Commander Richard Marcinko, USN (ret.) enlisted in the US Navy in 1958.  In 1965, he attended OCS and in June 0f 1966, he transferred to SEAL Team Two and was eventually sent to Vietnam.  According to his biography, “After his time in Vietnam, he took a staff position at Little Creek Naval Base, followed by a stint in Monterrey, CA where he earned his B.A. in International Relations from the U.S. Navy Postgraduate School. In 1973 he reported to duty as a Naval Attaché to Cambodia where he spent 14 months advising (and actively assisting) the Cambodians in their fight with the Khmer Rouge. He left in 1975 to become the commanding officer of SEAL Team Two.”  Commander Richard Marcinko’s biography further relates, “From there, Marcinko sold the idea and was eventually tasked with creating and commanding SEAL Team SIX, the Navy’s first and only counter-terrorist command. SEAL Team SIX engaged in highly classified missions from Central America to the Middle East, the North Sea to Africa and beyond, and established itself as the world’s foremost counter-terrorism unit.

Marcinko later was named commanding officer and founder of a second counter-terrorism unit, Red Cell. Commanding Red Cell, Marcinko was directed to use his team to test the Navy's anti-terrorist capabilities. As a result he was able to infiltrate seemingly impenetrable, highly-secured bases, nuclear submarines, ships and other purported "secure areas", including the U.S. Presidential plane Air Force One. In doing so he reportedly embarrassed several superior officers, whom he accuses of involvement in his subsequent conviction for misappropriation of funds and resources under his command.”

Commander Richard Marcinko is the co-author of a number of non-fiction and military fiction books.  The non-fiction books are Rogue Warrior; The Rogue Warriors Strategy for Success; and, Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior.  The fiction books are: Rogue Warrior: Dictator's Ransom; Vengeance; Holy Terror; Green Team: Rogue Warrior III; The Real Team: Rogue Warrior; Violence of Action; Echo Platoon; Designation Gold; Red Cell Rogue Warrior; Option Delta; Seal Force Alpha; Detachment Bravo; and, Task Force Blue.

The Library Journal said of Rogue Warrior, “An autobiography of a career naval officer who dropped out of high school, enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and spent his ca reer struggling to win acceptance for special warfare SEAL (sea-air-land) units within the Navy establishment from the late 1950s to the present. Marcinko provides detailed descriptions of the early transformation of underwater demolition teams (UDT) into SEAL units. With interesting vignettes about training and actual missions during the Vietnam War, he gives a close-up view of this specialized and little-known brand of warfare. Marcinko's participation in the Iran hostage rescue attempt in 1980 and the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 provide a perspective vastly different from the accepted versions of these events. However, the overuse of salty language throughout the book that lends new meaning to the phrase "curse like a sailor" and Marcinko's polemical accounts of his struggles to win acceptance for specialized warfare within the Navy are unfortunate.”

According to the book description The Rogue Warriors Strategy for Success, “The former Navy commando and author of Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior offers a hard-hitting guide to personal success, offering dynamic, aggressive strategies and skills to help readers meet the challenges of business and everyday life.”

One reader of Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior said, “It's common enough for business leaders to resort to military metaphors for "conquering the marketplace", and rare enough for them to be able to speak with credibility in the same fashion. An interesting blend of military aphorism and business practice, this book will probably only appeal to those who have read other Rogue Warrior works - but take the rules to heart, for they are true on any battlefield you may face. Corporate and military organizations are both often plagued with politicking and similar counterproductive BS, and Richard Marcinko famously decries all that to focus on results - as any leader should.”

According to the book description Designation Gold, “The Rogue Warrior has come to Moscow to investigate the assassination of Paul Mahon, U.S. Defense attaché in Russia. Marcinko knows who killed him -- Andrei Yudin, a godfather in the Russian Mafia -- and he wants to know why. Instead, he finds a cabal of corrupt, mob-linked russian politicians. The revelation gets him yanked back to Washington, where orders come down to disband his elite team of SEALs. But even as the Pentagon's chain of command becomes a noose around his neck, Marcinko begins to cut and slash his way to the truth behind Mahon's death. More about survival than revenge, his mission soon leads him to a black-market network peddling terrorism in Paris, sinister trading in the Middle East, and a devil of a deal that puts American's safety up for sale.”

According to the book description Rogue Warrior: Dictator's Ransom, “Is Kim Jong-il really a fanatical fan of Dick Marcinko, the Rogue Warrior? Has the terrifying tyrant actually read every one of Marcinko's many New York Times bestsellers? One thing is certain: the Rogue Warrior wants nothing to do with the brutal despot. When, in Dictator's Ransom, "the loathsome dwarf"--as George W. Bush derided him--invites Marcinko to the Hermit Kingdom, the Rogue Warrior instantly declines...prompting the CIA to RSVP on his behalf. Marcinko is to track down four covert nuclear warheads secreted in the Supreme Leader's palace. More than just a thriller, Dictator's Ransom is a novel of electrifying energy and wicked wit.”

