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SEAL Team Six  By  cover art

SEAL Team Six

By: Howard E. Wasdin,Stephen Templin
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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Publisher's summary

When the Navy sends their elite, they send the SEALs. When the SEALs send their elite, they send SEAL Team Six—a secret unit tasked with counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and counterinsurgency.

In this dramatic, behind-the-scenes chronicle, Howard Wasdin takes listeners deep inside the world of Navy SEALs and Special Forces snipers, beginning with the grueling selection process of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL - the toughest and longest military training in the world.

After graduating, Wasdin faced new challenges. First, there was combat in Operation Desert Storm as a member of SEAL Team Two. Then, the Green Course: the selection process to join the legendary SEAL Team Six (ST6), with a curriculum that included practiced land warfare to unarmed combat. More than learning how to pick a lock, they learned how to blow the door off its hinges.

Finally, as member of ST6, he graduated from the most storied and challenging sniper program in the country: the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School. Eventually, of the 18 snipers in ST6, Wasdin became the best—which meant one of the best snipers on the planet.

Less than half a year after sniper school, he was fighting for his life. The mission: capture or kill Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. From rooftops, helicopters, and alleys, Wasdin hunted Aidid and killed his men whenever possible. But everything went quickly to hell when his small band of soldiers found themselves fighting for their lives, cut off from help and desperately trying to rescue downed comrades during a routine mission. The Battle of Mogadishu, as it became known, left 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded. Howard Wasdin had both of his legs nearly blown off while engaging the enemy. His explosive combat tales and inside details of becoming one of the world’s deadliest snipers combine to make this the most thrilling and important memoir by a navy SEAL since Lone Survivor.

©2011 Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about SEAL Team Six

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

A Woman's Review Perspective

I downloaded this book, mostly for my husband. We were headed on a 4-hour drive on a vacation trip. Naturally, the hype about the Navy Seals and the killing of Osama Bin Laden has been a lot of PR about our special forces. The book started out to be really interesting. Unexpectedly, I got sucked into the story, though I usually listen to historical novels or mysteries. That says a LOT. My husband, having worked with Navy Seals, enjoyed the way the author shares his humorous and yet very serious stories about his training. Once he began to share the story of his mission in Mogadishu, I was riveted to learn more about this very sad chapter in our history. I found myself getting angry all over how the political mess that caused these people to suffer so much. Then, the storyline went flat. I felt as though Howard had just scratched the surface of what I thought could have been a more compelling story. I won't give the ending away, but suffice it to say that it's not what I had expected. Overall, it's a good listen. Maybe I'm spoiled after listening to "Unbroken", which is one of the most riveting stories I've read in a long time.

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44 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

unique among these books

This book intrigued me because it really puts you into the psychology of the sniper. Its easy to have preconceptions about jobs like that of a sniper or SEALS in general (or team 6 in particular, if you've read certain other books about it) and I found this book to be pretty enlightening as to the human side and the psychology of them. Listening to him talk about realizing the humanity of the enemy, for example, and making real choices about how to best control intensely hostile situations really gives an appreciation for the life of an operator in combat. Great book about overcoming adversity. I highly recommend this.

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34 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Could not turn it off

I started listening to this book yesterday morning and barely turned it off before completing the first six hours. The story of the making of an elite Navy Seal was gripping. The reader was pleasant to listen to and even did accents for some of the the different non-American players in the story.
From five years old to "retirement" from the Seals, the author tells a gripping tale of the high-stakes world of the elite Navy Seals.

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29 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

This was great up to a point...

This was a great book up the point where the author started talking about his "human" side. The memoirs are nicely described; the scenes are set and realistic but the psycho-drama comes up sorely lacking and should have been left out. I am all for personal growth and "getting inside your own head" but this book didn't do that very well.

I came away appreciating all that the men and women in uniform do for the country. I came away with great admiration for the sacrifice and continuous pursuit of excellence of the elite of the armed forces but just about 3/4ths of the way through this book, it flopped miserably and never got back on track. Fortunately for us, the first 3/4ths is well worth the price of the book.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narrator Ray Porter exceptional Reader

Would you listen to SEAL Team Six again? Why?

Yes and I have. I have listened to it probably 3 times already. Why? I thoroughly enjoy the narrator and his nuances throughout the book.

