Free Among Heroes: A U.S. Navy SEAL's True Story of Friendship, Heroism, and the Ultimate Sacrifice by Brandon Webb Page B
Authors: Brandon Webb
grin, booming laugh, and insane antics, if he was so moved. His Elliott School roommate DeVere Crooks remembers being in the shower at the end of a long day of study, when suddenly a giant gorilla arm shot in from around the shower curtain and turned off the hot water. DeVere almost had a Janet Leigh–style heart attack. Classic Dave.
“He had the most tender of hearts, a boyish imagination, and a bold vision of where he wanted to be,” says Kat. “I often wonder if I mistakenly caught a bolt of lightning. After so many years, it still saddens me to think of that light as not being there anymore.”
For me Dave’s life stands both as an inspiration and as a cautionary tale. I’ve always been drawn to extreme sports. There’s nothing I love quite so much (my early qualmsnotwithstanding) as throwing myself out of a perfectly good airplane. All my life I’ve taken things to the edge. All SEALs do; it’s our job description. But Dave took things right to the edge and then well past it. In a way, it was amazing that he lived as long as he did. That insatiable appetite for what lay beyond the edge is no doubt what killed him. Yet it was also what made him so brilliant. Dave understood the twenty-first century when most of us still thought we were living in the twentieth. And his intelligence was infectious. Just being around him made me more curious about how things worked—and even more important, how they
could
work.
About a year after Dave died, my friend and BUD/S classmate Eric Davis and I were recruited to take on the complete revamping and redesign of the Naval Special Warfare sniper course. It was an enormous task and an even greater responsibility (and one we’ll look at more in the next chapter). The world had changed dramatically since the bombing of the
Cole
, and so had the nature of warfare—and even more, the role that SEAL snipers played. We needed a new course, one that left behind the past and addressed the future. We needed a course that incorporated the latest in technological wizardry, that fully developed its trainees intellectually as well as physically, a course that would be designed for continuous improvement so that it would always be ten steps ahead. A course that pushed the envelope to the edge of the possible, and then pushed it even further.
We needed a course, in other words, that thought like Dave Scott.
I can never hope to be as smart as Dave. But in the yearssince I knew him I’ve made it a practice to examine the world around me through his eyes. The Dionysus in Dave still taunts me today, daring me to look past my limits—and the Apollo in Dave is always there to help me grasp what I seethere.
3
QUIETPROFESSIONAL
MATT AXELSON
“L isten up, gents. The next ninety days are going to be some of the toughest you’ve ever experienced. You’ll be put under more pressure and greater mental demands than you’ve ever been under before, and with zero tolerance given for error. . . .”
Déjà vu. I’d heard this speech before, or one much like it. Back in the summer of 2000, Glen and I had been inducted into the Naval Special Warfare sniper course with a welcoming pep talk just like this one. The world had gone through a century of change in the four years since. It was now the summer of 2004, and this time the guy giving that speech to a fresh batch of incoming sniper students was me.
“You’ll be expected to deliver at a level of perfection that will at first seem unrealistic, unfair, and unreasonable. We will push the limits of your performance to such high levels that even when you are rusty, tired, or unpracticed you will still outperform the enemy. . . .”
As I spoke, the good citizens of San Diego were going about their lives several dozen feet above our heads, heedless of our subterranean presence.
I loved this underground setting and everything it represented. For our sniper class headquarters we had recently converted a set of old World War II–style
“He had the most tender of hearts, a boyish imagination, and a bold vision of where he wanted to be,” says Kat. “I often wonder if I mistakenly caught a bolt of lightning. After so many years, it still saddens me to think of that light as not being there anymore.”
For me Dave’s life stands both as an inspiration and as a cautionary tale. I’ve always been drawn to extreme sports. There’s nothing I love quite so much (my early qualmsnotwithstanding) as throwing myself out of a perfectly good airplane. All my life I’ve taken things to the edge. All SEALs do; it’s our job description. But Dave took things right to the edge and then well past it. In a way, it was amazing that he lived as long as he did. That insatiable appetite for what lay beyond the edge is no doubt what killed him. Yet it was also what made him so brilliant. Dave understood the twenty-first century when most of us still thought we were living in the twentieth. And his intelligence was infectious. Just being around him made me more curious about how things worked—and even more important, how they
could
work.
About a year after Dave died, my friend and BUD/S classmate Eric Davis and I were recruited to take on the complete revamping and redesign of the Naval Special Warfare sniper course. It was an enormous task and an even greater responsibility (and one we’ll look at more in the next chapter). The world had changed dramatically since the bombing of the
Cole
, and so had the nature of warfare—and even more, the role that SEAL snipers played. We needed a new course, one that left behind the past and addressed the future. We needed a course that incorporated the latest in technological wizardry, that fully developed its trainees intellectually as well as physically, a course that would be designed for continuous improvement so that it would always be ten steps ahead. A course that pushed the envelope to the edge of the possible, and then pushed it even further.
We needed a course, in other words, that thought like Dave Scott.
I can never hope to be as smart as Dave. But in the yearssince I knew him I’ve made it a practice to examine the world around me through his eyes. The Dionysus in Dave still taunts me today, daring me to look past my limits—and the Apollo in Dave is always there to help me grasp what I seethere.
3
QUIETPROFESSIONAL
MATT AXELSON
“L isten up, gents. The next ninety days are going to be some of the toughest you’ve ever experienced. You’ll be put under more pressure and greater mental demands than you’ve ever been under before, and with zero tolerance given for error. . . .”
Déjà vu. I’d heard this speech before, or one much like it. Back in the summer of 2000, Glen and I had been inducted into the Naval Special Warfare sniper course with a welcoming pep talk just like this one. The world had gone through a century of change in the four years since. It was now the summer of 2004, and this time the guy giving that speech to a fresh batch of incoming sniper students was me.
“You’ll be expected to deliver at a level of perfection that will at first seem unrealistic, unfair, and unreasonable. We will push the limits of your performance to such high levels that even when you are rusty, tired, or unpracticed you will still outperform the enemy. . . .”
As I spoke, the good citizens of San Diego were going about their lives several dozen feet above our heads, heedless of our subterranean presence.
I loved this underground setting and everything it represented. For our sniper class headquarters we had recently converted a set of old World War II–style
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