National Navy Seal Museum

Hi Blog! Today is Thursday, February 26, 2015. Our truck, Great White, wasn't feeling well on the drive up from Miami Everglades Resort. We found a Freightliner Service Center and dropped him off on Tuesday.  We have a little red sports car that we are tooling around in. The Service Center called. GW has a malfunctioning exhaust brake valve. They ordered a new one and we should be able to pick him back up on Friday.

In the meantime, we are trying to make the best of it. We are expecting rain the next few days, so we have a whole list of rainy day activities lined up. First up, the National Navy Seal Museum located in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Fort Pierce was the birthplace of the "Underwater Warrior." Here Kathy learns the humble beginnings of the Scouts and Raiders and Naval Combat Demolition Units that would lead to the Frogmen and later the SEALs.

The different galleries show the evolution of Naval Special Warfare equipment. There were lots of specialized guns, knives and dive equipment. Lieutenant Commander Draper L. Kauffman is considered "The Father of Naval Combat Demolition." He was present at the Japanese surrender in the Philippines. Here is an original, signed copy of the surrender declaration which his family donated to the museum.

The SEALs have been subjects of many movies even before they were officially known as SEALs. Here is the movie poster from The Frogmen.

Hollywood did a good job with costuming. Here is a a real "Frogman" uniform. 

The first two SEAL teams were formed in January 1962 and stationed on both US coasts: Team One at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, in San Diego, California and Team Two at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. To this day, odd numbered teams are stationed in California and even number teams in Virginia. Here is a photo of Kathy's favorite SEAL - A. J. Chegwidden from the CBS Television show JAG.

In August 1993 a four man SEAL sniper team was deployed to Mogadishu to work alongside the Delta Force as part of Task Force Ranger in the search for Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid. They took part in several operations in support of the CIA and Army culminating in the October 3, 1993, 'Battle of Mogadishu' where they were part of the ground convoy raiding the Olympic Hotel. During the operation, two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters were shot down by RPGs and three others were damaged. Some of the wounded survivors were able to evacuate to the compound, but others remained near the crash sites and were isolated. An urban battle ensued throughout the night. Here is one of the Blackhawk Helicopters.

Next we toured Captain Phillips' life boat. On April 12, 2009, in response to a hostage taking incident off of the coast of Somalia by Somalian pirates, three Navy SEALs simultaneously engaged and killed the three pirates who were closely holding the hostage, Captain Richard Phillips, of the freighter ship, the Maersk Alabama. The pirates and their hostage were being towed in a lifeboat approximately 100 yards behind the USS Bainbridge when each of the pirates were killed by a respective sniper with a single shot to the head. 

In the early morning of May 1, 2011 local time, a team of 40 Navy SEALs along with a Belgian Malinois Military Working Dog (Cairo), support by Special Activities Division officers on the ground, killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan about 35 miles from Islamabad in a CIA operation. The Navy SEALs were part of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, previously called "SEAL Team 6". President Barack Obama later confirmed the death of bin Laden, but did not directly mention the involvement of DEVGRU, saying only that a "small team" of Americans undertook the operation to bring down bin Laden. The unprecedented media coverage raised the public profile of the SEAL community, particularly the counter-terrorism specialists commonly known as SEAL Team 6. The Walt Disney Company tried unsuccessfully to trademark the name "SEAL Team 6" the day after the raid. The official name of the military operation was Operation NEPTUNE SPEAR. The model of the compound used in the 60 Minutes documentary was donated by CBS to the Navy SEAL Museum.

Not all missions end well. On September 11, 2012, the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazie, Libya was attacked by a heavily armed group of 125-150 gunmen, whose trucks bore the logo of Ansar al-Sharia, a group of Islamist militants, also known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, working with the local government to manage security in Benghazi. U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Information Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors and former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed during a series of raids, commencing at nightfall and continuing into the next morning. The two former SEALS had voluntarily raced to the compound to help defend the embassy staff, and they paid the ultimate price.  Here the memory of those fallen SEALs is honored.

After finishing our tour inside the museum, it was time to go outside and see the big stuff. While NASA was tasked with putting men on the moon, the Navy was responsible for plucking the astronauts out of the ocean when they fell back to Earth. This link is a directory of U.S. Navy ships used to recover NASA astronauts and spacecraft from human spaceflight missions. This list includes only vessels designated as part of the official naval recovery force. Here are a couple of the practice capsules used by the Navy during the Apollo years.

With the next rain cloud approaching fast, we didn't have a lot of time to climb aboard this boat, shown here with the museum sign in the background:

Don't you think Great White would look good with a set of choppers like this?

Often called the “quiet professionals,” Navy SEALS take on the most dangerous missions, often anonymously, and ask for nothing in return. The National Navy SEAL Museum and Memorial provides a unique view into the world and history of Naval Special Warfare and the heroes who have served.