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Speaker 1: Cool Media.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the only podcast that

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Speaker 2: you're listening to right now unless you have multiple sets

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Speaker 2: of ears or have had some sort of invasive surgery

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Speaker 2: to like add additional like like hearing organs to your

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Speaker 2: body so that your life is one undifferentiated cacophony of noise.

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Speaker 2: And if you have done that, why.

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Speaker 1: Why okay, because I could produce more podcasts. It would

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Speaker 1: make me.

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Speaker 2: So you are the one person who needs that's right,

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Speaker 2: that's right, wire all of the audio directly into your brain.

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Speaker 2: Speaking of things I want to wire into my brain.

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Speaker 2: Andrew T one of my very favorite guests, how are

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Speaker 2: you doing Buddies?

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Speaker 3: That's available that we could probably make that a product.

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Speaker 1: And it is also so long and luscious now I know.

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Speaker 3: And moderate, that's right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Summer summer, it's maybe never going to stop being

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Speaker 4: summer in Southern California.

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Speaker 2: It is always summer in Southern California.

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Speaker 3: At this point, maybe perpetually.

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Speaker 4: I had the most distressing thing that happened to me

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Speaker 4: is I went to Santa Barbara and distressing but not.

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Speaker 3: I guess Box.

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Speaker 4: Crab is now very very readily available in Santa Barbara.

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Speaker 3: When it didn't used to be necessarily in such.

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Speaker 2: Box.

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Speaker 4: Crab box crab like the animal Yeah, okay, that was

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Speaker 4: like a restaurant.

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Speaker 2: Okay, likely the animal box.

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Speaker 4: No, the animal is available to the little delicious spiky

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Speaker 4: guys and the way the like Fisher guy and the

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Speaker 4: like restaurant people were talking. I mean, they know it's

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Speaker 4: climate change, but I think they're like.

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Speaker 3: They're trying not to talk about it.

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Speaker 2: It's just like it bums everybody out all of a sudden.

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Speaker 3: I guess, I don't know. Crab's just decided they want

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Speaker 3: to live here now, a lot.

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Speaker 2: Of stuff suddenly changed. Well, Andrew, you are normally you've

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Speaker 2: put it on pause. You're the host of a podcast

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Speaker 2: called yo is this racist? That's correct, that's right, and

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Speaker 2: you are you are pausing it to do a Star

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Speaker 2: Trek show with Tony and Jesse gender right, Yeah, we're we're.

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Speaker 4: I think we can I cleanly say we're we're doing

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Speaker 4: the Star Trek show as the main thing is this

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Speaker 4: racist might come back, But yeah, we're doing Starter Trek.

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Speaker 4: That's a show where Tawny and Jesse are huge. Tawny

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Speaker 4: was on Star Trek, Jesse loves Star Trek and knows

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Speaker 4: so much about it, they moved no more than me

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Speaker 4: because I only ever watched Star Trek extremely Stoned in syndication,

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Speaker 4: so I recognize shit. Basically every episode is me doing

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Speaker 4: the Leonardo DiCaprio meme of like pointing out the screen

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Speaker 4: like I know that, but I don't understand it, like

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Speaker 4: it's been in my eyes before, but I don't know

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Speaker 4: what the fuck it is, or what the context is

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Speaker 4: or what the So.

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Speaker 2: Well, that is exciting, but I figured this week we

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Speaker 2: could give yo, is this racist? Fans one last little

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Speaker 2: hurrah because I want to ask you and is this racist? Question?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 3: Good? Hell yeah, yeah, I'll bring back Yo's this racist?

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Speaker 3: Just for here?

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Speaker 2: Is this racist? The Navy seals?

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Speaker 3: I listen.

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Speaker 4: My only like experience with this train of thought is

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Speaker 4: that the people people generally say that like law enforcement

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Speaker 4: and military, the higher up you get, like the closer

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Speaker 4: to boots on the ground like regular ass like you know,

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Speaker 4: guys with no impulse control and anger issues boots on

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Speaker 4: the ground, the more racist it is. So I think

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Speaker 4: there's my guess is I feel like there's a chance

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Speaker 4: that it's less racist than your average.

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Speaker 2: That is, that's actually not true at least in regards

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Speaker 2: the US military, and I mean, how we determine the

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Speaker 2: amount of racism and something. But the military as a

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Speaker 2: whole is fairly diverse. Like the US military is a

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Speaker 2: very diverse institution. Special Forces, particularly the highest echelots of

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Speaker 2: special Forces, are a lot wider than the rest of

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Speaker 2: the military to a degree that's kind of uncomfortable when

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Speaker 2: you also look at like where some former Delta guys

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Speaker 2: who are now political figures and some former Seals wind

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Speaker 2: up we're not. This episode is not actually about the

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Speaker 2: Navy Seals as a whole, but we are talking about

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Speaker 2: Seal Team six. This is going to be a two

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Speaker 2: part episode because I want to talk about how Seal

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Speaker 2: Team six went from like, you know, another special Forces

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Speaker 2: unit where they were The term you would hear a

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Speaker 2: lot was like quiet professionals. You know, these guys are

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Speaker 2: incredibly good at what they do and they don't talk

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Speaker 2: about it, because that's kind of the point of like

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Speaker 2: special ops right to now like every third Navy Seal

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Speaker 2: it's or at least Team six guy, it seems like,

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Speaker 2: has a fucking book and a podcast. Yeah, all over

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Speaker 2: the media. They're running their fucking Republican Congress people, you know,

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Speaker 2: So how did we get there? And how did we

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Speaker 2: simultaneously get to the point where like, the Navy Seals

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Speaker 2: are now way better known for their scandals, for shit

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Speaker 2: like Eddie Gallagher stabbing a sixteen year old kid in

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Speaker 2: the neck for a re enlistment ceremony and mosel than

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Speaker 2: they are for even like fucking killing Bin Laden. And

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Speaker 2: all of this comes back like the reason why all

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Speaker 2: of the ship with the Navy Seals is as messy

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Speaker 2: and is as fame hungry and as grimy as it

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Speaker 2: is today. It all starts with the guy who founded

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Speaker 2: Seal Team six, a fella I can't wait to tell

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Speaker 2: you about, named Richard Marsenko. Have you ever heard of Richard?

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Speaker 3: Nope?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, well this is this is this is going

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Speaker 2: to be a hoot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't wait.

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Speaker 2: So before we talk about him, I want to kind

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Speaker 2: of lead you in to the reason I will to

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Speaker 2: talk about this at all, which is that the Navy

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Speaker 2: Seals and like the kind of Special Forces look, the

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Speaker 2: operator look, is one of the more dominant like styles

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Speaker 2: in American pop culture these days. And this is you

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Speaker 2: can see this all over the fucking internet if you

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Speaker 2: happen to be particularly a male who has looked up

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Speaker 2: anything related to firearms or survival gear or talk about

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Speaker 2: that stuff.

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Speaker 4: Sharpie, I just say, sharp that's how my YouTube algorithm

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Speaker 4: about poison. I literally was trying to learn how to

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Speaker 4: sharpen knives during very valuable skill immediately like within likeness.

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Speaker 3: It was like Nazi shit. It was incredible.

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Speaker 2: Actually yeah, And so if you're if you have done

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Speaker 2: stuff like that on the internet, you've probably run across

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Speaker 2: ads on your social media feed that looks something like this,

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Speaker 2: And Sophie's going to put it out. It's an ad

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Speaker 2: for it, says the Pipe Hitters Union. They're advertising their

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Speaker 2: spring break special fifteen percent off store wide. And there's

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Speaker 2: like a picture behind the ad of you can just

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Speaker 2: sort of see close in the center of a man's chest.

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Speaker 2: He's wearing body armor. He's got like a tattooed hand

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Speaker 2: and it's holding he's holding an AR fifteen across his

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Speaker 2: chest and like a low ready right, and the.

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Speaker 1: Pipe Hitters Union, Honey.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, this is he's got. You can also see

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Speaker 2: his like chin, there's a slight shadow of a beard.

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Speaker 2: This is like a very clear sort of tactical apparel look,

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Speaker 2: which is based on the look of you as Special

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Speaker 2: Forces operators. Now, the fact that this business sells tactical

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Speaker 2: and special Forces themed apparel should be obvious from the

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Speaker 2: context of the ad. But what are pipe hitters? Have

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Speaker 2: you guys heard that term before?

