Retired Navy SEAL and the first co

mmanding officer of SEAL Team Six, Richard “Dick” Marcinko, has died, according to a post on the Navy SEAL Museum’s Facebook page.

A native of Lansford, he was 81.

Navy Commander (Ret.) Richard Marcinko in 1980 created and was the first commander of the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six, which shot and killed Osama bin Laden in his luxurious compound in Abbottobad, Pakistan.

According to armytimes.com, Marcinko led the SEAL team in what has become known as the Navy’s most successful SEAL operation during the Vietnam War: the May 1967 assault on Ilo Ilo Han. Marcinko and his men killed many Viet Cong and destroyed six of their sampans, according to the Navy SEAL Museum. Marcinko deployed a second time with SEAL Team Two during the Vietnam War. His platoon assisted Army Special Forces during the Tet Offensive.

He was one of two Navy representatives on a task force to help free American hostages during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. After the tragedy, the Navy tasked Marcinko with designing and developing a dedicated counterterrorist team.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas B. Hayward selected Marcinko as the first commanding officer of the unit. At the time, the Navy had two SEAL teams. According to the Navy SEAL museum, Marcinko named the unit “SEAL Team Six” to make other nations believe there were additional SEAL teams. He also hand-picked members from across existing SEAL teams and Underwater Demolition Teams. Marcinko led SEAL Team Six for three years.

“The SEALs who knew Dick Marcinko will remember him as imaginative and bold, a warrior at heart,” retired Navy SEAL Adm. Eric Olson, who commanded U.S. Special Operations Command from July, 2007 to August, 2011, told Navy Times. “He was a spirited rogue for sure, but we are better off for his unconventional service.”

William McRaven, the retired Navy SEAL admiral who oversaw the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and followed Olson as SOCOM commander, said, “Dick Marcinko was one of the more colorful characters in Naval Special Warfare history.” McRaven told Navy Times. “While we had some disagreements when I was a young officer, I always respected his boldness, his ingenuity and his unrelenting drive for success. I hope he will be remembered for his numerous contributions to the SEAL community.”

According to Times News archives, Marcinko was born on Thanksgiving Day, 1940, at his grandmother Justine Pavlik’s Lansford home, to George and Emilie Teresa Pavlik Marcinko.

He was born into a long line of coal miners.

His grandfather was Joe Pavlik. The family lived on a hill, “around the corner” from the little family-owned Kanuch’s grocery store.

In his book, Rogue Warrior, released in 1992, Marcinko wrote of his family’s life in Lansford.

“I’m Czech on both sides. My mother is short and Slavic-looking. My father was big — just under six feet — dark, brooding, and had a nasty temper,” he wrote. “All the men in the family — and virtually every male in Lansford as well — were miners. They were born, they worked in the mines, they died. Life was simple and life was hard, and I guess some of them might have wanted to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, but most were too poor to buy boots.”