As I read things by and about Special Forces, Richard Marcinko's name kept popping up, so I finally put his first book, purportedly autobiographical, on reserve at the library. Marcinko was one of the driving forces behind the formation of Seal Team Six, which has gained (unwanted?) fame recently for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Marcinko joined the Navy as a young man, and wangled his way into UDT training, then BUDS, and ended up being deployed to Viet Nam as a newly minted ensign in charge of a platoon of SEALs. He seemed to have the time of his life leading missions against the Viet Cong there, and provides some pretty good tales of his adventures. He never did have much respect for most officers, especially administrative and rear echelon types (his terms for them are a little less polite), and he really was quite an a**hole, if everything he says in the book is true. He's definitely the kind of man you want to have your back when it all hits the fan, but I'm not certain I'd like to hang around with him under ordinary circumstances - he generally liked to start trouble, just for fun.
I was reading a section of the book where he tells about his team doing security testing of other Navy installations, and I kept having this deja vu feeling. Then it came to me - in The Weapon, by Michael Z. Williamson, there's a scenario where Chinran and his special forces are training, and they do almost exactly the same things to some unsuspecting regular forces bases. I wonder if Williamson read this book, and it all stuck in his subconscious somewhere, or if he might have been involved with the original caper, somehow.
I'm sure that Marcinko sanitized his stories for the book a little bit, and there's probably plenty he's not telling, but this book is definitely "adult" fare, anyway. Enjoyed it enough that I put his second book on reserve.
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