SEAL of Honor (14 page)

The student with the slowest O-course time had to wear a pink T-shirt that read “Always a Lady” until the next course run.

As if the O-course was not challenging enough, each boat crew was frequently charged with the task of carrying their IBS on their heads as they went through the course as a team.

Prior to Hell Week, which is the most intense period of training during First Phase, Michael and his classmates faced an extremely challenging physical training evolution. The trainees had to complete a twelve-hundred-meter pool swim with fins in forty-five minutes, a one-mile bay swim with fins in fifty minutes, a one-mile ocean swim with fins in ninety-five minutes, a one-and-a-half-mile ocean swim with fins in seventy minutes, a two-mile ocean swim with fins in ninety-five minutes, the O-course in fifteen minutes, and a four-mile beach run in thirty-two minutes.

In the days leading up to Hell Week, the mental strain was apparent on the faces of many in Michael’s class. Most were convinced that they could deal with the physical requirements of the week, but many were worried about the mental toughness they hoped they possessed and would need to muster to survive the upcoming ordeal.

Michael remembered his father telling him about the extensive leg injuries he suffered in Vietnam after being hit by an exploding grenade, and the weeks of agonizing surgeries and treatment he endured during his several months of hospitalization. He also remembered his father showing him a picture of him lying in a hospital bed in Vietnam receiving a Purple Heart from his commanding officer. He telephoned his father and asked him for a copy of the picture so he could look at it when he needed to reinforce his mental toughness the following week. Dan sent the picture out the following day. It arrived on Friday, and Michael looked at it frequently over the weekend. He believed that if his dad could endure being wounded by a grenade, multiple surgeries, weeks of hospitalization, and months of physical therapy to learn how to walk again, he could certainly handle whatever Hell Week dished out.

The first four weeks of First Phase were designed to prepare Michael and his classmates for the fifth week, known as Hell Week, the most notorious part of BUD/S. By this time approximately 30 percent of the class had quit. Hell Week was the real gut check of First Phase and would be the defining moment in both the lives and careers of most of those who would go on to become SEALs.

During Hell Week, the students participated in five and a half days of continuous physical training, with a maximum of four hours’ sleep for the entire week, with never more than two hours at one time. Deliberately designed as the ultimate test of physical and mental motivation, Hell Week proved to those who succeeded that the human body can do ten times the amount of work and exercise than they previously thought possible. The Academic/Performance Review Board reviewed each student’s academic and physical training scores and decided who would go through Hell Week. Michael was cleared to proceed.

On Sunday, just after their noon meal, Michael’s entire class was sequestered in the classroom. Along the back wall were brown paper bags, labeled with their last names, that contained a change of socks and underwear. Some of the men tried to sleep, some read, and some even halfheartedly attempted to watch a video on the screen.

Meanwhile, the instructors put the final touches on the initial “breakout” experience, which was set to start at a predesignated time. Inside the classroom, all knew it was coming; they just didn’t know when or how. They had heard stories about Hell Week from the previous class, but no two Hell Weeks begin the same. Several of the boat crews met to encourage each other, and some even engaged in bravado about being able to take “whatever they decide to put us through.” As an officer, Michael personally talked with each member of his boat crew and offered words of encouragement. He knew that the six men he began Hell Week with might not be the same ones he would finish with. Despite his words, the looks on their faces and in their eyes revealed their real feelings. As they looked around the room, they were aware of the 30 percent that had already dropped out and that the statistics said they would lose another 20 percent in the next twenty-four hours and an additional 20 percent before the end of the week. They couldn’t help wondering if they had what it takes. Yes, they all knew it was coming, but they just didn’t know when or how.

As the minutes and hours passed, the anxiety reached heightened levels, and many of the trainees began expressing their desire to “get this thing going.” By midafternoon their frustration was becoming obvious. Some wondered aloud if the wait and anticipation was just as bad as what they were about to experience. Several students acted as lookouts, sitting next to the doors and watching for
approaching instructors, and some sat alone with their thoughts. At 5:00 PM the movies were being repeated for the third time, but no one was really paying attention. The students, visibly apprehensive, began to walk around the room, and conversations among teammates were hushed and infrequent. While a few had relaxed and began playing games of cards, others sat quietly staring blankly into the distance. Certainly, something had to happen soon.

