CORONADO, CALIFORNIA
1977
Waaater!”
“Dig! Dig harder!”
The twelve-foot wall of water was beginning to crest, and all seven men in the Inflatable Boat Small (IBS) knew they had to paddle for their lives or the wave would crush the tiny boat and send us all crashing back onto the shore. As the coxswain, my job was to hold the IBS into the oncoming wave and hope we could keep the bow centered. If the rubber boat turned sideways, we would surely dump and the few moments of dryness we had experienced over the past hour would vanish and once again we would be soaked to the bones from the cold Pacific Ocean.
The wave was upon us and my fellow SEAL trainees from Class 95 were paddling as hard as they could as I yelled the stroke cadence.
“We’re losing it!” shouted one of the men.
I could feel the strain on my paddle as the wave bore down upon the tiny raft. The only thing keeping us from capsizing was my oar, which was planted firmly in the water, steadying the IBS.
We were just about over the crest of the wave. We were going to make it, I thought. Over the wave and into calm water. We just had to hold on for one more second.
Craaack! The sound was unmistakable. Wood splintering in two, like a slugger’s bat snapping as a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball caught the middle of the pine.
Suddenly the rudderless boat spun sideways. Men and oars tumbled out of the IBS, caught in a vortex of water and foam, plunging beneath the wave and rolling violently on the sandy bottom off Coronado, California.
One by one the trainees popped to the surface and struggled to make their way to the beach. Each man had a chemlite taped to his life jacket, and I took a quick head count to make sure all my men were present and accounted for.
Dejected and wet, we gathered together in the surf zone and retrieved the bobbing IBS, which had been pushed down the beach and was floating aimlessly toward Tijuana, Mexico.
“All right. You guys know the drill,” I said. They all nodded.
Grabbing the IBS, we mustered back on the beach in front of the SEAL training instructors. In true military fashion, we aligned the IBS with the bow facing the ocean and all seven men stood at rigid attention next to their spot on the boat. Every man had recovered his paddle… but me. I was at the stern, my green fatigues sagging from the weight of the water, my jungle boots oozing sand from the tiny eyelets, and my orange kapok life preserver pushing my head backward at an awkward angle.
Looming over me was Senior Chief Dick Ray, a highly decorated SEAL from Vietnam. Tall, with broad shoulders, jet black hair, and a pencil-thin mustache, Ray was the epitome of a Navy SEAL. Everyone respected him and everyone feared him.
“Ensign McRaven. How would you evaluate your performance?” Ray said without a hint of anger.
Before I could answer, Doc Jenkins, a large, heavyset African American corpsman, jumped in. “Pathetic. That’s what it was. Just fucking pathetic!” Jenkins screamed, closing to within inches of my face. “I can’t believe your boat crew couldn’t get past that tiny little wave.” He grabbed the man next to me by his kapok life jacket and shook him hard. “You guys are weak and none of you belong in the Teams. You make me sick to look at you.”
“Mr. Mac,” Ray asked calmly. “Do you have all your men and equipment?”
“No, Senior Chief,” I responded.
“No! No!” Jenkins yelled. “Not only can’t you get past a pissant wave, you can’t even keep track of your men and equipment.” He stomped around waving his hands fanatically. “Has someone drowned, Mr. Mac? Are you missing one of your crew?”
“No, Instructor Jenkins.”
“Then what the fuck are you missing?”
“My oar, Instructor Jenkins.”
“Your oar! Your oar!” he yelled in my ear. “You can’t paddle a fucking IBS without an oar!” Shaking his head, Jenkins looked at Ray and asked, “Well, Senior Chief, I don’t know what we should do about this.”
Somehow I knew where this discussion was going. Senior Chief Ray walked over to me and in a whisper asked, “What do you think we should do, Mr. Mac? I can’t go back to Commander Couteur and tell him we lost government property. We have to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars. Don’t you think, Mr. Mac? Don’t you think we need to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars?”
“Yes, Senior Chief.”
I could see Jenkins out of the corner of my eye. He was trying not to laugh. He and Ray were the perfect good cop, bad cop.
