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Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: chixlegs on August 01, 2014, 09:23:35 AM
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I'm surprised I haven't seen this posted yet. Very weird. So this former Navy Seal and sniper wrote a book and in it he claims he punched a guy (who remained nameless in the book) in a bar room fight. It was revealed later to be Jesse Ventura and Ventura said it didn't happen so he sued the guy. The guy ends up getting tragically killed while trying to help another war vet with PTSD but Ventura continues with the lawsuit and gets awarded a whopping 1.8 million bucks against the poor widow of the slain navy seal (yes, Ventura was a navy seal as well).
Doesn't that amount seem excessive? He didn't even name him specifically in the book and it's not like he called him a pedophile or something, he just said he punched him in a bar fight. Ventura destroyed his reputation with this one in my opinion. As Gordon Ramsay would say, "What a shame".
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Good for jesse , Hope the wife appreciates what a tuff guy her husband was beating up an old man twice his age
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Ventura wasn't a Navy Seal,he was UDT( very close,but not a seal) also was never IN Vietnam( served in Phillipines during the Vietnam war)
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I'm surprised I haven't seen this posted yet. Very weird. So this former Navy Seal and sniper wrote a book and in it he claims he punched a guy (who remained nameless in the book) in a bar room fight. It was revealed later to be Jesse Ventura and Ventura said it didn't happen so he sued the guy. The guy ends up getting tragically killed while trying to help another war vet with PTSD but Ventura continues with the lawsuit and gets awarded a whopping 1.8 million bucks against the poor widow of the slain navy seal (yes, Ventura was a navy seal as well).
Doesn't that amount seem excessive? He didn't even name him specifically in the book and it's not like he called him a pedophile or something, he just said he punched him in a bar fight. Ventura destroyed his reputation with this one in my opinion. As Gordon Ramsay would say, "What a shame".
FYI, Ventura was never a SEAL. He was UDT.
He used to claim he was a SEAL (and made a bunch of comments about "hunting humans") until some vietnam vets made it a point to expose him, then his "team" claimed he never said he was a SEAL. ::)
Also, Ventura's people claimed it didn't happen, and all the other SEALs present said it did. It was he said/she said, but Venturas people had a tighter story so the jury had to go with him (which you'd expect of people trying to remember how a barfight went down)
Also, this was posted on the political board.
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Ventura wasn't a Navy Seal,he was UDT( very close,but not a seal) also was never IN Vietnam( served in Phillipines during the Vietnam war)
Thank you. Ventura has built his career on exaggerations and lies, and Kyle was known to be selfless and a class act. Kind of a shame IMO that Ventura went after him over his pride. Makes him look worse IMO.
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Good for jesse , Hope the wife appreciates what a tuff guy her husband was beating up an old man twice his age
My thoughts pretty much^^ lol
Can't help but like Jesse V, the original Governator.
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Ventura wasn't a Navy Seal,he was UDT( very close,but not a seal) also was never IN Vietnam( served in Phillipines during the Vietnam war)
That's weird, I literally just saw him on tv and he told the woman once again that he was a navy seal. he was lamenting that he couldn't go to anymore seal reunions now because of all the controversy. Strange that he could go around saying that when it isn't true.
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That's weird, I literally just saw him on tv and he told the woman once again that he was a navy seal. he was lamenting that he couldn't go to anymore seal reunions now because of all the controversy. Strange that he could go around saying that when it isn't true.
Its not, at all. Go search some veterans sites about it. He graduated from BUD/s, but didn't go through SQT and all the other training that makes SEALs who they are. UDT was just underwater demolition, no actual combat, no high speed/go fast stuff.
He's built his career on that lie.
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My thoughts pretty much^^ lol
Can't help but like Jesse V, the original Governator.
Have you read the book? I suggest you do.
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Jesse the Body Ventura is THE liar??
What about Dillon? Let's face facts. The CIA had him pushing too many pencils. He dropped Dutch, Blain, Billy, and Mac in a "charming little country" looking for a cabinet minister and his aide. Dropped them right into a meat grinder. Dillon said that a couple of our men are about to get squeezed and "we can't let that happen". Dutch was pissed about the cover story but Dillon knew that he couldn't get him in there without it. Dillon used to be somebody that Dutch could trust. Dillon said that he "woke up", and suggested that Dutch do the same.
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They're saying Ventura is desperate for money - he's apparently a leper for all practical purposes. He must have made lots of enemies over the years to be unemployable despite being a former governor and "celebrity". I guess even Vince McMahon won't give him another chance. ???
Apparently his 9-11 govt conspiracy theory, his lies about his military record, and whatever enemies he made as governor, WWE "superstar", and faux-celeb have sealed his fate already. His arrogant, obnoxious personality doesn't help him any either - guy has about as much charm and social grace as my pit bull.
But this tops it all. To sue a guy just because he apparently lied about kicking your ass in a barfight is pathetic. To go after his estate and put his widow and kids into the poor house and through hell because of it is being a compete bitch. Especially considering the dead guy's history of service to his country.
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yea i'd be more worried about dillon the backstabber
Jesse the Body Ventura is THE liar??
What about Dillon? Let's face facts. The CIA had him pushing too many pencils. He dropped Dutch, Blain, Billy, and Mac in a "charming little country" looking for a cabinet minister and his aide. Dropped them right into a meat grinder. Dillon said that a couple of our men are about to get squeezed and "we can't let that happen". Dutch was pissed about the cover story but Dillon knew that he couldn't get him in there without it. Dillon used to be somebody that Dutch could trust. Dillon said that he "woke up", and suggested that Dutch do the same.
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They're saying Ventura is desperate for money - he's apparently a leper for all practical purposes. He must have made lots of enemies over the years to be unemployable despite being a former governor and "celebrity". I guess even Vince McMahon won't give him another chance. ???
Apparently his 9-11 govt conspiracy theory, his lies about his military record, and whatever enemies he made as governor, WWE "superstar", and faux-celeb have sealed his fate already. His arrogant, obnoxious personality doesn't help him any either - guy has about as much charm and social grace as my pit bull.
But this tops it all. To sue a guy just because he apparently lied about kicking your ass in a barfight is pathetic. To go after his estate and put his widow and kids into the poor house and through hell because of it is being a compete bitch. Especially considering the dead guy's history of service to his country.
I don't think that it was a lie
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I don't think that it was a lie
I dont think so either. The bar was a SEAL hangout and the other people there that werent affiliated with ventura backed Kyles story. ... they were just inconsistent with their version of events, which is normal on a bar fight.
Venturas people were more consistent, which to me would indicate they got together and got their stories to line up.
Its not the juries fault, they only could go off what evidence they had and the judges instructions (which he basically said they have to find him guilty if ventura was defamed and lost money because of it)
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Good for Jesse.
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The publisher will pay the money after it gets reduced on appeal. The widow will pay nothing.
Remind me again which "war" it was where dude killed all those people. Oh ya, Iraq. We invaded their country, burned their cities, and he killed their citizens. Lovely, just lovely. Our hero.
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Its not, at all. Go search some veterans sites about it. He graduated from BUD/s, but didn't go through SQT and all the other training that makes SEALs who they are. UDT was just underwater demolition, no actual combat, no high speed/go fast stuff.
He's built his career on that lie.
This is like finding out arnold never won the olympia.
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I like Jesse and tend to agree with him on most things politically...just don't want to hear what he thinks about 9/11.
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Is this the guy that wrote the book about the bin laden capture? How did he die again? I thought seals were never allowed to talk about their work. If it isn't an actual rule it 's supposed to be some kind of unwritten code.
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Is this the guy that wrote the book about the bin laden capture? How did he die again? I thought seals were never allowed to talk about their work. If it isn't an actual rule it 's supposed to be some kind of unwritten code.
so was the guy that told his story and they made LONE SURVIVOR movie
seems alots of seals nowadays are out to make a buck spilling the beans on classified information
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Jesse the frogman.
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Is this the guy that wrote the book about the bin laden capture? How did he die again? I thought seals were never allowed to talk about their work. If it isn't an actual rule it 's supposed to be some kind of unwritten code.
Different guy. They're allowed to talk only with approval from the DOD/Navy, and if the rest of the SEAL community approves.
so was the guy that told his story and they made LONE SURVIVOR movie
seems alots of seals nowadays are out to make a buck spilling the beans on classified information
Whats going on, is that the SEAL community at large came into the spotlight after Bin Laden. When all the movies started to be made, it upset them, as they are very proud and don't like to see their stories being told incorrectly or technically inaccurate. So whats happening now, with DOD/Naval/SEAL approval, they're getting the actual SEALs involved so that when the movies are made, they're technically accurate.
