2024 the best elite forces in the world review

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With a postscript describing SEAL efforts in Afghanistan, The Warrior Elite takes you into the toughest, longest, and most relentless military
training in the world.

What does it take to become a Navy SEAL? What makes talented, intelligent young men volunteer for physical punishment, cold water, and days without sleep? In The Warrior Elite, former Navy SEAL Dick Couch documents the process that transforms young men into warriors. SEAL training is the distillation of the human spirit, a tradition-bound ordeal that seeks to find men with character, courage, and the burning desire to win at all costs, men who would rather die than quit.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown; Reprint edition (January 28, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1400046955
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1400046959
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.16 x 0.9 x 7.96 inches
Reviewer: mrxak
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: They'd rather die than quit
Review: I've now read three books on the US Navy SEALs. This will be a combined review I'll post on all three books, because I feel each one is important to understanding these elite warriors. Ever since Operation Neptune Spear, and the announcement that SEAL Team Six had successfully raided a compound in Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden, I had been wondering why it was that SEAL Team Six had been sent, rather than our other elite counterterrorism unit, the mysterious Delta Force. After all, the mission took off from an airbase in a land-locked country, traveled over land to their target hundreds of miles inland, and then returned, having not flown over any major bodies of water at all. Why send the Navy, when an Army unit presumably could do the job just as well?I've always been interested in the military, and military training. Though that particular life was not for me, I've always admired those who choose it, and been proud of my veteran relatives. I've watched countless boot camp documentaries, shows on special forces fiction and non-, and I want to understand what it takes to be a warrior. To understand what it takes to be a warrior tasked with taking down the most wanted terrorist in the world, I wanted to read books that would explain their training, their lives, and their physical and mental toughness.The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228 by Dick Couch was the first book I read. It covers the entire Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL training course for Class 228. In the introduction, the making of a SEAL warrior is already made clear. Couch, a former Navy SEAL himself, Class 45 during the Vietnam era, explains that the Marine Corps builds 20,000 new marines a year for a force of 174,000, trained over eleven weeks. For the Army, the very tough Ranger School graduates 1,500 soldiers a year from their eight week course. With a twenty-seven week course, only 250 men a year graduate BUD/S, and even then, they are not yet SEALs. BUD/S only earns you a chance, and at least another six months of training await these men before they earn their Trident, and become a SEAL. The Warrior Elite covers the 27 weeks of BUD/S, following along a single class from day one of Indoc to graduation. But first Dick Couch tells the story of Kim Erksine in Grenada, a SEAL who led his eleven men during a mission that went bad when they were unable to use their radios. Along the way, he describes how their training, beginning with BUD/S, shaped their decisions and actions each step of the way. They made it to the water, many of them wounded, but all of them alive and still fighting. Eventually they swam out into the ocean and were picked up. Kim Erskine credits his and his men's survival to the knowledge that each of them had survived BUD/S. Already, it's clear. SEALs don't quit. So how does the Navy find men who just won't quit? They do everything they can to make BUD/S volunteers quit, and then trains the rest. 114 men had orders to BUD/S Class 228, and on Day 1, only 98 are still on the roster, 16 gave up before it even started. At any time, a BUD/S student can quit, and many do. After two weeks of Indoc, where BUD/S hasn't even begun yet, the class is down to 69 men. At graduation, 10 men remain from the original class. Another six would graduate later with another class, having been rolled back for medical reasons. The story of what those men went through to graduate, and to earn the right to continue their training and perhaps become SEALs someday, is what The Warrior Elite explores. Frequently reading the book, I exclaimed out loud "wow", I just couldn't believe it. Everyone talks about Hell Week, the week in Phase One that weeds out a significant number of students, most on the very first day, but that is just one very hard week out of 27 very hard weeks, and the men who survive it learn that to be a SEAL is to only have harder weeks ahead.While The Warrior Elite covers post-BUD/S training briefly in the epilogue, The Finishing School: Earning the Navy SEAL Trident, by the same author Dick Couch, covers this training in much greater depth. This second book is a sequel researched and written in the years following 9/11, and as such a higher emphasis is placed on protecting the identities of the warriors who are training to become qualified SEALs in the platoons, and the secret tactics used by SEALs in their operations. In that regard, the book is much less comprehensive, and much less personal. While a great deal of information is given on the recent reorganization of the SEAL Teams and their deployments, less information is given about actual training. It's hard to read The Warrior Elite without also reading The Finishing School, without the second book you're missing half the story, but The Finishing Book is sadly not the complete story, either. It's understandable for security reasons, but for somebody with a fascination for military training and tactics, as well as the men who go through it all, it's disappointing. Again, though, the lesson is clear in The Finishing School. Not everyone who gets through BUD/S is going to become a SEAL. Some quit, some disqualify for medical or performance reasons, and the graduating class is smaller than the class coming in. One thing that The Finishing School does very well is explain the warrior culture of the SEAL Teams. These are quiet professionals who work together in close-knit groups. All of them are eager to get on deployment, and each of them maximizes their opportunities to continually learn and get better whenever they can. Those who are lone wolves, and can't work safely in a team, are quickly removed from the organization. As always, it pays to be a winner, and no man is left behind.The third book is SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper, by Howard E. Wasdin and Steven Templin. This book is very much a memoir, rather than a detailed day-by-day log of the training done in SEAL Team Six. In fact, for somebody wanting to read about the internal workings of the Navy's most elite-of-the-elite warriors, they wouldn't get very many details at all. What you get, instead, is a sense of the sorts of men who do what Howard Wasdin did, volunteer, and then keep volunteering, for the hardest jobs they could find, always looking for a bigger challenge. At times, Wasdin comes across as incredibly arrogant. He seems to put down other members of the special forces community, as well as federal law enforcement, at numerous occasions. We may never know, since members of SEAL Team Six, the CIA, and Delta Force are so tight-lipped, just how much of it is completely accurate. But nonetheless, this is a story of the sorts of brutal childhoods that spawn special forces operators, and the psychology of a warrior during training and in combat. Wasdin, I think, is more humble than he comes across. What he is, is a straight-shooter. If somebody else screwed up, he says so. At times hilarious, and at times horrifying, the story of Howard Wasdin from childhood to adulthood, with military service in between, is incredibly engaging. I had difficulties putting it down, and read through the entire book in just two sittings. While nowhere near as comprehensive as The Warrior Elite or The Finishing School, it gives us a window into the minds and lives of the men who got bin Laden.I highly recommend all three books, and in the order I read them. Having read each one, I've come to understand, perhaps, some of the reasons why President Obama ordered SEAL Team Six to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. I'll leave it put to you to decide for yourself why that might've been, but if I learned anything at all about SEALs, reading these three books, it's that they always work as a team, it pays to be a winner, and they'd rather die than quit.The Warrior Elite gets 5 stars for being as comprehensive as it is, and a truly astonishing tale of 10 men from Class 228, and the others who didn't graduate with them.

