Chapter 1: Taco

This is the latest chapter of The Ice Man, my book about the Navy SEAL platoon in Iraq that took the blame for a CIA homicide. The book is available only to paid subscribers.

Many of Dan Cerrillo’s teammates had dreamed of becoming members of one of the US military’s most elite fighting squads from a young age. Cerrillo never did.

As a child, Cerrillo didn’t even know what the SEALs were. He was the product of a violent, turbulent childhood. His father was out of the picture; his mother abused alcohol, drugs, and him. One of Cerrillo’s earliest memories of his mother was of his mother inflicting a savage beating on his older brother, David, as he tried to protect 5-year-old Dan. His brother ended up in the hospital, and Dan didn’t see him again for years. The two brothers had different fathers. David’s father came and took him away.

Three years later, with no big brother around to protect him, Cerrillo faced his mother’s wrath. Cerrillo didn’t remember how it started or what he did, only that she blamed him for something and woke up in the hospital four days later. Cerrillo had a few years of stability when his mother left with his grandparents, an uncle, and even a kind family that took him in. But he eventually returned to the chaos that swirled around his mother. She brought home a parade of drunks and losers, including one who got busted for child pornography. He was in hundreds of fights growing up, sometimes with his mother’s boyfriends. He attended 27 different schools in 13 states. Cerrillo spent part of his childhood on the poor, eastern edge of San Diego. It was a few miles away—but worlds apart—from SEAL headquarters on the coast in Coronado, California.