If their going to be put in the spotlight, they want to make sure that what you're seeing on the screen is an accurate representation of what they go through and how they operate.
There is always the 10% out to make a buck or two, but the majority of SEALs are fiercely proud and the SEAL community is based on the respect of their peers.
After Act of Valor, the floodgates opened on the SEALs. Originally the SEALs didn't want to be a part of that movie, but they wanted it to be done right.
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thanx Shock. :)
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so was the guy that told his story and they made LONE SURVIVOR movie
seems alots of seals nowadays are out to make a buck spilling the beans on classified information
No that is Marcus Luttrell.
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Ventura did the right thing to clear his name. Keep in mind this had NOTHING to do with if the fight happened or not. The jury's job was to decide if the story was responsible for the defamation of Ventura and it clearly was.
Personally, I have doubts that it did happen as the "witnesses" stories did not line up. The bar was crowded and certainly Jesse was recognizable. Somebody would have said something about him getting decked prior to the book and yet there was nothing.
Ventura is right to do what he did. Keep in mind, Kyle`s book is completely unverifiable. Also, Kyle has been know to tell HUGE lies such as:
Like the one about how he and a bud went down to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and picked off dozens of bad guys. Or the one in which he took on two armed Texans bent on stealing his truck and shot them both dead.
Kyle is certainly full of a lot of shit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/30/the-complicated-but-unveriable-legacy-of-chris-kyle-the-deadliest-sniper-in-american-history/?tid=hp_mm
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Kyle is full of shit, Must be a Getbigger: :D :D
That sense of superhuman toughness perhaps led him to tell stories reporters couldn’t confirm. One involved a cold January morning at a gas station southwest of Dallas. Two armed men, he said, approached him and told him to hand over the keys to his black F350. “I told them I would get them the keys,” he told Mooney. “I told them they were in the truck and to just let me reach in.” Kyle then claimed he reached into the car, pulled out a gun and, shooting under his armpit, killed both men. “It’s true,” he said.
But was it? Reporters, including the New Yorker’s Nicholas Schmidle, called some of the nearby county sheriffs and none of them knew of it. “I went to every single gas station [nearby],” Mooney explained. “I talked to every single law enforcement out there, all the Texas rangers — and there’s no evidence whatsoever.”
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had no better luck. “We checked with the medical examiner’s office, which reported no such deaths in Cleburne in January 2009.”
Years after those alleged killings, Kyle had another story to tell. This one referred to the vacuum of authority in New Orleans following Katrina, when the city slipped into chaos. According to the New Yorker and several military publications, Kyle and a few other SEALs drank late in San Diego late one night in early 2012. “The SEALs began telling stories, and Kyle offered a shocking one,” the New Yorker reported. “…He and another sniper traveled to New Orleans, set up on top of the Superdome, and proceed to shoot dozens of armed residents who were contributing to the chaos.” The magazine said one conversation participant said Kyle “claimed to have shot thirty men on his own,” while another said Kyle and the other killed 30 between them.
When the New Yorker’s Schmidle called the U.S. Special Operations Command for confirmation, he didn’t get any. Then one of Kyle’s officers told the reporter, “I never heard that story.”
Does that mean it didn’t happen? Who knows. It’s certainly possible that Kyle killed two Texan thieves and their bodies disappeared. And it’s also possible Kyle killed 30 armed assailants in New Orleans to protect its residents in Katrina’s aftermath. But it’s also possible Kyle couldn’t let go of his own legend, and, in a haze of post-traumatic stress, let his tales veer into untruth.
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Ventura was governor of Minnesota, in the movie Predator, and was a pro wrestler.
Dude is a Getbigger.
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Like him or hate him he earned the right to be called a seal.
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Venture likes to hear the sound of his own voice.
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Like him or hate him he earned the right to be called a seal.
Ventura? No he didnt, he only went through BUD/s. That qualifies him as UDT, not a SEAL. He had to go through all kinda of extra training and join a SEAL team to be called a SEAL.
Thats like someone calling themselves a Recon Marine just because they passed the Indoc but washed out/quit before they made it through school and into the Batallion.
Passing BUD/s =/= SEAL
Passing BUD/s
Passing Ranger school
Passing Jump school
Passing SEAR
Passing SQT
And most importantly
Joining a SEAL team
=
Earning the right to call oneself a SEAL
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Ventura? No he didnt, he only went through BUD/s. That qualifies him as UDT, not a SEAL. He had to go through all kinda of extra training and join a SEAL team to be called a SEAL.
Thats like someone calling themselves a Recon Marine just because they passed the Indoc but washed out/quit before they made it through school and into the Batallion.
Passing BUD/s =/= SEAL
A prime Ventura would kick seal ass like nothing.
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Ventura wasn't a Navy Seal,he was UDT( very close,but not a seal) also was never IN Vietnam( served in Phillipines during the Vietnam war)
UDT - very tough. Well respected in SF community
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UDT - very tough. Well respected in SF community
Exactly... no idea why he would try and lie and pass himself off as a SEAL when what he accomplished was impressive enough.
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Very old news , way to go mcfly.
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I like Jesse and tend to agree with him on most things politically...just don't want to hear what he thinks about 9/11.
Why are you afraid to hear the truth?
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Exactly... no idea why he would try and lie and pass himself off as a SEAL when what he accomplished was impressive enough.
Since I've left the military I've noticed that this is more common than I'd ever have imagined.
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I thought Ventura started the lawsuit BEFORE Chris Kyles death?
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Ventura? No he didnt, he only went through BUD/s. That qualifies him as UDT, not a SEAL. He had to go through all kinda of extra training and join a SEAL team to be called a SEAL.
Thats like someone calling themselves a Recon Marine just because they passed the Indoc but washed out/quit before they made it through school and into the Batallion.
Passing BUD/s =/= SEAL
Passing BUD/s
Passing Ranger school
Passing Jump school
Passing SEAR
Passing SQT
And most importantly
Joining a SEAL team
=
Earning the right to call oneself a SEAL
Seals don't have a problem with UDT men calling themselves seals, but you're right.
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Seals don't have a problem with UDT men calling themselves seals, but you're right.
Well, there was quite a few Vietnam era SEALs that had a pretty big problem with it. From what I read the modern SEALs tolerated it because at one point he was a decent vocalist/figurehead for them in the public. It still bugged them that he referred to himself as a SEAL and talked about SEAL missions he was never a part of...
That's what really drove those vietnam SEALs to go after him, he was talking about things he never did, and a lot of those SEALs knew each other as the community was so small back then.
UDT at any point in Vietnam could request to go to a SEAL team and theyd send them through the remaining courses and off to the teams, but Ventura never did that.
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Well, there was quite a few Vietnam era SEALs that had a pretty big problem with it. From what I read the modern SEALs tolerated it because at one point he was a decent vocalist/figurehead for them in the public. It still bugged them that he referred to himself as a SEAL and talked about SEAL missions he was never a part of...
That's what really drove those vietnam SEALs to go after him, he was talking about things he never did, and a lot of those SEALs knew each other as the community was so small back then.
UDT at any point in Vietnam could request to go to a SEAL team and theyd send them through the remaining courses and off to the teams, but Ventura never did that.
Vietnam SEALS ::) The SEALS started with Charlie Sheen.
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(http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x283/The_Real_PentiumMMX/seal-of-approval.jpg)
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I have been called a SEAL on many occasions. You don't see me bragging about it.
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(http://nakedchiefs.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/heidi-klum-with-seal.jpg)
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The publisher will pay the money after it gets reduced on appeal. The widow will pay nothing.
Remind me again which "war" it was where dude killed all those people. Oh ya, Iraq. We invaded their country, burned their cities, and he killed their citizens. Lovely, just lovely. Our hero.
This whole thing is all Bush's fault! Ventura should sue Dubya and Cheney!
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Jesse Ventura
2 mins ·
To my vigilant viewers, supporters, and those who have dedicated an exuberant amount of time trolling my page over the last few days:
1.) I will be making a formal statement here tomorrow, August 5th to answer your questions about the trial and to give more clarity on what really happened.
2.) I greatly appreciate those who have taken the time to truly educate themselves as best they can about what happened in the trial. If you weren't in the courtroom, then you don't know what happened. Unfortunately, if you read the dumbed-down headlines the mainstream media is throwing out there to sensationalize this, you aren't getting the truth either. This case was too complex to be boiled down to less than 140 twitter characters.
