Hangin' With Some Crazy Guys

I have hung out with some crazy people in my lifetime. During my college days and certainly during my first few years living in Manhattan I could usually be found in a death defying, sometimes law defying, and utterly common sense defying activity accompanied by one or more of my mad friends. But the people that I hung out with in even the craziest of moments couldn't hold a candle to some of the guys that my Dad knew.

Take for instance this story that my Dad has told me a few times over the years. It begins on a Navy Ship in a port near Korea during the war there. He used to see a small group of guys using the helo deck to do a light work out in the early hours of the morning. The light work out that these guys were doing included hundreds of push-ups with another guy on their back, swims of two or three miles off the side of the ship, and calisthenics that would kill most men. My Dad got to know the guys and found out that they were UDTs, the Navy's Under Water Demolition Team.

One evening while Dad was the officer on watch, he got a call from the local authorities in port. Its seems that 5 of his new UDT friends wandered into a bar that was strictly a Marine hangout. The 20 or so Marines that were in the bar did not take kindly to seeing a few 'sailors' make themselves at home in their establishment, and of course a ruckus ensued.

When my Dad received the call he heard a distressed police officer ask, "who the hell are these guys? Your 5 sailors are in my jail, and they put 20 Marines in the hospital."

Some of you may know that UDTs were the precursors to the modern day Navy SEALS. You may also know that it was a SEAL team that popped a cap through Osama's left eye ball recently.

Again, I've hung out with some crazy dudes in my time, but how I wish I was with my Dad picking up 5 insane UDTs from a Korean jail after putting 20 Marines in the hospital.