This was one of Colton’s best memories from his days as a Navy SEAL:
“My platoon was training for an op — a nighttime recovery of a downed helicopter pilot,” he says. “I barely even remember what happened on the ground. We found the pilot and crammed ourselves into four Blackhawks for the ride back to Virginia Beach. The helicopters were blacked out ‘cause we were flying tactically. Everybody was equipped with night vision but we didn’t really need it because the moon was full and brilliant.”
Speeding along a few thousand feet above, Colton was mesmerized by the moon-bathed Virginia countryside. But there was another delight in store for him. A voice on the radio of Colton’s helicopter broke the silence, “Hey, guys, look out to your right.”
Colton glanced over and was startled to see a C-130, a massive prop-driven refueling plane, slowing and descending from above. In the moonlight, it appeared like a ghostly mothership, close enough to touch, it seemed. Colton marveled how a plane that size could slow down so drastically without dropping out of the sky.
One by one, each of the Blackhawks nuzzled up to a fuel line trailing from the big aircraft. Each sipped its share of fuel, then detached itself to rejoin the formation headed home. In a matter of moments, the C-130 finished its nursing run, accelerated, and rose away into the blackness.
Technically, what Colton witnessed is called an “in-flight refuel.” He had never seen one before and, from that moment, he would never forget the experience. In mid-air, he had been gob-smacked by an eerie, moon-lit ballet of war machines.
I first met Colton, proprietor and chief instructor of Noir Training, at a shooting range in Boulder City, Nevada. (He prefers to be identified by first-name only because he still contracts for overseas missions.) My brother, Kevin, and I had driven from San Jose the day before to learn about firearms under his instruction. Whatever I fancifully anticipated about weapons, or the instructor, was certainly not what I encountered.
I knew Colton had been a Navy SEAL. (In fact, that’s one of the selling points he makes on his website.) What can you infer from “Noir Training?” That suggests clandestine operations carried out by American ninjas, doesn’t it? So I guess I was looking for a wiry, compact type (maybe dressed in black pajamas) with a combat demeanor — laconic, steely-eyed and Stoic.
So much for preconceptions. The guy who introduced himself at the gun range was a big, genial country boy with a penchant for gab. He looked more like a linebacker or a lifeguard than a special ops ninja, and he was anything but laconic. While he escorted us to our assigned gun range, he started explaining things and he didn’t stop for the next two days. He had a joke, a cautionary tale, or a memory for every situation. Thoughts and ambitions effervesced from this guy like air bubbles trailing a SCUBA diver.
I looked at him and thought, “Who are you, and what have you done with Colton, the steely-eyed Stoic?”
The Kid from Circleville, Ohio
Of course, the good-natured lifeguard turned out to be our contracted SEAL bad-ass. He really is a country boy, as I learned later. He grew up on 15 acres in Circleville, Ohio, about an hour’s drive south of Columbus. Circleville is widely known for its annual Pumpkin Show during which some of the world’s largest pumpkins are celebrated and then sacrificed for dining purposes. Humanitarian note: The pumpkin hunters of Circleville only kill what they can eat.
He is the youngest of six brothers and sisters. Because his mother remarried, he also has two more half-siblings and a half-sister, all younger. (Diagramming the family tree must be a challenge.) His family had plenty of land but not a lot of household conveniences. It is no coincidence the first professional skill Colton learned was plumbing. He spent most of his boyhood roaming the family acreage but he wasn’t a hunter. The only gun he shot as a kid was a BB gun. For a trained sniper, that’s an unusual resume highlight.
Nowadays, he keeps in touch sporadically with family and old friends from Circleville. It’s hard to stay connected when you are wandering all over the earth. One person he has always kept near is his wife, Sarah. They met at church while they were attending separate high schools. Their connection was slow-paced at first but steadily picked up steam. Indeed, their love flourished despite frequent and lengthy separations. Colton swore he would propose to her if he survived SEAL “Hell Week.” He did, and they married in 2010!
Cue the final scene from “An Officer and a Gentleman.”