3.) If you're a fan, you know I always encourage free thought, but educated, informed thought. Feel free to educate yourself with these articles and do some critical thinking. Now that I've come forward, some brave journalists have done their own research. Apparently mine is not the only "fishy war story" that's come to light —
National Review: http://bit.ly/1AIDm1y (http://bit.ly/1AIDm1y)
The New Yorker: http://nyr.kr/1rTkeI3 (http://nyr.kr/1rTkeI3)
Washington Post: http://wapo.st/1AIDcHg (http://wapo.st/1AIDcHg)
I ask you to consider these points - I'll be adding to them tomorrow on "Off The Grid."
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Jesse Ventura is allegedly a dumb retarded dipshit. So he probably allegedly ask for it.
allegedly of course.
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Jesse the frogman.
;D
There's something fishy about him - he's a Alex Jones type snake oiler.
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I don't know anything about it, but the guy used Ventura's name to make money from selling his book. So you have to back that up.
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Jesse Ventura is a fag. Suck my dick fat motha fucka.
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Bring his Conspiracy Theory show back!!!
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That show was awesomely bad.
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Jesse rocks
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http://www.infowars.com/video-jesse-ventura-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-chris-kyle-lawsuit/ (http://www.infowars.com/video-jesse-ventura-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-chris-kyle-lawsuit/)
speaks the truth, talks about his 19" arms
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Ventura wasn't a Navy Seal,he was UDT( very close,but not a seal) also was never IN Vietnam( served in Phillipines during the Vietnam war)
Thank you for clarifying this....Ventura got busted on a national tv show a couple years back on this Navy Seal Claim of his
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http://www.infowars.com/video-jesse-ventura-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-chris-kyle-lawsuit/ (http://www.infowars.com/video-jesse-ventura-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-chris-kyle-lawsuit/)
speaks the truth, talks about his 19" arms
Ventura did himself no favors pursuing this. He blames the media for "vicious media attacks" but it's the public that found what he did to be morally reprehensible. And the fact that the jury found on his behalf doesn't mean a thing. A jury found OJ Simpson innocent too. And Casey Anthony. Jury's fuck up. But Ventura dug his own grave on this one. Reminds me of when he arm wrestled Tony Mr. USA Atlas in the center of the ring in the hay day of the WWF and got roundly and soundly defeated. Long live Tony Atlas! Long live Tony Atlas!!!!! :D
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http://www.infowars.com/video-jesse-ventura-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-chris-kyle-lawsuit/ (http://www.infowars.com/video-jesse-ventura-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-chris-kyle-lawsuit/)
speaks the truth, talks about his 19" arms
Very well explained and justified by Ventura. Anyone who has a problem with it after listening to that is a dumb shit.
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Ventura did himself no favors pursuing this. He blames the media for "vicious media attacks" but it's the public that found what he did to be morally reprehensible. And the fact that the jury found on his behalf doesn't mean a thing. A jury found OJ Simpson innocent too. And Casey Anthony. Jury's fuck up. But Ventura dug his own grave on this one. Reminds me of when he arm wrestled Tony Mr. USA Atlas in the center of the ring in the hay day of the WWF and got roundly and soundly defeated. Long live Tony Atlas! Long live Tony Atlas!!!!! :D
Tony Atlas has a weird, weird foot fetish.
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Ventura did himself no favors pursuing this. He blames the media for "vicious media attacks" but it's the public that found what he did to be morally reprehensible. And the fact that the jury found on his behalf doesn't mean a thing. A jury found OJ Simpson innocent too. And Casey Anthony. Jury's fuck up. But Ventura dug his own grave on this one. Reminds me of when he arm wrestled Tony Mr. USA Atlas in the center of the ring in the hay day of the WWF and got roundly and soundly defeated. Long live Tony Atlas! Long live Tony Atlas!!!!! :D
You do realize wrestling is scripted, I hope?
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He doesn't have time to bleed - but time to sue your wife!
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You do realize wrestling is scripted, I hope?
lol
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You do realize wrestling is scripted, I hope?
Don't tell my grandmother that.
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Thank you. Ventura has built his career on exaggerations and lies, and Kyle was known to be selfless and a class act. Kind of a shame IMO that Ventura went after him over his pride. Makes him look worse IMO.
You guys need to get your facts straight, Jesse Ventura was a SEAL
Start at 1:39
Per retired SEAL Don Shipley who outs fake seals :)
So basically back then, the graduates were called out in random either UDT or SEAL, not based on performance because they all graduated. Anyone of these graduates during that time could have been vice versa...
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You guys need to get your facts straight, Jesse Ventura was a SEAL
Start at 1:39
Per retired SEAL Don Shipley who outs fake seals :)
Really? He was a part of a SEAL team? He went out on SEAL missions? He didnt have a group of retred vietnam era SEALs call him out?
Yes, he passed BUD/s.
Yes, he could have volunteered to continue his training and become a SEAL. But he didnt. They layer did away with UDT and at that point they simply lumped them together, but Ventura specifically talked about going out on SEAL missions he was not a part of as he was never on a SEAL team, he was a part of UDT. UDT had a lot less training than the SEALs and did not perform any kind of direct action work.
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Really? He was a part of a SEAL team? He went out on SEAL missions? He didnt have a group of retred vietnam era SEALs call him out?
Yes, he passed BUD/s.
Yes, he could have volunteered to continue his training and become a SEAL. But he didnt. They layer did away with UDT and at that point they simply lumped them together, but Ventura specifically talked about going out on SEAL missions he was not a part of as he was never on a SEAL team, he was a part of UDT. UDT had a lot less training than the SEALs and did not perform any kind of direct action work.
Again, you need to listen to what Don Shipley explained: the graduates were called out in random either UDT or SEAL, not based on performance because they all graduated. Anyone of these graduates during that time could have been vice versa... start at 1:57
If Don Shipley isn't contesting it, then why are you?
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(http://www.sealtwo.org/page15/farleftJanosJan.jpg)
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(http://www.geocities.ws/hulkroif/hulkjess83.jpg)
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Again, you need to listen to what Don Shipley explained: the graduates were called out in random either UDT or SEAL, not based on performance because they all graduated. Anyone of these graduates during that time could have been vice versa... start at 1:57
If Don Shipley isn't contesting it, then why are you?
And again, per Wikipedia:
The Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) were an elite special-purpose force established by the United States Navy during World War II. They also served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Their primary function was to reconnoiter and destroy enemy defensive obstacles on beaches prior to amphibious landings. They also were the frogmen who retrieved astronauts after splashdown in the Mercury through Apollo manned space flight programs.[1]
The UDTs reconnoitered beaches and the waters just offshore, locating reefs, rocks, and shoals that would interfere with landing craft. They also used explosives to demolish underwater obstacles planted by the enemy. As the U.S. Navy's elite combat swimmers, they were employed to breach the cables and nets protecting enemy harbors, plant limpet mines on enemy ships, and locate and mark mines for clearing by minesweepers. They also conducted river surveys and foreign military training.
The UDTs pioneered combat swimming, closed-circuit diving, underwater demolitions, and midget submarine (dry and wet submersible) operations. They were the precursor to the present-day United States Navy SEALs.[2]
In 1983, after additional SEAL training, the UDTs were re-designated as SEAL Teams
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And again, per Wikipedia:
The Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) were an elite special-purpose force established by the United States Navy during World War II. They also served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Their primary function was to reconnoiter and destroy enemy defensive obstacles on beaches prior to amphibious landings. They also were the frogmen who retrieved astronauts after splashdown in the Mercury through Apollo manned space flight programs.[1]
The UDTs reconnoitered beaches and the waters just offshore, locating reefs, rocks, and shoals that would interfere with landing craft. They also used explosives to demolish underwater obstacles planted by the enemy. As the U.S. Navy's elite combat swimmers, they were employed to breach the cables and nets protecting enemy harbors, plant limpet mines on enemy ships, and locate and mark mines for clearing by minesweepers. They also conducted river surveys and foreign military training.
The UDTs pioneered combat swimming, closed-circuit diving, underwater demolitions, and midget submarine (dry and wet submersible) operations. They were the precursor to the present-day United States Navy SEALs.[2]
In 1983, after additional SEAL training, the UDTs were re-designated as SEAL Teams
Correct.
And in vietnam, the UDT and the SEALs were two completely separate entities and shared little besides both having graduated from BUD/s. Tbose going to SEAL teams saw much more extensive training, had to volunteer, and actually joined a SEAL team and saw real, direct action missions.
Janos (Ventura) never went through the extra training, he never joined a SEAL team, and he never saw combat with a SEAL team even though he told stories about it.
Later, they simply made everyone go through the extra training and did away with UDT. Just because they merved in 83 does NOT make them the same thing.
In vietnam, when ventura was in and telling his war stories, UDT and the SEALs were two completely separate entities.
Ill post the link tomorrow from the vietnam vets of the SEAL teams that called him out.
