Red CellĪfter relinquishing command of SEAL Team SIX, Marcinko was tasked by Vice Admiral James "Ace" Lyons, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, with the design of a unit to test the Navy's vulnerability to terrorism. While typically a two-year command in the Navy at the time, Marcinko commanded SEAL Team Six for three years, from August 1980 to July 1983. SEAL Team Six would be the Navy's premier counter-terrorist unit, like its Army counterpart Delta Force.
Navy's special operations community, including a special counter-terrorist tactics section of SEAL Team Two, codenamed MOB-6. He personally selected the unit's members from across the U.S. Marcinko purportedly named the unit SEAL Team Six in order to confuse other nations, specifically the Soviet Union, into believing that the United States had three other SEAL teams that they were unaware of. At the time, the Navy had only two SEAL teams. Marcinko was the first commanding officer of this new unit. In the wake of the debacle, the Navy saw the need for a full-time dedicated counter-terrorist team and tasked Marcinko with its design and development.
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The purpose of the TAT was to develop a plan to free the American hostages held in Iran which culminated in Operation Eagle Claw. SEAL Team Sixĭuring the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, Marcinko was one of two Navy representatives for a Joint Chiefs of Staff task force known as the TAT (Terrorist Action Team). After serving in Cambodia for 18 months, Marcinko returned stateside and assumed command of SEAL Team Two. Īfter completing his second tour in Vietnam and a two-year stateside staff assignment, Marcinko was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and assigned as the Naval Attache to Cambodia in 1973. What began as an urban street battle turned into a rescue mission of American nurses and a schoolteacher trapped in the city's church and hospital. During the Tet Offensive, Marcinko ordered his platoon to assist U.S. Marcinko returned to Vietnam with SEAL Team 2 after a few months stateside as Officer-in-Charge of Eighth Platoon. For leading it, Marcinko was awarded the first of his four Bronze Stars, as well as a Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star. This action would be called “the most successful SEAL operation in the Mekong Delta” by the U.S. On May 18, 1967, Marcinko led his men in an assault on Ilo Ilo Hon (Ilo Ilo Island), where they killed a large number of Vietcong and destroyed six of their sampans. Later commissioned as an officer, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations from Auburn University and a Master of Arts degree in political science from the Naval Postgraduate School. After attending Admiral Farragut Academy in Toms River, New Jersey, Marcinko enlisted in the United States Navy in 1958 as a radioman. Marcinko was born in Lansford, Pennsylvania and is of Slovak descent.
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