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Speaker 4: I just assumed it was just you know, weed smokers, bro.

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Speaker 1: That and just I've heard that in a girly pop conversation.

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Speaker 2: No, definitely not, That's not what it means. So the

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Speaker 2: short answer for what pipe hitters are is it's a

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Speaker 2: modern synonym for like a Special Forces badass who kills

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Speaker 2: people for the US government. And the long answer is

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Speaker 2: that pipe hitters are a big like pipe hitters are

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Speaker 2: why the US can't win wars anymore. Right, the pipe

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Speaker 2: hitter ethos and ideology has locked us into this sort

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Speaker 2: of I would argue this kind of mental way of

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Speaker 2: looking at how conflict should proceed that makes us incapable

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Speaker 2: of actually winning most of the fights that we start. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: it would be accurate to point out that the term

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Speaker 2: pipe pitter has now crossed into the civilian world, as

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Speaker 2: this ad shows, and become a general way for guys

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Speaker 2: who think they're badasses to brand themselves now, much like

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Speaker 2: the word based. The term's origins start in drug lingo,

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Speaker 2: which also, by the way, special forces massive drug problems,

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Speaker 2: like there's a fuck load of drug issues all across you.

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Speaker 2: A Special Forces and a pipe hitter. Originally, the lingo

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Speaker 2: originally is someone who smoked, particularly opium from a pipe,

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Speaker 2: although some people will say crack. But I do think

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Speaker 2: it's more from opium, just based on when it started

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Speaker 2: being said. And here's in Afghanistan, pres right, I mean,

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Speaker 2: and before Yeah, but I think Vietnam too. But here's

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Speaker 2: how The Soldier's Project describes the military origins of the phrase.

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Speaker 2: It gained widespread popularity among the Special Forces and Seals

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Speaker 2: after it was featured in the iconic movie Pulp Fiction.

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Speaker 2: The term was associated with someone who could be depended

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Speaker 2: upon in the midst of combat, and the military usage

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Speaker 2: of the term pipe hitter was initially a description heavily

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Speaker 2: trained operators used for themselves. It was an internal term, right,

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Speaker 2: if you were a Green Beret or a Seal guy,

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Speaker 2: a Seal Team guy, right, or a Delta guy, you

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Speaker 2: might call yourself and your buddies a pipe or pipe hitters, right.

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Speaker 2: But today it's more commonly an aspirational term used by

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Speaker 2: people who are desperate to embody it, and usually seek

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Speaker 2: to do so for buying things right. Here's a fun

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Speaker 2: example from the student of the Gun Company, which offers

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Speaker 2: tactical training and books like The Pipe Hitter's Guide to

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Speaker 2: The Citizens Are Regular Defense Corps for ten ninety nine.

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Speaker 2: What a deal. And you can see the cover of

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Speaker 2: this self published book. There's like four schlubby looking dudes

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Speaker 2: with it looks like AK various AK style guns and

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Speaker 2: like quasi civilian tactical gear in like a grayscale, foggy

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Speaker 2: photo of a city behind the kind of post apocalyptic.

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Speaker 2: And the best way I can describe like the way

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Speaker 2: these men are dressed is like it's race rioter chic,

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Speaker 2: right like the Yeah, that's how they all look. They're

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Speaker 2: all dressed like Kyle Rittenhouse a little.

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Speaker 1: Or how Ytense thinks he's dressing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The product description of this book reads as follows.

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Speaker 2: Building upon the widespread popularity of the original Pipe Hitter's Guide,

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Speaker 2: this book will take the lessons from the original text

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Speaker 2: and build upon them. The Citizens Regular Defense Corps is

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Speaker 2: a modern incarnation of many successful programs used throughout history.

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Speaker 2: For the defense of a community during times of crisis,

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Speaker 2: and I intended to look out that first pipe Hitter's book,

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Speaker 2: and I found myself falling down a rabbit hole of

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Speaker 2: related text, including A Pipe Pitter's Guide to Access Denial

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Speaker 2: and A Pipe Pitter's Guide to Small Arms and Weapons.

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Speaker 2: Both of these are by Nicholas Or, and I had

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Speaker 2: to look into this guy, so I found Nicholas Or's

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Speaker 2: personal wayde And it turns out that name is quote

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Speaker 2: the nom de plume for a civilized Barbarian, a savage

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Speaker 2: gentleman with thirty plus years of operational and combat experience

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Speaker 2: in the United States and overseas. The author has carried

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Speaker 2: a gun during innumerable assignments worldwide as a member of

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Speaker 2: the United States Military, as a military contractor, and an

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Speaker 2: executive protection agent. I don't know if any of that's true.

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Speaker 2: It's not under a real name.

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Speaker 4: He could just be like, yeah, I mean the small

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Speaker 4: like sliver of I don't know. Silver lining to all

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Speaker 4: this stuff is this is just like identical to the

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Speaker 4: like dim mock people in the eighties and nineties kind

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Speaker 4: of vibe the like blood sport guy, like all the

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Speaker 4: fa white like like white martial arts guys that.

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Speaker 3: Could kill you with three moves.

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Speaker 4: Yes, I guess what I mean is these guys have

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Speaker 4: always existed with basically the same gun, same mindset.

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Speaker 2: And also they have always worshiped the Special Forces aesthetic,

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Speaker 2: and that has always been like the coolest thing in

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Speaker 2: that this guy hierarchy is a Special Forces dude or

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Speaker 2: a dude with Special Forces experience. And again, I don't

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Speaker 2: know if Nicholas or is ever served in the military.

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Speaker 2: This is just some dude fucking rebranding, like old military

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Speaker 2: training manuals to make a boxtreme strip right, exactly exactly,

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Speaker 2: But this guy's whole shtick is the perfect embodiment of

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Speaker 2: what pipe hitter has become. Right. It's a branding term

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Speaker 2: to sell the illusion of special, secret, Special Forces knowledge

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Speaker 2: and violent hypercompetence to insecure white dudes who feel like

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Speaker 2: they're like one book and maybe one gun away from

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Speaker 2: being like John Wick. Right, by a six thousand dollars

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Speaker 2: pistol and enough books about tactical shit, then maybe I'll

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Speaker 2: be that cool. And even before it reached the civilian word,

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Speaker 2: pipe pipe hitter as a term was an active branding

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Speaker 2: special Forces guys at the dawn of the g watt

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Speaker 2: the Global War on Terror took a term from a

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Speaker 2: popular recent movie and used it to define themselves how

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Speaker 2: they wanted to be seen as gruff tattooed badasses who

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Speaker 2: didn't follow the rules but got results. And that's why

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Speaker 2: when disgraced Navy c. L. Eddie Gallagher got off the

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Speaker 2: hook for the series of war crimes that he had

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Speaker 2: committed thanks to Donald President Donald Trump's intervention, he created

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Speaker 2: the Pipe Hitter Foundation. And Sophie will show you the

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Speaker 2: website for the pipe Hitter Foundation. But yeah, I mean

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Speaker 2: again for an idea, Eddie Gallagher, this guy was such

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Speaker 2: a fucking maniac. His colleagues were doing shit like shooting

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Speaker 2: above people's heads so that they would take cover so

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Speaker 2: that Eddie wouldn't murder them, because he was just shooting

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Speaker 2: every civilian he could find in mosl to try to

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Speaker 2: rack up a kill count that would let him like

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Speaker 2: market himself as the next Chris Kyle. Like that's that's

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Speaker 2: what this guy is alleged by a bunch of his

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Speaker 2: colleagues as having done right.

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Speaker 1: Bad representation by ray Band here.

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Speaker 2: But there's not any good representation.

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Speaker 4: Watson, the main step up in the pipe pitter Ethos

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Speaker 4: is these meadow glasses to look like this and be

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Speaker 4: a like an easy creep.

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Speaker 1: Bad representation for people named Andrea. Yeah, this website's amazing stuff.

