Counterterrorism magazine published my Q&A with Benjamin H. Milligan (seen in the below photos), a former Navy SEAL and the author of By Water Beneath The Walls: The Rise of the U.S. Navy SEALs.
IACSP
Q&A With Former Navy SEAL Benjamin H. Milligan, Author of “By Water Beneath
the Walls: The Rise of the Navy SEALs
Benjamin H. Milligan became a US Navy SEAL in 2001 and served until 2009. He is the author of “By Water Beneath the Walls: The Rise of the U.S. Navy SEALs.”
Milligan
received a Bronze Star and other awards while serving as a SEAL. A native of
Indianapolis, he received a BA in History at Purdue University and an MA in International
Relations at the University of San Diego.
the
U.S. Special Operations Command, said the book was “deeply researched, well
organized and incredibly engaging… This is our legacy with all the warts, the
challenges, and the heroics in one concise volume.”
Benjamin
H, Millgan was interviewed by Paul Davis.
IACSP: I read and enjoyed your book. I’ve interviewed a
good number of SEALs and I’ve read a good number of books on the SEALs, but I
like the way you put your book together, showing chronologically how American
special operations groups came and went and how all contributed and led to the
development of the modern Navy SEALs.
I was
especially interested in your coverage of the Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT)
in World War II, as my late father, Edward Miller Davis, was a chief in UDT 5,
and Draper Kauffman, the founder of UDT, was his commanding officer. My father
is mentioned briefly in Douglas Fane’s book, “The Naked Warriors.”
Milligan:
That was probably my hardest chapter to write. One of the more fun things I got
to go through Draper Kauffman’s personal papers. They were at his daughter’s
house. I spent a day or two going through multiple file cabinets with papers
her dad saved.
IACSP: There have been many books written on the history
of special operations and the Navy SEALs. How does your book differ from those
other books? How would you describe your book?
Milligan: My book is not a comprehensive history of the SEAL teams. It asked a question about the SEAL teams – how did this happen? I don’t think that anyone would have predicted that a naval special operations unit would be as land focused as the SEAL teams are, or that a Navy unit would have been selected to go kill Osama bin Laden in Central Pakistan. I never understood why this had come to be, so that is what the book was trying to solve.
In
order to explain how that happened, you can’t just look at the Navy’s
experience in special warfare, you have to look in context. You have to
understand why the Army and Marine Corp kind of turned up their noses at that
mission for such a long time and allowed the Navy to move into that gap. I
think of the book as not necessarily a history, but so more of a biography. I
try to treat naval special warfare (NSW) as a character. But like every good
biography, you’re not just learning about the character, you’re also learning
about the time. I took this opportunely not just to tell the history of the
SEAL teams, the reason the SEAL teams exist, but to showcase all these other
units who were contributing to it.
IACSP: What sparked your interest in this? Why did you
write the book?
Milligan: I wanted to put some context around this thing. This had been a monumentally important experience in my own life, personally. I felt like the SEALs community deserved this. I wanted the teams to have this history and I didn’t see anyone else doing it. Part of the reason was I saw a gap in the scholarship that was out there and part it was I was absolutely obsessed with getting the answer to this. It turned into a ten-year obsession.
IACSP: For the benefit for those who have not yet read
the book, would you explain what the title, “By Water Beneath the Walls” means?
Milligan:
The title was one of the hardest things to come up with. When I started the
book, the working title was “The Evolution,” which is a metaphor for how the
theme of this drastic transformation the Navy special operation teams went
through, to go from the sea to the land. But the more I looked at this history,
the more I realized that title just didn’t work. Evolution is sort of
inevitable, it’s mindless, and survival of the fittest. The more I learned
about this history, the more I realized there were individuals who either
decided that the Navy was going to move into this direction, or that the Army
wasn’t going to move in this direction. There was nothing inevitable. It was
very decisive. At every fork in the road, the Navy seemed to always pick the
path that was leading them towards the greater contribution ashore.
When
I finally had the whole book finally laid out in front of me, I thought what
was a great underdog story, if not Justinian the II’s raid on Constantinople?
They used an unguarded aqueduct. The walls of Constantinople are almost like
the walls of the Army and the Marine Corp, keeping the Navy from gaining access
to this mission. But ultimately, the Navy used the water to springboard
themselves ashore.
IACSP: It’s an intriguing title. As you note in the book,
all of the special operations groups from WWII and Korea were disbanded except
for UDT. How did UDT survive?
