STUMPF

SERVICE RECORD

Lieutenant Commander Andy Stumpf did not come to Carrier Air Wing Zero because he needed another chapter in his résumé. By the time most of the world knew his name, Stumpf had already spent a lifetime doing the kind of work that rarely made it into one. A retired Navy SEAL with seventeen years of service, Stumpf served with SEAL Teams Five and Three before earning selection to the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. His career included hundreds of combat operations around the world, service as an instructor, and leadership positions where decisions were measured in seconds and mistakes were paid for immediately. After leaving active duty, he remained closely tied to the special operations and aviation communities, becoming known as a pilot, wingsuit athlete, speaker, and host of Cleared Hot. He had already given the Navy more than enough.

Then the phone rang.

Following the disappearance of ESSP and Tankers off the coast of Burma, JSOC faced a problem that could not be solved through conventional channels. The pilots were alive, the window to recover them was closing, and the rescue force would be operating deep inside hostile territory with virtually no margin for error. The USS Leviathan needed someone who understood both sides of the equation. Someone who knew what it meant to be the man on the ground waiting for extraction, and someone capable of putting an aircraft into a place where aircraft had absolutely no business being. Stumpf was recalled to duty and assigned to CVW-0 for one purpose: command the recovery force that would bring the missing aviators home.

Aboard Leviathan, Stumpf assumed command of the rescue element built around HSC-67, the Wet Bandits, and its two heavily modified MH-47s, Marv and Harry. He would not command the operation from the safety of the carrier. Stumpf strapped himself into the cockpit of the lead aircraft. With the second Chinook tucked behind him, the pair would penetrate the Burmese coastline under the electronic cover of Witchglass, collect the assault force after its HALO insertion, and then push directly into the extraction zone once the prisoners were secured. The mission combined everything Stumpf had spent his career learning: aviation, special operations, terrain, timing, violence, and the absolute necessity of getting everyone back aboard the aircraft.

Among the Wet Boys, résumés rarely earn much respect by themselves. Competence does. Stumpf earned theirs almost immediately. He brought the demeanor of someone who had already experienced enough chaos to know that yelling rarely made an aircraft fly faster. He understood the men preparing to jump from Dirty, he understood the crews waiting inside Marv and Harry, and most importantly, he understood exactly what ESSP and Tankers were counting on without ever having to meet their rescuers. Somewhere in the darkness, two Americans were waiting for the sound of rotor blades.

For most men, seventeen years in Naval Special Warfare would have been enough.

For Andy Stumpf, apparently the Joint Special Operations Command still had one more mission.

And when Leviathan went looking for her missing pilots, Stumpf was flying lead.

APPEARS IN

Featured in The Tide Takes All — Book Two.