Navy SEALs: A History of the Early Years

[Roguish Lawyer]

by Kevin Dockery from interviews with Bud Brutsman

This is an interesting history of the SEALs which consists of history interspersed with lengthy "interviews" which are really 2-7 page autobiographical snippets. There is little discussion of the SEALs themselves; the focus is on the UDTs, NCDUs and Scouts and Raiders which preceded the SEALs. These units were started in WWII, some due to the Tarawa disaster, principally to surveil and clear approaches for amphibious landings. Then, they gradually moved up onto land. The history ends in Viet Nam, without thoroughly discussing the SEALs' role there.

It is a good read, but it gets rather repetitive. After a while, I found myself skimming over certain types of things like how tough selection (BUD/S or equivalent) was.

I suspect that there probably is more history that is omitted. While Tarawa does seem to be the genesis of the SEALs, one would think that there were Naval units that went ashore as raiders or whatever, other than the Marines, earlier. But that is speculation.

As relevant here, many of the interviewed sailors give lots of credit to SF for helping to get the SEALs off the ground. Master Chief Boatswain's Mate (ret.) Bill Bruhmuller, for example, writes: "A lot of young SEALs today don't realize this, but if it hadn't been for Special Forces, I'm not sure we would have gotten off of dead center as easily as we did. We owe a lot of thanks to them. And I don't hesitate to convey that to the young lads in the Teams today."

One open question I have is the extent to which SEALs are engaged in a UW/FID role, as opposed to just DA. I know they train HN SEAL-equivalent units, but there is some suggestion in the book that SEALs seek to some extent to perform roles that are similar to SF.

Anyway, not the greatest book ever, but not a bad read if you are interested in the subject.