My grandfather was a 31yr Navy vet with 2 tours in Nam and even hell tell you that the SEALs were very, very different than the UDT teams in that era.
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Really? He was a part of a SEAL team? He went out on SEAL missions? He didnt have a group of retred vietnam era SEALs call him out?
Yes, he passed BUD/s.
Yes, he could have volunteered to continue his training and become a SEAL. But he didnt. They layer did away with UDT and at that point they simply lumped them together, but Ventura specifically talked about going out on SEAL missions he was not a part of as he was never on a SEAL team, he was a part of UDT. UDT had a lot less training than the SEALs and did not perform any kind of direct action work.
He did? Where can I find this info? Also, does any of this really matter? ???
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He did? Where can I find this info? Also, does any of this really matter? ???
as I said, ill dig up the link tomorrow when im off work and actually at a computer.
It was a couple vietnam vets of the SEAL teams who got a little upset when Ventura was throwing in with them when he wasnt ever there.
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as I said, ill dig up the link tomorrow when im off work and actually at a computer.
It was a couple vietnam vets of the SEAL teams who got a little upset when Ventura was throwing in with them when he wasnt ever there.
Heck he wasnt even IN Vietnam,he was stationed in the Phillipines During the Vietnam War
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o... I was digging around looking for the original site I had read about years ago but I can't find the link. There was plenty referencing it though. Heres a quick link...
http://cursor.org/venturawatch/dangerous_game.htm
Jesse's Dangerous Game
A former Navy SEAL commander questions Ventura's claim that he hunted man in Vietnam.
by Bill Salisbury
POSTED MAY 8, 2001--- MINNEAPOLIS-- A few weeks before the revelation that ex-Navy SEAL Bob Kerrey was involved in the death of civilians during the Vietnam War, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura had ignited a controversy of his own by boasting in a confrontational interview with a Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist that he had "hunted man" as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.
Resources:
April 5, 2001
Mpls Star Tribune
Transcript of "hunting man" interview
April 5, 2001
Mpls Star Tribune
Initial news story about interview
April 7, 2001
Mpls Star Tribune
Ventura apologizes to hunters
December 2, 1999
San Diego Reader
Jesse "The Great Pretender" Ventura
December 21, 1999
Cursor.org
Cursor researches Ventura's Navy SEAL quotes
HomeOfHeroes.com
Ribbon Awards of the U.S. Navy
How to publicly post a DD 214
US Navy
How to file a FOIA request with the U.S. Navy
UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam, by T.L. Bosiljevac
Navy SEAL Web site index
Navy SEALs Vietnam memorial page
Exposing fake Navy SEALs:
Night Scribe
Cyber Seals Wall of Shame
Cursor home
Initial press coverage focused on how Ventura's assertion that "until you hunted man, you haven't hunted yet," had riled many Minnesotans who hunt only non-human game. But more importantly, Ventura's claim invites a revisiting of long-standing questions about his military service, as it raises new ones about what the governor did, or didn't do, in Vietnam.
In December, 1999, I wrote an article for the San Diego Reader titled, "Jesse (The Great Pretender) Ventura." The article challenged Ventura's claim that as James Janos he'd been a SEAL in Vietnam. I wrote that Janos had not been a SEAL but merely a member of Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) 12 who had been stationed in the Philippines and not Vietnam.
The article relied on several interviews with real SEALS who had been in Nam and UDT men who had served with Janos. I also drew on my 16 years as a SEAL, that included a combat tour as officer-in-charge of SEAL Team 1, Detachment Golf, duty as executive officer of SEAL Team 2 during the war, and a stint as commanding officer of UDT 11 after the war.
Before going to press I asked Ventura's spokesman, John Wodele, for the governor's comment. "We will have no comment on something so obviously false," said Wodele in an indignant, imperial tone. (In fairness to Wodele, I didn't tell him of my own SEAL and UDT credentials, but left him to assume I was just some West Coast "jackal" whining and snapping at his boss's heels.)
Ventura continued to hide behind Wodele and his stone wall when I appeared on the Fox News Channel program "Hannity and Colmes" a few days after the Reader article appeared. When Fox asked Ventura to respond, Wodele wrote: "The only thing we have ever said is that the UDT and SEAL designation is interchangeable and we don't have any further comment."
Why would Ventura - who loves to run his mouth about having been a SEAL - suddenly clam up when I publicly stated in so many words that he was, as my grandma used to say, full of more crap than a Christmas turkey? The governor could have silenced me and his growing pack of critics by simply producing his discharge certificate from active duty, called a DD 214. If he'd been one of America's roughest, toughest, meanest mothers, then that document would list Then there's your UDT buddy, Gary 'Bones' Bonnelli, who says you weren't in Nam with him, but that you were floating around the South China Sea, on a ship with the Amphibious Ready Group -- making ports of call in such high-threat areas as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok.the qualification for all the world to see. And if the SEAL/UDT designation were truly interchangeable, the form would reflect that. But I know it doesn't without even looking at it. The UDT designation, or Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) - was 5321/22 and the SEAL designation was 5326.
How do I know this? Because as the executive officer of SEAL Team 2, I recommended men for the 5326 designation after they had completed a six month probationary period. Many of these men came from UDTs as 5321/22s. As commanding officer of UDT 11, I awarded the 5321/22 designation to frogmen after their probationary period. Interchangeable designation my ass.
If Jesse were a SEAL, his DD 214 would also list at least one "Presidential Unit Citation for service Nam." How do I know this? Because of my duty with both SEAL Teams during the war. Every SEAL who served with Teams 1 and 2 received at least one DD 214 (NOT Jesse's)of the five Presidential Unit Citations awarded those units. UDTs received none. So c'mon, Jesse, show us your DD 214. You can even do that without breaking your vow never to talk about what you did as a "SEAL" in Nam.
But no fair relying on public pronouncements by your old toadies in the Teams, or a scrap of paper signed by some fawning Navy bureaucrat 30 years later, saying it's okay for you to call yourself a SEAL because UDTs were decommissioned in 1983. After all, you wouldn't want to be dismissed as a "Paper SEAL" would you? I mean it's okay for some pencil-necked sandcrab like George Plimpton to joke about being a "Paper Tiger" instead of a true major leaguer, but aren't you claiming to be the real deal: an ass-kicking, name-taking Navy SEAL?
Of course if you're unwilling to share your DD 214, then your pet jackals in the Twin Cities might want to fire off a Freedom of Information Act request to the Navy. Or they could request a copy of the UDT 12 Command History for the years you were with that team (1971- 1974). They could read the "History" to see if you got any ink for combat exploits. Hell. if you truly saw combat with Team 12 - faced Charley or Clyde at a given time in a given place with the burnt smell of expended rounds in the air - that would be good enough for me. I wouldn't quibble over whether you were a Frog or a SEAL and you could lay this controversy to rest - give it a double tap, an ear shot.
Another good resource is the Commander Naval Forces Vietnam monthly combat summaries that cover your time in the Western Pacific. Or the UDT 12 Cruise Book that chronicledCover of Jesse's UDT 12 Cruise Book your team's deployments. (SEALS didn't have time for such books.) You could even share your copy with them. One of your former commanding officers at UDT 12 shared his copy with me and said you'd never been in combat. Said he didn't remember you too well at all except as a guy who was good for morale because you had a great sense of humor. Your former CO was with me in Nam before he took over Team 12. He doesn't think the terms UDT and SEAL were interchangeable.
Then there's your UDT buddy, Gary "Bones" Bonnelli, who was one of a very few UDT 12 frogmen stationed in Nam, at a place near the Nam Can Forest called Solid Anchor. Bonnelli says you weren't in Nam with him, but that you were floating around the South China Sea on a ship with the Amphibious Ready Group, making ports of call in such high-threat areas as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok.
Another picture of James Janos, far leftAnd sure enough, when I read your old CO's Cruise Book I saw Bonnelli and others listed as having been in 'Nam, but all I found about you was that you'd played on the UDT 12 basketball team in the Philippines, at the naval station in Subic Bay.
Anyone wanting to avoid the hassle of prying documents from the Navy should get T.L. Bosiljevac's book, UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam, (Ivy, 1990.) Bosiljevac, a SEAL officer, reviewed command histories, cruise books, and monthly operational summaries to compile a chronological narrative of every UDT and SEAL combat action in Nam. The Navy-sponsored research was part of his master's thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School.
I've also learned from men who served with you in UDT 12 that you deployed to the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) during the war from February to October 1971. I checked UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam for that period and here's what I found. UDT 12 is mentioned only twice: "UDT 12 relieved UDT 13 in February as the WESTPAC - deployed underwater demolition team (page 155); "(A four-man SEAL detachment) spent 8 August to 22 September with UDT 12 aboard the USS Grayback to assist in training (page 160)." As you know, the Grayback was a submarine that operated out of Subic Bay.
