Richard "Dick" Marcinko, the first commanding officer of SEAL Team Six has died, according to The National Navy UDT SEAL Museum and the Navy Times.
"Demo Dick," as he was called was a retired U.S. Navy SEAL commander and Vietnam War veteran in addition to being the first commanding officer of SEAL Team Six, the The National Navy UDT SEAL Museum reported.
He was 81 years old.
The Museum wrote a tribute to Marcinko, in part saying, "Marcinko was selected by the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, as the first commanding officer of this new unit. At the time, the Navy had only two SEAL Teams. Marcinko named the unit "SEAL Team SIX" in order to fool other nations, notably the Soviet Union, into believing that the United States had at least three other SEAL Teams that they were unaware of. The creator of SEAL Team SIX, Marcinko hand-selected the Team's members from across the existing SEAL Teams and Underwater Demolition Teams, including a special counter-terrorist tactics section of SEAL Team TWO, codenamed MOB-6."
After his time in the Navy, Marcinko wrote novels and non-fiction books, both about his time in the service.
