The Watches of a Real Life Navy SEAL
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Watches and the military have intersected in various ways, from fancy brands like Rolex and Tudor issuing watches to servicemen during Vietnam, to watchmakers from G-Shock to Breitling creating unit watches for specific military groups, to soldiers making a quality Swiss timepiece part of their daily carry.
We continue to be fascinated by these military connections. Brands dine out of their "MilSpec" histories. Online resources like Watches of Espionage draw an ever-expanding audience by plotting the links between luxury watches and spycraft.
But what watches do military men really wear?
Rob Huberty served as a US Navy SEAL for nine years, notably during the war in Afghanistan.
He was something of a outlier in his profession, wearing Rolexes on the frontline at a time when his colleagues thought upscale watches were for sissies. (That’s changed a bit now.)
Today Huberty is the COO of ZeroEyes, an artificial intelligence-assisted gun detection system for real-time weapon detection and alerts.
Watches have played a significant part in both his professional and personal life and are associated with landmarks both joyful and terrible.
He recently spoke to Esquire about his watch journey.
Why did you choose to become a SEAL?
I watched too many movies and read too many books and believed them. In seriousness, September 11 was the impetus for me going in the military. And if I was going to go in the military, I wanted to do it in a way where I would go on the most important missions. You know, fight the fight as directly as I could.
How old were you?
I was 23, or 24.
Do you come from a military background?
My older brother had been in the Army. My family came over from Europe to the States in 1900. My grandfather, like a lot of grandfathers, fought in World War II.
What are the rules with watches and the military? What’s limited?
I don’t know how much is really limited, per se. What’s really limited is anything that could cause you to be caught. Any connected watch, like Apple Watches and certain Garmin watches, that have GPS positions, aren’t allowed. Strava kind of gave away some secret bases. People were doing a lot of running and exercising and they mapped out bases and stations based on people’s Strava activity, which is pretty ludicrous. There are military-issued Garmin watches that do GPS, but they don’t “talk out”. They just receive information. If you find yourself having to go into secret meetings, a lot of times when you walk into the door, you have to put your cellphone down. And if you have a watch on, they make you take it off – unless it’s an analog watch. A lot of times they don’t want to be, like, “Oh, this is the good kind of Garmin?’ Is this the one that doesn’t talk?” It’s just “No Garmins here.” So, if you find yourself in the military, in one of those positions where you have to go in those secret rooms, it’s a lot easier to wear a mechanical watch. Originally the military wore tool watches. And to some degree now they’re going back to being tools. Because you’re not allowed to have all the technology.
What watches do military service men typically wear?
When I was in service, from 2005 to 2014, the watches that were popular were G-Shocks. I’m still friends with a lot of people in the community, and I talk to people in the SEAL teams in the military all the time. And watches [in general] are much more popular now than they were then.
So, your love of more specific watches was unusual?
The fact that I wore a Rolex on deployment was fairly unique. Maybe once in a blue moon [you’d see someone else with a high-end watch]. “Oh, you’re into watches, too?” And there’d be a story behind it. It’s more socially acceptable now. “I read watch forums… I’m a geek”. You know, Special Operations is hyper-masculine. Don’t get me wrong – there are nerds in there. And at this point [in time] you could say, “I bet you grew up playing Call of Duty?” and the answer will be “Yes”. Now, I predate that. I’m 43. Call of Duty wasn't around when I was growing up. But they would have ostracised you for that. You wouldn’t be part of the boys’ club. Now, growing up with technology is probably the expectation. In order to fight the battles that we fight now, as you’re seeing in Ukraine, and what’s going on with Russia, you’re going to have to be geeky to be any good. As a unit we would [put our money together so we could] get special pistols made. We’d buy a $2,000 pistol, something like that. Now it seems that, as a unit, buying a $4,000 watch from Tudor is common. The fact that people know what a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms is, is kind of ludicrous. Military guys go to [fancy Geneva trade show] Watches & Wonders now.
Are you being serious?