While you were in WESTPAC as a frogman, here's a sampling of what SEALS were up to in Nam:
Raided a VC financial meeting on 9 February, killing four guerrillas and capturing four others.
Conducted a daylight helo raid on 13 February, killing three VC and destroying a twenty-man rest area.
Attacked an enemy base on 20 February, killing one Chinese propaganda officer and wounding five others.
Killed eight VC and captured numerous weapons on 24 February.
Killed five VC and captured five others on 7 March.
Killed two VC and captured three others along with a VC flag and kilo of documents on 15 March.
Killed 3 VC aboard four sampans on 12 May.
Killed five VC attending a political meeting on 7 July.
Killed 8 VC in hand-to-hand combat on 23 August.
Killed 2 VC guarding a weapons cache on 28 August.
SEALs interchangeable with UDTs? I think not.
But SEALS didn't always win the manhunting contests while you were shooting hoops in the Philippines and pulling liberty in Hong Kong: a SEAL squad transiting the Ham Luong Canal on 28 February took heavy casualties when a B-40 rocket slammed into their boat; Lieutenant Michael Collins of SEAL Team 1 died on 4 March after suffering multiple fragmentation wounds from a VC ambush (more about Mike later); Petty Officer Lester Moe of SEAL Team 1 was killed walking point on 19 March when he stepped on a "Bouncing Betty" mine. And so it went Jesse, for SEALS but not frogmen during your deployment.
Of course maybe Bosiljevac somehow missed your manhunting ops. Tell you what - as one old SEAL/UDT manhunter to another - let's share a war story or Bosiljevac's Booktwo and give those who dream of being warriors a glimpse of the glamour.
Here are two "no shitters"- as your fellow celeb "Demo" Dick Marcinko might put it - that have stayed with me for a long time.
Many SEALS like to talk about the first man they killed. I sometimes do that. He was a VC courier sliding along the Upper Dong Tam River in a sampan beneath overhanging branches to avoid detection from the air. I brain-shot him with a CAR 15 - a weapon that looks like a toy. I was close enough to see blood and bone spray when the round struck.
But I usually don't talk about the first man I killed, Jesse. I usually talk about the first man I watched die. His name was Bobby Neal and he worked for me when I ran three SEAL platoons out of Nha Be 30 miles below Saigon on the border of a 500-square mile swamp called the Rung Sat. Neal took a lot longer to die than the courier. Neal was 18 when he got hit: he'd enlisted at 17 on what you may remember the Navy called a "kiddie cruise."
A Chicom grenade that exploded in the well-deck of a Mike boat perforated Neal's stomach lining. After the dustoff helo took him to Binh Hoa, I thought he would make it. I continued to think so until my third visit. On that visit I saw that they'd moved him away from the other wounded in the Quonset hut to a small room behind a partition. He was alone in the room except for a nurse. As I approached Neal's bed the nurse cautioned me that he was very weak. "He's a guarded case," she whispered, "he has peritonitis."
At the time I didn't know what peritonitis meant, Jesse, even though I was 26 - which was getting up there for a manhunter in that war or perhaps in any war.
I've run the Neal movie through my brain so often that the setting and dialogue remain as clear now as on the day I stood by his bed, looking at his pale, slender body covered from the waist down by a sheet. Neal's eyes were closed, his head turned so that I could see the crescent on his scalp where they had shaved his thick black hair to get at the shrapnel. His arm stretched out to receive the trickle of clear fluid coming through a tube from a bottle above the bed.
"Neal," I said softly, "Neal."
He opened his eyes and turned his head toward me. His eyes were dark and seemed too large for his face, like the eyes of a child in a Betanzos painting.
"Oh, what? Oh, I thought you were someone else."
"It's me. How you feeling?"
"Not bad, sir. But I can't move. I mean I got so many tubes in me that all I can move is this arm and my head. Used to have a tube up my nose and couldn't even move my head then."
With his free hand he grasped the sheet covering him and pulled it farther down. "See all those tubes?," he asked. A T-shaped bandage stretched across the boy's stomach and down his groin; two plastic tubes extended from beneath the bandage to a pair of bottles placed on a low table next to the bed.
"Well, those tubes are so I can shit and piss, see. Then there's another tube beneath the bandage to drain pus outa my gut. They change the bandage a lot and Christ does it stink. Like something rotten."
The boy began to breathe heavily as if unused to the effort of so much talking.
I said, "You look good, Bobby. Just take it easy. Don't talk so much if it's a strain."
"Oh no, no. I like to talk."
"I brought you some letters. I'll put them on the table and you can read them later, or have the nurse read them to you."
"Thank you, sir. Who are they from?"
"Two are from your parents."
"My parents?"
"Yes, from Virginia."
"Oh, there must be some mistake, sir. You see my parents are in Saigon. My mother visits me every day."
"I see. How are your parents?"
"Very fine, sir. Except my mom doesn't like being so far away from me. It's a long drive from Saigon."
"Yes, it is."
The boy began to speak again but coughed, then gagged on some sputum. He coughed the sputum onto his chin. I untied the olive-drab bandana from around my neck and used it to wipe away the sputum.
The nurse heard the gagging and came to the bed. I said, "I have to go, Bobby. I'll be back soon." The boy, exhausted from coughing, nodded and closed his eyes.
As I walked away with the nurse I asked, "What's it look like?"
"Bad," she replied. "But he's in no pain."
Bobby Neal died shortly after I left, Jesse, and then I knew what peritonitis meant.
This next story ought to interest you because it's about a SEAL who was a collegiate swimmer. I understand that you were a pretty fair swimmer when you were a young man.
Mike Collins swam for the Naval Academy. They named the Coronado Amphibious Base pool for him after he got churched in the Delta near Ben Tre. I wasn't there, but your UDT 12 skipper was on the helo pad at Binh Thuy when they brought Mike in. He'd taken a lot of shrapnel in the face and head. Your old skipper - I'll call him Jake - told me about it one night around a camp fire in Baja where we'd gone to fish a Pacific estuary called estero coyote. We'd had a good day: we were eating fresh-caught flounder and washing it down with a little "Jack in the Bottle." Nobody around but us and the coyotes whining and snapping just beyond our fire as they searched for fish entrails we'd thrown them.
"Mike was one of my platoon leaders," Jake said. "He was going up river at night with his platoon on the way to an ambush site when the boat began taking fire from the banks. The boat cleared the kill zone without a scratch. But they decided, hey, lets go back and take those fuckers on. They'd no sooner reentered the kill zone when either a B40 rocket or rifle grenade struck and blasted shrapnel across the boat - killed or wounded every soul on board."
"I sent out a SEAL relief force in helos that managed to suppress the VC fire and medevac the dead and wounded. I was on the helo pad when they landed. Collins came off first and even though you could see he was dead - he was just drenched in blood from his head wounds - the docs tried to save him."
"They started pounding on his chest trying to get the pump started. They kept at it for at least 10 minutes. Mike's arms and legs were flopping around and I thought maybe he was alive after all. But the movement was just from all the pounding."
"Yet they saved a guy named DaCroce. I don't know how. Jesus, he looked awful. So much blood. He had so much blood on him you couldn't see the features of his face. The blood was just caked on - just crusted and caked."
In the fireglow I could see Jake was crying, not sobbing, but just quietly crying with the tears tracking down through the fish flakes caught in his four-day whiskers. Then he composed himself and we talked about something else while the coyotes began to yap, growl, and fight among themselves in the darkness.
Several years before Jake told me his story, I had attended a ceremony in Coronado, California, when the Navy named the Amphibious Base pool for Mike. I thought about the last time I was with him. We were chasing Southern snap through the bars of Phenix City, Alabama. Mike had just finished jump school at Fort Benning and I was a new Ranger eager to live my life in danger. We got along. We were jocks and we were SEALS.
I sat behind his mother at the pool dedication on that sun-filled day in Coronado. I heard her weeping for a son ten years dead. I concentrated on the 50 meter lanes stretching before us, imagining Mike powering into the far wall, exploding out of a flip turn, pulling hard toward us. Then all I saw was empty water.
So there it is, Jesse. Now it's your turn to inspire would-be warriors, those who would spare Bambi and be hunters like us, of the most dangerous game.
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http://cursor.org/stories/seal_or_udt.htm
A former Navy SEAL Commander asks:
Was Jesse a SEAL or a UDT Guy?
by Bill Salisbury
San Diego Reader
December 2, 1999
Shortly after the 1998 gubernatorial elections, everywhere you looked on TV he seemed to loom from the screen: that great domed head anchored by a linebacker's neck to a professional rassler's torso. And you heard him rattle off one-liners such as, "Sure I can be a good governor for Minnesota! It's not like I'll have to transplant kidneys!"