“I tell you what we need to do, Mr. Mac. We need to find that paddle. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, Senior Chief.”
“Good, good. So, you and your boat crew get back in the IBS, get back in the water, and see if you can find that missing paddle.”
Jenkins turned around and yelled at the top of his voice, “Hit it!”
Without hesitation, we grabbed the hand straps on the IBS and charged back into the surf zone, knowing that we would never find the broken paddle, but in an hour or so the instructors would get tired of our efforts and return us to the barracks. It was 2100 hours. The end of another long day of runs, swims, obstacle course, more runs, more swims, and constant harassment. Tomorrow would bring more of the same, and though only three weeks into SEAL training, I had learned already that “the only easy day was yesterday.”
After graduating from the University of Texas I spent two months in Austin on recruiting duty before the Navy transferred me to Coronado to begin SEAL training. Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) Training was reportedly the toughest physical training in the entire military, but in August 1977, it was difficult to find out anything about SEALs or SEAL training. Even the military orders I received were cryptic—a school course number with no title. At the time, BUD/S training was just another class at the Naval Amphibious School in Coronado. While the legacy of Navy frogmen extended back to World War II, the evolution from the frogmen to the Vietnam-era SEALs was not well known to the public.
I was assigned to Class 95. The class started with 155 trainees: 146 enlisted men and 9 officers. By the end of the second week of training we were down to 100 enlisted men and 4 officers. The officers in the class included Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Dan’l Steward, who was the senior officer and therefore the class leader. There were also two other ensigns besides myself, Marc Thomas and Fred Artho. Dan’l was a Naval Academy graduate, Marc from VMI, and Fred from the University of Utah. Dan’l was a superb officer with tremendous leadership skills and physically very strong. Marc and I would end up as “swim buddies” and spend most of BUD/S lashed together during our dives and long swims. Marc was one hell of a runner, but swimming wasn’t his strong suit. Together we were a great match.
Fred Artho was indestructible. With an incredible tolerance for pain, he was far and away the best runner. Together the four of us bonded quickly.
After nine weeks of training, the class was down to fifty-five total “tadpoles” and the infamous Hell Week had yet to begin. Six days of no sleep and constant physical and mental harassment, it was the second-to-last week of “First Phase.” During the Second Phase of training the students learned to dive with various scuba rigs, and Third Phase was all about land warfare. Most trainees thought that if you could make it through Hell Week you were almost certain to finish BUD/S, but statistically that wasn’t true. A lot of men failed the tough academics of dive phase or were uncomfortable at night underwater. Still others lacked the leadership and quick decision making necessary for the immediate action drills so prevalent in land warfare. Statistically, only 25 percent of the enlisted men made it through training and in 1977 less than 50 percent of the officers. In all, BUD/S training lasted six months, after which time you were assigned to a SEAL or Underwater Demolition Team (UDT). Then you had another six months of advanced training before you received the coveted SEAL Trident.
It was the Friday before the start of Hell Week when Dan’l Steward called us all together in the large BUD/S classroom. A Naval Academy gymnast and rower, Steward was five foot nine, with classic washboard abs, a thin waist, powerful legs, and broad shoulders. He was also a “rollback” from Class 94. The Wednesday before Class 94’s Hell Week, his bicep was ripped from his arm when the rubber sling used to recover swimmers aboard a fast-moving boat caught him too high and pulled the muscle clear of the bone. After a few months of recovery, he was placed in Class 95.
Standing on the small stage, Steward came to parade rest. After four years at the Academy, it was a natural stance for him.
“Gentlemen, on Sunday night we will begin Hell Week. It is the most challenging, grueling, gut-wrenching test that most of you will ever encounter in your lives.”
You could feel the anticipation in the room.
“If you finish it, you will likely go on to be Navy SEALs, the most elite warriors in modern time. You will be part of a brotherhood of men like no other the world has ever known.”
