Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL (55 page)

I was set up for a blind date, a dinner in Omaha, Nebraska. I was researching a film script that involved an attempt on the life of the first lady, and I had decided to set it in the Midwest. I somehow convinced the studio to send me there. My friend Lee Shepard had an even harder time convincing my date to go out with me. I had little to recommend me: I was divorced, divorcing again, and worked in Hollywood. That doesn’t play too well in Omaha. But my date relented, and I was given her office number at a law firm downtown. She told me that she had to prepare for trial all afternoon, but I could come up to her office at six. I stepped off the elevator precisely on time. I was met in the lobby by the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. Stacey looked like Catherine Deneuve. I was flummoxed and stammered a hello. She had me wait in her office for an hour while her meeting went into overtime.

When she came back, I was still in awe. Stacey suggested that we go for a drink at the Omaha Press Club, on the top floor of her building. I learned later that she had prearranged a fake “back to the office” phone message so she could bail if our drinks went badly.

They almost did. I’d run into a formidable woman. Stacey had been a debutante, a valedictorian, and was a fine horsewoman. She also knew how to buck hay, fix a cattle fence, and drive a backhoe. Before returning home to Omaha, she’d practiced law in Virginia, D.C., and Maryland. Nothing about the SEALs or Hollywood impressed her at all. She had a gravelly laugh and a nose that was perfect.

“I got the nose in New Orleans,” she said. “You should have seen my old one.”

I laughed. She was scaring me like a sky dive scares me. I quickly downed a pair of martinis. Stacey sipped a glass of wine, then ordered another.

“Why don’t you look at me?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you don’t look at me when you speak to me. That’s considered rude around here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to be evasive.” I looked into her huge green eyes. Then I looked away.

“There, you’re doing it again. Why don’t you look at me when we talk?” she asked.

I said, “Because you’re too beautiful.”

Stacey took a long drag on her cigarette. She let the smoke out slowly. She said, “Nice line. Does it work in L.A.?”

Stacey and I were married in Omaha eighteen months later. In December 1998 she bore us a son, Paddy. In the three days of her labor, she did not complain, cry, or curse me once.

I learned a lot about valor from her.

T
HE DOCTOR SNAPPED
the curtain open, then fluffed it closed behind him. It gave an illusion of privacy. The recovery room was full, and there were patients behind curtains to the right and left of me.

“How are you doing?” He smiled. He was handsome and nattily dressed, like the doctors on TV.

“You tell me,” I said. There was drool crusted on my chin, and I was still groggy from being put under. I had just undergone a colonoscopy.

The doctor placed the clipboard on my bed and opened it briefly before he spoke.

“You have cancer,” he said.

I felt like the world had stopped and I had been thrown off.

“Colon cancer,” he continued. “We found a malignancy about the size of a golf ball. We’re admitting you into the hospital immediately. I’ve scheduled surgery for tonight.”

“How bad is this?” I stammered.

“I’m going to be honest with you. A tumor this size has been growing for a while. Maybe for as long as five or six years. The problem is that it puts out cancer cells. Metastasizes them. There’s a good possibility it has spread.”

I closed my eyes. The first thing I thought was that this news would make Stacey cry.

“I’ve already told your wife,” the doctor said.

Just like the doctors on TV.

I CAN’T SAY
that cancer struck me without warning. Hindsight is brilliant, but I had ignored a mound of important signals: nagging fatigue, a cough that wouldn’t go away, and an endless series of aches and pains that I chalked up to approaching middle age. There was also colon cancer in my family, and it fell upon the men. I should have had warning enough.

Stacey took the news gallantly and was at my side throughout. I underwent surgery that evening. Following the removal of the tumor, lymph nodes, and twelve inches of my large intestine, I suffered a secondary infection of the surgical wound and spent the next three weeks in the hospital with a tube down my nose.

The official verdict was Stage Three colorectal cancer. Although the surgeons had removed the tumor, they had not lessened the threat. By the time I was diagnosed, the tumor had spread cancer into my lymphatic system. Millions of cancer cells had metastasized throughout my body.