I first saw Jesse "the Body" Ventura before the election on Comedy Central's The Daily Show. A pert young woman was interviewing him at his horse farm near Minneapolis, asking what he thought, as a former Navy SEAL, about Demi Moore's going through training in G.I. Jane.
"Demi Moore," he replied in that now-famous buzz-saw voice, "has great breasts!"
Well, I thought, Jesse certainly looks and sounds like many SEALs I'd known during my 16 years in the Teams. But I'd never known or even heard of him. Was Jesse for real or was he one of those politicians who sometimes fudge their military affiliation with elite units? I mean, maybe he'd only worked on a staff or been aboard a ship that once participated in an exercise with SEALs.
But Jesse made a comment during the interview that somewhat eased my doubts about his bona fides. "SEALs," he said, "certainly are different. We don't wear skivvies."
Only a Team guy - SEAL or UDT - and those with whom he closely associated would know this verifiable truth. Skivvies - Navy lingo for underwear - were for lesser mortals such as pencil-necked sandcrabs (civilians) or black shoes (ship drivers). Real men didn't wear skivvies. But they did wear massive Rolex diving watches with Tudor movements, just as Jesse wore during his interview.
Jesse's reference to skivvies also suggested he had pulled liberty in Olongapo, aka Po Town: the legendary city in the Philippines that had offered fleshly delights to generations of sailors who passed through the U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay until the base closed a few years ago. Frogmen from underwater demolition teams - but not SEALs - enjoyed six-month deployments to the PI during the Vietnam War and were so prized among the Po Town bargirls that the girls would sometimes "do it for love." And the girls delighted in screaming "skivvie check!," which meant every man jack and mate in the bar would have to drop his pants to verify if he was or was not of UDT. The girls would often follow their skivvie checks with cries of "big watch, little dick, bumfuck UDT!"
The bargirls had no similar slogan for SEALs, who were rarely seen in Olongapo during the war. SEALs from Team One on the Strand and Team Two in Little Creek, Virginia, deployed to detachments (dets) in Vietnam: SEAL Team Two Det Alfa in Binh Thuy (terrorizing the VC and luckless peasants in the delta); SEAL Det Bravo in various places (doing dirty deeds for the CIA); SEAL Team One Det Da Nang (running mercs up north in Nastys); and SEAL Team One Det Golf in Nha Be (helping keep the Long Tau shipping channel more or less open from the South China Sea to Saigon).
I had firsthand knowledge of all these dets, some of which would periodically shift locations, but I was especially familiar with SEAL Team One Det Golf, where I served as officer-in-charge of three SEAL platoons for much of 1967. I also knew a lot about Det Alfa from SEAL Team Two, because I was the executive officer of that Team in 1970. Both SEAL Teams were awarded coveted Presidential Unit Citations. UDTs received none.
I didn't know much about UDTs 11 and 12 then, even though they were homeported on the Strand like SEAL Team One. The UDTs rotated their platoons through a headquarters in Subic Bay, where many of the frogmen relived high school glory days playing football on base and freeballing it through Po Town on liberty. The frogmen in Subic never once lost a sleepless second to the fear of mortar rounds in the perimeter or Charlie on the wire. So was Jesse a SEAL or merely a frogman, that is, a member of an underwater demolition team?
In search of an answer from the horse's mouth, I read Jesse's blockbuster autobiography, I Ain't Got Time to Bleed. The chapter on his Navy career from 1970 until 1974 is entitled: "Navy seals." References to SEALs saturate the 26-page chapter. Here's a sampling:
"[M]y brother, Jan,had joined the Navy SEALs a few years earlier." (p. 60)
"When [Navy recruiters] found out [I was] interested in joining the SEALs, they zeroed in: 'Don't you want to be part of the most elite? The best of the best?' " (p. 62)
"One day [in boot camp] we attended a presentation by the Navy seals they showed us a film called The Men with Green Faces. In Vietnam, the SEALs were known as the Greenfaces, because they wore camouflage green and black." (p. 64)
Jesse took a screening test at boot camp to qualify for what is called Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training conducted at the Amphib Base. Those who completed BUD/S, when Jesse was in training, were sent to either a SEAL or an underwater demolition team. Graduation did not, however, authorize the trainee to call himself a SEAL or a UDT frogman. He had to first successfully complete a six-month probationary period in the Teams.
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So... I was digging around looking for the original site I had read about years ago but I can't find the link. There was plenty referencing it though. Heres a quick link...
http://cursor.org/venturawatch/dangerous_game.htm
Jesse's Dangerous Game
A former Navy SEAL commander questions Ventura's claim that he hunted man in Vietnam.
by Bill Salisbury
POSTED MAY 8, 2001--- MINNEAPOLIS-- A few weeks before the revelation that ex-Navy SEAL Bob Kerrey was involved in the death of civilians during the Vietnam War, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura had ignited a controversy of his own by boasting in a confrontational interview with a Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist that he had "hunted man" as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam.
Resources:
April 5, 2001
Mpls Star Tribune
Transcript of "hunting man" interview
April 5, 2001
Mpls Star Tribune
Initial news story about interview
April 7, 2001
Mpls Star Tribune
Ventura apologizes to hunters
December 2, 1999
San Diego Reader
Jesse "The Great Pretender" Ventura
December 21, 1999
Cursor.org
Cursor researches Ventura's Navy SEAL quotes
HomeOfHeroes.com
Ribbon Awards of the U.S. Navy
How to publicly post a DD 214
US Navy
How to file a FOIA request with the U.S. Navy
UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam, by T.L. Bosiljevac
Navy SEAL Web site index
Navy SEALs Vietnam memorial page
Exposing fake Navy SEALs:
Night Scribe
Cyber Seals Wall of Shame
Cursor home
Initial press coverage focused on how Ventura's assertion that "until you hunted man, you haven't hunted yet," had riled many Minnesotans who hunt only non-human game. But more importantly, Ventura's claim invites a revisiting of long-standing questions about his military service, as it raises new ones about what the governor did, or didn't do, in Vietnam.
In December, 1999, I wrote an article for the San Diego Reader titled, "Jesse (The Great Pretender) Ventura." The article challenged Ventura's claim that as James Janos he'd been a SEAL in Vietnam. I wrote that Janos had not been a SEAL but merely a member of Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) 12 who had been stationed in the Philippines and not Vietnam.
The article relied on several interviews with real SEALS who had been in Nam and UDT men who had served with Janos. I also drew on my 16 years as a SEAL, that included a combat tour as officer-in-charge of SEAL Team 1, Detachment Golf, duty as executive officer of SEAL Team 2 during the war, and a stint as commanding officer of UDT 11 after the war.
Before going to press I asked Ventura's spokesman, John Wodele, for the governor's comment. "We will have no comment on something so obviously false," said Wodele in an indignant, imperial tone. (In fairness to Wodele, I didn't tell him of my own SEAL and UDT credentials, but left him to assume I was just some West Coast "jackal" whining and snapping at his boss's heels.)
Ventura continued to hide behind Wodele and his stone wall when I appeared on the Fox News Channel program "Hannity and Colmes" a few days after the Reader article appeared. When Fox asked Ventura to respond, Wodele wrote: "The only thing we have ever said is that the UDT and SEAL designation is interchangeable and we don't have any further comment."
Why would Ventura - who loves to run his mouth about having been a SEAL - suddenly clam up when I publicly stated in so many words that he was, as my grandma used to say, full of more crap than a Christmas turkey? The governor could have silenced me and his growing pack of critics by simply producing his discharge certificate from active duty, called a DD 214. If he'd been one of America's roughest, toughest, meanest mothers, then that document would list Then there's your UDT buddy, Gary 'Bones' Bonnelli, who says you weren't in Nam with him, but that you were floating around the South China Sea, on a ship with the Amphibious Ready Group -- making ports of call in such high-threat areas as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok.the qualification for all the world to see. And if the SEAL/UDT designation were truly interchangeable, the form would reflect that. But I know it doesn't without even looking at it. The UDT designation, or Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) - was 5321/22 and the SEAL designation was 5326.
How do I know this? Because as the executive officer of SEAL Team 2, I recommended men for the 5326 designation after they had completed a six month probationary period. Many of these men came from UDTs as 5321/22s. As commanding officer of UDT 11, I awarded the 5321/22 designation to frogmen after their probationary period. Interchangeable designation my ass.