He stepped down from the stage and walked into the huddled group of men. “But—the only way you can complete Hell Week is if we stay together as a team.” He scanned the crowd to make sure everyone was listening. “At some point during the week all of us will falter. At some point, each of us will think about quitting. We will be enticed by the instructors to leave the ice-cold water and go someplace warm and cozy where we can relax and forgo the pain of Hell Week. They will tell you that all you have to do to get a good meal and warm bed is to ring the bell. Ring the bell three times and you’re out. You won’t even have to face your fellow tadpoles again.”
Looking around the room, I could already see fear in the eyes of some of the men. Not fear of pain or exhaustion or even death. They feared failure.
“We must stick together!” Steward shouted. “Don’t think about quitting. Don’t think about how hard it’s going to be in an hour or a day or a week.” He paused and entered the center of the huddle. Calmly, with a look of complete confidence, he said, “Just take it one evolution at a time.”
One evolution at a time. One evolution at a time. These words would stick with me for the rest of my career. They summed up a philosophy for dealing with difficult times. Most BUD/S trainees dropped out because their event horizon was too far in the distance. They struggled not with the problem of the moment, but with what they perceived would be an endless series of problems, which they believed they couldn’t overcome. When you tackled just one problem, one event, or, in the vernacular of BUD/S training, one evolution at a time, then the difficult became manageable. Like many things in life, success in BUD/S didn’t always go to the strongest, the fastest, or the smartest. It went to the man who faltered, who failed, who stumbled, but who persevered, who got up and kept moving. Always moving forward, one evolution at a time.
“Never quit. Never quit. Never quit!” The class picked up the refrain and came together in the center of the room. Steward yelled out, “Class 95!” Fifty-five men answered in unison, “Hooyah Class 95!”
But in one week many of those men would no longer be in Class 95.
Machine-gun fire erupted outside the small barracks room in which Steward, Thomas, Artho, and I were berthed. It was Sunday evening—the start of Hell Week.
“Muster on the grinder!” came the commanding voice of Senior Chief Ray.
As we darted out of our room, an instructor poised at the end of the hallway tossed a grenade simulator in our direction. It exploded with the force of a hundred large firecrackers, rattling the windows and almost knocking me off my feet. Standing by the stairway, another instructor tossed a smoke grenade, while a third instructor moved through the hall firing the M-60 machine gun into each room, blank brass casings falling everywhere. It was chaos. Exactly how it was intended to be.
Running behind Steward, I dashed down the two flights of stairs and into the chilly night air. Anticipating the start of Hell Week, all the men had slept in their green utility uniforms. Steward began to muster the men in five lines of ten to twelve trainees each, but the instructors would have none of it. The concrete area upon which we did daily physical training was named the grinder, and it had a reputation for grinding men down to their breaking point. The grinder was filled with BUD/S instructors, some with automatic weapons, others tossing grenade simulators, still others with hoses to soak the trainees.
“Drop down, Ensign McRaven!” yelled a familiar voice behind me.
It was Senior Chief “Bum” Grenier—a tobacco-chewing, hard-ass southern boy who said “fuck” every other word. More than any other instructor, Grenier loved to screw with the trainees. He was constantly dropping us for push-ups, spitting tobacco in our hats, and asking the trainees questions, the answers to which would get us in more trouble.
Questions like, “Mr. Mac, do you think my girlfriend is pretty?”
“Yes, Senior Chief.”
“Well, then you’re a liar. She is the ugliest-looking woman in California. Hit the surf!”
Of course, if you countered with, “No, Senior Chief, I think she’s ugly,” then you hit the surf anyway for questioning the senior chief’s choice of women.
Dropping to the concrete grinder, I assumed the push-up position and began my mandatory twenty-five push-ups.
“Mr. Mac, do you think you are going to get through Hell Week?”
“Yes, Senior Chief!” I yelled over the sound of machine-gun fire.
“Your class is weak, Mr. Mac. You’ll be lucky if half of them make it through tomorrow.”
As he completed his sentence, I could hear the sound of the brass bell ringing three times. Someone had already quit and we weren’t five minutes into Hell Week.
“See. Fucking quitters,” he said, his tobacco breath hot on my face. “I’m going to make you quit, Mr. Mac. All week long you are going to see me and tremble with fear. Because all week long I am going to bring you pain.”