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Speaker 2: It's incredible, Jitre. We'll talk about Eddie in the very

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Speaker 2: end of these episodes because this a lot of what

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Speaker 2: we're talking about with both Richard Marsenko and with you know,

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Speaker 2: the history of kind of this, this conflict in Team

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Speaker 2: six between these quiet operators and these like maniac murderer

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Speaker 2: publicity house, right, is what Berth's Eddie Gallagher in a

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Speaker 2: lot of ways. Now, Special Forces guys have been seen

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Speaker 2: as cool pretty much since we invented them, but their

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Speaker 2: popularity really rocketed up after the Navy Seals killed Osama

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Speaker 2: bin Laden in twenty eleven, which is little ironic because

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Speaker 2: basically everyone is there was like, it's the easiest mission

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Speaker 2: we ever had. It was not hard, we were not

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Speaker 2: in the main danger was that we fucked up our

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Speaker 2: own helicopters because we didn't like the pilot was like,

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Speaker 2: if you're gonna land, you can't land a helicopter in

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Speaker 2: like I walled an environment like that, it'll fuck up

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Speaker 2: the rotors. And they were like, well, you're fired and

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Speaker 2: then the thing the guy said happened. Not quite as

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Speaker 2: professional as they often come across, but Yeah. Since twenty eleven,

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Speaker 2: the term has made his way back from the military

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Speaker 2: into movies like Sacario. That's kind of the first place

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Speaker 2: I seem to remember hearing it in like a pop

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Speaker 2: culture sense, and also the right, right, right, good movie.

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Speaker 2: And also a wide array of products marketed to civilians

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Speaker 2: who want to feel like more special, more like special

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Speaker 2: Forces dudes when they're at say the gym, you know.

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Speaker 2: Here's here's another example from the Pipe Hitters Union, right,

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Speaker 2: and my favorite is probably this original pipe Hitter T

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Speaker 2: shirt that shows this is part of like a series

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Speaker 2: where it's like the Founding Fathers reimagined as like special

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Speaker 2: Forces gangster badasses. You've got like fucking George Washington with

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Speaker 2: a tomahawk, and Teddy Roosevelt's got a machine gun across

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Speaker 2: his shoulder, he's like shirtless, heavily tattooed, he's got a

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Speaker 2: jug of hard liquor. Right, and you can you can

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Speaker 2: see in this ad how much this product line really

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Speaker 2: relies on the aesthetic of the operator and what the

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Speaker 2: aesthetic of the operator is because his Teddy's not depicted

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Speaker 2: as a regular soldier. He's got a gun over his shoulder,

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Speaker 2: he's shirtless, he's muscular, he's covered in tattoos, and he's

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Speaker 2: drunk carrying what looks to be a jug of moonshine.

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Speaker 2: And all of these elements, including constant illegal intoxication, are

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Speaker 2: central aspects of real life special forces culture. Now, I

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Speaker 2: would define the pipe hitter aesthetic today as a man

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Speaker 2: usually bearded, wearing weapons, armor and gear, but no uniform

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Speaker 2: so to speak, who operates as a soldier but is

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Speaker 2: unaccountable to anyone really. And today, every right wing influencer

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Speaker 2: who can pull off posing with a gun has tried

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Speaker 2: to ape this aesthetic at least a little bit. And

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Speaker 2: as an example, here's Andrew Tait posing for Instagram. He's

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Speaker 2: got the plate carrier, he's got a gun. He doesn't

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Speaker 2: have a beard, so he's got one of those skull

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Speaker 2: masks around his face. And by the way, his plate

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Speaker 2: carrier is riding too low. You want to have that

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Speaker 2: thing up higher. You see that there's like right underneath

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Speaker 2: its dumb. If you're watching this in the video, right

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Speaker 2: underneath where his maskins, there's like three or four inches

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Speaker 2: of open real estate before the armor starts. That's just like, well,

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Speaker 2: that's just your heart, bro, Like you want to have.

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Speaker 3: That thing.

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Speaker 1: Really dumb?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, skull the skullgator too big.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the skull gator is a big part of this

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Speaker 2: esthetic too for sure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure.

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Speaker 2: Now we're gonna look this week into the first pipeit

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Speaker 2: or the man who created the template for this kind

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Speaker 2: of guy and also who literally invented Seal Team six,

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Speaker 2: Richard Marsenko. Now, the Navy Seals were already well known

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Speaker 2: when an operator with Seal Team six killed on How

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Speaker 2: I'm Been Laden in a boat of Bad Pakistan. But

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Speaker 2: before that day they were simply among the best special

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Speaker 2: forces units that the US kept in its arsenal, and

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Speaker 2: in all honesty, prior to a Boata Bad, their public

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Speaker 2: record wasn't all that impressive really any sufficiently We'll talk

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Speaker 2: about that. Any sufficiently nerdy ROTC kid when I was

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Speaker 2: growing up would have told you that, like, well, Delta

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Speaker 2: Force is the more elite unit, right, That was certainly

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Speaker 2: like the the the the attitude then. But after Bin

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Speaker 2: Laden there was not really any question anymore. The Seals

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Speaker 2: and Team six in particular were the premier mill military

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Speaker 2: badasses of the American imagination. So yeah, anyway, I think

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Speaker 2: I've hyped this up enough. I'm going to start with

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Speaker 2: the story of ours this day. But first, here's some

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Speaker 2: fucking ads and we're back. Richard was born on November

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Speaker 2: twenty first, in nineteen forty in Lansford, Pennsylvania, in the

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Speaker 2: home of his grandmother. Now, his hometown was a mining

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Speaker 2: community and cole was the big business of the day.

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Speaker 2: His ancestors were check on both sides, and in his

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Speaker 2: autobiography he described the ethos of the men in his

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Speaker 2: family line and in Lansford as a whole. As they

356
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Speaker 2: were born, they worked the mines, they died, right, So

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Speaker 2: understandable that he's going to want to get out of

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Speaker 2: this right now. We'll be discussing his autobiography, Rogue Warrior,

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Speaker 2: not just as a historical document, because it's a terrible

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Speaker 2: historical document, but it is in and of itself an

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Speaker 2: important piece of history because the book wrote Warrior is

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Speaker 2: the first Navy seal tell all right. It is the

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Speaker 2: first true story book written by a former operator for

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Speaker 2: the purpose of turning himself into a brand. Right. There

365
00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:12,439
Speaker 2: were books about the seals before and by the way,

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Speaker 2: if you're looking for like a good book about the

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Speaker 2: seals in uh, because I used to know a seal team,

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Speaker 2: one guy who was fought in Vietnam, and the book

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Speaker 2: he recommended was that it was called Hunters and Trackers.

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Speaker 2: That was, like he said, was very true to his experience.

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Speaker 2: Marsinko's book covers Vietnam heavily, but it's nearly all lies. Right,

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Speaker 2: then said it's an important historical book, right because every

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Speaker 2: one of these Navy seal fucking books that's come since

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Speaker 2: in the modern era. There's two of them from two

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Speaker 2: different guys who were part of the Osamba operation who

376
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Speaker 2: claimed to have shot him. Neither of them killed osamabed

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Speaker 2: Black and everyone knows that.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 4: Oh god, I'm just gonna this is also like La

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Speaker 4: Comedy community stuff and I don't remember who it was

381
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:57,760
Speaker 4: and I don't know the story, but basically someone I

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Speaker 4: forget who it was. They you know, podcast listeners might

383
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:03,920
Speaker 4: be able to find this, but someone like La Comedian

384
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:07,760
Speaker 4: wise basically went on on a date with another person

385
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Speaker 4: who I don't even know if they're actually a Davy seal,

386
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Speaker 4: but claim to have killed those Alli been lot.

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Speaker 2: Also, if you actually like the serious and good reporting

388
00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:19,760
Speaker 2: on that has shown and proven basically because they've talked

389
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Speaker 2: to a bunch of guys who were The guy who

390
00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:23,240
Speaker 2: actually killed him was a dude whose nickname is read

391
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Speaker 2: we don't know his real name, and he does not

392
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Speaker 2: talk right, Like, that's what people say about the guy

393
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 2: who actually did it. We'll talk about that too, because again,

394
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Speaker 2: it because two different people who were there on the

395
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Speaker 2: day they killed Bin Laden were both there with the

396
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Speaker 2: primary purpose for them being to write a book about

397
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Speaker 2: it later. They both like fucked up and broke the

398
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:47,200
Speaker 2: rules and broke ranks and left their colleagues exposed during

399
00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:49,359
Speaker 2: the raid to try to get there faster to shoot

400
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Speaker 2: him so that they could write a book about it.