Man of Missions
Colton is a man of restless temperament and many contradictions. He is a spiritualist who could kill most people he meets in about ten seconds. He loves to chat yet he exceled in combat and reconnaissance, two pursuits not conducive to a whole lot of verbal expression. Sometimes, he is a man of too many ideas (“If you have a thousand ideas,” he confesses, “you have no ideas.”) yet he managed to find the singlemindedness and the relentless self-discipline to survive the most rigorous combat training ever devised. He prizes a simple life yet his temperament always prods him onto the next mission. He is a man of the continuous Quest.
His first mission took place shortly after high school. Sarah went away to a four-year college while Colton stayed home to attend divinity school. The only thing he divined from that experience was, he needed to go somewhere else. He met someone who convinced him to spend six weeks in India bettering the lives of poor villagers. Unfortunately, he found himself redundant there. The locals, given sufficient capital, had the skills and knowledge to take care of themselves. Indeed, as far as he could determine, that seemed true everywhere. Given capital and stability, most folks can fend for themselves.
But he did gain a perspective that would determine his next quest. A lot of poverty and misery in the world are created by malevolent individuals who murder people and steal their peace and prosperity. It occurred to him he might become a better steward of Good if he could take out some of the bad guys who plague the human race. Hmmm. The more he thought about it, the better the idea sounded.
But, where could he go to learn how to eliminate bad guys? This wasn’t like plumbing or welding, and there are no courses at the local community college in Bad Guy Extermination. He gave the problem a lot more thought and came to a conclusion. Colton, country boy from Ohio, a state with zero oceanfront property, decided to join the U.S. Navy.
Why? Because that’s where the SEALs were.
This BUD/S for You
Colton remembers, “I had no desire, whatsoever, to be on a ship.” He got his wish. During his tenure in the Navy, he never once spent a night on a ship. That’s like an accountant finishing his career having never used double-entry bookkeeping. The most improbable aspect of his new quest was, he did it! How many people decide to become the best in the world at something, anything, and then do it…in less time than it takes most people to graduate from high school? That’s what Colton did.
The gestation period for a SEAL is long, about two years before deployment to a team. It took 8 months before Colton and his mates engaged in full-time weaponry training. “To be honest, Marines or Army Rangers are often better trained for combat than SEALs fresh out of BUD/S,” he says. Marine and Ranger units will sometimes deploy overseas once or twice before SEALs even complete training.
That’s because of the highly complex nature of special ops missions. SEALs work in smaller units (platoons) with fewer men so each member of the platoon must develop a wide range of skills. That was probably a big-selling point for Colton. He has an intuitive understanding of systems and things mechanical as well as that restless temperament I mentioned.
Colton was accepted into the SEAL program and reported to Navy Basic Training for two months. He spent two more months just physically preparing for the rigors he was about to face. This period was similar to a pro sports training camp, lots of physical work and nutrition, very little Navy.
And then came the notorious BUD/S — Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training — six months of physical torment in three phases. The first phase is an excruciating gauntlet of tasks designed to mentally break all but strongest. It culminates in the legendary Hell Week. The second phase is dive training, and the third phase is shooting, explosives, and basic warfare. Colton describes the three phases of BUD/S this way: “The first phase is a pure kick in the nuts. The second and third phases are kicks to the nuts with a side serving of technical learning.”
The real problem with BUD/S is, you can’t advance to the later phases unless you survive Hell Week. Colton started in a class of 300; at the end of the first phase, he prevailed with only 36 others. “I went through a Winter Hell Week,” he remembers. “I don’t think they do those anymore because the water is much colder. The main reasons guys quit are, they can’t take the cold water or they get sick of carrying logs and boats everywhere.
“After Hell Week, two-thirds of the class was on crutches,” he continues. “Fortunately, I was in the one-third that could still walk.”
Presumably with his nuts intact.
