Fearless (20 page)

Adam’s daily workout included throwing Nathan into orbit.

“They would go on and on with their man talk,” says Kelley. “And they spoke a different language now. It took a while for us girls to catch on—the acronyms and calibers and klicks. We’d just laugh at them, these big tough Navy SEALs talking the talk while drinking fruit punch in tiny paper cups, holding their babies, and wearing
Blue’s Clues
party hats.

“We were all pretty naive and innocent back then. We were young military couples, just starting to have kids. We knew what our husbands did, what they were trained for, but it was peacetime. In my mind it was like what they did was in a movie. What they were training for would never really happen.”

Thirty-six-year-old Shane Harley, Golf Platoon’s chief, had served ten years at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group—DEVGRU—before taking over a platoon at Team FOUR. Even the new guys knew what this meant: he’d been a tier one operator with SEAL Team SIX. On paper, the men who serve at DEVGRU test weapons and equipment being considered for Navy-wide implementation. Indeed, they
are
the Navy’s weapons experts—but that is only the cover story.

DEVGRU SEALs are also one of the United States’ premier Special Missions Units, capable of executing top-secret missions anywhere in the world. This was the rapidly deployable, highly elite counterterrorism unit the Navy had created as a result of the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran in 1980, when Adam was six years old. DEVGRU operators take orders from the highest levels within the Pentagon or directly from the Oval Office.

Chief Harley was the only member of Golf Platoon who had seen action, and even though the details of that action were classified, he was revered by the men because only a tiny percentage of SEALs are chosen for DEVGRU. First, a SEAL has to be recommended by his commanding officer. Then his mental health and past are meticulously scrutinized for top-secret clearance. Finally, he is given a chance to qualify through a process that—according to those who have passed it—“makes BUD/S look like a cakewalk.”

As Team FOUR SEALs, the guys on Golf and Hotel Platoons already represented the alpha males of the U.S. Navy; but compared to the tier one SEALs, “they
were playing college ball,” says Harley. “DEVGRU is the NFL.” His DEVGRU experience was the major reason Harley continually reminded the men in his platoon during their twelve-month workup that they were training for the real deal, despite the fact that it was peacetime. Having lost friends both in training and on missions, Harley knew the stakes were high.

“At the end of the day, this job has huge rewards,” he told the platoon as they rested in the dirt after a particularly brutal patrol exercise, “but you also pay a huge price for failure. Pro football players like to compare what they do to the warrior mentality, being at war, going to battle. Well, if you lose the Super Bowl, yeah, you’re going to be pissed, you may shed a tear, you may go home and kick the dog, but the next morning you’re going to wake up, eat breakfast with your wife and kids, and life goes on.

“The difference between Joe Quarterback and you is if you make a mistake and lose, you may be coming home in a body bag. You’re not waking up the next morning, your wife’s not going to have a husband, your kids aren’t going to have a father. So when we’re out here shooting blanks, you work hard and pray that if you make a mistake it only costs
you
something and you don’t have to have another teammate pay that price for you.”

Early on in the workup it became clear who had their sights set on DEVGRU. Adam was one of the first to take Harley aside, asking, “Chief, how do I get over there? What’s my best route?”

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Harley said. “If you continue to be a top performer, the top one percent, you will get the opportunity to go over there. Be a sponge, keep soaking up that knowledge like you’re doing right now. I don’t believe in luck, but I do believe in opportunity, preparedness, and hard work. You prepare yourself with hard work, and when that opportunity comes, take advantage of it.”

When training took place locally, Adam was home with Kelley and Nathan in Virginia Beach—about a third of the yearlong workup. The other eight months were spent at military bases across the United States and in the jungles of South America and the Caribbean.

“He’d come home after being away for a couple of weeks,” says Kelley, “and he’d be bruised up from some fall, his hands callused and cut up, his feet a mess, and
within a few hours, a day tops, of being home, he would tell me, ‘Itty Bitty, your job is so much harder than mine.’ ”

Although Adam avoided dirty diapers at all costs, Kelley knew he didn’t take what she did for granted. Every minute he was home he devoted to his family, making up for lost time and taking care of things around the house. “He’d turn that ‘work switch’ off,” shares Kelley, “and turn that ‘daddy and husband switch’ on.”

At the end of the week they would go to Atlantic Shores Baptist Church with Austin and his wife, Michelle, who had become Kelley’s good friend. Kelley and Michelle volunteered their time in the church’s nursery, a program that allowed parents to attend services and Bible study classes while their children were looked after. When Austin and Adam were home they also helped in the nursery, playing with the babies.

“Austin and I were the newlyweds,” says Michelle, “but Adam and Kelley were still on their honeymoon. In church I’d look over and they’d be holding hands. He’d have the Bible with one hand and she’d turn the pages. We’d go over to watch a movie and they’d be on the couch planted side by side, cuddling.”

And at the end of each day they spent together, Kelley and Adam would read aloud from the Bible, a ritual they wanted to be a part of Nathan’s life. They prayed for their families back in Arkansas and thanked God for the “simple little life” they were living together, one they hoped would someday return them to Arkansas. No matter how dark Adam’s experiences in his hometown had been, they never blotted out the good memories he cherished.