There’s a bunch of guys in the military, on active duty, going up Watches & Wonders to look for unit watches. When I was in service and I was reading watch websites, I couldn’t think of a nerdier, dumber thing than being, like, “Hey guys, I’m into watches!” You might as well say “I’m into LARPing. I like to go fight with medieval swords.” It’d be, like, “What’s wrong with you?”
Plenty of nice watch brands – Breitling, Omega, IWC – continue to make unit watches. They’re commissioned and sometimes codesigned by the military, though?
Yeah. And I don’t want to call anybody out specifically, but I think but when they make a watch that is supposed to be unique [for servicemen], and then they let the regular public buy it, that really makes people mad. I have an Omega Navy SEAL watch [Omega has a long history of making watches for the military, most notably the classic Seamaster 300 for the British Royal Navy. It also offers a unique Seamaster Diver 300M to military and law enforcement units. They can be customised to include the unit insignia – eg: the SEAL trident – on the case back, as well as any name/ call sign associated with an individual.] And right now, Daniel Craig is wearing 90 per cent the same watch. So absolutely they gave him a watch that is trying to pull from that. It’s an Omega Seamaster, no date, it has a black bezel – it looks very similar to the one that they produce as a unit watch.
The one he was photographed wearing at the Olympics?
I don’t remember where he was spotted, but it was recently. And there’s pictures of it. It’s Omega branding. It’s very intentional. Is it a cool watch? Yeah. Is going to make people upset? Yeah. But, you know, it’s fine. Tudor did the same thing. They did the black FXD that’s a unit watch. [Tudor diving watches were commissioned by SEALs via the US Navy from 1962, until the 1980s. Last year Tudor released its “MilSpec” black-dialed Pelagos FXD to the public. It recreated a 1960s military-only model]. Watches of Espionage [the online resource is run by a former CIA man, identity withheld. Esquire published a terrific story about it] wrote an article about it and then pulled it because the people who had the watches were angry. Now what gets engraved on the case back is bespoke and isn’t included. But a collector can still feel like they can get hold of the watch.
Does that make you feel weird? It’s a bit cosplay.
I do think it’s a little weird. I’m not offended by it, necessarily. But it bothers some people. Throughout history people have collected things that don't belong to them. There’s people who collect Nazi memorabilia from World War II – something they obviously don’t support. It is what it is. It’s just a part of history. There are people who were never in the military who collect all the Dirty Dozen watches. I participated in it, but I still don’t understand fully the hero-worship of it. Something like Panerai’s Navy Seals Collection feels not that great to me.
When someone tried to assassinate Donald Trump, Watches of Espionage immediately picked out that one of the Secret Service agents who rushed to cover him was wearing a unit-specific Omega Seamaster. That story went everywhere.
Absolutely, that was [entirely down to] Watches of Espionage. I’m friends with him and he’s doing his thing. I think it’s cool. But it’s caught on. And a bunch of people run his things [ie: other media pick up his stories]. He’s not really quite sure why other people run those stories. And he’s not quite sure why Watches of Espionage has taken off the way it has. He’s just like, “Hey, I like watches. I used to be in the CIA. I think this is cool”. And for some reason, other people think it’s cool, too.
Do service men have to hand their service watches back, at the end of service?
Not really. A lot of the service watches are G-Shocks. For something to be truly “issued” it has to have a NSN – a NATO Stock Number [a 13-digit code, identifying all the standardised material supply items, as recognised by all NATO countries]. They consider G-Shocks disposable items. You don’t have to turn them in. I still have my G-Shock. And I had a Marathon that somebody traded me. I probably traded a jacket or something for it. I wore that one a little bit.
Weren’t SEAL teams issued with Rolexes, back in the day?
