One Perfect Op: An Insider's Account of the Navy Seal Special Warfare Teams - Hardcover

Dennis Chalker; Kevin Dockery

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380978040 ISBN 13: 9780380978045

Publisher: William Morrow, 2002

Synopsis

America’s most elite commando unit, the US Navy SEAL Team Six pulled off one of the most remarkable covert operations in military history when they infiltrated the secret hideout of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in the dead of night and killed the hated terrorist mastermind. Dennis Chalker was an original “plankowner” (founding member) of SEAL Team Six, and in One Perfect Op, he takes readers deep inside the remarkable world of America’s Special Forces operatives. With an introduction by Richard Marcinko of Rogue Warrior fame, One Perfect Op describes, step by breathtaking step, one extraordinary SEALs mission, shedding fascinating new light on the training, the planning, the courage and the skill of these exceptional warriors.

About this title

Review

Dennis Chalker says "the greatest challenge offered by the U.S. military [is] to become a Navy SEAL." A former SEAL himself, Chalker tells of his life and times in one of the military's most elite units. Much of One Perfect Op describes the extensive training each SEAL goes through, not only to become a SEAL but to remain one: "Our training had been hard and dangerous for a reason: you train as you fight." And the training certainly was hazardous--Chalker describes how one of his teammates was killed during an exercise. About half the book goes by before Chalker sees his first real combat, during the invasion of Grenada in 1983. His unit was tasked with protecting the island's governor. He also saw action in Panama and on a number of other operations, though he often leaves out the names of places and dates because these remain classified. His career was certainly varied. He was once part of "Red Cell," a special SEAL team whose job was to play the part of terrorists and test the security of naval facilities. At another point, he stormed a hostile beach to help a family escape. His equipment included all the standard SEAL hardware--guns, night-vision goggles, etc.--as well as a baby carrier and pacifier. Richard Marcinko writes the introduction (Chalker served under him), and his fans will easily become Chalker's fans as well. --John Miller

From the Back Cover

No elite military commando unit since the darkest days of Korea and Vietnam has a more storied history than the U.S. Navy SEALs, a stealth fighting force legendary for its abilities to wage covert war on sea, air, and land. Now former SEAL Command Master Chief Dennis "Snake" Chalker takes us deep inside the celebrated SEAL Team Six for an astonishing, firsthand look at the formation, preparation, and deployment of a crack detachment meticulously trained for an ongoing mission that has become essential to the survival of our nation: counterterrorism.

When Dennis Chalker joined Army Airborne in the early 1970s he was, by his own admission, a fairly typical young man from the Midwest. After his initial tour of duty—and a brief, unsatisfactory stint as a civilian—he volunteered to be a candidate for "the Teams," elite Naval Special Forces units known for their "outside the envelope" approach to warfare and their ability to strike any target, no matter how heavily guarded or impossible to reach.

After enduring BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) training—the most rigorous selection process ever devised—Chalker rose rapidly through the ranks and was personally chosen by "Rogue Warrior" Richard Marcinko for a leadership role in Red Cell. Together they would push special operations warfare to a level it had never achieved before.

From the Granada action to electrifying events in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, Chalker now describes in stunning detail previously classified operations in the war against global terrorism. And at the center of his riveting, compelling, and astonishingly honest account is one remarkable covert mission in which daring, timing, skill, and cunning worked in concert to accomplish what in SEALs parlance is known as a "perfect op": one in which enemy territory is successfully penetrated and the objective achieved without any evidence left behind to indicate that the SEALs were even there.

Never before has a book given readers as spellbinding a look at the detailed inner workings of the U.S. Navy SEALs—from a mission's planning and preparation to its successful completion. And never has there been a truer, more intimate portrait of the extraordinary brotherhood of warriors who today are on the front lines of the most devastating conflict of our age, the war that America must win.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0380978040
• ISBN 13: 9780380978045
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352