Damn Few

December 24, 2012
Denver and journalist Henican (Home Team) take readers from Hell Week to the battlefield and back to base in this portrait of the grueling life of a Navy SEAL. Having led over 200 missions as a SEAL officer, Denver is acutely accustomed to the bizarre mix of lucidity and confusion that can descend on the minds of even highly trained soldiers in the midst of war. It’s his job to make sure that heady blend doesn’t come as a surprise when it matters most. Denver explains that joining “the greatest man club in the world” requires “talent, training, and instinct,” and each of these is subjected to systematic honing in the leadup to induction. The program begins with a six-month marathon course of “medieval ferocity,” during which 70%–80% of the class drop out. After that comes the infamous “round-the-clock relentlessness” of Hell Week, five 24-hour days of punishing physical challenges. The titular few that survive then enter into a kind of liberal arts program of war making—courses run the gamut from parachuting to computer hacking and language studies. The result: warriors “in every sense of the word.” Interweaving tales of battle and reflections on what it means to be a professional killer, Denver crafts an awe-inspiring sketch of soldierly excellence. 16-page b&w photo insert. Agent: Peter H. McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media.

January 15, 2013
A 14-year veteran of more than 200 combat missions reflects on a career training and leading the Navy's elite warriors. Thanks to their many conspicuous successes since 9/11, the SEALs are enjoying a golden moment, celebrated in a number of books and films. Though they number barely 2,500, the SEALs' special skills have proven especially effective in an unconventional terror war, so much so that intense pressure exists now to create more of these special operators, even as the brotherhood attempts to hold the line, fearful of compromising standards and quality. Denver addresses this intraservice controversy, but his story explains why it will take more than a Pentagon fiat to create more SEALs. The fact remains: Few people have the strength, resilience, aggressiveness and mental toughness sufficient to survive BUD/S, their tortuously rigorous entry program, and the subsequent years of advanced training and moment's notice, high-risk deployments. SEALs come in all shapes and sizes, and it's impossible to predict who will succeed. With the help of Newsday columnist Henican (co-author: In the Blink of an Eye: Dale, Daytona, and the Day that Changed Everything, 2011, etc.), Denver takes us through a few SEAL missions, including the bin Laden raid, the sniping of Somali pirates and some house-to-house operations in Iraq. But his focus here is on the training, the lessons taught--that winning pays, that small details matter, that thorough preparation is essential, that nothing about war is fair--and on explaining the SEAL culture, from the outrageous "van brawls" (don't ask) and the enduring fraternal network, to the solemn significance of the gold Trident and the unique self-knowledge that comes with being a "meat eater," a man who's killed someone on the battlefield. "What can't these SEALs do?" To hear Denver tell it, when it comes to special operations, hardly anything at all. Good reading for military buffs.

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February 15, 2013
The title sums up the percentage of SEAL applicants who actually join the operational teams after surviving the notoriously rigorous selection and training. The author, a former director of basic and advanced SEAL training, makes it clear that Rambo-types need not apply, unless they can match their physical prowess and weaponscraft with their ability to mesh everything they do with their teammates every second of the mission, and most of the rest of the time as well. This is a life-or-death matter and makes running the training almost as stressful as undergoing an actual operationsomething that this book makes clearer than ever before, even to the seasoned student of special-ops warriors.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)