BRIAN LAMB, HOST, Q&A: Dick Coach (ph), what is a SEAL?
DICK COUCH, AUTHOR AND FORMER NAVY SEAL: Well, a SEAL is a member of our special operations community. The SEALs stands for sea, air or land. And they’re a maritime proponent of our special operators. They’re home based in Coronado, California, and in Little Creek, Virginia.
And as you probably know, they came from the frogmen of World War II, and they’ve evolved through times of Vietnam right on up to the present as maritime commandos.
LAMB: When were you a SEAL?
COUCH: OK. I was on active duty from ’67, but I was in the SEAL program from ’68 through ’72 on active duty.
LAMB: Doing what?
COUCH: Well, primarily then it was all Vietnam. So, most of our deployments then were to Vietnam. And just like the deployments today for SEALs are mostly in Afghanistan, ours were into Vietnam.
LAMB: Were you an officer?
COUCH: Yes, I was.
LAMB: And as an officer, what were your responsibilities?
COUCH: I was a platoon leader. I had an assistant platoon leader, and I had 12 – I was privileged to lead 12 fine young Navy SEALs. And we primarily did direct action missions against the Viet Cong infrastructure in Vietnam.