Reviewer: FunHog
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great insight, well written
Review: There isn't a whole lot I can add that the numerous other reviews haven't said but here goes:First, it's the best book of genre; in depth description of the training, touches on mental and physical aspects of those who have what it takes, and gives some personal history of the trainees, so you have a perspective of what drove them there.Second, Dick Couch's discussions of own personal history as a Vietnam era seal and his training adds to the book. His views on the modern "Warrior Culture" of the seals/special forces was insightful.Third, he made reading about situps, pushups, swimming, running and assorted physical challenges very interesting. Much of the training aspect is known via the discovery channel, military channel or other books about Seals, but one thing this book really conveys is the hardcore intensity of the training; some guys who gutted out hell week fail because their bodies are so destroyed they don't recover in time to begin Phase II training.Somewhere else I read that more college football players will get drafted to the NFL this year than men qualify as Navy Seals - this puts the elite statement often used to describe Seals into perspective. Reading this book really drives the point home. It is a metaphor for any great accomplishment - some God given talent, discipline, focus, unwavering commitment and a little bit of luck. The luck part comes in because to make through training, even if you have all the tools -physical and mental- to not get injured or sick through 6mos of training or a physiologic issue with diving, involves some luck. You read about a few guys who had what it took and failed because of bad luck and your really feel for them- when a book can make you feel for something or someone it's a mark of a good writer.Overall, great book. Also amazing is that the intense, three phase training of Buds is only the begining- it takes up to two years to become an operational seal. I will certainly read his follow up "The Finishing School."

Reviewer: M. Strong
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Five-star story, three-star writing. Absolutely worth reading.
Review: Let's start with the positive, because there's so much here that's so good. The Warrior Elite tells an incredible story. As a reader, you get to ride along with a class training to become Navy SEALS. Couch, a former SEAL himself, does a great job of capturing the details of BUD/S training so that you understand the challenges and trials these young men face to become SEALS.You come to know the men of Class 228 well and you quickly learn the differences between movie SEALS and real SEALS (not many 6'3" 250 pounders to be found on the real SEAL teams). You also have the interesting experience of simultaneously being inspired and realizing your own limitations. It's almost impossible to read this book without imagining what parts of SEAL training you could handle and what would be your undoing. You end up realizing that we are all capable of more than we think, but not many of us have what it takes to become a SEAL (far better candidates than I'd be fell out of Class 228 pretty quickly).So what keeps this from being a five-star book? The writing; and that's hard to say, because after reading this book you respect Couch so much for what he's accomplished as a SEAL. Even so, the writing is mechanical, the structure slows down your reading considerably, and you will be painfully aware of the repetitive use of some unique phrases.That said, Couch does give you a great view of something that most people will never see, and he does it from the perspective of someone who's done it himself. This book is absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in the SEALS. For a similarly great story with story telling to match its content, check out Inside Delta Force by Eric Haney. The two books are great to read back-to-back to compare and contrast not only Delta Force and the SEALS, but also two different writers.

Reviewer: chris
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Excellent Book.If you like Reading about Navy Seals.Read this Book.Highly Recommend.Very Good Book About selection and Training.

Reviewer: Norm Phillips
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: It was amazing to read about how much it takes to be one of these elite warriors, and how unforgiving the selection process is. Truly remarkable how these young men have the desire, fortitude and ability to win the trident.

Reviewer: S Shankar
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a a must read for anyone interested in Special operations & SOF training. Very well written and gripping.

Reviewer: Marcel
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: also great for people who dont want to be SEALs. I am a business person but was seeking for motivation on dicipline and courage. A compelling book on forging SEALs. But also a great book on defining principles in times of adversary.

Reviewer: Alex
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: So che questo potrebbe fare sorridere ma questo libro e' stato utile anche per il mio lavoro. Da piu' di 20 anni sono in una multinazionale americana come manager dell'area marketing e vendite e il libro e' stato utile a capire certe dinamiche in termini di appartenenza al gruppo, al perseguimento del target ad ogni costo e per l'approccio alle cose in termini di resilienza.