Out of the corner of my eyes I could see the hose. He shoved it into my mouth before I could move and the full force of the water pressure blasted down my throat. I immediately turned away, but he followed my face back and forth as I shook from side to side.
“You’re going to quit, Mr. Mac. You might as well do it now and save yourself the pain. Just quit now!” Another three rings on the bell. Two men gone. Another three rings. Three men.
“They are dropping like fucking flies. Might as well join them, Mr. Mac. Just quit!”
The water was beginning to choke me. Struggling to get a breath, I jerked the hose out of Grenier’s hand. “I’m not going to fucking quit!”
Grenier reeled back, a look of surprise and anger on his face. You never challenged an instructor and got away with it. Pain was coming.
“Get on your feet, Mr. McRaven,” he demanded.
I promptly came to attention and the senior chief closed to within an inch of my nose, the tobacco-stained teeth and pockmarked face filling my entire view. Suddenly, I noticed a twinkle in his eye.
“Get back with your class, Mr. Mac, and don’t you dare quit on me.”
I smiled. “I won’t quit on you, Senior.”
“Hooyah, Mr. Mac,” he said softly.
The rest of the class was doing more push-ups when I joined them, but before I could get into position, I heard, “Hit the surf!” It was a familiar refrain in BUD/S training. Anytime anyone did anything that didn’t meet the instructor’s standards, which were very vague and quite arbitrary, the trainee, fully clothed, ran at full speed and dove into the Pacific Ocean, ensuring every part of his body was submerged. This drill was routinely followed by the “sugar cookie,” during which the trainee, thoroughly soaked, rolled around on the beach so that his uniform and his body were caked with sand—wet and sandy, a particularly uncomfortable feeling as the sand had a way of chafing you throughout the rest of the day.
“Hooyah,” we yelled as a sign of our class unity. Then, en masse, we ran to the beach, linked arms, and walked into the pounding surf. The instructors’ job was to break us. To find out who was weak and sort them from the strong.
“Lie down,” came the next command. Together we lay in the surf, head facing the ocean, feet toward the beach. The waves rolled over the top of us, cold water blasting across our bodies.
“Now,” Doc Jenkins began, “you will stay in this water until someone quits. Who wants to be the first?”
Arms linked, we held each other tight and whispered from side to side, “No one quit. Never quit.”
We held firm for thirty minutes, until someone in the ranks broke. I couldn’t see who it was from my prone position, but seconds later I heard the sound of the bell. Three rings. Down another man.
As promised, the instructors brought us back to the beach. After some obligatory yelling, we were ordered to change into dry uniforms and muster on the grinder in three minutes, which we all knew wasn’t enough time to switch uniforms.
Nevertheless, we sprinted back to the barracks. I had time to put on a dry T-shirt, grab a hidden Snickers bar, and dash back downstairs. Two and half minutes later, we were still late.
“Mr. Steward, do you have any control of this class?”
“Yes, Instructor,” came the reply.
“Then why aren’t they fully mustered on the grinder as I asked?”
“Sir, we still have thirty seconds.”
Never question an instructor.
“Then you know what you can do with those thirty seconds, Mr. Steward?”
Steward didn’t reply.
“Hit the surf!”
Once again, we all ran to the surf, plunged in, and returned to the grinder. The bell rang again.
Within minutes after returning we were in formation jogging to the other side of the Naval Amphibious Base. NAB Coronado was the home of BUD/S training. The BUD/S compound was on the beach side, but the main base was on the bay side. After shivering for the past hour, we were all happy to be jogging across the highway onto the main base.
Arriving at the piers that moored our Special Boat Squadron small craft, the class was now down to fifty men. The shock of the first hour had caused five men to ring the bell. They quit because they couldn’t conceive making it through another six days of being cold, wet, and miserable.
No sooner had we halted the formation than the order came to “hit the bay.” Once again, fully clothed and soaked to the bone, we plunged into the cold water of Coronado Bay.
“Mr. Steward, Class 95 will stay in the bay until two men quit. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Instructor,” Steward said stoically.
Swimming over to a group of five trainees, I circled the men and said to each one, “No one quits. They can’t keep us in here forever.”
