Finally, a book that reaches the levels set by books such as "Brave Men, Dark Waters" and "Class-29 : The Making of U.S. Navy SEALs". Well written, insightful, and just simply excellent. Buy this book!

Matt


Five-star story, three-star writing. Absolutely worth reading.   August 22, 2005
 14 out of 14 found this review helpful

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.


An intimate look at the training of a warrior   January 8, 2002
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Dick Couch, a former SEAL, takes an in depth look at the BUD/S, the training school that future SEALs must go through. I am an avid Navy SEAL fan and have read as much as I can on the subject. This is THE book I would recomend if somebody asked me which ONE book they should read on SEALs. After having learned about what a SEAL must go through to earn his Trident Pin (the official point at which you are a SEAL) I only have more respect for those men.

As a former SEAL, Couch gets an unprecident look at this school. He is the only author I know of who has been allowed to truly document the training from Indoc (the first training session) all they way through their first deployment. You get a close look at the four phases of training and not only do you see WHAT they do, but Couch interviews many of the trainees and reveils what they are thinking and what keeps them going (or not as the case may be) despite being cold, wet, tired, hungry and in pain. What was especially interesting was the section on Hell Week. A period when the trainees must work for five straight days with only about four hours of sleep total. Of the 60 or so trainees who made it to the begining of Hell Week, only 15 or so made it out.

I consider this book a must have for anybody who is a SEAL buff. However, I also believe that it was a wider appeal as a look at the pysche of men who never, ever stop trying no matter how hard the situation.


Save your cash   December 14, 2003
 9 out of 17 found this review helpful

This book is definitely written from an conventional Navy officer's perspective. Despite Couch's past SEAL career, he basically comes across as one of the "conventional" thinking SEAL officers that Richard Marcinko repeatedly complains about in his many best selling books. Dick Couch paints the modern SEALs as like some prima donnas and discounts their past "badboy" image and history. He even goes so far as to call the SEALS of the Vietnam era, seventies and eighties era as "streetfighters" rather than warriors. I found this disrespectful to the many enlisted SEALs and mustang SEAL officers who developed the SEAL mystique during the post Vietnam era.

Couch obviously favors Naval Academy grad officers from the things he says in his book. His Naval Academy bias comes thru loud and clear. He talks little about the many fine "Mustang" SEAL officers who have made the SEAL community what it is today. Many of the more innoative SEAL officers are former enlisted SEALs, who after first becoming enlisted SEALs went onto college, then went to OCS and became SEAL Commissioned Officers. Richard Marcinko is one of these "Mustang" SEAL officers, who earned everything he had and was given nothing.

Couch's opinion at the end of the book that the earlier era SEALs were "streetfighters" rather than real warriors is just plain disrespectful to the many sixties, seventies and eighties era SEALs who built NAVSPECWAR into what it is today. Those men were the pioneers...who rebelled against the conventional Navy and built the current SEAL reputation. Those "streetfighter" SEALs Couch talks about were doing SEAL things long before special ops became popular or hip or cool. In fact they were doing it when special ops was actually UNPOPULAR in the Vietnam and post Vietnam era.

Thank Goodness I rented this book from my local library. Rather than shelling out the cash to buy it. I actually thought it was a good book initially, but due to the author's disrespectful opinions and slants which come thru clearly in this book, Im glad I didnt buy it with my own cash.

This book to me displays a very conventional side of the Navy SEALs and its a side I doubt would be very useful in the war against terrorism. We need more "streetfighters" SEALs to fight dirty in this war against terrorism.


Amazing Individuals, Amazing Read   June 15, 2004
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I first became interested in the Navy SEALs during a Learning Channel 5-part series that follows class 324 thru BUD/s (Basic Underwater Demolition, Seal training) To see the various evolutions these young men had to go thru was inspiring. Thus when I was on Coronado Island I decided I had to get a book that dug deeper into the forging of a Navy SEAL. I was recommended this book by the owner of a Coronado bookstore. Dick Couch, the author and former Navy SEAL was given access to BUD/s class 228 to tell the story of the men who make it to graduation and beyond. Throughtout the book you get a real sense of what it would be like to go thru the training, and all the internal thoughts that you need to fight off to make it. There is a great deal of detail put into Indoc., First Phase, Hell Week, Second Phase and Third Phase. While that entails all phases of BUD/s graduation there is much more training ahead for the graduates, that most likely gets told in Finishing School.

I highly recommend this book, to at the bare minimum understand the trials these men go thru, and at the max. to push yourself to achieve things you never thought possible.