A retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, Ratliff served aboard destroyers and with Underwater Demolition Team 11, the elite Cold War–era unit that directly preceded today’s Navy SEAL teams. Jack writes a historical record of how the U.S. Navy prepared young officers and enlisted men for combat in the 1950s and early 1960s. Riding the White Bull documents the training, culture, and mindset that defined American military readiness in the post–World War II period. Ratliff offers detailed, insider descriptions of destroyer service in the “tin can Navy,” the evolution of frogman units, and the brutal physical and psychological conditioning used to identify who could operate under fear, exhaustion, and uncertainty. Training was not abstract or theoretical; it was deliberately uncomfortable, risky, and unsparing, designed to reveal judgment and character before men were ever sent into harm’s way.

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