“Are you sure?” came a reply.
“There’s one!” Senior Chief Grenier, standing on the pier, laughed.
Sure enough, climbing the ladder out of the bay was one of my original boat crew members. I had always questioned this sailor’s motivation, but had hoped for the best. He lifted himself onto the pier, approached the instructor, and asked to quit. To us trainees, the instructors were all sadists who wanted nothing more than for you to quit and never be seen again. In reality, they were all good men who wanted each trainee to succeed. I watched as the instructor pulled the sailor aside and asked him, man to man, “Are you sure you want to quit? You’ve come a long way. You can still do this.” I couldn’t hear the response, but the body language gave away his answer. With head down and shoulders slumped, the trainee nodded, then came to attention and promptly jogged to a nearby bus—the quitters’ bus. I would never see him again.
Moments later, another, then another, then another. In all, three more trainees quit and we weren’t even into the third hour. Six hours later, the night would turn into day and three more men would ring the bell. Over the next two days we were kept constantly cold, wet, and fatigued. Just about the time you dried off and began to get “comfortable,” some instructor would yell, “Hit the surf,” and we would charge into the waves like crazed lunatics. By Wednesday evening, most of us were operating on automatic. We went where we were told, without question, without emotion, and just pushed through the pain. But with Wednesday also came the mudflats, the most tiring event of the week and the one that broke most of the men.
The mudflats were part of the Tijuana slews, a swamplike drainage area that ran from South San Diego into Tijuana. The mud was deep and thick, with a stench that permeated the entire area.
Late in the afternoon we paddled our IBSs from Coronado down to the mudflats. By the time we arrived the sun was getting low on the horizon.
“Mr. Steward, your class looks entirely too clean. Are you clean, Mr. Steward?”
“No, Instructor Faketty. We are dirty, filthy tadpoles.” Petty Officer First Class Mike Faketty was our class proctor for First Phase. While he had to perform his duties as an instructor, it was also his job to get as many guys through First Phase as possible. Faketty was one of the few instructors who was not a Vietnam veteran, but as we would find over the course of the next few months, he was still one of the best SEALs at BUD/S. But for now his job was simple. Weed out the weak.
“No, Mr. Steward. I have conferred with my fellow instructors, and they agree, you are all way too clean.” He paused and had that sadistic grin that instructors got before they hammered you. Then very quietly he said, “Hit it.”
We all waded into the mud, which sucked you in up to your waist and made movement extremely difficult. The mud had been a way of life for the Vietnam-era SEALs. The Mekong Delta was filled with mud. The Viet Cong hid in the slews of the Mekong River thinking they were safe. But the SEALs earned their reputation by going where no else would go or could go—into the VC camps. Into the mangrove and mud bogs where the enemy felt they had sanctuary. Mud was a great equalizer of men. Big or small, weak or strong, if you fought the mud, it fought back, and it was tireless.
Over the next few hours, as the sun went down and the night got cold, we stayed in the mud. There were mud relay races. Mud diving. Mud wrestling. Mud swimming. Anything to keep us in the mud. By 1900 hours, the sun was going down and every inch of our bodies was covered with mud. Then the fun began.
At the edge of the mudflats the instructors had built a small campfire—a lure, an enticement, the flames calling us to quit.
“Man, it’s warm here by the fire. How’s your coffee, Doc?”
“Coffee’s great, Fak. How’s your chow?”
“Oh, I got the beans and franks. Great chow.”
Huddled at the edge of the mud pool, we sat shivering uncontrollably, hanging on every word the instructors said, but under our breath we whispered encouragement to each other.
Faketty approached the edge of the mud. “Gentlemen, I have to tell you it’s really nice and warm by this fire.”
I could see some of the other trainees eyeing the flames as they jumped upward with each draft from the ocean breeze.
Faketty continued, “You can come join me. All I need is for five men to quit. Just five men and you can all come sit by the fire and have some coffee.”
The trainees had linked arms both for warmth and for support. Faketty paced the edge of the mud. “Just five guys. I just need five quitters.”