A long time ago in the history of the SEAL teams, I think they did issue Rolex. [During Vietnam they were issued with Rolex Submariners or Tudor 7928s.] And then as soon as they realised that Tudor was cheaper it could effectively be a good replacement. In the 1960s and 1970s, the military would always take back the Tudors they issued. There was a culture of pretending that you lost them. You know, you’d have to do paperwork and sign a thing. “I lost my watch.” One of my chiefs told me that when he was a new guy, right around the Gulf War, they made him go destroy all the Tudor snowflake Subs because they didn’t want anybody to take them home. He took a bunch of them to the beach, took a hammer and bashed them until they were destroyed, and threw them in the garbage. Because that was government property, and it was better just to destroy government property than let people keep it and therefore be a liability. It sounds ridiculous. I don’t know the logic of it.
So how do servicemen get nice watches today?
Generally speaking the [higher-end] watches that you’re seeing now are those that people buy with their personal money. I would say most of the stuff that you’re issued you get to keep. And they are not in the habit of issuing luxury watches to people. I think at one point somebody got cute with government purchases. Because teams can do one-time purchases of things that are not NATO Stock Number items – and you usually get to keep those. So most of the time it’ll be bought with your personal money. But you can get a good deal.
Like a group discount?
Yes, and sometimes different units get discretionary budgets, too. And they can buy them through the team, through government money. But most of those things are considered disposable items. So if you all didn’t like the rain jacket, you could do something where the military buys a bunch for that one team. “This is the proper jacket that we need for this mission.” I’ve heard of times where watches were purchased in that manner. But they would not be a very high-end. It may be that they bought Marathon watches, or they bought Hamilton watches. Something they determined suited the needs of the unit, for whatever reason. There might be a handful of people who walk around [saying] “This is an issued Hamilton watch”. But it’s not truly issued. One group of people one time decided to buy it. And they used government money to do it. But what’s going on more frequently today is, “Hey, I’ve got this deal. We could go get an Omega for $5,100 – who’s in on it? I need 50 names,” or whatever the minimum number is. And that’s just you. That's not the government paying for that.
What about the Navy SEALs connection to dive watches?
Scuba diving was more or less invented by Jacques Cousteau. And then once they had the aqualung, in the early 1950s, then all these dive watches came out. And, really, the US Navy established Dive Tables in the 1960s by sending humans down and basically seeing how far down you went before you got sick. And when they would have to decompress you.
That’s quite nuts.
They were, like, the boldest people you can possibly imagine. They kept sending them to [different] distances for [different] times. The Dive Tables that now we and PADI [Professional Association of Diving Instructors] use came from the tests they did during that period. To my understanding Rolex is what was on their wrists most of the time. Doxa, Blancpain, all of those, also got used. But, for whatever reason, the insane people who established Dive Tables, in their daily lives, would wear Rolex. And then in the 1960s, when the SEAL teams were going into Vietnam, and they were getting their watch wet all time it had to be, if not diveable, then it had to be swimmable. And I think a lot of them valued their Rolexes and they wore them really proudly. When you go to the reunions with the SEAL teams, everybody wears Rolex. I was recently in Alaska and I met a Vietnam vet, a SEAL, and I did a hike with him. He’s 76 years old and on his wrist was a Rolex. And we had conversations about it. It’s a great uniter – across the different eras.
It’s easy to think the military connection to these watches is just marketing.
It absolutely is marketing. But it’s both. People actually wore them in their daily life and still do now. I’m wearing a Submariner now. A lot of people in the military want to have a little style and a little flair, because you literally wear a uniform. So, what are you allowed to do that sets you apart? Your fashion accessory cannot be anything that your clothes touch. It can't be your haircut. So, you'll wear a watch. I’m like, “Well, this makes me different somehow.”
What was your first proper watch?
A Seamaster. My parents gave it to me at my graduation from SQT – SEAL Qualification Training. You know, I’d watched the James Bond movies. So, I had a version of the Pierce Brosnan watch [In GoldenEye, Brosnan wears a blue Omega Seamaster kitted out with a laser beam and remote detonator]. I probably wanted a Rolex really, but that was too expensive. I would wear that anytime I was in a dress uniform, in garrison. But not if we were doing any kind of mission stuff. I wanted to keep it for best. I still own it.
When did you make the jump to Rolex?