401
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Speaker 2: It's very funny, and that's all downstream of Rogue Warrior, right,

402
00:20:55,080 --> 00:20:58,240
Speaker 2: Like Marsenko not only starts Team six, but he establishes

403
00:20:58,280 --> 00:20:59,760
Speaker 2: that this is a way to make a fuck load

404
00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:02,200
Speaker 2: of mind after you get out of it and see us. Right,

405
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 2: So again, don't take anything he says in this literally

406
00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:09,440
Speaker 2: and assume a degree of artistic license. When Maarsenko describes

407
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Speaker 2: that his family was too poor to buy boots to

408
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Speaker 2: pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Right. I don't doubt

409
00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:17,159
Speaker 2: that they were poor, but he's probably exaggerating a little bit.

410
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Speaker 2: From an early age, Richard seems to have identified with

411
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Speaker 2: his maternal grandfather, Joe Pavlick, who he described as a cantankerous, short,

412
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Speaker 2: barrel chested, shot in a beer, hard drinking son of

413
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Speaker 2: a bitch with a square face and landed bresnev eyebrows

414
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 2: who worked the minds all his life and never complained

415
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:36,719
Speaker 2: about it once. Maybe this guy existed, right. If he didn't,

416
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:39,720
Speaker 2: you know, then Marsenko just invented this personality to graft

417
00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:42,760
Speaker 2: on to a real guy because it was way more convenient. Right.

418
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:45,119
Speaker 2: This is part of he he has. This is a

419
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:47,960
Speaker 2: political work in part for him too, So a lot

420
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Speaker 2: of his book is him outlining the guys he considers.

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Speaker 2: These are examples of good people, These are examples of.

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Speaker 4: Bad people, right right, right right. It's also like that's

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00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:58,040
Speaker 4: that's what everyone sees their grandpaias.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, to take yeah, maybe it's that because this this

425
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:04,239
Speaker 2: sounds like maybe how you'd idealize a person, But this

426
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:06,960
Speaker 2: is not how you describe like a real person. You knew, well,

427
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 2: this is a description of a character in a screenplay. Right,

428
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 2: here's here's Richard again. He was a real hell raiser,

429
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Speaker 2: one of those archetypal tough guys you see in working

430
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,920
Speaker 2: class bars with big white labor toughened hands that look

431
00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 2: as if they were designed to go around old fashioned

432
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Speaker 2: beer glasses. That's all aesthetic. He's not telling us anything

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Speaker 2: about what his grandpa actually did or like he said,

434
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:27,680
Speaker 2: He's just talking about like his hands and how he's

435
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 2: like an archetypal tough guy in a working class bar.

436
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:33,120
Speaker 5: That's just not that doesn't sound real to me. That's

437
00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:39,800
Speaker 5: not how like well or that way scrape that surface.

438
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 5: That's like fucking three thousand guys in that town of

439
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 5: fire exactly exactly.

440
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 2: That's a picture. That's not a man right anyway. Richard

441
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:50,920
Speaker 2: says that he was independent from a young age. Right.

442
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,679
Speaker 2: His his family is not very functional, right, His parents

443
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 2: are fighting all of the time, and so he's just

444
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 2: kind of doing his own shit. He starts working his

445
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 2: own paper out at age five. By age seven, he

446
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 2: says he's leaving on his own for a day or

447
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 2: two at a time to explore the woods and the

448
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:08,879
Speaker 2: wilderness around him. He claims his parents weren't big on

449
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 2: education and says his dad probably dropped out of school

450
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:14,359
Speaker 2: around eighth grade, while his mom may have gotten a

451
00:23:14,400 --> 00:23:16,920
Speaker 2: ninth or tenth and that I don't I don't doubt.

452
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:20,879
Speaker 2: I mean that's true of my grandparents, right, I mean

453
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 2: my grandpa. I think I had an eighth grade education. Yeah.

454
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 2: I haven't found any accounts that contrast with this, So again,

455
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 2: I don't have trouble taking him stuff is read. Yeah.

456
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:32,240
Speaker 2: When he was in seventh grade, the mines closed down,

457
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 2: and so his family had to move to New Brunswick.

458
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 2: Because the school was so diverse, he writes he got

459
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 2: into a series of fights walking to and from class.

460
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 2: His uncle moved in with them at one point after

461
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 2: he had a brother, and the five of them had

462
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 2: to cram into a small apartment. Richard remembered his parents

463
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 2: fighting constantly, and since his uncle would take his mom's side,

464
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,320
Speaker 2: his dad kind of stopped showing up at home. All

465
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 2: the unrest furthered Dick's tradition of avoiding his family. As

466
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:58,120
Speaker 2: he became an adolescent, he got a series of odd

467
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,879
Speaker 2: jobs pin setter for a bowling alley altr boy, and

468
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 2: as an adolescent he worked as a waiter at a

469
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 2: lunch place near the Rutgers campus. He claims to have

470
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 2: worked one hundred and twenty hours a week during the summer.

471
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:10,560
Speaker 2: He says the Italian owner of the place treated him

472
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 2: like a son and started giving him wine, which Richard

473
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 2: developed a taste for, and by age thirteen, he was

474
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,399
Speaker 2: a daily drinker. I also don't doubt this. Richard is

475
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 2: a hardcore alcoholic his entire life. This is certainly true.

476
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 2: When he was fifteen, Richard claims he pretended to be

477
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 2: an eighteen year old freshman at Rutgers and started dating

478
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 2: a young teacher named Lucette, who he met at a

479
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 2: fraternity party that he snuck into. The lie fell apart

480
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,199
Speaker 2: when she was hired to fill in for a teacher

481
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,239
Speaker 2: in his high school French class. He's like, dating this

482
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 2: girl and she shows up to teach at his high school.

483
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is true.

484
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 3: This is autobiography, Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

485
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 2: He does want you to think this is cool that

486
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 2: like he was I mean big statutorily raped by an adult,

487
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,160
Speaker 2: but also that she didn't know. That's part of why

488
00:24:58,160 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 2: I kind of doubt it is he thinks this is

489
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 2: all awesome, and he's telling you this because he thinks

490
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 2: it makes him look cool that he's getting laid like

491
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 2: hell when he's a kid. So by the time of

492
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 2: his senior year, Richard was no longer showing up to

493
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 2: class at all. He claims that he was dating an

494
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,160
Speaker 2: Italian woman quote married to a guy twenty seven years

495
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:18,200
Speaker 2: her senior and in serious need of vigorous humping and pumping. Again.

496
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 2: This is from his autobiography.

497
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 1: I hated that it's.

498
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 3: This is certainly this kind of guy.

499
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,359
Speaker 2: Absolutely, eventually he dropped out of high school. And this

500
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 2: is almost the first specific detail of his life that

501
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 2: we can independently verify. He definitely drops out of high school.

502
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 2: I can check that office by in the Bastard's True

503
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:46,440
Speaker 2: Fact about Richards, he tried to join the Marine Corps.

504
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 2: At this point, Eisenhower had just sent the Marines to Lebanon,

505
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 2: and Richard wrote, after seeing them on TV, I liked

506
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 2: their dress, blues and their swords. So he shows up

507
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 2: at a USMC recruiting office and he asks the sergeant

508
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:00,359
Speaker 2: what can I do? I want to get a gun

509
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 2: and go shoot a few bad guys? How can I

510
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 2: do that? And the sergeant and it tells you how

511
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 2: like insane, Richard must have appeared, because recruiting sergeants will

512
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 2: say anything to get you to sign that paper. And

513
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 2: this guy's like, well, you gotta graduate high school. We

514
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 2: don't just hand a gun to you, right, Like, he's

515
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:18,920
Speaker 2: clearly off put by this kid, Like dudes who joined

516
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 2: the Marine Corps will tell you how hard it is

517
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 2: to make a recruiting sergeant not want to get you

518
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 2: to sign that paper immediately.

519
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 4: You have to seem insane, right, This will hurt me

520
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 4: to pass him on more than it will to get

521
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 4: the additional number.

522
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, my conscience won't allow this, and I'm a

523
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 2: recruiting sergeant, right. So Richard says that he got disheartened

524
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 2: after this because he knew by the time he did

525
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 2: all of the training shit that was required, the Lebanese

526
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 2: probably would be solved and he wouldn't get to shoot anybody.

527
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 2: So he decided not to join the Marines and fucks

528
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 2: off and spends the summer partying and getting laid. Richard

529
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 2: starts dating seriously for the first time at this point,

530
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 2: and he writes that when I wasn't caatting around with

531
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 2: other women, quote, I discovered that we liked each other.