Publisher’s Weekly said of Vengeance, “As usual, Marcinko's indestructible hero of his Rogue Warrior series is... himself. This time around (his 11th), Marcinko and his ex-military Rogue Warriors, operating as a private security company, are pulling off very successful attack exercises on transportation and energy targets in the U.S. While Marcinko and his pals are embarrassing the Department of Homeland Security (and offering hilariously deadpan, expletive-filled assessments of the government's performance), someone is sending Marcinko deadly messages, with more in mind than a public relations kerfuffle. As Marcinko investigates the puzzling clues, a cloudy picture emerges of Bosnian Muslim terrorists, smuggling, a missing French intelligence agent, strange connections to the Vietnam War and a very real threat of another major terrorist attack on U.S. soil. The story rushes from one pile of dead bodies to the next and ends with an exciting showdown at the Las Vegas Sands. While the action is tight (and spiked with cool super-spook technology), the villains' motives and malice are weak and unconvincing. Marcinko's highly profane first person remains as funny and charming as ever, though, and fans won't be disappointed.”

Publisher’s Weekly said of Holy Terror, “Marcinko and DeFelice deliver another high-octane entry in the long-running Rogue Warrior series (Vengeance, etc.), starring a fictional Dick Marcinko, who battles and wisecracks his way through the world's bad guys. At a NATO conference in Vatican City, "Demo Dick," in his role as CEO of the Red Cell International security firm, delivers a get-serious-about-terrorism speech. Distracted by a waiter at the back of the room about to lob a grenade into the assembled dignitaries, Dick interrupts his remarks to nail the guy with a single pistol shot through the forehead. Shortly thereafter, Dick is caught up in a running battle with a dozen submachine gun"firing terrorists (minions of the shadowy Arab warrior known as Saladin) who are trying to seize St. Paul's Cathedral. The action"also featuring female Delta Force fighter Trace Dahlgren"catapults to Sicily, Cairo, Shanghai and the Thailand jungle, continuing almost nonstop to the final climax back in Rome. Once again, Marcinko and DeFelice's iconoclastic hero takes no prisoners while kicking terrorist butt in this breezy techno-thriller.”

Publisher’s Weekly said of Violence of Action, “Riding the wave of controversy over Iraq, and dedicated "To the many heroes of September 11th," this 10th volume in the breathtakingly crude but bestselling Rogue Warrior series again stars hairy-chested author/narrator Capt. Dick Marcinko, ex-navy SEAL and covert-ops antiterrorism expert. Licking his wounds after unjustly serving time in a white-collar federal prison, Capt. Dick is called to Washington when the White House is confronted with the theft of a suitcase-sized nuclear bomb by a band of terrorists. After capturing one of the terrorists, Dick's team tortures him into revealing the group's plan to nuke Portland, Ore., as the first step in establishing ethnic purity in the world. Marcinko may have jettisoned his longtime co-writer John Weisman (whose name no longer appears on the title page), but little else has changed. As in previous volumes, Dick is boorishly self-aggrandizing (he boasts of bedroom swordsmanship with a 10-inch saber), and the first-person narration is punctuated with personal confidences that detract from the authentic descriptions of cutting-edge high-tech military weapons and vivid action-packed scenes of engagement. Bordering on comic book satire and saturated with gruesome, gratuitous violence, the novel should fly off the shelves into the eager hands of the rabid legions of blood and guts fantasy-fulfillment RW readers.”

Publisher’s Weekly said of Red Cell Rogue Warrior, “According to Marcinko, following the publication of his bestselling autobiography Rogue Warrior , he was forbidden to reveal any more secrets about SEAL or other defense activities; so he has taken to fiction to continue his story. The novel's cynical, coarse, egotistical, irreverent and bloody hero (also named Dick Marcinko) is involuntarily recalled to his old rank as Navy Captain and ordered to assemble a team of Red Cell SEALs--mavericks in a service known for irregular practices--to stop the sale of American nuclear devices to North Korea and to test the defenses of various military installations. The resulting action boasts high-tech equipment, gory hand-to-hand combat and various forms of mayhem, climaxing in Red Cell's attack on a contraband-filled tanker in the Pacific Ocean. The atmosphere is electric with real weapons and locations, and Marcinko provides copious details of training and planning and accounts of previous missions. The guilty parties here include not only mercenaries of various countries but also high ranking corrupt American politicians; paranoid military conspiracy buffs will find plenty to worry about here. A surefire bet for wannabe soldiers of fortune, this is also a frighteningly plausible scenario of political and military power gone astray.”