Four weeks after I came home from the hospital, I started chemotherapy, six weeks on, two weeks off, for six months. The chemo drug, 5-Fluorouracil, had some nasty side effects: skin lesions, chronic nausea, mental confusion, fatigue, and ulcerating mouth sores. The treatment was every bit as virulent as the disease it was supposed to cure. It even caused leukemia in some patients, a by-product far beyond what I would consider collateral damage.

I took my chemotherapy on the eighth floor of the Saint Vincent’s Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida. The oncology unit looks out over the Saint John’s River, and patients are seated in Naugahyde recliners facing the river. Every Thursday afternoon I would have lab work done, then I would kick back and get stuck by needles. I’d lay motionless while an IV machine pumped me full of Leucovorin, steroids, and 5-FU. Sometimes the treatments took two hours, sometimes four. Orderlies brought trays with orange juice and ice chips—the ice for the painful hard-edged sores that bloomed under my tongue. Sipping an iced drink, I looked over the beautiful stretch of river alongside thirty or forty other patients. All of us either bloated, emaciated, hairless, or all three. Ours was a very exclusive resort.

I began to call the chemo unit Club Dead.

The steroids made me blow up like a toad, and the 5-FU made me confused and forgetful, a phenomenon, the nurses told me, called “chemo brain.” One morning I couldn’t remember my own phone number. I thought I might be losing my mind. The skin on my hands and feet blistered and peeled off in sheets. My sense of smell became extremely acute, and I swore I could detect the chemo drugs on my skin, a sharp, piercing tang like the odor of steel. The smell nauseated me. I doused myself with cologne and stank of it, perfume and cancer and drugs. My abdomen swelled, and my eyes became puffy slits. People I knew well passed me on the street without recognizing me. I was always exhausted, and I whined like a child.

Weeks passed, spring became summer. In the afternoons I would sleep curled in a ball on the couch with a bucket beside me. There were times I felt that the chemo was killing me at only a slightly slower rate than it killed the cancer. I had dreams in which I thought my soul had slipped out of my body. In those dreams, my soul-self stood for hours and watched a bloated, red-faced man snore loudly under a comforter.

The steroids did not help my temper; the smallest frustrations would throw me into a rage. As soon as my anger had blown itself out, I would become tearful and contrite. Through it all, madness, fear, and regret, Stacey kept me in line. As I mentioned, she is a formidable woman.

Six months passed, and I finished chemo. I was the graduate of another hard school.

In the SEAL Teams, we say a survivor is a victim with an attitude. I am well now, and getting better. I refused to believe, and still refuse to believe, after all I have been through, that cancer is the thing that will kill me.

I will not be a victim of anything. I am a fighter.

I have a bit of advice to offer. Hold on to the people you are close to, and love them fiercely. Get up every morning and live like there is no tomorrow. Because one day you’ll find it’s true.

1-MC    
The public-address system aboard a naval vessel.

1130
    
A naval special warfare officer. 1130 is the career designator assigned by the Bureau of Naval Personnel to qualified SEAL officers.

1180    
U.S. Navy officer designator for a probationary special warfare officer.

5326    
Naval education code (NEC) for a combat swimmer, the Bureau of Naval Personnel’s designation for an enlisted SEAL operator.

5.56    
The caliber of an M-16 rifle in millimeters. NATO ammunition for the M-16 and M-4 carbine.

7.62    
The caliber of an M-60 machine gun in millimeters. NATO ammunition for the M-60, G-3, and M-14 rifles. These weapons fire the NATO standard 7.62 × 51 cartridge. Russian-made weapons, like the AK-47, fire the same caliber bullet using a shorter cartridge, 7.62 × 39. Russian ammunition is referred to as “7.62 Intermediate.”

A2    
Barret .50-caliber long-range sniper rifle. Used by SEAL Teams against high-value targets and as a countersniper weapon.

AAA    
Antiaircraft artillery.

