Stories from Bob's Life

After graduating from BUD/S in August of 1975, I drove across country (that’s ANOTHER story) and checked in to UDT 21 at Naval Amphibious Base (now Expeditionary Warfare Base) Little Creek, Virginia.  I knew the base, as I had lived 2 miles away from it while in High School and frequently used the gym and exchange facilities, but had never heard of the UDT and SEAL Teams that were stationed there.  I checked in to the BOQ and began to get used to being a very junior officer in an Underwater Demolition Team – a role for which I was much less prepared than I knew. I had been in the Navy for less than a year, and most of that time at BUD/S – a decidedly artificial environment which didn’t prepare young wet-behind-the-ears ensigns very well for being a very junior officer in the Teams.

At that time, the UDT’s were considered junior varsity within NSW.  The SEAL Teams had had most of the really tough missions in Vietnam and had earned fame and notoriety as the so-called “Men with Green Faces” that had been highlighted in Esquire magazine a couple of years earlier.  UDT was where they sent very young JO’s who needed some seasoning before they graduated to serve in a SEAL Team which had serious missions. The UDTs had the old hydrographic reconnaissance mission from WWII, supporting Amphibious Ready Groups helping to put Marines across the beach.  Pretty much all we did was beach recons and some admin diving, though we trained for other commando ops which we realized, would in reality only be given to a SEAL Team.

It was appropriate and in fact I was lucky to be sent to the Jr Varsity team at that point.  When I got there, I found the following:  Other young inexperienced officers like me; a group of older experienced NCO’s with extensive combat experience in Vietnam but who were tired and had no more interest in combat or improving their own skills or credentials as commandos; and a large group of experienced former NCOs with impressive combat experience who’d then gotten commissioned and were sent to a UDT to learn how to be an officer in a benign, not terrribly demanding setting before being sent to a SEAL Team.

I’d say fully half of the ensigns in our UDT21 wardroom were Vietnam vets, obviously so, with a chest full of 5, 6,  or in some cases 7 rows of ribbons, which often included several for valor in combat.  I and the  other  young eager and inexperience FNGs (Fucking New Guys) ensigns, humbly wore our single National Defense Ribbon – and for the first six months weren’t even permitted to wear our Trident – the badge that identified one as a Navy SEAL (or Frogman).

So as a new guy whose only recent experience had been BUD/S, and before that, protesting the Vietnam War as a Stanford student, my best option would have been to keep my mouth shut and watch and listen. Which I largely did when with the other officers, but which I lamentably did NOT do when I was put into 2nd Platoon preparing for a Mediterranean Amphibious Group (MARG) deployment to the Sixth Fleet in just four months. I was assigned as a 2nd Assistant Officer in Charge (AOIC) to the platoon commander (Ensign Ben Elm).  Another ensign, also essentially an FNG, with only six more months experience than I (Ensign Mugs McGraw)  would be ther primary AOIC.

So we were an impressive group – a platoon with 3 young ensigns in charge, all three of us cocky, but with no right to be. Fortunately we had a pretty experienced and respected Chief with us –  Jim Allgeier – and I have no idea how they talked him into taking that deployment as platoon chief.

We had a number of predeployment training events scheduled, to include a 3 week trip to Puerto Rico, where UDT and SEALs had been doing waterborne training for years.  I had been led to believe through my limited NROTC training and at BUD/S, that an officer is supposed to assert himself and his authority – let the troops know he was in charge – assume and take responsibility.   So that’s what I tried to do – but I had no experience, tried to act like I knew what I was doing, and didn’t fool anybody.  Seemed like every time I asserted my authority as a commissioned officer, either with the content of my orders, or the manner in which I gave them, I undermined my credibility with the men.  One of them, who had been in my BUD/S class, told me quietly that he just didn’t think I was cut out to be an officer in the teams, and maybe ought to look for another career.   I knew I was foundering and didn’t know what to do about it. I’d lost confidence in myself, and my men had lost confidence in me.

Not too long after that conversation, probably two months after checking in to the team and the platoon, I was called into the Commanding Officer’s office. LCDR Ted Lyon said “Ensign Schoultz, take a seat.”  I don’t recall how he started out – but pretty soon he told me that I wasn’t doing well in my platoon (I knew that) and that the platoon commander didn’t think I was fit to be in the teams, much less in his platoon, and he didn’t want me to deploy with him to the Med.  The CO suggested that I be pulled from the platoon and spend the next year at headquarters, to get a bit more seasoning before, and then, assuming that worked out,  he’d give me another shot at a deploying platoon.  He did ask me if I would like that, or would I like to make this deployment with 2nd Platoon.