532
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 2: That's how he describes falling in love. Is what I

533
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 2: wasn't cheating on her. I had a good time with her. Yeah,

534
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 2: that's love for Richard.

535
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 3: Good for him. I'm mostly good for her, especially good

536
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:16,400
Speaker 3: for her.

537
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. The less time you spend with this guy is

538
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 2: probably on the whole helping you. Regardless, Richard abandons her

539
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 2: that fall when she goes well, I mean, I don't know,

540
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 2: they break up, right, she goes to college and he

541
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,199
Speaker 2: volunteers for the Navy. I shouldn't call that him abandoning her.

542
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 2: That's a pretty natural split at that age. He reports

543
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 2: for duty in October nineteen fifty eight and goes to

544
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 2: boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. In the great book

545
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 2: Code Over Country, Matthew Cole writes, shortly after enlisting Marsinko,

546
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 2: a radio man saw The Frogmen, the nineteen fifty one

547
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 2: movie film depicting UDT Force heroics in World War Two,

548
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,159
Speaker 2: and knew he needed to join the underwater demolitions teams.

549
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 2: So we need to talk about the UDTs, right, the

550
00:27:55,920 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 2: underwater demolitions teams, because while Richard was living his first

551
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 2: five years of life, right, that's during World War Two,

552
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 2: forty to forty five, military history was being revolutionized by

553
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 2: the formalization of a kind of unit that had always existed,

554
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 2: special operations forces. Right, These have always been a part

555
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 2: of warfare and every society and every place that's done

556
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,159
Speaker 2: formal war. Right, you could look at the Greeks who

557
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:20,360
Speaker 2: hid in the Trojan Horse is like an example, whether

558
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:22,719
Speaker 2: or not that was literally true, that's an example of

559
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 2: like a kind of operation that an early operator would

560
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 2: carry out, right, the kind of elite highly trained soldier,

561
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 2: spies and assassins that would do the work that modern

562
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 2: states have specops guys to do. Right, this has always

563
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 2: been a thing, and during World War Two, the development

564
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 2: of technology mandated the creation of highly trained soldiers capable

565
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 2: of extremely niche operations, particularly doing complicated underwater shit. In

566
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 2: the United States because this happens like the British have,

567
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 2: you know, the sas and shit like this. This is

568
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 2: independently happening in a number of places. The Germans have

569
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 2: the Fauschworm yeggers, which a lot of I mean a

570
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 2: lot of American special forces culture is descended from these,

571
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 2: different from Nazi special forces units, right, yeah, as well,

572
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 2: unsurprising unsurprised. Just like a lot of they were very

573
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 2: influential in a lot of like small unit tactic development,

574
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 2: and for the US, a lot of this process started

575
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 2: in the Pacific. The storming of Bettio Island by the

576
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 2: second Marine Division in the tarahua A Toll was a

577
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 2: hideously bloody affair. And the reason why it was such

578
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 2: a fuck up is basically they calculated the tide because

579
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 2: you need to know what the tide's going to be

580
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 2: to like have the boats moving in the proper way

581
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 2: to get all of the dudes on shore at the

582
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 2: right time so that one set of them isn't exposed

583
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 2: and just getting shot to shit. Right, But there was

584
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 2: a special kind of tide that day that if they'd

585
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 2: had someone out ahead of the landing boats who could

586
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 2: have gone back and said, hey, it's a different kind

587
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 2: of tide you need to all, then it would have

588
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 2: avoided a horrible bloody situation.

589
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 3: Right.

590
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 2: And so the Navy decides we need specialist divers who

591
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 2: can scout out coastal areas ahead of a landing, measure

592
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 2: the depth of exactly figure out the tide, find and

593
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 2: disabled minds before landing craft come in. Right, like these

594
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 2: are our our first real special forces units. So the

595
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 2: Navy had started training underwater demolitions teams before Tarahua, and

596
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 2: these guys are more commonly known at the time as frogmen.

597
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 2: That's like the colloquial term. And they're cool, by the way,

598
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 2: like kids in World War Two are like reading feverishly

599
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 2: stories about Navy frogmen. These are some of the like

600
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 2: some of the first g I. Joe's are fraud are.

601
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 4: The coolest, like g I Joe mentality. You need a

602
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 4: water guy, you need an nice guy, a fly guy.

603
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 4: Need a guy that looks like rocks.

604
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 2: Yes, it looks like rops for some reason. So the

605
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 2: first men in the line of descent of the Navy

606
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 2: seals where Navy cebe volunteers who took special training in

607
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 2: Fort Pierce, Florida to learn how to fulfill this new role.

608
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 2: Because the work of the underwater demolition teams was known

609
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 2: to be so demanding and difficult, officers and enlisted members

610
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 2: of these units went through the same training and were

611
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 2: expected to handle the same tasks and work together in

612
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 2: units so small that you couldn't have the addition will

613
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 2: divide between officers and enlisted men. One thing that's noted

614
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 2: as being weird about frogmen is they all just called

615
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 2: each other by their first names, right, And you're not

616
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 2: supposed to do that in the normal milk. Now that said,

617
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 2: I have known some people who were in units that

618
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 2: would say that, like, after months of heavy combat, you

619
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 2: kind of stop, some of that stuff matters a lot

620
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 2: less right, right, and a lot of like right. In

621
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 2: the book Alpha, which is a great read about Navy

622
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 2: coal alleged war criminal Eddie Gallagher, author David Phillips writes

623
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 2: this about the first Frogmen. They've been formed from civilian

624
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 2: workmen in the New Deal nineteen forties America, and they

625
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 2: embraced the eras in formal attitudes of blue collar solidarity

626
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 2: and equality. So these men were soldiers, right, But they

627
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 2: also carried no weapon besides a fixed blade diving knife,

628
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 2: which is a major thing that differentiates them. These guys

629
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 2: are badasses, and they are widely renowned, but not because

630
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 2: of their killing ability. That is not at all why

631
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 2: they're like respected, right, They're expected because the thing that

632
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 2: they have to do is both totally necessary for the

633
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 2: success of naval operations and insane leadings. During D Day,

634
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 2: UDT swimmers with the very first people ashore at Omaha

635
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 2: Beach and had to clear the way for landing craft

636
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 2: with zero cover. And again for an idea, these guys

637
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 2: are not in a boat. They are swimming ashore in

638
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 2: like shorts with a knife and flippers. Maybe right, They're

639
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 2: basically naked, and they're swimming directly into guns. Fifty two

640
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 2: percent of the unit were made casualties in a single day,

641
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: a rate of loss no normal military unit could be

642
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 2: expected to endure without complete collapse. The Frogmen proved incredibly

643
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 2: valuable in World War Two, and obviously more in the

644
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 2: Pacific theater than the Atlantic, and because of this they

645
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 2: were allowed to live by different rules than other soldiers.

646
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 2: Phillips notes that they had little use for discipline that

647
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 2: regular troops were expected to live under. They refused to

648
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 2: shave their hair, wear proper uniforms, march or salute as

649
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 2: a rule. Officers outside the unit complained that they looked

650
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 2: like criminals and hooligans, not soldiers. But from the book Alpha,

651
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 2: they were not an attack force. They were a crew

652
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 2: of workmen out to do an insane They could be

653
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 2: as crazy as they wanted, right, and that is then

654
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 2: that's still a big part of the And it's not

655
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 2: a problem really in World War two, right, because, for

656
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 2: one thing, what they're doing is objectively heroic and good.

657
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 2: I'm not just talking about the cause of the war.

658
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 2: They're not doing anything to harm like, they're not killing

659
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 2: people directly. They're protecting their fellows soldiers and risking their

660
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 2: own lives to do it. Right.

661
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 4: It's sort of like the engineering version of the medic Yes, yes,

662
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 4: they're doing logistics under fire.

663
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 2: And there is like demolitions work that does kill people

664
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 2: that they do, but that's not the primary thing that

665
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 2: they are they're up to, and it was not easy

666
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 2: to train men to do this kind of work. From

667
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 2: Code over Country quote. The final week of training culminated

668
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 2: with the men forced to do a trench on the

669
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 2: Atlantic beach while explosives were set off nearby for an hour.

