Richard Marcinko

Richard Marcinko
Then-LCDR Richard Marcinko as Commanding Officer of SEAL Team 2
Nickname	Dick, Rogue Warrior, Rick, and The Geek.
Born	November 21, 1940 (1940-11-21) (age 71) Lansford, Pennsylvania
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1958–1988
Rank	Commander
Commands held	Seal Team 2 Seal Team 6 Red Cell
Awards	Silver Star Legion of Merit Bronze Star with Valor Device and three Gold Stars Navy Commendation Medal (2) Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star
Other work	CEO of SOS Temps, Inc. and Red Cell International, Author, Talk Show Host

Richard "Dick" Marcinko (born November 21, 1940), is a retired Commander in the United States Navy and a former Navy SEAL. He was the first Commanding Officer of SEAL Team Six and Red Cell. After retiring from the Navy, he became an author, radio talk show host, military consultant, and motivational speaker.

Early life

Marcinko was born in Lansford, Pennsylvania and is of Slovakian descent. After attending Admiral Farragut Academy in Toms River, New Jersey, Marcinko enlisted in the United States Navy in 1958 as a radioman. Later commissioned as an officer, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Master of Arts degree in political science from Auburn University.

Vietnam

On May 18, 1967, Marcinko led his men in an assault on Ilo-Ilo Island, where they killed a large number of Vietcong and destroyed six of their sampans. This action would be called “the most successful SEAL operation in the Mekong Delta” by the US Navy. For leading it, Marcinko was awarded the first of his four Bronze Stars, as well as a Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star.^[1]

Marcinko returned to Vietnam with SEAL Team 2 after a few months stateside as OIC of Eighth Platoon. During the Tet Offensive, Marcinko ordered his platoon to assist US Army Special Forces at Chau Doc.^[2] What began as an urban street battle turned into a rescue mission of American nurses and a schoolteacher trapped in the city's church and hospital.^[3]

After completing his second tour in Vietnam and a two-year stateside staff assignment, Marcinko was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and assigned as the Naval Attache to Cambodia in 1973. After serving in Cambodia for 18 months, Marcinko returned stateside and assumed command of SEAL Team Two.^[4]

SEAL Team Six

During the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, Marcinko was one of two Navy representatives for a Joint Chiefs of Staff task force known as the TAT (Terrorist Action Team). The purpose of the TAT was to develop a plan to free the American hostages held in Iran which culminated in Operation Eagle Claw. In the wake of the debacle, the Navy saw the need for a full-time dedicated Counter-Terrorist Team and tasked Marcinko with its design and development.

Marcinko was the first commanding officer of this new unit. At the time, the Navy had only two SEAL teams. Marcinko purportedly named the unit SEAL Team Six in order to confuse other nations, specifically the Soviet Union, into believing that the United States had three other SEAL teams that they were unaware of. He personally selected the unit's members from across the US Navy's Special Operations community, including a special counter-terrorist tactics section of SEAL Team Two, codenamed MOB-6. SEAL Team Six would be the Navy's premier counter-terrorist unit, like its Army counterpart Delta Force.^[2][5] While typically a two-year command in the Navy at the time, Marcinko commanded SEAL Team Six for three years, from August 1980 to July 1983.^[6]

Red Cell

After relinquishing command of SEAL Team SIX, Marcinko was tasked by Vice Admiral James "Ace" Lyons, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, with the design of a unit to test the Navy's vulnerability to terrorism. This unit was the Naval Security Coordination Team OP-06D, unofficially named Red Cell.^[6] In 1984, Marcinko hand-picked twelve men from SEAL Team Six and one from Marine Force Recon.

This team tested the security of naval bases, nuclear submarines, ships, civilian airports, and an American embassy. Under Marcinko's leadership, the team was able to infiltrate seemingly impenetrable, highly-secured bases, nuclear submarines, ships, and other purported "secure areas" such as Air Force One, and disappear without incident. These demonstrations showed that a vulnerable military resulted from the replacement of Marines and Air Force Security Police by contracted private security agencies often started by retired military personnel.

Marcinko has claimed, among other things, that Red Cell successfully captured nuclear devices from United States Navy facilities, and proved the viability of plans to:

• penetrate and attack nuclear-powered submarines
• destroy subs by using them as dirty bombs
• capture launch codes for nuclear weapons aboard the subs by using mild torture techniques on personnel in charge of launch codes.

Former members of Red Cell, notably Steve Hartmann and Dennis Chalker, maintain that these exercises were a cover to move SPECWAR operators around the world for covert missions against real-world terrorists.^[7]

He retired from the Navy with thirty years of enlisted and commissioned service in 1988.

