The Warrior Elite : The Forging of Seal Class 228

NAVY SEALS ARE THE TIP OF THE SPEAR.

They are able to strike without warning, anywhere, anytime. They come from under the sea, out of the air, and across the land. Their predeces?sors, the Navy frogmen, cleared the landing beaches during World War II, from Normandy to Okinawa. They led MacArthur’s forces ashore at Inchon. In Vietnam, SEALs were the men with green faces who struck the Vietcong in their sanctuaries. Today they are deployed around the world -- ready, waiting, lethal.

What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep? Why is the price of admission to this unique warrior culture so steep? In The Warrior Elite, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young men into warriors. SEAL training is the longest, toughest, most relentless military training in the free world. It is the distillation of the human spirit, a tradition-bound ordeal that seeks to find men of character and courage, men with a burning desire to win at all costs, men who would rather die than quit.

The book follows the trainees of Class 228 as they struggle through the twenty-seven-week Basic Underwater Demolition/Seal (BUD/S) training course at the Navy Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado, California. Only one in five will be left standing at the end of this brutal ordeal, a rite of passage that is but one step in the long road to becoming a SEAL. Few men have the character or stamina that allows them to keep going while others give in to the pain and the cold. The Warrior Elite reveals who these men are, where they come from, and what makes them so special.

DICK COUCH graduated at the top of BUD/S Class 45 in 1969. He commanded a SEAL platoon in Vietnam and led one of the only successful POW rescue operations of that conflict. Mr. Couch is the author of four novels and lives in Ketchum, Idaho. This is his first nonfiction book.
CLIFF HOLLENBECK is an award-wining photographer and photojournalist. He served with Naval Special Warfare Units, including Underwater Demolition, and was a naval aviator. He has written numerous books on photography and has two novels in print. Mr. Hollenbeck lives in Seattle.