If Jesse were a SEAL, his DD 214 would also list at least one "Presidential Unit Citation for service Nam." How do I know this? Because of my duty with both SEAL Teams during the war. Every SEAL who served with Teams 1 and 2 received at least one DD 214 (NOT Jesse's)of the five Presidential Unit Citations awarded those units. UDTs received none. So c'mon, Jesse, show us your DD 214. You can even do that without breaking your vow never to talk about what you did as a "SEAL" in Nam.
But no fair relying on public pronouncements by your old toadies in the Teams, or a scrap of paper signed by some fawning Navy bureaucrat 30 years later, saying it's okay for you to call yourself a SEAL because UDTs were decommissioned in 1983. After all, you wouldn't want to be dismissed as a "Paper SEAL" would you? I mean it's okay for some pencil-necked sandcrab like George Plimpton to joke about being a "Paper Tiger" instead of a true major leaguer, but aren't you claiming to be the real deal: an ass-kicking, name-taking Navy SEAL?
Of course if you're unwilling to share your DD 214, then your pet jackals in the Twin Cities might want to fire off a Freedom of Information Act request to the Navy. Or they could request a copy of the UDT 12 Command History for the years you were with that team (1971- 1974). They could read the "History" to see if you got any ink for combat exploits. Hell. if you truly saw combat with Team 12 - faced Charley or Clyde at a given time in a given place with the burnt smell of expended rounds in the air - that would be good enough for me. I wouldn't quibble over whether you were a Frog or a SEAL and you could lay this controversy to rest - give it a double tap, an ear shot.
Another good resource is the Commander Naval Forces Vietnam monthly combat summaries that cover your time in the Western Pacific. Or the UDT 12 Cruise Book that chronicledCover of Jesse's UDT 12 Cruise Book your team's deployments. (SEALS didn't have time for such books.) You could even share your copy with them. One of your former commanding officers at UDT 12 shared his copy with me and said you'd never been in combat. Said he didn't remember you too well at all except as a guy who was good for morale because you had a great sense of humor. Your former CO was with me in Nam before he took over Team 12. He doesn't think the terms UDT and SEAL were interchangeable.
Then there's your UDT buddy, Gary "Bones" Bonnelli, who was one of a very few UDT 12 frogmen stationed in Nam, at a place near the Nam Can Forest called Solid Anchor. Bonnelli says you weren't in Nam with him, but that you were floating around the South China Sea on a ship with the Amphibious Ready Group, making ports of call in such high-threat areas as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok.
Another picture of James Janos, far leftAnd sure enough, when I read your old CO's Cruise Book I saw Bonnelli and others listed as having been in 'Nam, but all I found about you was that you'd played on the UDT 12 basketball team in the Philippines, at the naval station in Subic Bay.
Anyone wanting to avoid the hassle of prying documents from the Navy should get T.L. Bosiljevac's book, UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam, (Ivy, 1990.) Bosiljevac, a SEAL officer, reviewed command histories, cruise books, and monthly operational summaries to compile a chronological narrative of every UDT and SEAL combat action in Nam. The Navy-sponsored research was part of his master's thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School.
I've also learned from men who served with you in UDT 12 that you deployed to the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) during the war from February to October 1971. I checked UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam for that period and here's what I found. UDT 12 is mentioned only twice: "UDT 12 relieved UDT 13 in February as the WESTPAC - deployed underwater demolition team (page 155); "(A four-man SEAL detachment) spent 8 August to 22 September with UDT 12 aboard the USS Grayback to assist in training (page 160)." As you know, the Grayback was a submarine that operated out of Subic Bay.
While you were in WESTPAC as a frogman, here's a sampling of what SEALS were up to in Nam:
Raided a VC financial meeting on 9 February, killing four guerrillas and capturing four others.
Conducted a daylight helo raid on 13 February, killing three VC and destroying a twenty-man rest area.
Attacked an enemy base on 20 February, killing one Chinese propaganda officer and wounding five others.
Killed eight VC and captured numerous weapons on 24 February.
Killed five VC and captured five others on 7 March.
Killed two VC and captured three others along with a VC flag and kilo of documents on 15 March.
Killed 3 VC aboard four sampans on 12 May.
Killed five VC attending a political meeting on 7 July.
Killed 8 VC in hand-to-hand combat on 23 August.
Killed 2 VC guarding a weapons cache on 28 August.
SEALs interchangeable with UDTs? I think not.
But SEALS didn't always win the manhunting contests while you were shooting hoops in the Philippines and pulling liberty in Hong Kong: a SEAL squad transiting the Ham Luong Canal on 28 February took heavy casualties when a B-40 rocket slammed into their boat; Lieutenant Michael Collins of SEAL Team 1 died on 4 March after suffering multiple fragmentation wounds from a VC ambush (more about Mike later); Petty Officer Lester Moe of SEAL Team 1 was killed walking point on 19 March when he stepped on a "Bouncing Betty" mine. And so it went Jesse, for SEALS but not frogmen during your deployment.
Of course maybe Bosiljevac somehow missed your manhunting ops. Tell you what - as one old SEAL/UDT manhunter to another - let's share a war story or Bosiljevac's Booktwo and give those who dream of being warriors a glimpse of the glamour.
Here are two "no shitters"- as your fellow celeb "Demo" Dick Marcinko might put it - that have stayed with me for a long time.
Many SEALS like to talk about the first man they killed. I sometimes do that. He was a VC courier sliding along the Upper Dong Tam River in a sampan beneath overhanging branches to avoid detection from the air. I brain-shot him with a CAR 15 - a weapon that looks like a toy. I was close enough to see blood and bone spray when the round struck.
But I usually don't talk about the first man I killed, Jesse. I usually talk about the first man I watched die. His name was Bobby Neal and he worked for me when I ran three SEAL platoons out of Nha Be 30 miles below Saigon on the border of a 500-square mile swamp called the Rung Sat. Neal took a lot longer to die than the courier. Neal was 18 when he got hit: he'd enlisted at 17 on what you may remember the Navy called a "kiddie cruise."
A Chicom grenade that exploded in the well-deck of a Mike boat perforated Neal's stomach lining. After the dustoff helo took him to Binh Hoa, I thought he would make it. I continued to think so until my third visit. On that visit I saw that they'd moved him away from the other wounded in the Quonset hut to a small room behind a partition. He was alone in the room except for a nurse. As I approached Neal's bed the nurse cautioned me that he was very weak. "He's a guarded case," she whispered, "he has peritonitis."
At the time I didn't know what peritonitis meant, Jesse, even though I was 26 - which was getting up there for a manhunter in that war or perhaps in any war.
I've run the Neal movie through my brain so often that the setting and dialogue remain as clear now as on the day I stood by his bed, looking at his pale, slender body covered from the waist down by a sheet. Neal's eyes were closed, his head turned so that I could see the crescent on his scalp where they had shaved his thick black hair to get at the shrapnel. His arm stretched out to receive the trickle of clear fluid coming through a tube from a bottle above the bed.
"Neal," I said softly, "Neal."
He opened his eyes and turned his head toward me. His eyes were dark and seemed too large for his face, like the eyes of a child in a Betanzos painting.
"Oh, what? Oh, I thought you were someone else."
"It's me. How you feeling?"
"Not bad, sir. But I can't move. I mean I got so many tubes in me that all I can move is this arm and my head. Used to have a tube up my nose and couldn't even move my head then."
With his free hand he grasped the sheet covering him and pulled it farther down. "See all those tubes?," he asked. A T-shaped bandage stretched across the boy's stomach and down his groin; two plastic tubes extended from beneath the bandage to a pair of bottles placed on a low table next to the bed.
"Well, those tubes are so I can shit and piss, see. Then there's another tube beneath the bandage to drain pus outa my gut. They change the bandage a lot and Christ does it stink. Like something rotten."
The boy began to breathe heavily as if unused to the effort of so much talking.
I said, "You look good, Bobby. Just take it easy. Don't talk so much if it's a strain."
"Oh no, no. I like to talk."
"I brought you some letters. I'll put them on the table and you can read them later, or have the nurse read them to you."
"Thank you, sir. Who are they from?"
"Two are from your parents."
"My parents?"
"Yes, from Virginia."
"Oh, there must be some mistake, sir. You see my parents are in Saigon. My mother visits me every day."
"I see. How are your parents?"
"Very fine, sir. Except my mom doesn't like being so far away from me. It's a long drive from Saigon."
"Yes, it is."
The boy began to speak again but coughed, then gagged on some sputum. He coughed the sputum onto his chin. I untied the olive-drab bandana from around my neck and used it to wipe away the sputum.
The nurse heard the gagging and came to the bed. I said, "I have to go, Bobby. I'll be back soon." The boy, exhausted from coughing, nodded and closed his eyes.
As I walked away with the nurse I asked, "What's it look like?"
