American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

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The preference would be to get there as stealthily as possible. That
might suggest walking in, as we had in some of the villages. But you
don’t want to walk through narrow alleys where there’s a lot of
trash—too much noise, too many chances for an IED or an ambush.
There’s a misperception among the general public that SpecOp
troops always parachute or fast-rope into a trouble zone. While we certainly
do both where appropriate, we didn’t fly into any of the areas in
Ramadi. Helicopters do have certain advantages, speed and the ability
to travel relatively long distances being one of them. But they’re also
loud and attract attention in an urban environment. And they’re relatively
easy targets to shoot down.
In this case, coming in by water made a great deal of sense, because
of the way Ramadi is laid out and where the target was located.
It allowed us to get to a spot near the target area stealthily, comparatively
quickly, and with less chance of contact than the overland routes.
But that decision led to an unexpected problem—we had no boats.
Ordinarily, SEALs work with Special Boat Teams, known at the time
and in the past as Special Boat Units, or SBUs. Same mission, different
name. They drive the fast boats that insert SEALs and then retrieve
them; we were rescued by one when we were “lost” on the California
coast during training.
There was a bit of friction between SEALs and SBUs back home in
the bars, where you’d occasionally hear some SBU members claiming
to be SEALs. Team guys would think, and sometimes say, that’s like a
taxi driver claiming to be a movie star because he drove someone to
the studio.