In the military, you don't make a lot of money to buy a frivolous watch. But, the weird thing is, when you go on deployments you don’t spend any money, but you still get your paycheck, right? And periodically, there are reenlistment periods. There are financial incentives to reenlist. And if you reenlist in a war zone, it’s tax free. You won’t be taxed on it.
What sort of money are we talking?
I want to say that I got $50,000 – something like that – for reenlisting. I was maybe five or six years into my career when I reenlisted. And you get a big cheque. And I was, like, “You know what? I’m gonna buy a Rolex. And I’m gonna wear it as if it were my G-Shock”.
And which Rolex was it?
The Deepsea. I viewed that as being the toughest one. You know, it’s just... bigger. I know better now, but I chose that one because it had come out recently and [the shop assistant was] like, “Oh, this is the more robust one. This is the one that’s going to stand up to all the things you’re going to do.” Yeah, again, I guess I believed the marketing.
You didn’t go for the Submariner straight off?
I actually walked out with a Submariner. But because I had worn a G-Shock it felt small to me. And it didn’t feel as tough as I thought I wanted to. And so the next day, I went back to the store, and said “Can I actually do the Deepsea instead?” And they let me do it.
I guess this was before a time of having to put your name down on a Rolex waiting list and crossing your fingers.
You could walk in and buy it. And it was discounted as well.
Where were you when you reenlisted?
Afghanistan.
And what exactly was your role there?
It changed all the time. I was a point man, a climber and JTAC [Joint Terminal Attack Controller, in support of aircraft]. Then I became a sniper. Then I became a team lead.
You mentioned your G-Shock earlier. Where did that one come from?
That was from graduation, at BUD/S [all Navy SEALs must graduate form a 24-week school known as Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL school]. At some point they have to give you a watch. Early in training, they try to beat you down and see if you’re tough enough to stay. They don’t want you to know how long the evolutions go, because they’re just destroying you. [“Evolution” refers to each event in the training schedule, and there are loads. Freefall training, weapons skills, land navigation, underwater swims, etc.] When an evolution begins and ends is measured in hours. And they don’t necessarily want you to know when you’re getting close to the end, in case you try to conserve your energy. So, you’re not allowed to wear a watch for the first few months. And then, when they give you a watch, it feels like you’ve levelled up.
What’s the typical dropout rate for SEAL training?
I don’t know what’s typical anymore. My class started with over 300 and finished around 35, if my memory serves me correctly. A lot more try to get in, so attrition is actually higher. [This article states that the course is considered “extremely difficult” to pass and has a dropout rate of between 70 per cent and 85 per cent, per class. “Candidates are subjected to limited sleep, cold water and constant physical exercise and combat training.”]
And after all that, they give you a G-Shock?
At some point they’re like, “Alright, you’re tough enough.” That's after Hell Week [the most difficult part of the course, where trainees endure five-and-a-half days of training, on less than four hours sleep]. And they issue you more gear. And you get a G-Shock. I’ve broken a number of G-Shocks, but I never broke the first one that was given to me. I tried to take care of that one, and I still own it to this day.
How did you break a famously unbreakable watch?
When you’re diving you have one on your wrist, your swim buddy is wearing one and you have one on what’s called an Attack Board [a piece of plastic that also holds a compass, used for “dead reckoning” dives, a navigation technique that estimates a position based on a known starting point, velocity and direction. It’s how you navigate underwater in darkness, where GPS signals can’t penetrate]. So, you actually go down as a dive pair with three watches. And every now and again, something would smash [the watch on the Attack Board]. There was also a thing where, if we thought they were too bright [underwater, theoretically giving away your position], we’d put red tape over the screen, and afterwards [when you went to remove it] you’d peel the rubber off. We flooded a lot of G-Shocks that way. Because if you’re going to alter them, or anything like that, you’re going to flood your watch.
What was the next watch you owned?
