vest in case I needed a little extra flotation. And I wasn't running too light in case it came to a fight. My M4 carbine was loaded with twenty-eight rounds in its magazine, each third round a tracer. The last five rounds in the magazine were all tracers, to warn me that it was time to reload. The nine other magazines I had in three pouches at my waist were all loaded the same way. That gave me 280 rounds of 5.56mm killers to depend on. If I had to dump the M4 and switch to my secondary weapon, I would be well served by my SIG P226 loaded with a full fifteen-round magazine of hot copper-jacketed serrated 9mm hollowpoints. The other four P226 magazines I carried in two separate pouches gave me seventy-five rounds for my pistol alone. Finally, I had my Glock knife at my right hip with a Mark 13 day /night signal flare taped to its scabbard. Hanging around my neck on a line was a set of Cyclops night vision goggles, a binocular NVG with a single tube that would magnify the available starlight 50,000 times. The goggles would make all of thedark surrounding area visible in a green-tinted light. But it was across my chest that I carried my most important piece of equipment: the black-painted, fully padded baby carrier that I had carried my own baby daughter in. Tied to the carrier, sterilized and sealed in a plastic bag, was a baby's pacifier, an incongruous item among all my lethal hardware. The boat's crew were all SEALs who had trained for hours to navigate their craft across a dark sea just like the one we were traveling on now. Vectoring in on calculated points, the coxswains for the craft were steering us over ten miles of open water to our target, a small chunk of beach in a big ocean. On that beach would be the target family and some friendlies. Those friendlies would be the only allies that family would have immediately at hand. Other than that, the area was full of armed people who did not want to see that family escape. We had a very tight timeline. If we were late or missed the target, at best the operation would be scrubbed, at worst the people we were going in to get would be caught and imprisoned. About three hours had been planned for transit to the beach and locating our target. A three-hour tour, only there wasn't any Gilligan on this boat ride, and Mary Ann and Ginger weren't waiting for us at the other end. That was a lot to think about, but dwelling on the could-bes would take my mind away from the task at hand. Even while bouncing across the waves, licking the salt spray from my lips, I had to concentrate on what was ahead. It was a warm moonless night and the sky was overcast. The clouds would help to conceal us. When a small storm came up, the little bit of rain that came down would also help reduce the chance of any idle late-night strollers on our target beach. If we were really lucky, the rain might also hold down any local patrols. Continuing on, we rode the high tide along our plotted course line. The smells in the air were mostly of the ocean, and just starting to come up was the smell of civilization. Our target was only some five miles away from a built-up area, not much more than hooches and huts along with a lot of vegetation. We knew we were headed in the right direction when the sky shine of a small town was visible in our NVGs, along with the outline of hills in the distance. We hit our first vector point on schedule and turned to aim for the next one: a buoy inside a harbor that was anything but friendly. From that buoy, we would make a straight shot to the target beach. So with everything riding on our tight schedule, it was time for Mr. Murphy to show up and humble us a bit with one of his laws: If anything can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time. Our boat's outboard decided it had been working hard enough. The slight phosphorescent bow wave the boat had been pushing up sagged and faded as our engine sputtered and died. Our coxswain and the rest of the boat crew immediately set to work to repair the engine and get it... One Perfect Op An Insider's Account of the Navy SEAL Special Warfare Teams . Copyright © by Dennis Chalker. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from One Perfect Op: An Insider's Account of the Navy SEAL Special Warfare Teams by Dennis C. Chalker, Kevin Dockery All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