At 5:45 PM an instructor quietly crawled to the door near the front of the classroom and secured the lock. A few seconds later, several instructors flanked the rear door on each side. Armed with smoke grenades, Simunitions (simulated ballistic charges designed to provide realistic training) canisters, and semiautomatic weapons loaded with blank rounds, they moved into position. Outside, on the grinder, several more instructors armed with high-pressure fire hoses took up positions on both sides of the door. Numerous obstacles and barricades had been erected, as well as empty fifty-five-gallon barrels loaded with low-intensity percussion grenades.

Quietly and slowly an instructor turned the doorknob and opened the door just enough to get his hand in and shut off the lights. As the lights went off the instructors, rushed in, screaming through bullhorns, firing their semiautomatic weapons over the heads of the students, who had hit the floor and covered their heads and ears. As the instructors ran through the room trying not to step on anyone, hot spent shell casings hit the floor. Students started yelling, coughing, and hacking. After several minutes of total chaos and confusion, the instructors ordered the students outside, yelling through their amplified bullhorns. Several ran for the front door, but finding it locked, they immediately turned and ran for the back door. The doorway backed up with students, who fell over each other in total confusion. As a group of students cleared the doorway and reached the grinder, they tripped over several of the obstacles that were not there when they entered the classroom several hours earlier. High-pressure fire hoses knocked several to the ground, blinded by smoke and water.

Totally disoriented, some students crawled in every direction trying to escape, while others ran into one obstacle after another as well as into each other. The noise produced by the amplified music, bullhorns, gunfire, and fire hoses was deafening. Some students, totally confused and disorientated, resorted to crawling on the asphalt with their ears covered. Some tried to escape to the beach but were blocked and knocked backward by more instructors with fire hoses. The breakout had been designed to create chaos and confusion. It worked.

After about twenty minutes of mayhem and chaos, the hoses were shut off and the last echoes of semiautomatic weapons faded into the evening air. Bewildered, soaked, confused, and in total shock, the students were ordered to the beach for a roll in the sand then back to the grinder. Many were still coughing and hacking,
several with their eyes still closed tightly from the irritation of the cordite, water, and smoke. There were numerous bleeding abrasions on knees, elbows, and ankles from crawling on the rough asphalt.

“Drop!” came the order over the bullhorn. Instinctively, each trainee assumed the fully extended position for push-ups.

“Push ’em out!”

In unison the class began its first of what would be twenty-five sets of twenty push-ups, alternated with ten sets of twenty sit-ups and hurried trips to the pull-up bars for additional repetitions, then back to the grinder for multiple sets of flutter kicks. During the push-ups, several vomited as they extended up from the asphalt. The instructors continued to issue the same order: “Push ’em out!”

Following their warm-up of five hundred push-ups and two hundred gut-busting sit-ups and multiple sets of pull-ups and flutter kicks, the trainees mustered for a run through the O-course. Several more vomited as they ran between obstacles but kept moving. Several students quit and returned to the grinder and their rooms. They had had enough.

Michael was well aware that there were two critical mental elements to surviving Hell Week: taking the punishment handed out by the instructors; and trying not to think about what was to come, because more often than not it was the anticipation that destroyed the will to go on, rather than the punishment itself. He also had a clear vision of where he wanted to go in life. Having this vision made him less likely to fall prey to the mental and physical torture of BUD/S.

Those who remained headed to the beach for another roll in the sand before they assembled in a line, linked arms, and entered the cold surf for another round of surf torture. Each realized that this was just the beginning of what was in store for the next five days: hundreds more push-ups and sit-ups, dozens of more miles to run, another dozen or more runs through the O-course, more surf torture, and more sand. Several more quit. After surf torture it was off for a two-mile run to warm up.