Across the Beach    
A SEAL operation originating from sea. SEALs may insert or extract using a combination of swimming, boat, submarine, parachute, and helicopter.

Alice Pack    
Sometimes called a “jungle ruck.” A small backpack used for combat operations.

Amal    
Meaning “action,” Amal is an anti-Western Shiite militia in Lebanon.

ANGLICO    
Air/Naval Gunfire Liaison Company. A unit assigned to the marines, specializing in the coordination of air strikes, artillery, and naval gunfire.

Antiterrorism    
Defensive measures used to reduce the vulnerability of personnel and facilities to terrorist acts. Such measures include guard patrols, vehicle barricades, and hardening targets, as well as the immediate actions taken by military and security forces following a terrorist attack. Also called “AT.”

AO    
Area of operations. Bailiwick.

AOT    
Advanced operator training. Post-BUD/S training to prepare SEAL platoon members for deployments.

API    
Armor piercing, incendiary. Ammunition designed to pass through armored vehicles and start fires inside.

Assault Element    
A SEAL unit varying in size from four to twenty-five operators. Elements are tailored to fit specific mission requirements.

AT    
Antiterrorism.

AT-4    
An 84-millimeter (3.36-inch) recoilless antitank rocket, used in antiarmor and bunker busting.

Attack Board    
A grouping of depth gauge, watch, compass, and underwater GPS used by SEALs for navigation during underwater attacks.

AWACS (E-3 Sentry)    
The AWACS E-3 is an airborne warning and control aircraft that provides all-weather surveillance, command, control, and communications. The E-3 Sentry is a modified Boeing 707/320 commercial airframe with a rotating radar dome.

Banana    
A SEAL trainee, or anyone not qualified as a SEAL operator. They’re called “bananas” because they’re yellow on the outside and squishy on the inside.

BDU    
Battle dress, utility. The three-color camouflage uniforms worn by marines and soldiers.

Beachmaster    
Navy personnel assigned in an amphibious operation to coordinate the movement of supplies and personnel across the beach. Their marine counterparts are called the “Shore Party.”

Beehive    
A 40-millimeter round fired from the M-203 grenade launcher. Instead of explosives, Beehive rounds contain hundreds of finned nails, called “fléchettes,” that shotgun the target.

Berthing Space    
Compartments aboard a ship, used as sleeping quarters.

BIA    
Beirut International Airport. The collective positions of the main body of 24 MAU.

Black Hawk (see also MH-60)    
The MH-60 helicopter, the workhorse of special operations. Its navy equivalent is the SH-60, the SeaHawk.

Black Shoe    
A surface warfare officer, a ship driver, so named because SWOs wear black shoes with their khaki uniforms. Pilots wear brown shoes.

Boat Crew    
A variably sized SEAL element; literally, the number of SEALs inserted by one boat or helicopter. Usually no smaller than four operators, a boat crew can be as large as twenty.

Body Snatch    
Also called “personnel interdiction,” the kidnapping of high-value enemy personnel. Also an operation or ambush designed specifically to capture prisoners.

Booger Eater    
Generic term for bad guys.

Bounce    
To hit the ground following a parachute malfunction.

BUD/S    
Basic underwater demolition/SEAL training. A twenty-six-week ordeal conducted at the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, California. All SEAL operators attend this course. BUD/S is the only school in the U.S. military where officers and enlisted men attend together and take the same coursework.

Budweiser    
The badge awarded to qualified naval special warfare operators. Called a “trident” by the navy, it is the emblem and insignia of the SEAL Teams. The device features a pistol, an anchor, a trident, and a screaming eagle that is vaguely reminiscent of the logo on a can of Budweiser beer. In the naval service, enlisted warfare badges are silver, and the officers’ are gold. The Budweiser is the only gold navy warfare device worn by both officers and enlisted.

C-4    
Composition 4. Plastic explosive.

Cadre    
The hard-core operational and training elements of a terrorist organization. Also the training cell within a SEAL Team.

Cake-Eater    
Naval officer. Any commissioned officer.