When the Bullet Hits Your Funny Bone: The Essence of a U.S. Navy SEAL is a collection of true events about the author’s time in U.S. Navy SEAL Teams and how SEALs use their humor to cope with all sorts of tragic events that they experience in their professional careers. 

Most people may feel that the U.S. Navy SEALs are nothing more than a group of secret professional killers, and most people would have no idea that in the performance of a U.S. Navy SEAL’s professional career, a U.S. Navy SEAL will face death so often that he will come to know death by his first name and if it were possible, a Navy SEAL would even invite death for a beer.

There may be a diversity of reasons as to why SEALs find humor in tragedy. However, the majority of the reasons might just be that for those of us who have served/serving in the SEAL teams, death has become all too familiar. We do not hate or fear death, because we all know that one day death will come for us, and take us home to see all our brothers that have gone before us.

Those of us who have served/are serving in the SEAL teams keep our brothers alive within others and within ourselves through the stories that we all share about each other. I (like other SEALs) do not want our brothers to feel sorrow for us should we be personally wounded killed, or die of natural causes. We just want to be remembered for what we did together, and the fun times that we all shared as brothers in the SEAL Teams. As members of any U.S. Navy SEAL team, we all know that it is/was an honor, and a privilege, to serve our country. We also know that fighting for freedom leaves a taste in the mouth that the protected will never appreciate.

There are a few who will even ridicule us for our service to our country. Those who ridicule our chosen career will never know how much was sacrificed, or all the footprints that we left behind on countless accomplished missions on their behalf, so that we ALL may keep our rights to voice our opinions, and to live free.