October 20, 2001

Former SEAL has insight on war in Afghanistan

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

Mick Ainsworth

The air war in Afghanistan is now in the headlines, but another hidden war is going on in the hills and valleys of that grim country.

Charles A. "Mick" Ainsworth of Ellerbe, NC, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, spent a six-year tour in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War doing the kind of unseen fighting that the secret warriors are now fighting in Aghanistan, far from the TV cameras.

And it will be men like the Navy SEALs who will find the terrorists who attacked America, no matter where they hide, Ainsworth said.

Ainsworth is a native of Ithaca, N.Y., and he now owns and operates Ellerbe Meat Center in Richmond County, NC. He and his wife Mimi live in Derby, NC.

After two years of college, Ainsworth joined the U.S. Navy, attended Aviation Electronics school and in 1969 was serving on board the USS America, an aircraft carrier on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of Vietnam. He and a friend who had been working out together had earlier taken the test to qualify for Underwater Demolition Training, and while on board the America Ainsworth got notified he had passed the test and was transferred.

He was sent to Basic Underwater Demolition School in Little Creek, Va., near the biggest East Coast Navy base in Norfolk, Va., where he began six months of the toughest training in the services.

BUDS, as the school is known for its acronym, is not for the faint of heart. When Ainsworth served, the graduates were members of the Underwater Demolition Teams, which later were renamed as SEALs, standing for Sea, Air and Land training to fight in all three.

The BUDS course is designed to be so difficult that only the toughest can finish it. The assumption is that survivors will be able to handle what they're preparing for: the stress of real combat. In Ainsworth's group of 122 enlisted men and 25 officers, only two officers and eight enlisted graduated from BUDS.

The fifth week of BUDS is called "Hell Week" which is the toughest. Survivors of Hell Week usually finish the course, he said.

Ainsworth said BUDS "is the toughest training in the military. It gets very tough and very dangerous. They don't call it Hell Week for nothing. For seven days, you are doing something nasty. They're trying to get you to quit. Hell Week is definitely hell."

He said BUDS is modeled closely to the British Special Air Service training, with elements of the toughest parts of other special forces units thrown in, plus some unique parts invented by SEALs.

The final test of BUDS, Ainsworth said, is held on Vieques Island off Puerto Rico, which has been in the headlines recently as residents there are protesting its use for a U.S. Navy training site.

"You have to swim from Vieques Island to the submarine pens at Roosevelt Roads, a 16-hour swim in the ocean. We got to Vieques right after a hurricane, and they still had small-craft warnings out. They told us, 'It'll be a little rough. See you in the morning guys.'"

Ainsworth survived that final test and was a made a member of the Underwater Demolition Teams, which later became the SEALs.

After BUDS, he went to Key West Naval Station in Florida for Underwater Swim School for four months, then to Fort Benning, Ga., for airborne jump school for one month, and then four more months of "specialty training." Ainsworth said some of the specialties he was trained for are still classified and can't be told.

He also attended Pathfinder School in Quantico, Va., and High Altitude Low Opening parachute training, known as HALO, which consists of jumping with oxygen at extremely high altitudes and skydiving for miles, then paragliding for miles more before landing.

Ainsworth spent two years operating with Underwater Demolition Team 21 in Little Creek, Va., then two more years with SEAL Team 1.

Mick Ainsworth was one of the members of SEAL Team One in this photo, shown while the unit was on a classified mission deep within Viet Cong terrority in Vietnam to rescue 19 Allied prisoners of war. Ainsworth said he cannot talk about the mission, which is still classified.

He served multiple tours in Vietnam, but said much of what he did and where he did it - often far behind the lines in North Vietnam - is still classified and he can't talk about it, nor does he wish to.

"My family never knew where I was. When we went out on ops, we couldn't tell anyone," Ainsworth said.

Ainsworth was discharged after six years in the Navy with a disability, and then went to medical school in physical therapy. He came to Richmond County in 1977 and worked in home health and with Hospice until he bought Ellerbe Meat Center two years ago.

Ainsworth said he has no official contacts with the SEALs anymore, but has no doubt that they and other special units "will be at the forefront of whatever is happening in the war on terrorism."

The SEALs, plus other U.S. commando units such as the Delta Force, Marine Recon, Green Berets and other secret units operating for the Central Intelligence Agency "were called up 30 minutes after the first tower was hit in New York City," Ainsworth said.

And the men of these units "aren't after medals or recognition. These are extraordinary people, world-class athletes," he said.

"If you're not operating, you're training, and now all the training these units have done will be put to the test. The small, elite outfits are the ones who will win this war. I just hope the media stays out of it. Once you start getting body counts, the media will turn it into news and then we'll be in trouble. Don't think the enemy doesn't read the media and know what's said," Ainsworth said.

The war in Afghanistan has some similarities to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, where special units were behind Iraqi lines long before the invasion forces of Desert Storm began the war of liberation.

"They've already been over there in Afghanistan for some time. I'd bet money they were there before President Bush came on the TV on Sept. 11."

Small reconnaissance units like the SEAL teams Ainsworth served with in Vietnam are combing the mountains of Afghanistan to find the hiding places of Osama bin Laden and his network of terrorists.

"Reconnaissance was one of my specialties. You're inserted somewhere deep in enemy territory to infiltrate and gather intel and detailed reports. If you get your tail in a crack, you're dead meat. You might shoot a few, but they'll get you eventually. You have to stay hidden all the time. We had our own helicopter pilots and our own swift boats and submarines that took us in and got us out."

Ainsworth said the type of tactics that will work against terrorists are the same tactics they use against us. "This is their war, guerrilla tactics. Terrorists have no rules, no moral boundaries."

And Afghanistan has a long history of being one of the most hostile places in the world for invading armies, starting with Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great and leading up to modern campaigns there, such as the British at Khyber Pass and the Russians' invasion.

"The Russians may have lost more people in Afghanistan than we did in Vietnam. There's been at least 100 years of warfare in that country. From 1979 until they pulled out in 1989, the Russians had 100,000 troops there, and with all the manpower and money they put in there, they never could conquer Afghanistan," Ainsworth said.

Conventional methods of large numbers of troops and armor didn't work for the Russians then and won't work now, he said.

To win the war against terrorism - in Afghanistan or wherever the terrorists are hiding -- Ainsworth said "We have to go in and get the leaders of their terrorist cells. It's only a matter of time and manpower. With the sophistication of communications electronics we have today, we'll find them. We're living in an electronic age.

"And even if they don't use their radios and telephones and rely on couriers only, that person has got to come and go at some time. That's when they will be found and intercepted," Ainsworth said.

And when that happens, units like the SEALs, Delta Force, Green Berets, Marine Recon, British SAS and Russian Spetznaz will be sent in to deal with Bin Laden and destroy his network of terrorists.