Milligan:
They were the only one that proved themselves to be indispensable to their
branch of service. Every special operations unit in the Army had been by the
end of it, deemed to be, not superfluous, but most commanders felt that a
regular infantry unit, if well-trained, could perform the same missions. The
same with the Marine Corps. Where the UDTs were distinct was the Navy could not
operate without them. The Navy wouldn’t go anywhere unless they had their own
on-call reconnaissance and demolition troops. I should empathize,
reconnaissance, because demolition was secondary to UDT. It is recon, recon,
recon. The reason that the Navy wanted their own unit was because the Marine
Corp had over the years become more autonomist. Yes, they were still Department
of the Navy, but as far as the order of battle in the U.S. military went, they
had an equal status as the Navy. The reason the UDTs were kept around is
because the fleet can’t operate without them.
IACSP: How did the SEALs go from coastal commandos to
jungle fighters in Vietnam?
Milligan:
When the SEAL teams were created, the Navy didn’t give them a mission
statement. They had a vague idea what their job was going to be, and that vague
idea was something like the UDTs were at the tail end of the Korean War, which
was coastal raiders. When they create them, sort of maritime rangers, almost.
But when they get to Vietnam in 1966, they corner them in this little pocket of
swamp territory called the Rung Sat Special Zone, and there are no train
tunnels or command posts. The SEAL teams almost self-deselect out of the
mission. Their commander didn’t recognize any of the things they were trained
to do, so he essentially tells his men to stand down. The SEAL teams eventually
found their footing. What it came down to was the Navy’s bias for action. They
moved to the Mekong Delta and stayed engaged. It takes a couple of enterprising
folks, but they eventually learn how to do this capture/kill operation.
IACSP: The book has so many stories and features so many
interesting characters. If you had to name three figures who most influenced
the development of the SEALs, who would you name?
Milligan:
The Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke is the indispensable character
in the creation of the SEAL teams. The SEAL teams would not have happened
without him. The myth that the SEAL teams came about due to enterprising
frogmen who were continuing pushing the envelope of amphibious warfare towards
the shore and when President Kennedy came along, he caught wind of this and he
authorized the establishment of the SEAL teams, That’s wrong. It didn’t happen
that way. Arleigh Burke was the one pushing the Navy into unconventional
operations and into creating the SEAL teams.
After
Burke, the next indispensable character is probably Phil Bucklew. He is the
vessel of naval special warfare history. He’s been there since the beginning.
He was with the Scouts and Raiders; he had a hand in preserving the NCDUs at
Omaha Beach. He went to China and lead guerillas. He went to Korea, and he was
an ever-present advocate of unconventional Navy operations. And he became the
commander of West Coast UDTs and SEALs. He’s the one that not only writes the
Bucklew Report, the survey assessment that ultimately commits the Navy to a
riverine war in Vietnam, he’s the person in charge when the Navy is trying to
kick the SEALs out of Vietnam.
If I
had to pick a third, it would be a toss up between Bob Wagner and Bob
Gallagher. The two Bobs. Bob Wagner was a wheeler-dealer that convinced the CIA
to let the SEALs run the PRO program. The other person is Bob Gallagher, who is
relentless. He is the archetypal SEAL chief. He is the SEAL chief everyone
should aspire to be. He was constantly pushing Second Platoon to do more. He
taught the SEAL teams how to fight.
IACSP: I read that Admiral Howard, the commander of the
Naval Special Warfare Command, is shifting the SEALs focus from
counterterrorism operations to global threats from nation states. They are
going back to sea. That’s his expression. Is this a good thing, in your view?
Milligan:
To say the Navy is going to shift back to the water is not a totally genuine
way to describe it. I don’t think that what Howard is saying is anyway wrong.
With the great power adversaries, the Navy has a lot more opportunities for
involvement. I think that this is a natural transformation that the Navy will
have to make.
IACSP: Of course, this might change with an increase in
terrorism with the fall of Afghanistan.
Milligan:
Yes, it might light back up again. I didn’t serve in Afghanistan, I served in
Iraq, but I think there was much that could have been done better in Afghanistan.
It was a gut-punch. Watching what was happening in Afghanistan was utterly
heartbreaking. It was a heartbreaking as what is happening to the Kurds.
IACSP: Thank you for your service and thank you for
speaking to us.
