Chapter 4
This was also where I learned how to swim, or at least how to swim better.
The part of Texas I'm from is far from the water. Among other things, I had to master the sidestroke-a critical stroke for a SEAL.
When intel school ended, I was rounding into shape, but probably still not quite ready for BUD/S. Though I didn't think so at the time, I was lucky that there was a shortage of instructors for BUD/S, which caused a backlog of students. The Navy decided to a.s.sign me to help the SEAL detailers for a few weeks until there was an opening. (Detailers are the people in the military who handle various personnel tasks. They're similar to human resources people in large corporations.)
I'd work about half a day with them, either from eight to noon or noon to four. When I wasn't working, I trained up with other SEAL candidates. We'd do PT, or physical training-what old-school gym teachers call calisthenics-for two hours. You know the drill: crunches, push-ups, squats.
We stayed away from weight work. The idea was that you didn't want to get muscle-bound; you wanted to be strong but have maximum flexibility.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we'd do exhaustion swim-swim until you sink, basically. Fridays were long runs of ten and twelve miles. Tough, but in BUD/S you were expected to run a half-marathon.
My parents remember having a conversation with me around this time. I was trying to prepare them for what might lie ahead. They didn't know that much about SEALs; probably a good thing.
Someone had mentioned that my ident.i.ty might be erased from official records. When I told them, I could see them grimace a little.
I asked if they were okay with it. Not that they would really have a choice, I suppose.
"It's okay," insisted my dad. My mom took it silently. They were both more than a little concerned, but they tried to hide it and never said anything to discourage me from going ahead.
Finally, after six months or so of waiting, working out, and waiting some more, my orders came through: Report to BUD/S.
GETTING MY a.s.s KICKED
I unfolded myself from the backseat of the cab and straightened my dress uniform. Hoisting my bag out of the taxi, I took a deep breath and started up the path to the quarterdeck, the building where I was supposed to report. I was twenty-four years old, about to live my dream.
And get my a.s.s kicked in the process.
It was dark, but not particularly late-somewhere past five or six in the evening. I half-expected I'd be jumped as soon as I walked in the door. You hear all these rumors about BUD/S and how tough it is, but you never get the full story. Antic.i.p.ation makes things worse.
I spotted a guy sitting behind a desk. I walked over and introduced myself. He checked me in and got me squared away with a room and the other administrative BS that needed to be handled.
All the time, I was thinking: "This isn't too hard."
And: "I'm going to get attacked any second."
Naturally, I had trouble getting to sleep. I kept thinking the instructors were going to burst in and start whipping my a.s.s. I was excited, and a little worried at the same time.
Morning came without the slightest disturbance. It was only then that I found out I wasn't really in BUD/S; not yet, not officially. I was in what is known as Indoc-or Indoctrination. Indoc is meant to
Indoc lasted a month. They did yell at us some, but it was nothing like BUD/S. We spent a bit of time learning the basics of what would be expected of us, like how to run the obstacle course. The idea was that by the time things got serious, we'd have our safety down. We also spent a lot of time helping out in small ways as other cla.s.ses went through the actual training.
Indoc was fun. I loved the physical aspect, pus.h.i.+ng my body and honing my physical skills. At the same time, I saw how the candidates were being treated in BUD/S, and I thought, Oh s.h.i.+t, I better get serious and work out more.
And then, before I knew it, First Phase started. Now the training was for real, and my b.u.t.t was being kicked. Regularly and with a great deal of feeling.
Which brings us up to the point where we started this chapter, with me getting hosed in the face while working out. I had been doing PT for months, and yet this was far harder. The funny thing is, even though I knew more or less what was going to happen, I didn't completely understand how difficult it was going to be. Until you actually experience something, you just don't know.
At some point that morning, I thought, Holy s.h.i.+t, these guys are going to kill me. My arms are going to fall off and I'm going to disintegrate right into the pavement.
Somehow I kept going.
The first time the water hit me, I turned my face away. That earned me a lot of attention-bad attention.
"Don't turn away!" shouted the instructor, adding a few choice words relating to my lack of character and ability. "Turn back and take it."
So I did. I don't know how many hundreds of push-ups or other exercises we did. I do know that I felt I was going to fail. That drove me-I did not want to fail.
I kept facing that fear, and coming to the same conclusion, every day, sometimes several times.
People ask about how tough the exercises were, how many push-ups we had to do, how many sit-ups. To answer the first question, the number was a hundred each, but the numbers themselves were almost beside the point. As I recall, everyone could do a hundred push-ups or whatever. It was the repet.i.tion and constant stress, the abuse that came with the exercises, that made BUD/S so tough. I guess it's hard to explain if you haven't lived through it.
There's a common misunderstanding that SEALs are all huge guys in top physical condition. That last part is generally true-every SEAL in the Teams is in excellent shape. But SEALs come in all sizes. I was in the area of six foot two and 175 pounds; others who would serve with me ranged from five foot seven on up to six foot six. The thing we all had in common wasn't muscle; it was the will to do whatever it takes.
Getting through BUD/S and being a SEAL is more about mental toughness than anything else. Being stubborn and refusing to give in is the key to success. Somehow I'd stumbled onto the winning formula.
UNDER THE RADAR
That first week I tried to be as far under the radar as possible. Being noticed was a bad thing. Whether it was during PT or an exercise, or even just standing in line, the least little thing could make you the focus of attention. If you were slouching while in line, they fixed on you right away. If an instructor said to do something, I tried to be the first one to do it. If I did it right-and I sure tried to-they ignored me and went on to someone else.
I couldn't completely escape notice. Despite all my exercise, despite all the PT and everything else, I had a lot of trouble with pull-ups.
I'm sure you know the routine-you put your arms up on the bar and pull yourself up. Then you lower yourself. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
In BUD/S, we had to hang from the bar and wait there until the instructor told us to start. Well, the first time the cla.s.s set up, he happened to be standing right close to me.
"Go!" he said.
"Ugghhhh," I moaned, pulling myself northward.
Big mistake. Right away I got tagged as being weak.
I couldn't do all that many pull-ups to begin with, maybe a half-dozen (which was actually the requirement). But now, with all the attention, I couldn't just slip by. I had to do perfect pull-ups. And many of them. The instructors singled me out, and started making me do more, and giving me a lot of extra exercise.
It had an effect. Pull-ups became one of my better exercises. I could top thirty without trouble. I didn't end up the best in the cla.s.s, but I wasn't an embarra.s.sment, either.
And swimming? All the work I'd done before getting to BUD/S paid off. Swimming actually became my best exercise. I was one of, if not the fastest, swimmers in the cla.s.s
Again, minimum distances don't really tell the story. To qualify, you have to swim a thousand yards in the ocean. By the time you're done with BUD/S, a thousand yards is nothing. You swim all the time. Two-mile swims were routine. And then there was the time where we were taken out in boats and dropped off seven nautical miles from the beach.
"There's one way home, boys," said the instructors. "Start swimming."
MEAL TO MEAL
Probably everyone who's heard of SEALs has heard of h.e.l.l Week. It's five and a half days of continuous beat-down designed to see if you have the endurance and the will to become the ultimate warrior.