The green Submariner that I’m wearing right now. There was a point where I thought “Maybe I don’t just want this one Rolex [the Deepsea] for the rest of my life. Maybe I should have kept that Submariner”. I was, like, “You know what? Maybe I'll go look at it”. And I liked the green one that was called the “Hulk” – the one that had the green dial and a green bezel. I kind of had my eye on it, and I had been thinking about it. And then, for whatever reason this is tied in my mind, there was a really bad helicopter crash. It was shot down. It was called Extortion One-Seven. [In 2011, the US CH-47D Chinook military helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan, killing 38 people including 17 Navy SEALs.] It was the worst crash in the history of the SEALs.
How was that watch linked to the crash?
I was friends with those guys. One of my mentors was on that [helicopter]. Later, I went out and I had a bunch of drinks, and I went watch shopping. I was like a zombie going through town, trying to come to terms with it. I ended up negotiating to buy a “Hulk”. And I was getting a pretty big discount. I think they were going to give me 25 per cent off. And then I was just, like “You know, maybe this is a bad idea right now.”
How did that lead to the Submariner?
At some point, when I decided that I would like to get back into watches, I tried to go buy that “Hulk” again. But the market had changed, and they were hard to get. So, I got the one with the black dial and a green bezel, which is sometimes is referred to as the “Starbucks”. So in some way, shape or form, when I bought that, because it’s a Submariner, and it’s the Rolex most associated with Navy SEAL teams, just because I went out that day [and almost bought the “Hulk”], when I look at the watch and I look at the time I think of my friends who lost their lives.
I know you’ve encountered at least one other major tragedy. Are you ok to talk about that?
My friend Kevin [special warfare operator first class, Kevin Ebbert, who served with Huberty in Afghanistan] was just an unbelievable person. He was going to go be a doctor. Potentially this was going to be his last mission. He was going to go home within the next couple of weeks – they were going to allow him to leave the deployment a little early, because his end of service was coming up. He had been accepted in medical school, and he was going to go do that. He was the best of us. He was good at everything, but he wasn’t boastful. And he was not an extravagant person. He wore the regular issue boots – and in Special Operations, absolutely no one wears the regular issue boots. You’re going to wear the cool outdoor tactical boots that are made by someone else. Kevin wasn’t a “gear whore”. You know, “I like the tactical jacket that weighs one ounce less, and I’m willing to pay triple the price.” I like that kind of stuff! But Kevin didn’t and, unfortunately, the day he was killed, he was directly telling me his position, so I was talking to him on the radio. Probably the moment that he died he was talking to me. He was giving his grid coordinate to me so that I could take a team to respond and help him. Because he was taking effective fire.
“Effective fire” means he was being shot at?
“Effective fire” is when you have to respond because the bullets are so close. You have to duck. It’s not gunfire that’s far away. It’s, like, “Somebody is shoaoting directly at me”.
And you’re trained to go to someone in that situation?
They were getting shot from an elevated position – attacked from an advantageous position by the enemy. They were in a disadvantage because they were in the mountains, and they really couldn’t go anywhere, so they were pinned down.
By snipers?
Correct. A sniper. I was talking to him. I’m like, “Hey, I'll come to your position. Where are you?” And as he was giving me their position, he was killed. We went to that position and one of the Afghani soldiers was also shot and wounded. Eventually, we cleared that scenario and we had to carry him out. He was in the mountains, so we physically carried his body for hours. Everything was safe but it took a really long time.
You saved his watch and gave it to his mother, right?
I’m not sure whether the watch that he was wearing is now in his mother’s hands or his wife’s hands. I actually just went on a hike with his mother in Alaska, like, two weeks ago, to something called Gold Star Peak [in Chugach State Park, a peak named in honour of “Gold Star Families” who have lost family members in combat. Gold Star Families and veterans walk it together]. I’m still in contact with her. It’s one of those things. She wears that watch to feel close to him.
That must be, unfortunately, a common occurrence.
For men, a watch is one of the few things that you can wear in life. A wedding ring and a watch are the most common forms of jewelry that are accepted. Even a necklace, for some people, is too much for a man to wear. With a watch and a ring you feel closeness to that person. Those things are really powerful, and you feel close to those people when you wear them. For me, a mechanical watch is something that’s a little bit more permanent, rather than something battery-powered. It’s romantic, and it matters.
