Readers of Cartoonist Roy Crane's comic strip "Buz Sawyer" were introduced back in 1966 to an outfit called the U.S. Navy Seals (for Sea, Air and Land), an elite bunch of commandos with which Buz performed deeds of derring-do in Viet Nam. It may have seemed like rousing fantasy to readers, but the fact was that just such an outfit was operating in Viet Nam—where its presence was one of the most closely kept secrets of the war.* Only now, in fact, when the Communists themselves have learned of the Seals' presence the hard way, has the Navy begun to dis close some of their real adventures and reveal something about how they operate.
The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese have had ample opportunity to get acquainted with the Seals since they arrived in Viet Nam 21 months ago. In some 600 missions, nearly all of them furtive forays into Communist-held areas, they have laid waste Communist installations (including 70 rivercraft, more than 200 bridges, factories and other structures, and at least 200 fortified positions), thrown the Communists off balance and killed more than 175 Communist soldiers and captured 60 while losing only six dead of their own and none at all to capture. The Navy officially admits only that the Seal teams are operating inside South Viet Nam. Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that Ho Chi Minh does not regard the adventures of Buz Sawyer—who helped destroy a SAM missile site in the North—as either fanciful or funny.
So elite are the Seals that the Navy counts only some 200 throughout the world, and will not reveal how many of those are now in Viet Nam. Each Seal is a volunteer, and each must first undergo the rigors of the Navy's 13-week Underwater Demolition Team course, where the attrition rate is 40%. Once qualified as UDTs, the men are passed to the Airborne for three to five weeks of training as parachutists. All Seals must be proficient in at least one foreign language, in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense techniques. They are the Navy's "unconventionals," and they sometimes call themselves "the animals." For their skills and courage, Seal officers earn an extra $220 a month and Seal enlisted men an extra $110 monthly.
Communication by String. In Viet Nam, the Seals' primary missions are reconnaissance and demolition, and their principal weapons stealth, surprise—and patience. Last week TIME's Glenn Troelstrup became the first newsman in Viet Nam permitted to accompany a Seal team on a mission. Dropped by Navy river patrol boats deep into Viet Cong country southeast of Saigon in the swampy mangrove sector of Rung Sat, the Seals set up an ambush beside a small stream. There, for 14 long hours, they froze in position, hip-deep in mud, clad in camouflage suits and bush hats, their faces blackened. Their only communication was by tugs on a string running among them.