"Bad," she replied. "But he's in no pain."
Bobby Neal died shortly after I left, Jesse, and then I knew what peritonitis meant.
This next story ought to interest you because it's about a SEAL who was a collegiate swimmer. I understand that you were a pretty fair swimmer when you were a young man.
Mike Collins swam for the Naval Academy. They named the Coronado Amphibious Base pool for him after he got churched in the Delta near Ben Tre. I wasn't there, but your UDT 12 skipper was on the helo pad at Binh Thuy when they brought Mike in. He'd taken a lot of shrapnel in the face and head. Your old skipper - I'll call him Jake - told me about it one night around a camp fire in Baja where we'd gone to fish a Pacific estuary called estero coyote. We'd had a good day: we were eating fresh-caught flounder and washing it down with a little "Jack in the Bottle." Nobody around but us and the coyotes whining and snapping just beyond our fire as they searched for fish entrails we'd thrown them.
"Mike was one of my platoon leaders," Jake said. "He was going up river at night with his platoon on the way to an ambush site when the boat began taking fire from the banks. The boat cleared the kill zone without a scratch. But they decided, hey, lets go back and take those fuckers on. They'd no sooner reentered the kill zone when either a B40 rocket or rifle grenade struck and blasted shrapnel across the boat - killed or wounded every soul on board."
"I sent out a SEAL relief force in helos that managed to suppress the VC fire and medevac the dead and wounded. I was on the helo pad when they landed. Collins came off first and even though you could see he was dead - he was just drenched in blood from his head wounds - the docs tried to save him."
"They started pounding on his chest trying to get the pump started. They kept at it for at least 10 minutes. Mike's arms and legs were flopping around and I thought maybe he was alive after all. But the movement was just from all the pounding."
"Yet they saved a guy named DaCroce. I don't know how. Jesus, he looked awful. So much blood. He had so much blood on him you couldn't see the features of his face. The blood was just caked on - just crusted and caked."
In the fireglow I could see Jake was crying, not sobbing, but just quietly crying with the tears tracking down through the fish flakes caught in his four-day whiskers. Then he composed himself and we talked about something else while the coyotes began to yap, growl, and fight among themselves in the darkness.
Several years before Jake told me his story, I had attended a ceremony in Coronado, California, when the Navy named the Amphibious Base pool for Mike. I thought about the last time I was with him. We were chasing Southern snap through the bars of Phenix City, Alabama. Mike had just finished jump school at Fort Benning and I was a new Ranger eager to live my life in danger. We got along. We were jocks and we were SEALS.
I sat behind his mother at the pool dedication on that sun-filled day in Coronado. I heard her weeping for a son ten years dead. I concentrated on the 50 meter lanes stretching before us, imagining Mike powering into the far wall, exploding out of a flip turn, pulling hard toward us. Then all I saw was empty water.
So there it is, Jesse. Now it's your turn to inspire would-be warriors, those who would spare Bambi and be hunters like us, of the most dangerous game.
He never claimed to have fought in Vietnam though. His remark was to the effect that hunting is somewhat of a joke (which it is for the most part in the civilized world).
http://borderzine.com/2013/03/jesse-ventura-%E2%80%93-a-one-of-a-kind-all-american/
Never one to avoid controversy, he was criticized by hunters and conservationists for stating in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune in April 2001, “Until you have hunted men, you haven’t hunted yet.” In January 2002, Ventura, who, previously, had never specifically claimed to have fought in Vietnam, disclosed for the first time that he did not see combat. However, Ventura, who was stationed at Subic Bay in the Philippines, was awarded the Vietnam Service Medal, which was given to military personnel who took part in the contributions to the war effort in Vietnam.
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He never claimed to have fought in Vietnam though. His remark was to the effect that hunting is somewhat of a joke (which it is for the most part in the civilized world).
http://borderzine.com/2013/03/jesse-ventura-%E2%80%93-a-one-of-a-kind-all-american/
Never one to avoid controversy, he was criticized by hunters and conservationists for stating in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune in April 2001, “Until you have hunted men, you haven’t hunted yet.” In January 2002, Ventura, who, previously, had never specifically claimed to have fought in Vietnam, disclosed for the first time that he did not see combat. However, Ventura, who was stationed at Subic Bay in the Philippines, was awarded the Vietnam Service Medal, which was given to military personnel who took part in the contributions to the war effort in Vietnam.
Look man, I don't want to argue with you. Go read through the site for a bunch more info on the guy. He's made his career exaggerating his military service.
Go read the site Adonis, theres plenty of links and references to where he talked about being in combat missions in Vietnam. I'm not going to dig them up for you.
Heres a quick few from the 1st link I saw -
Navy SEAL, union member, volunteer high school football coach, outdoorsman, husband of 23 years, father of two.
Ventura Campaign Ad
I'm a warrior at heart. I'm an ex-Navy SEAL.
The New York Times, October 31, 1998
And Mr. [Hulk] Hogan, I mean he wants to be me, anyway. He always--you know, he pretends to be a Navy SEAL; I was one.
Meet the Press, November 8, 1998
You know, I come from a little bit of a military background earlier in my life and we were always taught in the Navy SEAL team never to assume.
CNN Inside Politics, November 12, 1998
High Times: Was your wrestling career fun?
Ventura: It was exciting. And for me, an ex-Navy Seal, it was fun.
High Times, November, 1998
Ventura: I've been a Navy SEAL.
Maria Shriver: But, a Navy SEAL makes you ready to be Governor?
Ventura: Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure it does.
Maria Shriver: Where did you come up with that?
Ventura: It's easy--because I defy--because I worked with things in being a Navy SEAL that could kill me.
NBC Dateline, December 22, 1998
I'm also excited--you know, a lot of my old Navy SEAL buddies are here to see me get sworn in today.
CBS This Morning, January 4, 1999
I'm the top law enforcement officer in the state of Minnesota. I'm also the commander-in-chief of the National Guard. I'm an ex-Navy SEAL team member.
Meet The Press, February 21, 1999
Now as a Navy SEAL, I thought "How did they know that about me -- how dangerous we truly can be?" We have a saying in the SEALs: we don't get mad, we get even.
National Press Club Speech, February 22, 1999
I'm the head of the state troopers, and the commander-in-chief of the National Guard. I'm also a former Navy SEAL.
CNN Late Edition, February 23, 1999
Tim Russert: Both your brother--your older brother and yourself, [were] Navy SEALs?
Ventura: Mm-hmm, yeah.
Tim Russert: You almost died twice, once as a Navy SEAL and once as a wrestler, with blood clots in your lungs.
Ventura: Well, I almost died more than that a couple times as a SEAL. That's only what I told about in the book.
Tim Russert Show, May 22, 1999
Last spring I rappelled down from the top of the Target Center before a Timberwolves game. But, you know, I am an ex-Navy SEAL and I was trained for you know, a full year and was very comfortable in that type of rappelling-type thing.
Larry King Live, May 24, 1999
I couldn't care less what a person's sexual orientation is, and I'm an ex-Navy SEAL.
The Advocate, May 1999
First of all, they should understand why a Navy SEAL doesn't wear underwear.
CBS This Morning , June 3, 1999
Larry King: You were a Navy SEAL?
Ventura: Yes.
Larry King: What was that like?
Ventura: Exciting. I did it at 18 years old to 22, 22-1/2. It was challenging. I would belong to no other unit The camaraderie is unbelievable.
Larry King Live, June 3, 1999
When I was a wrestler, I could pick up buildings. When I was a SEAL, I could scale them.
NPR's Fresh Air, June 3, 1999
Chris Matthews: When you were a--you were a SEAL, you must have been through amazingly scary moments with life and death.
Ventura: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Hardball with Chris Matthews at Harvard University, October 6, 1999
You're talking to an ex-Navy Seal here.
Playboy, November, 1999.
I was in the SEALs during the Vietnam War, so I experienced firsthand how we, as Americans, were affected by that conflict.
Rolling Stone, December 30, 1999
We're a proud organization. If anyone tries to pretend they're a SEAL, God help them.
Jesse Ventura Autobiography: I Ain't Got Time to Bleed
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Chris Kyle claims to have shot 30 American Citizens during Hurricane Katrina.
I think thats a little worse than the UDT/SEAL semantics game.
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Chris Kyle claims to have shot 30 American Citizens during Hurricane Katrina.
I think thats a little worse than the UDT/SEAL semantics game.
That's what I call someone owning his performance.
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Chris Kyle claims to have shot 30 American Citizens during Hurricane Katrina.
I think thats a little worse than the UDT/SEAL semantics game.
were you present or have a recording of this claim?..can you verify a witness?...no, you cant...
bench