I could feel the student beside me begin to loosen his grip. He was ready to bolt for the dry ground. “Don’t quit, man,” I whispered. “Hang tough, this will be over soon.” His arm broke free of mine and he started to push forward through the mud.
Suddenly, from the far end of the line of trainees came a familiar tune. One man began singing loudly. It was not a song for tender ears.
“Hey!” Faketty yelled. “Keep quiet! I didn’t say you could sing.”
Steward joined in, then another man and another. Before long the entire class was singing. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud. But the singing persisted and the man next to me returned to his place.
From the light of the fire, I could see the instructors smiling contentedly. They knew the class was coming together, in spite of the pain. But the evening was just beginning and the night would get worse with each passing hour.
By 2100 hours we were out of the mud and sitting on the cold ground as the instructors continued the harassment.
“Mr. Steward, Mr. Mac, Mr. Thomas, and Mr. Artho. Front and center.” I unfolded my legs, struggled to my feet, and joined the other three officers next to the fire.
“Warm, isn’t it?” Faketty said.
None of us spoke.
“So, here are the rules for tonight’s follies. When I say, ‘Hit it,’ the entire class has five minutes to get as far away from here as possible. Then when you hear the sound of the air horn you will turn around and try to make your way back to the base camp. If you successfully elude the instructors, who will be out hunting for you, then you can sit by the fire and have some chow. If you get caught, however, you will spend the rest of the evening in the mud. Am I clear, gentlemen?”
“Yes, Instructor Faketty,” we yelled in unison.
“Good. Just remember—it pays to be a winner.”
After Steward gave a quick brief to the class, Faketty yelled out the start command and like drunken mice we all took off in different directions. The night sky was clear and cold. The stars were bright but there was no moon. It was dark, but my eyes had already adjusted to the ambient light.
Instead of running far, I decided that tactically it would be better to stay close to the camp, making the distance I had to elude the instructors much shorter. After about a hundred yards I stopped and found good concealment behind a mound of sand and scrub brush.
The starlight illuminated shadows of trainees dashing in every direction—freezing, coated with mud, slow-witted from exhaustion, their reasoning was elementary at best. Suddenly a figure came from my blind side and dove over the mound, settling down beside me. It was my fellow trainee, Seaman Marshall Lubin. Lubin was quite a character. The oldest man in the class at age thirty-two, he was a ’60s-style hippie who had traveled the world “escorting” women to exotic locations. After his last relationship went south, he decided to join the Navy and become a diver. During one of our classroom sessions on sentry stalking, Lubin approached me afterward with a stunning revelation—to him. “Mr. Mac, they’re teaching us to kill people,” he said with a look of horror. “Yes, Lubin,” I responded calmly, noting that SEALs in Vietnam often had to take out Viet Cong sentries in order to get to their objective. “What did you think this course was all about?” I asked.
“I thought we were learning to be scuba divers. Nobody told me we were going to kill people.” He was a lover, not a fighter. But, like most who came to BUD/S, witting or not of the product it produced, Lubin wanted to test his inner strength. To his credit, he stayed the course, would graduate a SEAL, and later leave the Navy to be a civilian chiropractor.
“Damn, I’m cold, Mr. Mac. I can’t last out here too long. We have got to get back to the fire.”
“Patience, Marshall. If we hurry we’ll get caught and spend the rest of the night in the mud.”
Suddenly another figure came out of the shadows. “Hey, you guys want some hot chocolate?”
“What?”
“Hot chocolate. You guys want some hot chocolate?”
It had to be a trick, I thought. Or maybe the hallucinations had already started, those thoroughly exhausted moments when your mind visualized what you really hoped to see. It was a well-known phenomenon during Hell Week. I could smell the warm chocolate and hear the milk pouring into a canteen cup.
“Here, here. Drink it. I’ve got to go.” Without hesitation, Lubin and I drank what was given to us and the shadowy figure departed. I watched as the apparition moved from mound to mound like Gunga Din, pouring cups of hot chocolate into freezing trainees. The sweet taste on my swollen tongue told me the experience was real, but still very strange.
