Mann’s impressive military biography includes being a decorated combat veteran; Corpsman; SEAL Special Operations Technician; jungle survival, desert survival, and arctic survival instructor; small arms weapons instructor, foreign weapons instructor, armed and unarmed defense tactics, advanced hand-to-hand combat instructor; and Survival, Evade, Resistance and Escape Instructor; in addition to other credentials.
Mann is the author of 22 books including the New York Times Best Selling autobiography Inside SEAL Team SIX: My Life and Missions with America’s Elite Warriors.
When Osama bin Laden was assassinated, the entire world was fascinated by the men who had completed the seemingly impossible mission that had dogged the U.S. government for over a decade. SEAL Team SIX became synonymous with heroism, duty, and justice. Only a handful of the elite men who make up the SEALs, the U.S. Navy’s best and bravest, survive the legendary and grueling selection process that leads to SEAL Team SIX, a group so classified it technically does not even exist. There are no better warriors on earth.
Mann knows what it takes to be a brother of these ultra-selective fraternities. As a member of SEAL Team SIX he worked in countless covert operations, operating from land, sea, and air, and facing shootings, decapitations, and stabbings. He was captured by the enemy and lived to tell the tale, and he participated in highly classified missions all over the globe, including Somalia, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
As a training coordinator for several civilian SEAL training programs, and as a former Training Officer of SEAL Team SIX, he was directly responsible for shaping the bodies and minds of SEALs who carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden as well as many other classified missions.
But to become a SEAL, Mann had to overcome his own troubled childhood and push his body to its breaking point-and beyond. At the podium and in Inside SEAL Team SIX, he shares a high-octane narrative of physical and mental toughness, giving unprecedented insight to the inner workings of the training and secret missions of the world’s most respected and feared combat unit.
Don Mann has over 40 years (1,000+ races) worth of competitive racing experience, completed 2 Ironman triathlons in a day and was once ranked 38th in the world as a triathlete.
Mann received a Master’s in Management from Troy State University, in Troy, AL, a B.S. in International Relations & Criminal Justice, from Florida State University, in Tallahassee, FL, and a B.S. in Liberal Science, from State University of New York. He lives in Cape Charles, VA.