670
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 2: The goal was to ensure that each man that they

671
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 2: would send into enemy water had proved they could handle

672
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 2: the stress. Many couldn't. Between sixty and seventy five percent

673
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 2: dropped out by the end of the week. Right. And

674
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 2: a part of what they're doing and the way they

675
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 2: will frame it is we're looking for men who are

676
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 2: immune to shell shock. Now that's not a thing. Your

677
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 2: brain is affected by it or it isn't. But depending

678
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 2: on the explode, the force of the blast, and how

679
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,479
Speaker 2: close you are. But some people are like better at

680
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 2: handling it and not collapsing until much later it destroys them. Right,

681
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 2: So this is the start of hell Week, which is

682
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 2: still a very famous part. I'm sure it's the thing

683
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 2: everybody knows about Navy seels right right now, we know

684
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,919
Speaker 2: that exposure to explosives like this causes CTE. But again

685
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 2: at the time, was that this is like hardening them

686
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 2: and showing like who's immune to shell shock?

687
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 3: Sub stuff gets hardened, some stuff gets softened, you know.

688
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 3: He has to.

689
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 2: Say, Now, we'd never really trained a unit like this before,

690
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 2: and this was also a top secret unit because we

691
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 2: didn't want the enemy to know like what these guys

692
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 2: were capable of doing. And those two facts together bred

693
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 2: an immediate kind of elitism within the ranks of the

694
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 2: guys who made it through training. The first UDT training

695
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 2: leader was Lieutenant Commander Draper Kaufman, and he was a

696
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 2: very observant man because so many want to be washed

697
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 2: out and because UDT swimmers weren't held to the same

698
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 2: expectations of discipline. They had a tendency to view themselves

699
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 2: as better than their peers. As coal rights, Kaufman and

700
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 2: his officers were concerned that elitism would pervade their ranks,

701
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 2: but the needs of the war won out, and this

702
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 2: problem would only get worse in the years to come.

703
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 2: Post war stories of these formerly secret elite units captured

704
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 2: the imaginations of countless young Americans, and in the wake

705
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:26,280
Speaker 2: of World War Two, the brass and our growing military

706
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 2: industrial complex saw opportunity. The Pentagon had partnered with Hollywood

707
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 2: during the war years to spread propaganda. Now that the

708
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,320
Speaker 2: Cold War was beginning, our national propaganda needs had changed.

709
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 2: Military planners felt the wars of the future could be

710
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 2: won by air power, with anything on the ground handled

711
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 2: by small, elite teams of highly trained soldiers. In nineteen

712
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 2: fifty one, a Navy Hollywood partnership produced The Frogmen, which

713
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 2: starred Richard Widmark and was designed to make UDT teams

714
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 2: look fucking awesome. This is one of the very first

715
00:35:55,360 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 2: like Hollywood US military joint production propaganda movies, and the

716
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 2: original theatrical trailer for this classic is still on YouTube,

717
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 2: and I have to assume that Richard saw the trailer

718
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 2: as a kid too, So here's a clip to give

719
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 2: you an idea of what must have been appealing about

720
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:09,879
Speaker 2: this to the young man.

721
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 3: From top secret records filmed with the cooperation of the

722
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 3: Department of Defense, comes the thrilling story of these pin footed,

723
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 3: gogglelied beach blasting heroes. They fight like men from another world,

724
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 3: but they've got Brooklyn, Texas, and Missouri written all over

725
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 3: their hearts.

726
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 2: You're a brave man, all of you are.

727
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:33,960
Speaker 3: You wouldn't be in this outfit. Nobody questions that.

728
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 2: But your kind of bravery comes ten cents a dozen.

729
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:39,280
Speaker 2: That isn't worth a hoot mall when the chips are.

730
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 3: Down, it's great.

731
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 2: So I love this fifty shit.

732
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 4: It's so like fascinating to put yourself back in the

733
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 4: audience mindset of like in cooperation with the US Navy

734
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 4: being like a positive thing, like what jucks.

735
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:57,919
Speaker 2: Well and honestly like that whole thing about like they've

736
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 2: got you know, Texas and you know all their the

737
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 2: home state's written all and just like yeah, there is

738
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 2: something that does a little like these are like the

739
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 2: original Frogmen were just working class men forced by circumstances

740
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 2: to endure insane danger in an overall noble struggle, and

741
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 2: that's pretty cool, right, And they could not be further

742
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 2: from modern day Navy seals, right, The modern seals are

743
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 2: descended from these guys, not at all alike, honestly, really, now,

744
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 2: young Richard Marsenko sees this movie and he loses his shit.

745
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 2: He remembers it having lots of action, lots of heroism,

746
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 2: and lots of songs. One of these songs was the

747
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 2: official UDT team fight song, which ended with these words

748
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 2: out in front of the Navy, where you really get

749
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 2: the heat. There's a bunch of crazy bastards pulling off

750
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 2: some crazy feet. And that's that line, particularly those last

751
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 2: two lines, that just completely writes over Richard's mind, like

752
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 2: that's software that just reprograms his fucking brain. Right. He

753
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 2: never wants to be seen as anything else for the

754
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 2: rest of his days. So Richard, who basically parented himself

755
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 2: half his childhood, finds his really appealing, and he specifically

756
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 2: recalls thinking, hey, I could do that after leaving the theater,

757
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 2: and his logic for thinking this was, I mean, I

758
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 2: was a reasonably aggressive sort of person. I'm really violent.

759
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 2: That job looks great for me.

760
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 3: Now.

761
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 2: Richard had to spend a couple of years living the

762
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 2: life of a normal enlisted sailor before he was able

763
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 2: to try out for the UDT teams. They don't just

764
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 2: let you join and do that. His first attempt was

765
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 2: foiled by a broken hand, and his second was, according

766
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 2: to him, nearly thwarted by his commanding officer, who he

767
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 2: describes as, oh boy, the ugliest female I had ever

768
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 2: set eyes on in my life. I called her the

769
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 2: big female, ugly commander, or big fuck for short. Cool

770
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 2: Now you know that's what.

771
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 4: It didn't go where I thought it was gonna go.

772
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 4: How could you have guessed where that was at it?

773
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:57,840
Speaker 4: How could you have guessed maybe this lady existed? I

774
00:38:57,880 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 4: can't disprove that. It does kind of seem a little

775
00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 4: un likely, but it's not impossible. Women were first allowed

776
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 4: to enlist in the Navy in nineteen oh eight, but

777
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,560
Speaker 4: initially only as nurses. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels,

778
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 4: who was weirdly woke for nineteen seventeen, famously asked, is

779
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:13,400
Speaker 4: there any law that says a yeoman must be a

780
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 4: man right? Is there any law that says like a

781
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 4: young sailor has to be like a man, and he

782
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:19,919
Speaker 4: started letting ladies join the Naval Reserve while men.

783
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 2: Were away during World War One. In World War Two,

784
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 2: a separate women's naval auxiliary was created. The waves and

785
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 2: they have like the wax is the Air Corps version, right.

786
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 2: The Waves and the wax are like the kind of

787
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,720
Speaker 2: ladies auxiliary during World War Two and postwar the Women's

788
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 2: Armed Services Integration Act brings women into the armed forces properly,

789
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: but obviously, and they're still limited today in what roles

790
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 2: they can serve, less than they were then. The first

791
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 2: female Navy officers had just been commissioned in nineteen forty eight,

792
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 2: and so fifty eight is when this is all happening.

793
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 2: Marsinko could have had a lady CEO, right, but it

794
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: seems likelier that this is a lie he created because

795
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 2: this caricature of a lady officer symbolizes everything wrong with

796
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 2: what he called big Navy. Right. This is also a

797
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:04,280
Speaker 2: term you'll hear in the Seals to this day, big navy.

798
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 2: And I think Richard, I'm not sure if he's the

799
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 2: origin point, but he's certainly one of them, So yeah,

800
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 2: I don't know how seriously should we should take this,

801
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 2: But this is something that like he wants us to believe.

802
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 2: Richard writes, quote big Fuck was also a rule book creature,

803
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 2: and he will later decide that basically all of the

804
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 2: Navy's problems comes from people following the rules too strictly.