What did you like best about this story?

The training element that Mr. Wasdin went through. Also the end of the book when he talks about how selfish he had been through his life and alienated not only his wife, but his children and others who loved him.

What about Ray Porter’s performance did you like?

He made it sound just like it was Mr. Wasdin himself telling the story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Both. There are parts that you laugh at his humor, but cry when he is injured and has to be transported for medical care and then eventually back to the states. One could feel how much he enjoyed being a part of

Any additional comments?

I would highly recommend this book for listening or reading. The listening experience is so much more poignant though.

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21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

should be a must read for everyone...

unless you know what these elite volunteer to put themselves through you cant understand the difference between committed to being the best, and the those that do the time. We suffered more than just the lost of life with the helicopter crash Aug 6, but a loss of heart...

god bless to all that give more than is asked...

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Ok but was expecting more about SEAL activities

I was hoping that this book would really explain what it was to be a SEAL. Wasn't really interested in his personal life. May be the right book for someone else, especially a Christian who won't mind the "life lesson" in the second half.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding Listen

The author delivers an enthralling and captivating history of his experience as a member of the US Navy SEALs. This gentleman, one badass mother, is somehow able to maintain humility in tone while sharing his experience. The narrator also gave a very good rendition.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Standing on giant's shoulders, female perspective

What did you love best about SEAL Team Six?

I could not put the "book" down - the memoir was well written, felt honest, gripping and made me realize again, that without courageous men like our army, or christian men (and women), or strong women believing in causes, and fighting for them, we all would not be were are now.
The book leads you in an unseen world and without disclosing everything you feel that you understand the mind and the honor and sense of duty of the sniper.

What other book might you compare SEAL Team Six to and why?

I haven't read any other books like this, it's my first one. Got it for husband who is in Afghanistan, and because it was daily deal - would have gladly given a credit for it.

Which character – as performed by Ray Porter – was your favorite?

I enjoyed Howard the most - what a tough guy, what perseverance. Mr. Porter did a great job reading the book. Very manly and military like!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, and I almost did...

Any additional comments?

Worth a credit - and thanks to all citizens of the free world that fight for us.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The Only Easy Day is Yesterday

The DuffelBlog is to military news what The Onion is to standard news: profane but well written, sarcastic and caustic, and exquisitely satirical. One recent post, after a third? forth? SEAL claimed to have assassinated Osama Bin Laden? "Top 13 Jobs Navy SEALs Take After Service" (May 7, 2014, reposted November 7, 2014). The first career in the article? "Author of yet another go***** Navy SEAL book." The paperback print edition of Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin's 2006 book, "SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper" is at the top of a photo of a pile of SEAL books that accompanies the article.

Later, The DuffelBlog broke the following 'news,' "THE PENTAGON — Navy officials announced the extension of Navy SEAL training by one week, adding a grueling 40 hours of creative writing classes to the already intense selection program, Duffel Blog has learned."

I've read several SEAL books, and enjoyed all of them - to varying degrees. Wasdin's book contains a good discussion of what it takes to qualify to train and to make it through The Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S). Well, mostly - he's a little fuzzy on current fitness standards, and he doesn't remember what they were when he trained. Wasdin did a lot of missions over the years, most of which he mentions only vaguely. I assume that - unlike the author of the 2013 "No Easy Day," Wasdin actually vetted the book through the military and edited out classified information.. He was badly wounded in the Battle for Mogadishu and eventually took a medical discharge.

Going back to the DuffelBlog piece, "sources confirmed SEAL candidates would be trained to glorify themselves as much as possible without looking like self-centered a*******". Wasdin did come across as pretty arrogant - talking about being treated like a movie star; being hero-worshipped by Military Academy cadets; and getting the best of the best in Navy equipment and living quarters. Anyone who decides to become a SEAL to be a hero better learn that the heroics are team heroics.

Wasdin's probably more interesting for his post-SEAL career. Let's just say that after going through about half the jobs on the DuffleBlog list, he went to school and . . . Well, what his day job is unexpected and inspiring. Wasdin's also written two fictional SEAL books with Templin. I'm intrigued.

Ray Porter was a good narrator, in a too-many-cigarettes and too-much-whiskey kind of way. Wasdin's from the south, though, and Porter's got a quick delivery that's more East Coast.

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11 people found this helpful