Booklist said of Option Delta, “Marcinko's Rogue Warrior yarns, always coauthored, always starring himself, are the purest kind of thriller around, with action, pacing, and hardware galore. This one begins with Marcinko and team "locking out" of an attack submarine to take out the yacht of an Arab prince, who bankrolls terrorists and has even provided them with nuclear weapons stolen from arms dumps the U.S. hid in Europe during the cold war. Marcinko, his team, and a West German general wind up on the trail of a rightwing German industrialist and a renegade German special-operations warrior. At trail's end, the good guys have the ADMs (Atomic Demolitions Munitions), and a lot of bad guys are dead or out of commission. This classic crowd-pleaser also offers yet more insight into the psychology of special and covert operations and yet more fight scenes choreographed by one who has actually done them, and it raises the disturbing question: Are nuclear weapons already in the hands of the perverse and peculiar? Great fun, more intelligent than you may think.”

Publisher’s Weekly said of The Real Team: Rogue Warrior, “Even hardcore aficionados of the hairy-chested, adrenaline-fueled Marcinko and John Weisman Rogue Warrior novels (Rogue Warrior: Option Delta) will likely be disappointed by this medley of thumbnail, hero-worshipful autobiographies by 10 men associated with SEAL Team SIX, here identified as models for fictional characters in the highly successful series. Purporting to be an insiders guide to successful corporate team-building but overflowing with fulsome unsolicited testimonials for Marcinko, this testosterone-laden tribute is little more than an advertising ploy. Despite the seeming navet of these narratives, each prefaced with anecdotes from the Rogue Warrior himself, the small-town-boy-makes-good-and-saves-the-world theme quickly blurs into homogeneity. The not-so-subliminal message is that Marcinko is the worlds greatest corporate team builder, and the entire book becomes a commercial for the Rogue Warriors planned CrossRoads Training and Development Center for corporate leadership development. Readers with the right stuff will feel burned by this blatant exercise in self-promotion.”

Kirkus Reviews said of Echo Platoon, “A sixth blood-and-guts novel in the series spun off from Marcinkos bestselling (nonfiction) memoir of his career as a Navy SEAL (Rogue Warrior, 1992). As the tale begins, our hero is swimming toward an oil platform in the Caspian Sea where Iranian terrorists have taken the Western workers hostage. Hes loaded down with 70 pounds of equipment (pistol, submachine gun, the usual) and covered with crude from an oil slickhey, nothing a little Bombay Sapphire wont fix. Marcinko is there to help the Azerbaijan army get rid of the baddies, but American Ambassador Marybeth Madison doesnt like him or his tactics. Thats okay, he doesnt like her either, and Article 88 (which forbids military personnel to disparage civilian authorities) has never kept him from voicing his opinions. It all gets more complicated from there on, with the usual rip-snorting action sequences and acronyms aplenty, plus a glossary for the confused. The first-person narration is as mannered as a Restoration comedy, but fans will enjoy the customary blend of heroics and politically incorrect commentary.”

Publisher’s Weekly said of Detachment Bravo, “Unabashedly testosterone-addled, the ninth installment in the Rogue Warrior series cuts another swath through posturing bureaucrats and waffling military brass. Capt. Dick Marcinko, a Navy SEAL black ops specialist, teams with British SAS special ops Brig. Mick Owen and a select few men to stop a London bombing by an IRA splinter group. Too many screwups endanger the mission, cause a big PR snafu and land Mick and Dick in hot water with their bosses. Then they're assigned to track another splinter group, the Green Hand Defenders, who are brewing a plot to kill huge numbers of U.S. and British citizens in one hit. Snubbing the higherups, Mick and Dick follow a lead to Argentina, where Dick abuses an old nemesis who's now a CIA station chief when the man rejects Dick's warning of an attack on the American Embassy. After word gets out, the boys find themselves persona non grata in their own agencies, but remain committed to finishing their jobs any way they can. The ensuing roughshod romp over land and sea is a military vigilante's fantasy. The authors' habit of addressing the reader adds to the tongue-in-cheek downplay of the superhero action, but make no mistake these irreverent characters skewer the establishment and trumpet opinions on what's wrong with the world today (e.g., political correctness, environmentalism) while upholding their pledge to defend it from terrorists. (May)Forecast: Copious vulgarity and violence, with an emphasis on male bonding and military lore, define the Rogue Warrior franchise when WWF fans read, chances are Marcinko is one of their picks.”