I have reason to believe that if the SEAL’s had brought an Air Force Close Air Support specialist with them, they would not have lost Comms, and would either have been able to extract early without hitch, or bring down fire and death on those attacking them.
What many may have missed in that movie was the tribal culture portrayed, at least in my view and understanding. When Marcus Luttrell–the real one, playing another SEAL–without credit–unless I am mistaken–knocked over the coffee and asked the newby to clean it up, he was enforcing a code of conduct. That newby had not been initiated, and was at that point still a rung below on the ladder. He didn’t fully belong at that table–or in combat with his brothers– until he recited his oath in front of his peers. If you watched carefully, the actors were plainly given direction to take the whole thing very seriously, despite the levity that had proceeded, and despite the apparent ridiculousness of the verse. It mattered. It meant something. There was a life before and a life after.
One has to keep this in mind when considering the view I have seen expressed by other services that the SEAL’s don’t always play well with others, with other services. Specifically, the Air Force has trained special operations personnel–called Combat Control Technicians, or CCT’s–who are roughly to Close Air Support and Comm’s in general what SEAL’s are to underwater demolition, and Green Berets to counterinsurgency and Foreign Internal Defense. It is their forte. They are the best at it.
Had Murphy’s team had one of these guys, we likely never would have heard of this mission. He never would have won the Medal of Honor. Remember that the reason he won it was his decision to break cover to get to a place where he could transmit, so he could call in reinforcements and extraction.
One sees debates about which service’s special operations personnel have the toughest training. This is a hard question to answer; but to my mind who has the toughest JOB is easy: CCT’s. They have to do all the things other Operators do, but while essentially being Air Traffic Controllers, where mistakes get friendly’s blown up. You have to do, in other words, what is by general consensus one of the most stressful jobs on the planet WHILE UNDER FIRE.
CCT’s further have the challenge of always being the odd man out. They get embedded with Navy and Army units who are very tight, and very skeptical of outsiders. They have to prove themselves, and in general do it without outside support.
This part I will now leave alone, but thought it worth saying. I mean no disrespect to anyone. Frankly, I walked in expecting to be shaking my head, but realized that I needed to suspend judgement in the face of the clear courage of the men, and the extraordinary circumstances. They were all noble men, and a credit to the best parts of the American spirit.
What I will comment on, though, is this notion of tribes. It has often seemed to me that one reason for war is precisely the effect it has both on calling forth the best energies of people, but also how it creates intimacy, closeness, love, among men. Women will always have the battle, the war, of childbirth. Men have nothing like this. War, I feel, has often served this purpose.
I think of the American Indians waging their frequent wars with one another, wars which were not genocidal, not final, not intended in general for conquest, but almost as something to do. They were outlets for excessive energy. For much of history, in a great many places, war was roughly the equivalent of that situation–which I have found myself in once or twice–where somebody challenges you to fight, and you show up with your people, and they show up with their people, and neither of you really wants to fight, but you can’t back down. You roll around a bit, exchange a few hits, honor is satisfied, and the people around you separate you. No real harm is done.
What we need, I continue to feel, is tribes formed outside of violence, in which the risk-taking is entirely internal, entirely emotional.
I had proposed some time ago that on-going Holotropic Breathwork circles could be formed, in groups of roughly 20, in which people repeatedly share deep, emotionally strong experiences, and use those experiences to develop greater openness and trust, but only within that group, on the deepest level. You share a bond of knowledge shared within the group, but not outside it. This, it seems to me, is much like what the SEAL’s create in their own rituals.
And this model could be deployed easily and endlessly. The logistics are not that complicated.
This is my present goal. I wake up and go to sleep trying to meet this endless ocean which manifests in my experience as Life, a life bigger than me. I see a transparent world, endlessly in motion, but defined by rules which can be amended and improved. That is what I see.