Jun 13, 2023
Wolfpack Command Vipers over Kunsan Air Base, Korea
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Wolfpack Command Vipers over Kunsan Air Base, Korea
Wolfpack Vipers returning to Kunsan AB, ROK
Air Force Memories #1
Or: The Time I Got Blowed Up By My Dad's SEAL Team
My dad was in Underwater Demolitions in the US Navy in WWII, in Teams 5 and 25. After the war, UDT morphed into the Frogmen, and the Frogmen morphed into the SEALs. The missions expanded, but the basics stayed the same. I watched a documentary on SEAL training one time wih Dad...and he said much of the training they do now is the same training he and his twin brother, my Uncle Chester, went through. Badass. Totally.
So, fast forward a few decades to Kunsan Air Base in South Korea, where I was assigned to the 8th Civil Engineers Squadron...Red Devils!...in 1996-1997. We had a week-long base-wide war game exercise at one point, and somehow somebody had finagled SEAL Team #5, Dad's old unit, into being the aggressors tasked with "attacking" the base and testing our defenses. Maybe they were bored, I dunno. "Hey, guys, let's go kick some Air Force ass and drink soju! Piece of cake!"
One night (I was on night shift -- hey, not only are people trying to kill us, we can't see 'em, too! Yay!) a squad attacked the Red Devils' compound. I can say with completely justified pride in my fellow Civil Engineers that the SEALs...professional warfighters..."killed" a lot of our guys...professional carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and equipment operators...but they did NOT get into the compound. Air Power, baby!
But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about how I got blowed up.
One of the things we in the Power Production Shop did on night shift was go out to the runway and emergency runway and check the emergency aircraft arresting systems...the barriers...the machinery that safely stops fighter jets that can't stop on their own. Important all the time, and even more so in wartime, as jets tend to get shot up in war.
There were three of us doing barrier checks, scrunched into the cab of a pickup truck with all our chemical protective gear and our Kevlar helmets and our M-16s with blank rounds. We checked the systems on the main runway first. Routine. Then we checked the system on the emergency runway. Also routine. As we were leaving, that's when the routine stopped being routine.
My buddy and teammate Mike spotted some SEALs headed toward a line of aircraft shelters that housed F-16s. And like any good Airman who sees enemy activity, he let loose a few rounds from his M-16 (again...blanks) towards the bad guys. Good job, Mike! You got those sons-a-bitches! Yeah!
But y'know, SEALs tend to take things like that personally.
Next night, same crew, crammed into the same truck, same barrier checks. Mike was driving, and when we got to the emergency runway barrier, I, like any good sleepy NCO, made him get out to check the system.
That's when we find out SEALs take getting shot at personally.
They had wired a trip flare to the barrier shack door.
In Mike's defense, the entrance side of the shack was dark. Would have been really hard to see the trip wire. Well, it was dark until he opened the door. Then it got very, VERY bright.
A small sun appeared at the shack door. The cab of the truck lit up like someone had started arc welding in it. Mike's yelling, I'm yelling, our third teammate is yelling, and we both fall out of the truck door in a pile of chem gear and clatter of Kevlar and M-16s. After a bit, and after we realized we weren't all dead, and after the huge purple spots in our eyes faded a little, we figured out what happened, and we learned a very important lesson:
Do NOT Shoot At SEALs.
All of this was not part of the wargame scenario, of course. It wasn't in any outbrief I saw. It probably appeared on no after-action report. No damage to the shack, just some scorched paint.
This wasn't business, after all. It was personal.
And that's how I Got Blowed Up By My Dad's SEAL Team.
Attack response training by UNC - CFC - USFK on Flickr.
Via Flickr: A U.S. Airman, assigned to the 8th Security Forces Squadron, reacts to an attack by opposition forces from inside the gun turret of a Humvee vehicle during Exercise Beverly Bulldog 08-03 at Kunsan Air Base (AB), Republic of Korea, July 23, 2008. Kunsan AB is participating in a peninsula wide operational readiness exercise to evaluate its readiness and its ability to conduct its wartime mission. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Dana Hill/Released)