You’re a fully-fledged collector now. Do you look at the watches you wore during service differently to the others?
My taste in watches has grown. I have four young kids, so there’s not really time for me to go mountaineering or shooting or skydiving. The only hobby I really do is watches. [When I was in service] I only had tool watches. Now I have watches that I just think are really cool and are a little bit more elaborate. But those can come and go. I could lose those and be happy. But the watches that were on my wrist, the Deapsea and the G-Shock, those are not acceptable to ever sell or lose. Those are heirlooms. Those belong to my kids. Any watch that I buy in the store, even if I love it, it’s never going to be the same thing. I wore the Deepsea for the birth of all four of my kids and when I got married.
Is it dinged up?
Absolutely. I wore it until it completely stopped, so it wouldn’t wind anymore. It wouldn’t do anything. And when I had it serviced, I asked them not to polish it. Because I view those scratches as perhaps being earned, you know? It still looks pretty good. If you look far away, you don’t notice how dented it is.
Do you own any other Rolexes?
I have a “Pepsi” [ie: the red-and-blue Rolex GMT-Master II] that I got after service. Magnum, P.I wore it. Chuck Yeager wore it. When you go to reunions, you see a lot of the Vietnam guys, a lot of my heroes in the SEAL teams, they wear a Submariner probably more than anything. Or a lot of them wear GMTs, because they’re pretty similar. And, typically, SEALs don’t dive that deep. You don't need a watch that’s rated to the deep sea [Rolex’s current Submariner has a water resistance of 300 meters/1,000 feet. Its GMT is certified to 100 meters/ 300 feet]. No human really dives to 1,000 feet. People don’t do that! So, the GMT is plenty. When you go to reunions, you see people wear the “Pepsi” all the time. So that was the one I’ve always wanted. So, after the fact, when I was looking at other watches, it was, like, “I have to have a ‘Pepsi’”.
Does time feel different when you’re in service?
We all hold time differently. You know they’ve reconfigured our satellites, because time moves differently further away from gravity? Even just a couple of hundred miles. So, your mechanical watch holds time differently than my mechanical watch. And I think that there’s something beautiful about that. It's cool that we have a device that vibrates, you know, whatever, 28,800 times an hour, telling us what time is. A Rolex ticks eight times a second. That's pretty crazy. So, when I’m stressed out, I look at my watch, and when I see how time moves, sometimes I find it a little bit like therapy. When you're having a good time, time moves really fast. When you’re having a bad time, it moves really slow. And I guess in moments, you have to remember “This too shall pass”. Your watch is a reminder of all of that at once.
Which watch have you got your eye on the moment?
Going back to that time thing, I like more elaborate brands, where, when you look at the dial, it looks a bit crazy, and almost deconstructs time. I like MB&F. Some of them look like 1950s sculptures. The Legacy Machines are the ones I really like. “What if our company existed 100 years ago and was making watches that are almost steampunk?” You can see the escapement, you can see the spring vibrate. They don’t make any sense. They’re not particularly good at telling the time. What they are good at is making you contemplate time. When someone devotes their life to something so frivolous and silly but takes it seriously, there’s something charming about that. I also like H. Moser & Cie and Ulysse Nardin. Those three.
Do you miss your time in service?
Absolutely. The thing that I miss is the camaraderie. I don’t miss the military. I don’t miss the structure of it. I was probably bad at having a boss and following rules, unfortunately. The SEAL teams are great because you follow less rules… but there’s still a lot of rules. But the brotherhood, the camaraderie, the mission and the purpose. I think everybody who gets out suffers from not having that. So I do miss it. In some ways I’m jealous of people who are still doing it. But I have a family now. And I don’t see us fighting wars as much. If we were in a war I would want to be fighting battles. Without that, it’s less appealing to me. But absolutely. I loved the mission. I loved the people. And I do miss a lot of elements about it.
Thanks very much, Rob.
Thank you.
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