Richard Marcinko, founding commander of SEAL Team 6, best-selling author, dies at 81
His rogue leadership style and bravado helped fuel the unit's reputation as the elite of the elite, but it also alienated superiors.
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His rogue leadership style and bravado helped fuel the unit's reputation as the elite of the elite, but it also alienated superiors.
Richard Marcinko, a self-styled "rogue warrior" who in 1980 became the first commander of Navy SEAL Team 6, an elite Special Operations force whose legend he fueled as the best-selling author of books drawn from his derring-do, died Dec. 25 at his home in Warrenton, Va. He was 81.
Richard Marcinko climbed the ranks to command Team 6 and wrote a tell-all bestseller that cemented the SEALs in pop culture as heroes and bad boys.
The Navy asked Commander Marcinko, a larger-than-life soldier who often flouted rules, to build a SEAL unit that could respond quickly to terrorist crises.
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