Prison

On 9 March 1990, Marcinko was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and fined $10,000 under charges of defrauding the government over the price of contractor acquisitions for hand grenades.^[8] Marcinko maintains that he was the subject of a witch-hunt for his work with Red Cell and that the fraud committed revealed the weaknesses of military security. Marcinko has detailed his arrest and confinement in the last chapters of his autobiography.^[2]

Civilian life

Marcinko has since published a VHS and DVD movie account of his "Red Cell" operations.^[9]

His experiences led him to write his autobiography, The New York Times best-selling Rogue Warrior, and subsequent fictional sequels, most of which are co-written with ghostwriter John Weisman.^[2]

He is currently CEO of Red Cell International and formerly of SOS Temps, Inc., a private security consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.. He had a politically conservative talk radio show America on Watch with Dick Marcinko which was broadcast live. He is a spokesman for the Zodiac boat company's Zodiac Maritime Training Academy, and served as a consultant on FOX's television series 24. He briefly collaborated with Strider Knives on a series of knife designs referred to as the "RW" signifying "Rogue Warrior" from 2008 to 2010.^[10]

Military awards

• Special Warfare insignia
• Naval Parachutist insignia
• Silver Star
• Legion of Merit
• Bronze Star with Valor Device and three Gold Award Stars
• Defense Meritorious Service Medal
• Navy Commendation Medal with Valor device and Gold Award Star
• Combat Action Ribbon with three Gold Award Stars
• Presidential Unit Citation
• Good Conduct Medal with Bronze Service Star
• National Defense Service Medal
• Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
• Vietnam Service Medal with four campaign stars
• Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star
• Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal

Bibliography

Non-fiction

• Rogue Warrior (1992) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-70390-0
• Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior: A Commando's Guide to Success (1997) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-54514-0
• The Rogue Warriors Strategy for Success (1998) ISBN 0-671-00994-X
• The Real Team (1999) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-02465-5

Fiction

• Red Cell (1994) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-01977-5
• Green Team (1995) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-79959-2
• Task Force Blue (1996) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-89672-5
• Designation Gold (1997) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-89674-1
• Seal Force Alpha (1998) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-00072-1
• Option Delta (1999) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-00068-3
• Echo Platoon (2000) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-00074-8
• Detachment Bravo (2001) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-00071-3
• Violence of Action (2003) ISBN 0-7434-2276-7
• Vengeance (2005) (with Jim DeFelice) ISBN 0-7434-2247-3
• Holy Terror (2006) (with Jim DeFelice) ISBN 978-0743422482
• Dictator's Ransom (2008) (with Jim DeFelice)
• Seize the Day (2009) (with Jim DeFelice)
• Domino Theory (2011) (with Jim DeFelice) ISBN 9780765325402

Articles

• 'Ethics in the war against terrorism' for World Defense Review

Filmography

Advisory

• G.I. Jane
• The Rock
• 24 (Season 5)

Participatory

• Red Cell (VHS & Special Edition DVD)
• Advanced Hostage Rescue (VHS & DVD)
• Navy SEAL: Tides of SPECWAR (DVD)

Video games

Marcinko has partnered with Bethesda Softworks to publish Rogue Warrior for video game consoles and PC. Marcinko himself is the protagonist, voiced in the game by actor Mickey Rourke, trapped behind enemy lines in North Korea on a covert mission to assess the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. The game received universally abysmal reviews, with critics citing poor AI, excessive use of expletives, numerous bugs, and shallow gameplay that featured only a 2-3 hour single player mode and multiplayer that included only deathmatch and team deathmatch.^[11]

See also

United States Navy portal

• Tiger team
• Dennis Chalker
• Harry Humphries

References

1. ^ Bosiljevac, T. L. (1990). SEALs: UDT/SEAL operations in Vietnam. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press. p. 81. ISBN 9780873645317. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Marcinko, Richard; Weisman (1992). Rogue Warrior. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-70390-0. 
3. ^ Keith, Thomas H.; J. Terry Riebling, Michael E. Thornton (2010). SEAL Warrior: The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday. Macmillan. pp. 37-39. ISBN 9780312628031. 
4. ^ Kelly (2003), p. 211
5. ^ Halbertstadt, Hans (1995). US Navy SEALs in Action. Osceola, Wisconsin: Zenith Press. p. 44. ISBN 978-0879389932. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Chalker, Dennis; Dockery (2003). One Perfect Op: An Insider's Account of the Navy Seal Special Warfare Teams. New York: William Morrow Publishing. p. 130. ISBN 0-380-97804-0. 
7. ^ Marcinko, Richard; Weisman (1999). The Real Team. New York: Pocket. ISBN 0-671-02465-5. 
8. ^ Kelly, Orr (2003). Brave Men Dark Waters. Simon and Schuster. p. 235. ISBN 9780671867621. 
9. ^ Richard Marcinko, director (1993). Red Cell: The True Story with Richard Marcinko (VHS/DVD). United States: Loti Group. 
10. ^ Shackleford, Steve (2009). Blade's Complete Guide to Knives 33 (3): 90. 
11. ^ "Rogue Warrior Review for Xbox 360". http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/roguewarrior/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review. Retrieved March 17, 2010. 

External links

• Official website
• "Interview with the Sharkman" by W. Thomas Smith Jr.
• Liberty Watch Interview (MP3) Liberty Watch show 7-17-05 "America Armed & Free"
• http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/crime/2011/05/04/ng.seal.team.6.founder.hln

Persondata
Name	Richard Marcinko
Alternative names	Dick Marcinko
Short description	Navy SEAL, Author
Date of birth	November 21, 1940
Place of birth	Lansford, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Date of death
Place of death