805
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 2: And the book Brave Men, Dark Waters or Kelly writes

806
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 2: that some of the guys who served with Marsenko would

807
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 2: later claim that as a second class radio man, he

808
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 2: bragged that he would one day be the chief of

809
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 2: Naval operations. So you know, he's got a mouth on

810
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 2: him and he thinks he's hot shit. But soon he's

811
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 2: going to get like the chance to prove that he is,

812
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 2: because he gets transferred to the UDT training. I don't

813
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 2: know why he claims that he beats off. First he

814
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 2: beats up one of his peers for being a whiner,

815
00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 2: and then that gets him into a fistfight with his

816
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:57,840
Speaker 2: chief petty officer, who he beats up so badly that

817
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:00,800
Speaker 2: he gets transferred to UDT training to keep everyone else safe.

818
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 2: And I think that's a lie. I don't think that's true.

819
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 3: That's famously how that works.

820
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the kind of lie. A guy

821
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 2: like Richard Barcicata tells, God, I do I have an

822
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 2: uncle who punched his training officer in the Marine Corps.

823
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 2: And he does not have a cool story like that.

824
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 2: He has a he got the ship beat out of

825
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:24,359
Speaker 2: him and in major trouble, major major trouble story.

826
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, I was just too too tough. They had,

827
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 3: they had too much.

828
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 2: They had to put me in the un to protect

829
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 2: the others. Now, you know who I want to protect? Really,

830
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:38,920
Speaker 2: the only thing I want to protect. You know, if

831
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 2: the Navy Seals are there to protect America from terrorism,

832
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:45,360
Speaker 2: then I'm the Navy Seals of protecting these products and

833
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:49,320
Speaker 2: services from you not listening to them. Yeah, that works.

834
00:41:49,600 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 2: That's an ad transition, and we're back. So Richard claims

835
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: he got transferred to UDT training, right, and he does.

836
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 2: You know, I just don't know exactly what leads to that.

837
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 2: He completes his UDT training in nineteen sixty one. This

838
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 2: is a decade after The Frogmen was released. That same year,

839
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 2: President John F. Kennedy authorized the Pentagon to examine ways

840
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 2: to develop new counter guerrilla forces. This included establishing new

841
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 2: special Operations teams as separate components of the existing underwater

842
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 2: demolitions teams. And this is what like JFK is while

843
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,919
Speaker 2: we have the Navy Seals, right, he's effectively the father

844
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 2: of the Navy Seals right now. The failure of the

845
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 2: Bay of Pigs invasion in mid nineteen sixty one prompted

846
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 2: Kennedy to address Congress, and everyone remembers the bits where

847
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 2: he stated his plan for the US to put a

848
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 2: man on the moon. But Kimmy also asserted that the

849
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 2: country needed to prepare to fight the new kinds of

850
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 2: proxy wars that had come to define the Cold War.

851
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 2: These next generation Frogmen would need to be trained and

852
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 2: armed to fight gorilla conflicts, assassinating local leaders in military

853
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 2: figures and carrying out acts of sabotage and then blending

854
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 2: back into the jungle or the wilderness. Ever, right, Captain

855
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:05,399
Speaker 2: William Hamilton Junior, a UDT man from World War Two

856
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 2: who was one of the people who was tasked with

857
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 2: creating the Navy Seals, describe the kind of men that

858
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,479
Speaker 2: he was looking for to populate this new unit.

859
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: Right.

860
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 2: So, at the birth of the Navy Seals, this is

861
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 2: like specifically the job description. They had to be more

862
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 2: than killers all muscle and neck and attack dog mentality.

863
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 2: I wanted demanded creative men who operated with their brains

864
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 2: as well as with their muscles. Men of courage, dedication

865
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:32,240
Speaker 2: to duties, sacrifice, personal dexterity, and intelligence. Team and mission

866
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 2: must come first. At the same time, they must be

867
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,399
Speaker 2: individuals near rogues, in fact, rough men, tough men who

868
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 2: could kick ass and operate outside protocol. And you can

869
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:43,839
Speaker 2: see why you might want that, right, if you're looking

870
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 2: at a unit that's got to operate without support, you know,

871
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 2: for long periods of time. They have to be intelligent

872
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 2: and creative, and they have to have like knowledge outside

873
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 2: of what you'd expect from a normal soldier in order

874
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,839
Speaker 2: to be able to kind of like pivot and think

875
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:57,879
Speaker 2: on their feed. Right.

876
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,280
Speaker 4: It's but it's like the save as like finding an emperor.

877
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 4: It's like you need those things, but you don't want

878
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,799
Speaker 4: anyone who would describe themselves as those things.

879
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 2: Right, And the other part of it, you need those things,

880
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 2: But the training is basically is mostly like are you

881
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 2: okay with guys screaming at you and blowing stuff up

882
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,439
Speaker 2: next to you and yelling at you while you're really cold? Right?

883
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 2: And that doesn't necessarily like guarantee that they'll be able

884
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 2: to do all these things. And part of the issue

885
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 2: is that you will all there will always be guys

886
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 2: like this in the Seals who are legitimately like just

887
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 2: incredibly talented and skilled and have a like wide variety

888
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:34,479
Speaker 2: of knowledge. But there's also guys who are there because

889
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 2: they really just want to kill people, right. And this

890
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 2: the fact that from the beginning they're like, well, we

891
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 2: understand that these guys have to be kind of like rogues.

892
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 2: There's to be like a criminal element to them if

893
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:47,000
Speaker 2: they're going to be able to do the job, right.

894
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 2: That that was baked into the Seals from the beginning,

895
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 2: and it has always been a cause of problems for them.

896
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 2: And it's because they they this, like Richard is going

897
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 2: to be this guy to a fucking tea, right, one

898
00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 2: of these rough men of the criminal element. Yeah, Like

899
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 2: it's it's They couldn't have made the job more perfectly

900
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 2: for how he saw himself. Richard attended UDT class twenty six.

901
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 2: Twenty percent of his teammates passed the intense training, so

902
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 2: most people dropped out, including he noted in his autobiography

903
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 2: with Glee, most of the officers. They just couldn't take it.

904
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 2: He would claim, he found that perversely enjoyable. Again, he

905
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: really he's going to be an officer later, but he

906
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 2: really hates officers, like very performatively. After four weeks he graduates.

907
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 2: Training for the Seals at that point involved none of

908
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 2: the diving instruction that it like previously had and that

909
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 2: it would later have. Right, they're not really learning to

910
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 2: be swimmers at this point nearly as much as they

911
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 2: had in the past and would in the future. And

912
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 2: Dick's largest difficulty during training came with the courtesy of

913
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 2: his bowels. Here's the book Rogue Warrior. I had a

914
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 2: problem with hell week, I developed a case of the runs.

915
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: In today's navy that would probably be enough to get

916
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 2: me excused. Not in nineteen sixty one, they stopped for nothing.

917
00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:58,840
Speaker 2: The solution was speed. I discovered as they ran me

918
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 2: up and down the beach that if I ran and

919
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 2: fast enough, the smell of what ran down my leg

920
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 2: and into my boot get left behind for the next

921
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 2: boat crew to enjoy.

922
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 4: Oh man, so he right? So he was just in

923
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 4: a soft, permissive era. Yeah, and and oh god.

924
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 2: Well he was in an era where all they cared

925
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 2: about was like, can you handle the physical difficulty of

926
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,439
Speaker 2: the right Like, we don't care if you're like mentally fit,

927
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,839
Speaker 2: if you're crazy, if you're like an asshole, like are

928
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,879
Speaker 2: you are you comfortable shitting yourself while running? Basically it's

929
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 2: the primary determining factor. And so he's laughing like a

930
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:35,279
Speaker 2: lot of these smarter guys who probably have a lot

931
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:37,399
Speaker 2: of the other skills that might be useful, aren't tough

932
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:39,840
Speaker 2: enough to make it through whereas he is. And this

933
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 2: is this is always going to be a factor of

934
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:43,880
Speaker 2: pride for him. So after he graduates Hell Week, he

935
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 2: writes that he and his classmates were confident as five

936
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 2: hundred dollars hookers. They were sent for ten weeks of

937
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 2: training at Saint Thomas and given he claims, unlimited women,

938
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:54,760
Speaker 2: a never ending supply of aged booze and fresh lobsters,

939
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 2: and all the deadly toys you could ever want to

940
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,799
Speaker 2: play with. I don't really know how accurate that is

941
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 2: to Navy seal training if they give you a limited

942
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,560
Speaker 2: liquor and women, But I believe the deadly toys.

943
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 4: That's like Blowfeld style. That's like like how Goldfinger recruits. Also,

944
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 4: I watched us with the lobster of mister soft stomach.

