Wednesday, May 6, 2015

REMEMBER RED CELL?

I find myself understanding patriotic Texans who are nervous of the service they are going to get from Jade Helm and SPECWAR. On the other hand, I was living there when Dick Marcinko and his Red Cell kidnapped citizens in their driveways as part of their 'war games'. I'm afraid I didn't play nice with those guys.

When I was moored at 32nd Street in San Diego we used to have wannabee SEALS try to infiltrate ships at the waterfront after dark. They'd come over from Coronado in their RHIBS and my guys used to light them up with a 24 inch carbon arc searchlight and track them practically all the way. We would always notify base security that there were 'intruders' in the water and ask if there was an 'exercise' underway and Base Security would always deny it and then call back 10 minutes later and ask us to stop tracking the zodiac with our search light.

When I was the fire control officer on the destroyer a couple years earlier, my SAT and BAF understood my plans if those guys ever set foot on our ship. Boot on the neck, gun to the head and don't let up until I come along to collect them and if they give you any trouble at all, ventilate them. We don't know they're not terrorists hell bent on getting our nukes now do we?

3 comments:

Captain Steve said...

I knew Marcinko from the Pentagon, where we were both stationed in what was then OP-06. He ate his plate (literally) at a dining in where he and I were tablemates. Years later, while passing through NAS Sigonella,Italy, I saw him on the flight line, replete with beard and long hair. He sidled up to me to ask that I not recognize him since he was on a Red Cell Op. I rogered that, and saw him much later at a book signing with my son, who had dreams of being a SEAL. Very "Interesting" guy.

HMS Defiant said...

I relieved a SEAL CDR as his replacement at OPS and used the Mission Support Center at SPECWAR Coronado as my classified pipe and I got glad handed in Little Creek by the last SEAL MEDAL winner on my department head cruise. Dick's stuff, including kidnapping was the least of his crimes.

He was Shrillary in a costume. The law just didn't apply to him until I showed up at Oceana. It caught up pretty fast after that.

Captain Steve said...

Like I said: "Interesting" ;-)