I told him I wanted to deploy with this platoon and that I would work hard to do better.  He said, Ok, BUT, he would tell the platoon commander that if he felt at any time that I was a detriment to his platoon, he should send me back to Little Creek and we’d see what next.   So I was essentially put on probation. And I went back into being the 3rd Officer, 2nd AOIC, knowing that my boss had tried to get rid of me – but he also had my balls in his pocket.

I subsequently went to my father for advice – told him what had happened and asked for what I should do.  He gave me sound advice: He said love this guy (Ens Elm)  to death.  When he says jump, you say how high. Become his most dependable, loyal guy.  Which I did – I became Ensign Ben Elm’s most dependable, hard working supporter.

In January 1976, we deployed on the USS Spiegel Grove LSD 32 to the Mediterranean Sea.  The deployment ended up being an excellent  introduction to the Navy for an FNG ensign.  We were on standby with no port calls for over two months while the situation deteriorated in Lebanon, and then we were called in to evacuate American civilians from Beirut (1976).  We participated in several amphibious exercises and did a lot of other cool stuff – this was right after the Vietnam War and we were regularly in cat-and-mouse games with the Soviet Navy.

Platoon Commander Ensign Ben Elm was pretty full of himself as the Head SEAL in the ARG.  He believed that to maintain his Plt Commander authority, he needed to maintain his distance, didn’t PT with the troops, spent his days in his stateroom or the wardroom alone or reading or whatever, and had little interaction directly with his platoon – almost all of his interactions were through his Chief, me and/or  Mugs McGraw  In that process, he lost touch with and credibility with the troops.

Seeing how eager I was to please him, he treated me as his aide-de-camp, running errands for him and did work for him that in fact was more appropriate for him to do.  But I did it. My stateroom mate Mugs McGraw and I talked about how lazy he was; Ben was not in good physical shape, but didn’t work out –  because of his position, he seemed to feel he didn’t need to and held himself above the rest of us.  Mugs openly expressed his disdain for Elm’s leadership, and I sensed that he was disgusted with how I kow-towed to him, though he knew I was under the gun.

Elm’s poor leadership and officer bearing were not lost on the ship’s officers in the wardroom, and the ship’s CO took him to Non Judicial Punishment for I believe refusing to accept the authority of the ship’s Ops Boss.  In response to an order from the LCDR OPSO, Ben said he wouldn’t comply and that he worked for and only took orders from the Squadron Commodore. The ship’s XO and OPSO not impressed with Ensign Elm and were out to get him. Having an ensign Plt Commander taken to Captain’s Mast by the CO of the ship did not sit well with the CO and XO of UDT21.

At the end of the deployment the Ships XO came to our XO, LDCR Tom Hawkins and told him how unimpressive Elm had been durng the deployment, and wanted to make sure that he didn’t take me and Mugs McGraw down with him. Tom Coulter later told me that when Chief Jim Allgeier was querieed, he had given me good marks for how I’d developed over the cruise and that I had the promise of becoming a good officer – which stood me in good stead, coming from a well respected Chief.  Remember –  i finished that deployment w less than a year in the teams and barely a year and a half in the Navy.  About 8 months later I was made platoon commander of my own platoon  to work up for and deploy with a Caribbean Ready Group.  In retrospect I was still too junior and inexperienced, but learned a lot from my mistakes and survived to move on – but there were more mistakes to be made  (and learn from) in my roles as AOIC and OIC of platoons at SEAL Team TWO,

Epilogue:  About a year after our deployment to the Med, Now Ltjg Ben Elm was at SEAL Team 2 and McGraw and I were called in to testify at a board convened to take Ben Elm’s Warfare Insignia away from him. His poor record and reputation continued and a number of things he did or didn’t do (I don’t know what) convinced the leadership there that he didn’t deserve to be there. He eventually had his Trident revoked and was reassigned elsewhere. I have no idea what ever became of him. But it was sweet revenge after he had told my Commanding Officer that he didn’t believe I was fit to be in Naval Special Warfare, to be called to testify as to his suitability to be an officer in the teams.