945
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:19,239
Speaker 3: Come on, yeah, you should be.

946
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 2: In lobster right now. Man, he got the runs. I

947
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 2: think I might know why. He makes repeated mentions of

948
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 2: his drinking in this book about once a page in

949
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:31,680
Speaker 2: his In the opening of his autobiography, Marcinko talks about

950
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 2: how much he likes to drink. A little earlier, when

951
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 2: describing the kinds of men who made it through hell weak,

952
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 2: he mentioned that some guys like him spent all of

953
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 2: their downtime at the bar. The reality is that he

954
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 2: was a hardcore alcoholic who at this point was already

955
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 2: beginning to drink problematically and would be addicted his entire

956
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,399
Speaker 2: working life and Special Forces. Despite his constant complaining about

957
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 2: how bad officers are, Richard almost immediately got his high

958
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 2: school equivalency exam and went through OCS so that he

959
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:00,759
Speaker 2: could become an officer. So much his book is talking

960
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 2: and then he goes through like and then I became

961
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:04,799
Speaker 2: an officer, But I had to like study the officers

962
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:06,959
Speaker 2: like they were aliens to learn how to become one.

963
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:09,239
Speaker 2: But I never really became one. You know, I just

964
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 2: got the rank, but that was never me.

965
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 3: You know right, he's just a tough guy trying to

966
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:13,879
Speaker 3: get ahead. Bro.

967
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think he's trying to protest too much. Now,

968
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:21,879
Speaker 2: as a reminder, the Seals don't exist. I just had

969
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 2: sealed dright, They're still not quite they gets It's still

970
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 2: like it's nineteen sixty two. So it's like the year

971
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 2: after this train the Seals are officially formed. So's he's

972
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 2: kind of in a similar situation to like a former

973
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 2: governor Jesse Ventura, like Venturias a little earlier, but Venture

974
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 2: was udt and then it gets kind of grandfathered in

975
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 2: as a seal. Right, So the new seal unit would

976
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 2: be similar to the old in some ways. The standard

977
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 2: unit of organization was still the number of men who

978
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 2: could fit on a small boat, five enlisted and an officer.

979
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 2: The name seal came from their expected area of expertise

980
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 2: sea and land operations. They're insignia was the tritent with

981
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:02,760
Speaker 2: a flintlock and an eagle on it, because people immediately

982
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 2: are like that kind of looks like the Budweiser logo,

983
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 2: so people call it the Budweiser Two. Captain Hamilton, who

984
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 2: handled training at first for these Navy seals wanted creative,

985
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: criminal minded men. He sent his first team members to

986
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 2: take classes from former thieves to learn safe cracking and

987
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 2: hot wiring vehicles. This was all justifiable by the parameters

988
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:24,960
Speaker 2: of the jobs he expected they'd be assigned. What kind

989
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 2: of jobs would the Navy need a bunch of heavily trained,

990
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 2: heavily armed criminals to accomplish? You might ask, Well, let's

991
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:33,840
Speaker 2: talk about that. Who do you think was the first

992
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 2: outside US governmental organization to see the potential in a

993
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 2: unit of killers with criminal training, who were unaccountable to

994
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 2: a standard hierarchy. Who do you think found that really appealing?

995
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 3: I mean, Scott a FBI at the time.

996
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:54,400
Speaker 2: Right, Nah, it's a CIA, It's the CIA. It's the CIA. Yeah. Now,

997
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 2: the CIA had recently inaugurated something called the Phoenix Program

998
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 2: in Vietnam. This classified operation was based on the widespread

999
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:04,839
Speaker 2: belief that the Vietcong were only able to function because

1000
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:08,280
Speaker 2: there was this shadow network of supporters in South Vietnam

1001
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 2: that enabled them, and the best way to defeat the

1002
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 2: insurgency was to kill these people. So as early as

1003
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty seventh, the year that Marsenko first shipped to Vietnam,

1004
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 2: as a seal, his job was carrying out Phoenix missions

1005
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 2: all over the warfront. CIA informants would provide the agency

1006
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 2: with info and they'd send it to the seals, who

1007
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 2: would murder, kidnap, and ambush whoever they thought they needed to.

1008
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 2: Each of these raids would gather more intel which would

1009
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 2: be used to plan further murders and raids. And we

1010
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 2: call it a different thing now, but this is how

1011
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 2: counter terrorism strategy in US Special Forces worked in Afghanistan

1012
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 2: and Iraq too. Basically it hasn't changed since Project like

1013
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 2: elements of it. They try to do less war crimes

1014
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 2: sometimes now than the old Project fucking Phoenix guys did,

1015
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:54,120
Speaker 2: but it's the same basic idea. Right, you do raige,

1016
00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 2: you gather info, you do more raids, and you often

1017
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 2: just wind up murdering guys, right, Yeah, both in Vietnam

1018
00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 2: and Inner it's just often just murder squads.

1019
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 3: Right right, right, right, right, sort of some stasy type shit.

1020
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're kind of just trying to at a certain level,

1021
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:11,879
Speaker 2: it becomes just we're killing as many of the male

1022
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 2: population in this area as we can. That's Vietnam, that's Iraq,

1023
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:19,080
Speaker 2: and that's Afghanistan. Right, This isn't really debatable.

1024
00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 3: Right, and eventually we'll win. Eventually.

1025
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:27,719
Speaker 2: It hasn't worked ever, but like it's got it at

1026
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: some points, we'll kill her kill our way to the

1027
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 2: bottom of this barrel. Now we'll talk about how well

1028
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 2: all of this works in Vietnam and for Richard Marsenko

1029
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 2: and and later. But I think this is a good

1030
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 2: place to end Part one. How are you feeling, Andrew

1031
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 2: t You think the Navy seals are gonna gonna pull

1032
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:46,440
Speaker 2: it together and and become.

1033
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:48,240
Speaker 3: I mean, they're only getting worse.

1034
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:51,839
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, it's really all downhill from World War Two.

1035
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 2: But that's American military history in a nutshell.

1036
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 3: It's true.

1037
00:51:57,400 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 4: World War Two is sort of our batman begins like

1038
00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 4: set a tone that actually every subsequent thing based off

1039
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 4: it really really fucked us as a as a global concern.

1040
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's pretty bleak. Yeah,

1041
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:18,879
Speaker 2: I don't know, but hey, it's those frogmen were pretty cool.

1042
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 2: You know, you know who else is pretty cool? Andrew?

1043
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 2: You thanks plug your pluggables.

1044
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, well, if we just kind of

1045
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 3: YadA YadA.

1046
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:29,680
Speaker 4: Our way that a twenty third century you could just

1047
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 4: go to Star Trek times.

1048
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:37,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, Andrew t Starter Trek. That's it.

1049
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1050
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 4: Please listen if you like it. We're really having fun

1051
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:44,400
Speaker 4: doing it. And yeah, it's really and it's on YouTube also,

1052
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:45,879
Speaker 4: that's the thing I will.

1053
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 2: Speaking of Special Forces and Star Trek, one of my

1054
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 2: favorite episodes of T ANDNG is the episode where they

1055
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 2: like accidentally take on like a crazed Special Forces operative

1056
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,600
Speaker 2: from some alien race that has been like arrested by

1057
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,240
Speaker 2: his own people because they may them to good at killers.

1058
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:03,759
Speaker 2: And you know, he's on like a a He's on

1059
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 2: like a ship full of Starfleet people who are like

1060
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 2: really good utopian people and are absolutely not prepared to

1061
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 2: deal with them. It's a fun episode.

1062
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 3: It's sort of like Rambo. It's like they just drop

1063
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 3: on board.

1064
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 2: It's like they dropped Rambo in like a kindergarten. It's

1065
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 2: just wharf is not prepared.

1066
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 3: All right, I can't wait. We'll have you on for that.

1067
00:53:27,120 --> 00:53:27,400
Speaker 2: Great.

1068
00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:29,799
Speaker 1: We'll be back with part two.

1069
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 3: Bye PCE.

1070
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:37,320
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1071
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1072
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:43,399
Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1073
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:47,800
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes,

1074
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,440
Speaker 1: but Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping

1075
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 1: every Tuesday and Thursday. Remind me on Netflix you don't

1076
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 1: miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog,

1077
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 1: continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com

1078
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 1: slash at Behind the Bastards. We love about forty percent

1079
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Speaker 1: of you, statistically speaking,