Unbroken SEAL
After BUD/S, Colton moved onto SQT (SEAL Qualification Training) for six months. That’s when the boys start learning those advanced skills only people like Osama Bin Laden get to
see up close: survival training, Jump School, communications, and advanced warfare. Colton spent an additional eight months learning Pashto in order to speak to the Pashtuns of southern Afghanistan.
After years of training, Colton was awarded his Trident pin, confirming his status as a full-fledged Navy SEAL. (More about that below.) He has been jumping around the world ever since, pursuing missions and bad guys. He is out of the Navy now but he likes to keep his hand in. He often embarks on contract anti-piracy missions escorting ships around the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Ocean.
Noir Training is an outgrowth of Colton’s SEAL assignments. He has trained combatants in Afghanistan, Romania, and Africa. Now he does his instruction in Nevada and Tennessee. (If you would like to read a fanciful account of training with Colton, please take a look at "Aiming at the Horse.")
Firearms training is just one of his current missions. He has built functioning prototypes of computerized targets for shooting ranges of the future. (“They are better than anything the military has now,” he claims.) He plans to go into property development with an old friend from his Circleville days. He and Sarah also plan to embark on the most difficult mission of all, raising a family.
(Author’s note: If you thought BUD/S was tough, Colton, just wait until you must outwit a two-year-old.)
All that is part of a larger mission: to form a skilled community of dedicated free spirits, “a hippie commune without the hippies,” as he describes it. He is still unclear on all the details. It involves ex-SEALs and Hobbit Holes and profit-generating small enterprise and probably a lot of other things. Mostly it allows him to pursue what he considers the perfect day, waking up each morning among people he loves and trusts, and doing stuff that makes him happy.
That ambition puts him right in line with many American warriors. In “Band of Brothers,” Lieutenant Richard Winters offered up a warrior’s benediction on D-Day. “That night, I thanked God for seeing me through that day of days and prayed I would make it through D-Plus One. I also promised that if some way I could get home again, I would find a nice peaceful town and spend the rest of my life in peace.”
Neptune in Normandy
Since I began this story with one of Colton’s favorite memories as a SEAL, I should end it with
his fondest moment, really. First, a preface. The Trident pin, awarded to a graduate of BUD/S and SEAL Qualification Training, is a SEAL’s proudest possession. It is a metal insignia, golden eagle perched on a Navy anchor clutching a flintlock pistol and Neptune’s trident. It is held upon a uniform (or a coffin) by three half-inch spikes. By itself, it is not particularly precious yet it carries mythical meaning for SEALs.
It is awarded on two occasions: officially, by the SEAL command upon a graduate’s assignment to a platoon, and unofficially, by the senior platoon members themselves. At a time of their choosing, they bestow the Trident when they deem the new platoon member worthy of the honor. That is the moment a SEAL truly feels accepted.
“My first platoon — Echo Platoon — was deployed to Europe,” he recalls. “We all wanted to visit Normandy so the older guys gave us GPS coordinates where we were supposed to meet. There were about 16 of us so we had to take several cars. We all arrived late, at sundown. We parked at a beach and pointed our headlights out toward the water.”
It was January. The beach in question was Omaha Beach, one history’s most storied killing fields. The first order of business was a quick dip in the icy English Channel waters. What else would SEALs do? Everyone stripped and crashed into the surf. A few retained their skivvies but most did not, demonstrating for any passing tourist that commandos really do go commando.
Refreshed, the platoon mates gathered in the beams of the car headlights. The new guys, Colton among them, were ordered to line up. That was the moment when the platoon chief presented him his Trident pin. He pressed it against Colton’s chest and then punched it just hard enough to make it stick.
“It didn’t hurt that much,” Colton explains. “At least, I didn’t mind it.” He also didn’t mind when every member of his platoon came by to congratulate him. Each smacked the Trident pin the way frat boys might fist-bump on Homecoming weekend.
So there he was, dripping and chilled by the Normandy winds, sporting a gaudy chunk of metal stuck into his bare chest, and he thought, “There aren’t many SEALs who get pinned on Omaha Beach.”
He was a long way from Circleville.