Chuck Pfarrer

Military

Pfarrer completed Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I in 1981. After his commission as an ensign in the U.S. Navy, he reported to Basic Underwater Demolition/Sea, Air, Land (BUD/S) training in Coronado, Calif. He graduated class 114 in September 1981 and spent seven years as a Navy SEAL.^[3] His initial assignment was to Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) 21, redesignated as Seal Team FOUR in 1983 where he deployed as a military advisor in Central America, trained NATO forces in Europe and the Mediterranean, and completed a combat deployment in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. As SEAL Assistant Platoon commander assigned to the Multi-National Peacekeeping Force, he witnessed the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut. In September 1984, Pfarrer reported to SEAL Team SIX in Damneck, Va to begin an eight month selection and training course to become a counterterrorist operator. In October 1985, Pfarrer was one of the SEAL Team assault leaders responsible for the apprehension of Abu Abbas and the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Pfarrer ended his naval service in 1988^[4] as Assault Element Commander at the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU).^[5]

Screenwriting

While still in the Navy, Pfarrer sold a spec script that he wrote in college.^[6] His film credits include writing, acting and production work in Navy SEALs, Darkman, Barb Wire and Hard Target.^[7][8][9] Pfarrer's other screenwriting credits include The Jackal, Virus and Red Planet.^[10][11] He became a member of the Western branch of the Writers Guild of America.

He is an uncredited writer on the films Sudden Impact and Arlington Road, and wrote early drafts for Shooter and The Green Hornet.^[12] He is the author and creator of six graphic novels for Dark Horse Comics, and wrote and produced two interactive full motion videos, Flash Traffic and Silent Steel, both for Tsunami Media.

Additional writing

Pfarrer was active in the 2004 effort to recall Writer's Guild of America president Charles Holland, who had wrongly claimed to be a wounded combat veteran, intelligence officer and Green Beret. Holland later resigned.^[13]

Pfarrer’s best-selling autobiography, Warrior Soul, The Memoir of a Navy SEAL, was published in 2003.^[14] His first published novel, Killing Che, was released in 2007.^[3]

Pfarrer is the author of the 2011 book SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden, a New York Times best-seller,^[15] which was controversial because he gave a different account of the raid than had the government.^[16]

Pfarrer's second novel, a work of nautical fiction, was published by the United States Naval Institute Press in April 2016. Based on the epic American short story of the same name by Edward Everett Hale, Philip Nolan, The Man Without a Country is a novelization of Hale's story, and tells of Nolan's court martial and his life as a prisoner on an American ship.^[17]

Continuing work

Pfarrer has written broadly on terrorism and counter-terrorism, and served government and industry as an expert on special operations, terrorist operational methodology, counter-proliferation and terrorist employment of weapons of mass destruction. He has written op-eds for the New York Times and the Knight Ridder syndicate. He has appeared as an author and counter-terrorism expert on CSPAN-2, NPR, the Arabic network Al Hurra, IPR, Voice of America, Fox News, ABC, America Tonight and The Australian Broadcast Company.

Pfarrer's latest spec screenplay, Crash Site, was in development as a feature film by ALCON media. It was to be directed by Academy Award-winning director Charlie Gibson^[18] and produced by John Bladecchhi^[19] and Alcon co-chiefs Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove.

Film

Print

Video games