The Red Circle
is a first-person account of Brandon Webb’s career in the Navy SEALs. As with many other young men who find that their lives are going nowhere quickly, Webb found a home in the Navy. He joined with the sole intention of becoming a SEAL, yet it took him almost four years before he was able to get into SEAL training.
The Red Circle does an excellent job of describing just how grueling this training was. Webb describes in great detail how close he came to not making it through the brutal basic SEAL training. It was his mental toughness and refusal to give up that got him through it, not his physical ability.
After becoming a member of Seal Team Three, Webb was selected to go to the SEAL Sniper Course. This was where he really found his niche as a SEAL. The next big section of the book discusses Webb’s combat tours in the Persian Gulf and in Afghanistan. Webb was part of the sniper/security detail that was sent aboard the USS Cole after she was bombed in Yemen.
For me, the highlight of the book was Webb’s discussion of his time in Afghanistan. He was part of several important operations that resulted in capturing or killing many Taliban or Al Queda operatives, the destruction of thousands of rifles and other weapons, and the recovery of much intelligence that would be very valuable later. Much of this took place in the mountain area near the Pakistan border, where the enemy combatants had created a network of caves to live in. Webb and his team destroyed many of these caves.
If you enjoy fast-paced, exciting, gritty, military books, give The Red Circle a read. I think you will enjoy it!
