Inside the Special Operations Force Tasked With Rescuing Navy SEALS

Photo: The insignia of the 103rd Pararescue Squadron. Nathaniel Welch

The Esquire: The Savior Elite: Inside the Special Operations Force Tasked with Rescuing Navy SEALS

They are the military’s “guardian angels.” They are trained paramedics, paratroopers, and combat divers. This is the story of one such soldier, and the mission of a lifetime.

“RAMP DOOR!”

The jumpmaster screams the command over the roaring engine, and the back hatch of the HC-130 aircraft yawns open into night. A cold wind enters the cabin. It brushes past the seven soldiers seated in rows, sending stray pieces of paper, fabric, and tape fluttering in the thin air. In front, the team leader, Tech. Sgt. Jordan St. Clair* looks out past the ramp door. He can see nothing. A low blanket of clouds blots out the moon and stars and erases the distinction between the black sky and the black Atlantic Ocean beneath. He turns back to his men, each strapped with over a hundred-and-fifty pounds of gear. Their faces are lit only by the lambent glow of chemlights.

“STAND UP!”

The seven soldiers rise. At the next command—“HOOK UP!”—they clip their parachute line to a red steel cable running over their heads.

Fifteen hundred feet below, their target: the Tamar, a commercial shipping vessel two thirds into its voyage from Baltimore to Gibraltar. Earlier that morning, there had been an explosion onboard, some unknown ignition that had set fire to four sailors working inside the hull. In his distress message, the ship’s captain wrote that the men had been burned from head to toe. They were in the middle of the Atlantic; the nearest land—the Azores Islands—was over five hundred miles to the east. They were out of range of both U.S. and Portuguese Coast Guard helicopters as well as rescue boats. The men’s injuries were severe, requiring expert attention. The captain’s message was routed from Lisbon to Portsmouth, then to Boston, and on to the soldiers in Long Island. Within hours of the explosion, two of the sailors died. The two other men—charred, skin flayed—wait now without pain medicine.

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WNU Editor: I always wondered on who would stand up to save US special forces teams who need saving. Now I know.