Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (12 page)

That hones them as polished and confident public speakers. These sergeants are equally at ease briefing congressmen, senators, general officers, ambassadors, and senior administration officials. A Delta sergeant is hard to intimidate and equally hard to impress.

When Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush visited the Unit compound after 9/11, they were briefed by Delta sergeants. That stands in sharp contrast to most conventional military units, where senior officers typically do the talking while the rank and file remains safely corralled in formation at a distance. Over the years, I observed these refined supersergeants frighten officers and officials of all types, time and time again. Present company included.

Another shared and rare quality is the care with which these men tackle tough problems. Regardless of the risk involved or the high-profile personality targeted, each problem is given the same attention as the next. It’s business, but business with a passion and a deep commitment to fellow man and teammate.

So, how does an organization fill itself with so many first-round draft picks? The credit certainly rests with the unique selection and assessment process, in which a candidate with Rubik’s Cube instincts might be more attractive than a marathon runner or bodybuilder.

I think retired U.S. Army colonel David Hunt summed up a Delta Force operator best in his book,
They Just Don’t Get It
:

Here is the recipe for Delta. You start with an already spectacular soldier who has a proven service record of, say, five years, usually as a part of Special Forces or as a Ranger. He volunteers to go to the mountains of West Virginia, where he must run forty kilometers over mountains with over sixty pounds on his back plus his weapon. He must pass a series of mental and physical tests. Only one in fifty will make it through this process. Once you make it through this “selection,” you then spend almost a year learning the “deadly arts” in a training program that is designed for masochists. And there you have it, a Delta warrior! These guys shoot 50,000 rounds of ammunition a year per man. They train attacking trains, planes, and automobiles. They train in tunnels, in sewers, on high wires, and even in trees. They actually run with 60 to 100 pounds on their backs. They jump from airplanes carrying more than 500 pounds. These super soldiers can do amazing things.

But such supersoldiers are a hard crop to grow, and because it takes a great deal of time to make them, a new threat has formed for the special operations community, an interior danger that might bring down the entire edifice.

Retired major general Sid Shachnow created the fundamental Special Operations Forces principles—“SOF Truths”—and former Special Ops four-star general Wayne Downing chiseled them in cement. The first rule is:
Humans are more important than hardware
.

Unfortunately, the “SOF Truths” seem to have been mislaid somewhere along the way since 9/11 and a sudden push developed to expand the entire special operations community. If these guys are so good, then let’s put more of them in the field! Congressional authorization to increase
the manpower is one thing, but money alone is not a magic wand. Simply issuing conventional forces black commando gear covered with fastek buckles and Velcro will not transform them into special operators. The very idea is utterly naïve and dangerous.

Regardless of the spin, any widening of entrance prerequisites, changing grading systems, or “relooking” previous SOF failures is the same as lowering the standards. You still must find just the right type of American to meet the highest standards, not revised and lesser tests, before he can join the ranks, and another SOF truth remains unassailable:
You cannot mass-produce commandos
.

Within a few months of my joining the squadron, Gus Murdock sent me on a real-world mission to the Balkans, and there I had the opportunity to see the unique skill, talent, and commitment of a typical Delta sergeant. Again, it made me feel pretty average, for although I was qualified in every way as a Delta officer, I was still a rookie. Murdock would not team me up with anyone who did not know the ropes.

My partner was Jamie, a longtime clandestine operator who truly enjoyed stalking humans, and I knew enough to take my lead from him. Jamie had started off as an assaulter and was wounded in Somalia before moving on to more advanced stuff. I discovered that he had the mind of a criminal and the free spirit and awareness of a fugitive. Jamie could have made a fortune as a crook in the outside world.

He grew up in New Mexico, where he spent his time racing dirt bikes, four-wheelers, go-carts, and eventually professional BMX racing bicycles. His favorite toy was a Z-28 with a nitrous oxide kit, and he outran the local police more than fifty times with his bikes, trucks, and cars. But he was smart enough not to flee the authorities unless he was certain he could shake them.

When Jamie first arrived at Delta as a young assaulter, he took the initiative to check out all the squadron’s motorcycles, adjusting all the controls so they were ergonomic to the rider, replacing all the spark plugs, checking the wiring, and putting fresh gas in the tanks. Then he did the
same thing to all the mechanical breaching tools. He was a master mechanic, meticulous about routine things, and fanatical about ensuring the little things were done well above standard. Okay was never good enough. He tuned those machines like fine concert pianos.

He took great pleasure in focusing on things like ensuring that our operational vehicles ran perfectly. It was a daily chore that the rest of us were happy to avoid, and it captured his attention like nothing else, almost to the point of being annoying, as he sought perfection. Watching him tinker with perfection was like listening to fingernails being scraped across the chalkboard.

