Mark Owen: No Hero

Purpose

It wasjust a black T-shirt.

Size medium, one hundred percent cotton.

On the front was a skeleton in a wetsuit crawling over the beach. He had an M-16 in his hands and a knife on his belt. The skeleton was coming out of the surf, the dark waves crashing behind him. A SEAL trident was on the left breast of the T-shirt. The trident was the sole reason I got the T-shirt in the first place.

I remember when it came in the mail. There was no way I could get a shirt like this from a store in the Alaskan village where I grew up. I put it on as soon as I opened it, and wore it practically every day. If that shirt was clean in the morning, I was wearing it.

To everyone else, it was just a shirt I always wore. But to me, it represented my goal in life. Each time I wore it, the shirt renewed my quest to become a SEAL. I slid the shirt into my suitcase and finished packing the rest of my clothes—including a borrowed suit and dress shoes—and headed for the airstrip. I was on my way to a conference in Washington, D.C., for “future military members.” It was 1992, and to this day I don’t know how I got invited, but it probably came from one of the many recruiters I’d talked with about being a SEAL.

The airstrip was on the outskirts of the village, and it was our only lifeline to “civilization,” if you can call any town in Alaska that. The frontier lifestyle is why people move to Alaska. If you want convenience, stay in the lower forty-eight.

I watched the bush plane clear the trees at the far end of the strip and come in for a landing. As the pilot and a newly arrived group of hunters unloaded, I hugged my parents near the small one-room building that served as the airport terminal.

The trip was a first for me. It was the first time I’d left Alaska alone. It was my first trip to Washington, D.C. But of all the firsts, I was most excited that I was going to meet my first SEAL.

Everyone in my village in Alaska knew I wanted to be a SEAL. It was something I talked about with my friends and dreamed about at night. I read every book I could find on the SEALs.

I knew nothing of SEAL Team until I read Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko. “Demo Dick” and “Shark Man of the Delta” were some of his nicknames. He operated in Vietnam and later started SEAL Team . Rogue Warrior tells the story of the creation of the unit. If you believe that book, every SEAL can bench-press five hundred pounds and eat glass. I wanted more than anything to prove I could too. Except for maybe eating glass.

At the time, I just thought it would be cool to be a SEAL. I knew the training would be hard, but I was too young to really understand how hard. I certainly didn’t know all of the sacrifices I would have to make. I just wanted to be like the guys I read about, and at the time that was enough to push me forward.

I was lucky. I figured out my purpose early on. I don’t think I understood it at first, but from the moment I found out about SEALs, I knew that was my goal, because of the challenge. If you asked me then to say why I wanted to join, a sense of duty would be on the list, but not at the top. At the top was a need to prove to myself I could make it through the toughest training the U.S. military had to offer. Why would I want to do something that was easy? If it were easy, everybody would do it. Looking back now, I’m not sure why I had to prove myself. All I knew was after reading the history books, I decided the SEALs always stood out as the hardest and most challenging. I guess I figured if I was going to join the military, I might as well go big.

The pilot helped me stow my suitcase and I climbed aboard the plane. I waved to my parents from my cramped seat in the back as we taxied into position on the runway. My family wasn’t rich, but my parents offered to cover the airplane ticket, and two Army veterans from the village covered the remaining costs.

At the airport in Anchorage, I pulled the itinerary for the trip out and went over it again. Before the SEAL session, I’d have to endure trips to the national monuments and listen to sessions on the Army and Air Force.

But it was worth it to meet a SEAL.

I got to Washington and instantly fell into the rhythm of the conference. We went to the Pentagon, which is much cooler in the movies. It is really just an odd-shaped office building. We also saw the Lincoln and Vietnam Memorials. At the time, nothing held my interest. The vast number of names on the Vietnam Memorial took me aback, but the impact faded because I hadn’t experienced loss like I would years later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thinking back now, I really had no idea that someday I’d look at a list of names like the wall and understand just what it means to lose close friends and teammates. Visiting the wall now, I understand the gravity. But at that time, I was just fixated on meeting the SEAL.

Everything was scheduled to the minute, and each morning as I pulled on my clothes I saw my T-shirt still neatly folded. I was saving it for the SEAL session.

The session was in the afternoon, so after the typical sandwich-and-cookie conference lunch, I hurried over to the meeting room where the SEAL was going to speak. Unfortunately, when I got to the door, they said the room was full.

The room was jammed with people, but I could still see a few chairs. I tried to reason with the woman guarding the door. She was one of the chaperones and organizers who were with us throughout the week. I could tell she wanted to let me in, but there were only a set number of seats.

She was apologetic but didn’t budge.

There was a small crowd gathering outside. The SEAL session was the hallmark of the period. Through the door, I could see the SEAL in his uniform talking with the younger chaperones. Time was running out. I opened my itinerary, looking at the other sessions, but nothing came close. I didn’t know what to do. I’d flown more than four thousand miles to attend this session. At that moment, the whole trip was wasted. I was crushed.

Then, just before the session was about to begin, the lady at the door waved me over to her. She told me they were going to let a few more people go in and ushered me inside. It was standing-room only. I found a spot in the back and waited for the SEAL to begin.

The SEAL was wearing a green BDU camouflage uniform with a black balaclava pulled down around his neck. His pants were tucked into black-and-green jungle boots. He had longer hair than you’d expect for someone in the military. Not shaggy, but not the high-and-tight haircut favored by the Marines. He had an air of cockiness about him, a fact I realized years later. More cocky than confident, he lacked the self-awareness to know that it wasn’t cool to act cool.

His session started with the SEAL boilerplate stuff. SEALs are the Navy’s primary special operations force. The acronym SEAL comes from the unit’s ability to operate at sea, in the air, and on land. President John F. Kennedy saw a need for special operations forces to fight guerrilla wars and created the SEALs with the Army’s Special Forces. In his 1961 speech announcing plans to land a man on the moon, Kennedy also laid out plans to invest one hundred million dollars to create and train special operations forces.

Populated at first by members of the Navy’s underwater demolition teams, SEALs were deployed to Vietnam, where they worked with the CIA and set up ambushes to slow the supply lines in the Mekong Delta. SEALs earned the nickname “men with green faces” because of the camouflage face paint they often wore on missions.

I hung on each word for the hour-long presentation. He told stories about Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALs or BUD/S training. He stressed how tough it was; nothing about BUD/S was easy, from the frigid swims in the ocean to the grueling runs in the soft beach sand. His stories just made me want it more.