The Dick Marcinko Interviews Part 4

“Just a grain of sand queered the mission.” In Part 4, Dick Marcinko talks about Operation Eagle Claw, the failed mission to rescue fifty-two American diplomatic personnel held hostage in Iran for four-hundred and forty-four days.

Dick was on a staff tour with the Joint Chiefs and was present as the operation unfolded in the desert.

He tells us that SEAL Team-Six was named as a piece of Cold War subterfuge.  There were only to SEAL Teams at the time and Dick decided on “Six” as the number for the new team to confuse the Russians about how many SEAL Teams actually existed, saying “Let the Soviets try to figure out where the rest of them are.”

There was also another reason, a rather funny one.  Two French words come into play, “Phoque” and “Sex.”