A former Navy SEAL chronicles the history of the special operations unit, from their beginnings as unarmed World War II frogmen to their rise to American's first permanent commando force, deployed on counterterrorism and capture-kill missions.

part 1. Neglect: The reluctant creation and violent demise of the Navy's first commandos, the Marine Corps Raiders ; The sidelining of the Army's amphibious soldier-scouts and the call-up of the Navy's second-string sailors ; The US Army's first commandos and the raid that wasn't -- part 2. Opportunity: Draper Kauffman and the course that cracked the Atlantic wall, then laid the first bricks of the legend of naval special warfare ; The evolving contest that created the Mermen of War, World War II's only indispensable special operations unit ; The contest for the guerrilla war in China and the organization that had "no damn business" fighting in it, the US Navy's army of sailors -- part 3. Relevance: The US Navy's postwar plight, and the sailor-raiders who led her back to significance in Korea ; The resurrection of the Army's Rangersik, and the guerrilla raid that failed to forestall their second death ; Arleigh Burke, the Bay of Pigs, and the launching of the Navy's limited-war SEALs -- part 4. Exigency: Kennedy's Army of Gladiators and the counterinsurgency that blunted their swords, then cleared the way for another contender ; The first SEALs, their search for a mission, and the report that found it for them ; The dam break of conventional war in Vietnam, and the following flood of raiders that failed to beat the Navy to the Mekong Delta, all but one -- part 5. Culmination: The derailing of the first direct-action SEALs in the Rung Sat, and the detachment that restored their prospects ; The direct-action SEALs who dodged diversion, then perfected a mission that propelled the teams past the riverbanks, into history ; The Navy's skeleton key to inland combat and the final against-the-current achievements in the war's ebb tide that exposed the SEALs preeminence as the US military's go-anywhere commandos.