Jamie was a serious driver, but aren’t we all? Only he was unique with his seriousness about driving under duress, at high speeds, on uneven terrain, in rain and snow, on sand and on gravel. Perfection was the goal. One day the unit brought in a
professional
motocross rider to upgrade their skills and Jamie skipped the first two days of training. He came on the third day after a teammate asked him to check the guy out.

It didn’t take long for Jamie to recognize the special instructor was not all he advertised, and he challenged the guest to a race. The guest hopped on the fancy and expensive race bike he brought with him while Jamie just picked one of the squadron bikes. Well, the guy was good, but Jamie kicked his ass.

Shortly after arriving in the Balkans, we took off for a downtown outdoor market to purchase several props and clothing to support our urban reconnaissance mission. We tried to buy a rusted bicycle with bald tires and a tattered seat for one hundred dollars cash from an old lady, but she wouldn’t let the bike go. A hundred bucks wasn’t enough? It was a sweet piece of junk, at least twenty-five years old and exactly what we needed, but we let it go. We found another one an hour later and threw it in the trunk.

We bought some fishing poles and tackle, buckets, street brooms, construction helmets, soccer balls, Adidas workout suits, and other gear that would provide us “cover for action” near a potential target site long enough to take some video or snap a photo.

Then we drove around checking the atmospherics of the cities and smaller townships, conducting route reconnaissance for future missions, and servicing safe houses that were scattered throughout the country. Jamie had been to the Balkans so much in the past few years that he didn’t need a map. Mine stayed in my lap and out of sight as I kept a forefinger on it to follow the roads.

On one summer day, we were conducting a low-visibility urban reconnaissance in a small, rundown city that had seen better days. We didn’t shower or shave for two days so we would match the unclean men who lived where running water was scarce, and we dressed in local mismatched and baggy soccer sweats. Our mission was to locate a specific casino restaurant that intelligence reports said was frequented by an indicted war criminal who often used it as a meeting place. This food joint, though, was different than most of the others, because it was floating on a river.

Driving a silver Volkswagen Jetta with all our props in the trunk, I dropped Jamie off several blocks from the restaurant and headed to a nearby park. Jamie set out on foot reconnaissance carrying his fishing pole, tackle box, and a bucket, while I settled in to reading the local paper, which might as well have been in Chinese or upside down, since I can’t read Serbo-Croatian. I chain-smoked locally made cigarettes to complete my midmorning masquerade. Both of us carried concealed M-1911 handguns.

Jamie turned the corner and headed down the street until the restaurant was a few hundred meters to his front. Crossing a bridge, he noticed some fishermen down on the riverbank, so he stepped over the wooden guardrail and descended the bank to the edge of the water with his own fishing gear. Just like that he was in a perfect position to observe the boat. If the fellow we were looking for showed up, Jamie was sure to make a positive identification. A guy fishing nearby with his daughter began shouting at him, and Jamie just stared straight ahead. If he ignored him, perhaps he would leave him alone. Unnecessary talking is a commando sin because it can alert locals that you are different. Jamie knew the language well enough, but his foreign accent would be a dead giveaway.

The other fisherman was persistent. He could see that Jamie wore a wristwatch and he wanted to know the time. Jamie frowned and gave some crude hand signals, tapping his hand with a closed fist several times, pointing
at his ear, and cocking his head as if he wanted sympathy. He tried to make it so uncomfortable for the stranger that he would just leave him alone. It worked. The fisherman lowered his head, raised his hands, palms at waist level, and apologized to the deaf-mute before turning away with his daughter and heading up the riverbank.

After an hour and a half, Jamie approached the park and we made eye contact, the signal for me to depart and conduct another foot reconnaissance while he took over watching our car. My job was to see if I could spot the target’s vehicle and confirm it through the license plate number.

I took a different route, and as I turned a street corner in the bustling business district I found myself near a U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle, part of the Stabilization Forces (SFOR) that had been sent into the country. Several more were spread out at about hundred-meter intervals, but I had to brazen it out and continue walking. As I approached one, I noticed a soldier up in the turret and another sitting near him. I stopped and stared at them for a few seconds and they stared back. I took a puff on my cigarette, raised the folded newspaper that I could not read, and said, “
Dobro SFOR!
”

The young soldier in the turret asked the other, “What does that mean?”

“It means ‘SFOR is good,’ you dumb ass,” the second soldier responded with sarcasm. “How long have you been here, anyway?”

I walked away confident that my orange and blue sweat jacket, seventies-style sunglasses, and greasy hair obviously were appropriate for the mission. Fellow Americans had not recognized me.