Webmaters Note: This is an email conversation between Steve Robinson and Erasmo "Doc" Riojas.  Steve is the Webmaster for the site: http://cyberseals.org/index2.html  which includes a V.T.C. (Virtual Team Compound (discussion board) ie: BLOG.   Steve has invited me to participate in some of the on going very entertaining "conversations" by SEALs.  This Blog is not open to the public.  SEALs Only.

----- Original Message -----
From: Erasmo "doc rio" Riojas  [mailto:docrio45 [at] gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 1
To: Steve Robinson
Subject: you da boss ! 

I posted on the VTC three different places.   Next year, I'll do it again. 
thanks Steve .

Erasmo "Doc" Riojas
"Fac ut gaudeam; "Sit vis nobiscum"
http://www.sealtwo.org/

From: Steve Robinson 
To:  Erasmo 'doc Rio'  Riojas
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 
Subject: RE: you da boss ! 

Rio, 
I’m gonna keep naggin’ you mate. The VTC needs your Vida Loca mindset. 
Steve 
'

From: doc Rio [mailto:docrio45 [at] gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 
To: Steve Robinson
Subject:  Re: you da boss ! 

Yeah, right! 
I am a SEAL dinosaur, 
you got all young lions there talking about BUD/S 
and I was never there. 

thanks for asking 
Rio

From: Steve Robinson 
To: 'doc rio' 
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 2:03 PM 
Subject: RE: you da boss ! 

Rio…     in the VTC we’ve also got Ken (“the elder”) Garrett who was in UDTR in Coronado in 1950… and 3 weeks before they were due to graduate they got the word they were all going to war in Korea. The entire class packed up, including all of the instructors, and headed west from North Island Naval Air Station. They stopped in the Philippines to pick up 3 other Frogs and then went on the rest of the way to Korea. His class NEVER GRADUATED and they now refer to themselves as “Class Zero” or “Class Goose Egg” 

You’re a dinosaur, but so are all of us who remember when there were UDTs, and guys like Rudy who had served in WWII, and you who served in KOREA were the men we looked to as the guys who KNEW what was required and how to get it done because they’d done it the HARD WAY. Young lions are always the same no matter what decade it is… young, dumb, and full of cum. We were then… and they are now. But unlike many of the other institutions in our nation, military and civilian, the Teams VALUE and HONOR those who went before, those who laid the ground work, and those upon whose shoulders they stand. UDTR, UDTRA, BUD/S… whatever you call it, it was just a fancy framework in which to set the HELL WEEK picture. Your Hell Week was 2 years long and a damn sight harder than anything I’ll ever experience. Yeah… you’re a dinosaur… but you’re OUR DAMNED DINOSAUR, Doc! We need your witty repartee to keep us all in line, and I sure as hell hope you won’t wait a full year before you come back and lay some more of that crazy “Mes’can” wisdom on us all. 

Hooyah DINOSAURS! 
Steve 

From: doc Riot [mailto:docrio45 [@]  gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 2:28 PM
To: Steve Robinson 
Subject:   Re: you da boss ! 

It was so freakin cold up in the Korean Mountains.  I kept looking for a BELL to ring and go for a hot shower and a hot meal. 
Never found the bell, much less a hot meal.
I was in the same boat as Joe Di Martino;   He never went through BUD/S , he told me there was no BELL to be found on Normandy beach.  LOL.

How do you convince the young lions that got drummed into their brain that HELL WEEK is what makes them what they are? It is true! What makes them what they are because they endured that week because of their intestinal fortitude.  That separated them from the boys.   Some of the guys have even gone through training twice!   The only guy that I remember is Tom Blais, there are others.   I cannot put myself in their class, that's for sure.

They re-earned their "BUD" in war, same as some of us did. 
Thanks for the extremely well put assessment of what some of us went through to earn our "BUD." 

Erasmo 

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Robinson
To: 'doc rio'
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 2:53 PM Subject:
RE: you da boss ! 

Doc, 

Brother…for you truly are my BROTHER… I don’t give a rat’s ass how anyone else sees it, nor am I gonna lose sleep over trying to convince them of what I know to be the truth. The fact of the matter is that what they are and what they do today is due directly to YOU, and JOE, and RUDY, and KEN, and the others who took a “swimmer scout” job and made it into something the entire world looks up to as the absolute epitome of WARRIOR. The Orientals have their traditions of the ultimate warriors in their NINJA culture… and for generations all of the wannabe toughs here in America have acted like the oriental culture was the ultimate way of life; they dreamed of carrying a Japanese katana strapped on their back, wearing black jammies and sandals, walking on rice paper without leaving a trace, and moving like a shadow in the night. 


The American navy has created its own culture of military excellence with the Teams at the top of the charts, and now all the wannabes are running around wearing cammo and talking trash from the SOCOM 3 NAVY SEALS video game and using words like “tango” to mean “target” and other such clique terms. The Teams are our American NINJAs. BUD/S is part of that whole ethos in the minds of the “young lions” who grew up with SOCOM 3 and other video games… but those of us who joined the Teams when they were still virtually unknown are aware of the real basis for what the Teams can do. That heritage lies at Normandy and Iwo Jima and Inchon and in cold snowy places like the Chosin Reservoir… and the folks that served THERE never went through a formal BUD/S or HELL WEEK experience. They invented the shit that they needed to solve the problems that they faced. The young lions now aren’t doing nearly as much inventing as they are copying those of you who went before. 


I worry sometimes about what might happen when all their batteries run down and their fancy electronics don’t work. Will they still be able to land navigate in a snowy terrain with only rocks as landmarks? Will they be able to move through a swamp without getting stuck in the mud or climb a cliff without being able to call home for assistance? Will they know hand-and-arm signals enough to communicate important information when talking aloud – even in a whisper – will get them all killed? Will they know how to use an open “iron” sight on a weapon at night and pick off a target without a battery powered night vision device, red dot aiming point, and thermal imaging scope? 

I hope so. 

Meanwhile the guys that invented how to do it originally, without batteries, under fire, are the guys I look to as MY heroes! I’ve got a friend here in nearby Branson… 92+ years old… NCDU Class 48… UDT-15… was at Iwo Jima and made numerous swims to the beach from a small boat to provide assistance to guys in trouble. You… Joe Di Martino, Rudy, Ken, Bill O’Brien… YOU GUYS are the ones that invented the damned Teams and made them what they are today. I just wish you would join the VTC conversations more often, my friend. Your delightful point of view on things is much desired and much needed. I won’t push… and I won’t whine much… but I do hope you step inside and offer comments more than once a year, eh? 

Steve Robinson        shadek [at] tri-lakes.net