Combat Swimmer: Memoirs of a Navy Seal by Robert A. Gormly

From the Publisher

In the annals of war, no fighting unit has been more shrouded in mystery than the U.S. Navy SEALs. Now, for the first time, Captain Robert A. Gormly tells his amazing story as the leader of this elite, top-secret group, taking us into the night, into the water, and into battle on some of the most hairraising missions ever assigned.

For Gormly, who rose through the chain of command within the SEALs from platoon leader to commanding officer, the journey began with a chance meeting on a Virginia beach, it was an encounter that would lead him into a dangerous but exciting life in the U.S. Navy. Qualifying for the Navy's elite Underwater Demolitions Unit -- the precursor to the SEALs -- Gormly survived the most rigorouos physical and mental testing in the reconnaissance and guerrilla-style warfare. As a member of the newly formed SEAL Team Two, Gormly was trained to a fine fighting edge just in time for the war in Vietnam.

Disrupting enemy operations, kiling swiftly and slipping away into the night, the SEALs created a legend that would grow throughout the war -- and earn an enemy bounty to anyone who could capture of kill a U.S. navy SEAL. But behind the myth and mystique was a remarkable fighting machine, a team of soldiers who knew their job and maintained their discipline in the face of firefights, ambushes, and missions gone horribly wrong. In Gormly's vivid, gut-wrenching descriptions, the Mekong comes alive, as hours of careful stalking explode into incredible fusillades of violence -- including one in which Gormly's hand was nearly shot off. His unprecedented acts of heroism and daring brought Gormly recognition as well as numerous awards for both the success of his strikes and his ability to bring his men back alive.

Publishers Weekly

This book is at once a memoir, a history and a warning. Gormly has been part of the SEAL community virtually since its emergence. In Vietnam as a junior officer, he met the absence of strategic policy with a tactical approach: killing as many Viet Cong as possible. Even in retrospect, Gormly concludes that the most effective U.S. approach might have been attacking the enemy's infrastructure by eliminating the "cadres" who spread and enforced Communist ideology by terrorist means. The limited political sophistication of this approach is suggestive, particularly in the context of Gormly's progress through the Navy's special operations system from 1968 to his assignment as commander of SEAL Team 6 in 1983. When Gormly relieved the notorious Richard Marcinko, he inherited a unit that had made a policy of pushing envelopes and ignoring rules. His description of the intraservice politics involved in taming the organization without breaking its morale is as good as anything in print on the challenge of maintaining effective special operations forces in the contexts of a democratic system. His account of the 1985 capture of the Achille Lauro's hijackers reveals a delicate balance of roles and responsibilities in managing doctrine and training considerations, tactical issues and policy questions. Gormly is no knight without fear and reproach in the mold of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. He is a warrior for the working day, not always right and not always wise. But in a harsh world, it will comfort many to know that men with Gormly's spirit, character and patriotism wear this country's uniform. 8 pages of b&w photos, not seen by PW. (June)

Kirkus Reviews

Captain Gormly, USN (Ret.), a much-decorated, high-ranking SEAL who served for all of 29 years in this elite, secret arm of the navy, recalls his high-risk tours of duty in Vietnam, Granada, the Persian Gulf, and the suspense-filled mission to capture the hijackers of the Achille Lauro. Operating in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, he and his superbly trained fellow warriors beat the terrorist Viet Cong guerrillas at their own gameþpartly because, as Gormly tells it, the SEALs saw water as a haven, not an obstacle; with the help of their excellent equipment, they could stay submerged safely for many hours. And Gormly believes that the SEAL experience in Vietnam can be seen as a microcosmic symbol of the greater US effort that fought the wrong kind of war: a battle of attrition waged according to the advice of military leaders who failed to understand that they were facing a political-military conundrum. To explain the conundrum, he likens the communist attempt at world domination to a giant lizard. The lizardþs head represents the small group of dedicated communists who formed the political infrastructure, while its tail suggests the communist military force, filled with average peopleþapolitical but forced to fight by terror or coercion. Our mistake, Gormly writes, was to cut off the tail of the lizard (which then merely grew another tail) while failing to destroy the head, the infrastructure. The far more successful communist strategy was to outlast the Americans, who would tire and go home after losing 58,000 soldiers. Gormly can't forget the picture of Jane Fonda posing with a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery that had shot down a US plane. Nor can he forgivethe US pardoning of draft dodgers who objected to the war. His riposte: Even dutiful combat soldiers also object to warþas did the patriotic author. A candid and unstinting military memoir. (8 pages b&w photos) (Author tour)

What People Are Saying

Hans Halberstadt
"Bob Gormly tells his story with remarkable wit, wisdom, drama and grace. Combat Swimmer is a superb and fascinating story about the U.S. Navy SEALs, from one of the best of the breed." -- Hans Halberstadt, author of U.S. Navy SEALs, U.S. Navy SEALS in action, and Inside the U.S. Navy SEALs

Gerald Astor
"Combat Swimmer is a gripping, stroke-by-stroke, firsthand account of Navy SEALs." -- Gerald Astor, author of The Mighty Eight and Crisis in the Pacific

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