While taking long strolls with Nathan, he and Kelley talked about the home they’d have in Hot Springs, one with wood floors, a nice big kitchen, and a yard where Nathan and a sibling or three could “grow up right,” running and playing outside. If it was God’s plan for them to return, that’s where they would go after Adam served at least ten years in the Navy. In the meantime, they would keep saving what they could from his paychecks and buy a house in Virginia Beach.

Regardless of what they were doing separately or together, “Adam still wrote me love notes and bought me flowers,” says Kelley. “He never once missed my birthday or an anniversary. Even if he was gone, roses would show up, or a card, or something.”

After Nathan’s birthday, the boys geared up for winter warfare training, and the Browns were able to go out on a date, splurging with a restaurant dinner. It had been more than three years since they’d met, and “I still felt that deep, almost nervous love
I felt in the beginning,” says Kelley. “The military life pulls a lot of couples apart, but for me, it kept it new. Every time he’d leave, I couldn’t get enough of him—I could never get enough of my Adam.”

Adam Brown, a.k.a. Blade, was a funny guy. That’s what Chief Harley kept hearing from his platoon—not only the stories Adam told and what he said, but the funny things that happened to him. “When you’re out in a crummy situation,” says Harley, “and in our line of work that’s most of the time—it’s freezing cold or hot as sin, you’re working your butt off rucking all over the mountains, whatever—the guy you’re with can either bring you down or boost you up. However he accomplishes it, if he can make you laugh in those dismal situations and still get the job done, he’ll go far.”

Harley experienced Blade’s celebrity firsthand when he paired up with Adam for winter warfare training in Virginia as well as some one-on-one mentoring. They were dropped off in a field in the middle of nowhere one early February morning with loads
approaching ninety pounds, a map, a compass, and a directive: reach a specified location the following evening without discovery by the enemy force on patrol. Their route might include old logging roads, thickly vegetated wilderness, or steep, wooded mountains. Structures along the way—barns, sheds, hunters’ cabins—were considered risky but usable shelter.

Austin Michaels and Adam living the dream as fully armed and dangerous U.S. Navy SEALs.

Harley and Adam chose a route that took them over nearly fifteen miles of brutal wilderness, during which rain turned to freezing rain and then, as night approached, to snow. A summer cabin that was as cold inside as out acted as a “layup” point where they could find shelter and sleep for a few hours.

“Chief,” said Adam, his teeth chattering, “would it be tactically okay, since it’s after dark, to build a small fire in here?”

“Hell, yeah,” Harley said. “We’ve got wood, we’ve got a fireplace, we’re hypothermic. Definitely light a fire.”

Bringing in a pile of wet wood, Adam built a small teepee in the fireplace, then asked what they should light it with.

“I didn’t know Adam could be, well, a little clumsy,” says Harley. “And with frozen fingers and hands that weren’t working so well from the cold, maybe I should have thought it through more, but I didn’t. I told him, ‘Just take some of that white gas we have for our stoves and throw it on there and then throw a match. It should light right up.’ ”

Wearing his glove liners, Adam followed Harley’s instructions, and “Whooof!” says Harley. “It flamed right up, and Adam stepped back and was looking at the fire, his hands at his sides … burning.”

“Brown!” yelled Harley. “Your gloves are on fire!”

“Aw,
damn
,” said Adam and clapped his hands together, but the gloves kept burning. He pulled them off and stomped the flames out.

“Adam!”
said Harley. “Your hands are still on fire!”

Eventually, Adam was able to smother the flames under his jacket. “Chief, I’m good,” he said.

“Let me see your hands,” Harley said, expecting to see second- or third-degree burns.

“Naw, naw, Chief, I’m good.”

“No, Adam, let me see your hands.”

Adam relented, holding out his hands, which Harley was amazed to find were
only slightly red. The flames had been residual gas burning off and never reached Adam’s skin.

During the weeklong exercise, Harley accumulated story after story. Says Harley, “Adam kept me entertained till the end of that miserable training,” including the final night, when they had to follow a road in order to make their linkup point on time.

“So here’s the deal,” Harley told Adam. “We’ll walk down this road. If you see headlights coming, just step off the side about ten or fifteen feet, lie down, and they’ll never see you.”

Fifteen minutes later, a car approached and they shuffled off the road. As Harley flattened out on his stomach, he heard
Thud! Thud! Bang! Crunch!
coming from Adam’s direction. The car passed by, and Harley hurried over to where Adam had been, finding a drop-off into a massive drainage ditch lined with big, jagged rocks.

“He was lying on top of these rocks in a slump at the bottom,” describes Harley, who for a second thought he was looking at a dead body. “I called down, ‘Brown, you okay?’ ”

The body stirred and peered up at Harley. “Chief,” Adam said, “I fall a lot, but I don’t get hurt.”

Adam’s task unit—Golf and Hotel Platoons—headed to Mississippi at the beginning of September for their ORE. The thickly vegetated, hot, humid, jungle-like environment of Stennis was the setting for react-to-contact drills performed in a realistic exercise, complete with explosions going off, blanks being fired, and a motivated opposing force attempting to “kill” them.

Between drills, the men of Golf Platoon were resting in some shade when Adam and teammate Mark Kramer noticed nine or ten guys from Hotel Platoon gathered in a circle.

“What’s going on?” Mark yelled over.

“We got a pool going,” one of the SEALs shouted back. “Twenty bucks a man for whoever is crazy enough to set their balls on this fire ant nest for thirty seconds.”