Richard Marcinko was the U.S. Navy's most unconventional warrior -- and its most deadly. A master practitioner of the "Let's Do It to Them Before They Do It to Us" school of survival, he was often as feared by his own high command as by the enemy.

This brilliant, tough-as-nails military virtuoso of violence -- ambushes, booby, traps, exotic weaponry, high altitude parachute drops, underwater infiltrations, face-to-face killing -- rose through Navy ranks to create and command one of this country's most elite and secretive counterterrorist units, SEAL TEAM SIX.

Now, in his own colorful voice, this thirty-year veteran recounts the story of the secret missions and Special Warfare madness that make up his harrowing worldwide military career. Here, too, he opens doors that have long been locked: the riveting truth about the mystery-shrouded Navy SEALS; what went on behind the scenes during the infamous Desert One hostage rescue attempt in Iran; and the stunning inside realities of the Granada invasion. Born on Thanksgiving Day, 1940, Dick Marcinko was raised in mining towns, housing projects, blue-collar bars, and on the streets. He quit school at seventeen and enlisted in a new life of thrill-seeking.

He joined the Navy's Underwater Demolition Teams, which he calls "a masochist's dream." Then he attended over eighteen special-training schools, where he excelled in the lethal, survival and leadership skills that would gain him entrance into the upper strata of military warfare: the SEALS.

Marcinko was almost in humanly tough, and proved it on hair-raising missions across Vietnam and a war-torn world: blowing up supply junks, charging through minefields, jumping at 19,000 feet with a chute that wouldn't open, fighting hand-to-hand in a hellhole jungle, and experiencing the tragedy of watching a buddy die in his arms. He was such a threatening force on the killing fields of Vietnam that the enemy posted a reward for his death.

For the Pentagon, Marcinko organized the Navy's first counterterrorist unit, the legendary SEAL TEAM SIX. One of the most feared weapons against terrorism in the world, the Team went on classified missions from Central America to the Middle East, the North Sea, Africa and beyond. Out of this success, Marcinko was tapped to create the explosive unit know as Red Cell, a dirty-dozen team of the military's most accomplished and decorated counterterrorists. Their unbelievable job was to become terrorists themselves -- to test the defense of the Navy's most secure facilities and installations. The Navy was actually going to pay go-for-broke Marcinko to wreak havoc. The result was predictable: all hell broke loose.

In Rogue Warrior, Marcinko recounts his searing adventures in the special branches of the military reserved for a handpicked few. Here is the hard-working hero . . . the killer who saw beyond the blood to ultimate justice . . . and the decorated warrior who became such a maverick that the Navy brass wanted his head on a pole, and for a time, got it. This, and more, is Marcinko, a man made for war.