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Page 3: Can a frog become a SEAL?

Well, maybe he served with both SEAL One and UDT 12. Many of us had been with UDTs before going to SEALs. The Navy, for example, ordered a platoon of UDT 12 men led by Lieutenant Ed Gill, from whom you'll hear later, to turn in their swim trunks for SEAL One field greens. The SEALs needed fresh meat to replace combat losses. None of the men volunteered. Not one had engaged the VC in a firefight, although they had made a tour to Nam with UDT 12. After their first week in Vietnam operating with SEAL Team One Det Golf, most of the men were either dead or wounded.

My own brief experience in UDT before becoming a SEAL shows how some frogs feared a transfer to SEALs - a transfer that was there for the asking.

After I graduated from training with class 38, I was ordered to UDT 11 as the operations officer. I had not been the usual trainee, who in the main was young, dumb, and full of cum. Jesse was probably like that when he entered training at 18.

I was a 26-year-old lieutenant who had served a combat tour in Vietnam assigned to a Marine outfit called First anglico. I'd worked out of Quang Ngai City up in I Corps. I was with Marvin the Arvin (the South Vietnamese) during the futile defense of Ba Gia and more successful ops like Starlight and Piranha. I thought many of my BUD/S instructors, who had never been to Nam and would never go, were muscle-bound "run-for-your-lifers." I didn't see them as the supermen Jesse extols in I Ain't Got Time to Bleed.

I'd been out of training and with UDT 11 for a few weeks when our executive officer called a meeting of all officers. I remember that meeting with the clarity of a Santa Ana-swept sky.

About 15 of us assembled before the XO, who was seated behind a fake mahogany desk flanked by the U.S. and Navy flags. The XO had been an outstanding swimmer for the Naval Academy and looked every inch the frogman: sleek, suntanned, and muscular, with a Kirk Douglas dimple in his chin. Although not a 'rassler, he'd earned the nickname "Gorgeous George." He could have modeled for a cologne called Cock and Balls.

George began with an apologetic tone in his otherwise crisp, military speech: "SEAL One took another hit in Nam. An officer had the top of his head taken off by a B-40 round or something."

George paused and studied us through fierce black eyes set in a bronze face with the skin stretched so tight you could almost divine his skull. George cleared his throat and said: "I know you all volunteered for UDT and not SEALs. But the SEALs are taking so many hits, they're running out of people. I don't blame you for not wanting to go over there. But the writing is on the wall. Bureau of Personnel called and said, 'Send an officer and do it now!' "

Uneasy shifting of feet. Someone coughed. No one spoke. George continued: "I'm asking for a volunteer. I don't want to force anyone. Do I have a volunteer?"

A muttered "fuck" from the group, but nothing else. I gazed at those officers, the absolute cream of American manhood, graduates of the most physically demanding military training the world had to offer. Hairy-chested frogmen able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. But not today. Dyin' time, they all knew just as surely as Jesse would have known, was a hell of a lot closer if you were a seal. 34:1.

So there they stood, mute, playing pocket pool. No one raised a hand; no one stepped forward. I recalled a chant from training:

Hoo Yah, Hoo Yah,
Who are We?
We are the Men
Of UDT!
Airborne, Ranger, UDT,
Ain't Nobody
Gonna Fuck with Me!

Indeed.

The webfoot warriors filed out. I stayed behind and told George: "Look, I've been to Nam. I don't mind another tour with SEALs. I'm single and don't have any pressing plans for grad school. Don't have to take care of a sick parakeet."

"Hey, Bill, that's great! But I have to check with BUPERS and Captain Anderson at SEAL One to see if they'll waive the six-month probationary period."

"Why not get on the horn with Captain Bucklew too?"

"Great idea!"

My excellent adventure as a SEAL began that very day before the sun had vanished beyond the Coronados. Fresh meat. Welcome aboard.

Not all men from UDT were run-for-your-lifers. Many frogs later had their own excellent adventures as SEALs, and those who survived love to woof about it for fun and profit. Here's how one woofer, Rad Miller Jr., describes his metamorphosis from frog to SEAL in Whattaya Mean I Can't Kill 'Em?:

"Although our base in Coronado was shared with SEAL Team 1 (they had half, UDT Teams 11 and 12 had the other half separated by a concrete wall), we didn't mix during working hours. We did party together though. Frogs were good. But SEALs were in a class by themselves. They were warriors, and had a mystique about them that said: 'Don't fool with me, I'll tear you a new asshole.'

"I was attracted and impressed. On the one hand being a Frog was fun; on the other, there were also no real challenges ahead.

"Then the clincher occurs that will change my life. I was hanging in the area filling dive tanks when I saw a platoon of SEALs all geared up for a training exercise they were just bristling with weapons. I go to the office and submit a transfer request. They need SEALs for Vietnam and my transfer is immediately approved--God help me now."

Still in search of an answer to the question of whether Jesse had ever been a SEAL or a frogman in the shit, I obtained a roster of UDT 12 that included his name. Looking down the roster, I saw Jesse and I had mutual acquaintances, one of whom was Artie Ruiz. Although Artie had never been a SEAL, he had been one of those rare frogmen who certainly had been in the shit. All you need do was take one look at his back, pockmarked with old shrapnel wounds, to know he'd been there.

Artie had been dinged while single-handedly keeping the VC from swarming his disabled patrol boat. Every soul on board save one had been either killed or seriously wounded in an ambush. Artie, who is about the size of Audie Murphy and as soft-spoken, fought off the enemy with a handheld M-60 machine gun at a range of 25 yards. He got a Bronze Star to go with his Heart. Should have been a Navy Cross, but enlisted guys don't have a strong lobby with the Awards Board like officers do.

I called Artie at his home in National City. "Yes, I knew Jesse and Jan," Artie said. "They were the Janos brothers. Jesse in those days was known as Jim 'the Dirty' Janos and his brother was Jan 'the Clean.' "Jan was a four-oh sailor. Squared away. Jim was a great guy, but
he didn't care much about having a spiffy uniform or regulation haircut. He didn't believe much in showers, either.

"Jim belonged to a motorcycle gang in I.B. The Mongols or Mescaleros or something. I'm not sure. But I remember how he used to come roaring up Highway 75 every morning before quarters, wearing his colors and torn Levi's, reared back on his Harley hog. He'd zoom around the asphalt grinder, do a wheelie or two, then park and shift into the uniform of the day - UDT swim trunks and blue 'n' gold T-shirt."

Changing one set of colors for another?

"You could say that. Then, after a day of fun in the sun, he'd shift again and tear up the road back to I.B. and the In Spot, a tittie-flop bar where he worked as a bouncer. Jim maintained order, but not too much. You had to get really outa line for Jim to toss you. But toss you he could. Jim wasn't as buff then as when he became Jesse 'the Body' Ventura, but he was on his way."

Jesse ever in a SEAL Team?

"Oh, no. Spent his entire time in Team 12. Never had a SEAL NEC."

Could you explain about an NEC, what it means?

"Means Navy enlisted classification. It's a code all enlisted guys have that tells what their warfare specialty is. UDT guys were 5321s and SEALs were 5326s. Had to serve in a SEAL Team for at least six months before you qualified as a 26."

Jesse ever in the shit like you or Stony?

"Oh, no. At least not that I heard of, and I probably would have known if he'd been in anything serious. But I don't hold that against him. He was a good teammate. Just a little loco."

NEXT: More war stories.

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© Bill Salisbury, used with permission.