Lubin and I began to move closer to the fire. Bounding from one small mound to the next, we closed the distance until we were within sight of the fire and could hear the instructors. But this was the danger zone. Close enough to see the prize—close enough to be caught.
Lubin was shaking so hard it was making me colder. “Lubin, stop shaking, man. You’re making noise,” I whispered.
“I can’t stop, sir. I’ve got to get to the fire.”
“Not now,” I warned. “There are too many instructors moving around.” But before I could stop him, Lubin was on the move.
I could see his lanky figure slithering across the sand trying to make it to the next mound, but I could also see an instructor, eyeing his prey. Hunkering down next to a small bush, Lubin was within twenty-five yards of the fire.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” yelled Petty Officer Faketty. “Seaman Recruit Lubin.”
Lubin stood up and faced the music. As I watched, the instructors surrounded him. I thought it was my time to make a dash for the fire.
“Lubin, where is your swim buddy? Surely you are not out here alone without a swim buddy. That would be a violation of BUD/S regulations.”
Swim buddy. I was screwed and I knew it. In BUD/S you always, always swam, ran, dived, ate, and, in the field, slept with a swim buddy. But the rules of this nighttime folly had not mentioned swim buddies.
“Here’s the deal, Lubin. Either you give up your swim buddy or every trainee will spend the evening in the mud.”
I knew that there was no way Lubin was going to give me up, but the instructors were going to make it very painful for him. I stepped forward and identified myself.
“Mr. Mac,” Faketty said with a chuckle. “Looks like you and Seaman Lubin have a date with the mudflats.”
I sighed.
“Hit it,” Faketty yelled.
Lubin and I nodded and we plunged into the waist-deep mud, where we would stay for the next hour, watching as our fellow trainees sat by the fire and ate C-rations.
When we were finally set free of the mudflats it was about 0100. We had been assigned “tents,” which were actually lean-tos whose open side faced the ocean breeze, making them no better than sleeping outside.
Now, barely able to move with a core temperature well below normal, I fell into the tent and was immediately grabbed by my tentmate, Petty Officer Earl Hayes. A former junior college running back, Hayes, a large, muscular African American from Alabama, was one of the best enlisted men in the class. He had natural leadership abilities and was a two-time rollback, making this Hell Week his third. To my knowledge, no man had ever completed three Hell Weeks.
Draping his large body over mine, Hayes tried to stop my shaking. It was uncontrollable, though. For the next several hours Hayes lay on top of me, transferring what little body heat he had to me.
By 0600, the sun was up and I had survived another day. Hump day was over. Only three more days to go.
Over the course of the next two days, we continued with the unending series of physical events. As every day passed we lost a few more men, but with the strong leadership of Dan’l Steward and the senior enlisted men in the class, we were actually doing quite well.
Friday evening brought the infamous Treasure Hunt, a string of clues that led each seven-man boat crew on a long hike and paddle around Coronado Island. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been a difficult evolution, but by Friday evening most of the trainees could barely walk from swollen feet, chafed groins, and just pure exhaustion. Additionally, many of the men had begun to hallucinate from the fatigue: sharks on the beach, sea monsters rising from the waves, bikini-clad women waving to us from imaginary boats. It made for interesting conversations.
My boat crew, comprised of the “big men,” those trainees over six feet tall, had already found three of the six clues. We were paddling our way across San Diego Bay in our IBS searching for the next clue when one of the men on the bow called out.
“Mr. Mac, look out for that fence. About one o’clock.”
We were in the middle of San Diego Bay, I thought. There was no fence. Then another trainee called out. “It’s about a hundred yards out.”
Steering the boat, I squinted into the darkness and peered outward at the one o’clock direction. We were in the middle of San Diego Bay—there was no fence.
A third man in my boat crew then said softly, “Come left about ten degrees.”
I looked again. We were in the middle of San Diego Bay. There was no fence. As we paddled onward, I continued to get updates on the fence from every member of my crew, except the guy sitting right in front of me who was watching a Padres game in his mind. They had gone into extra innings.
It had been five days since I last closed my eyes, but I felt my wits were still strong—but I just couldn’t see the damn fence.
“Fifty yards ahead, sir.”
“Come a little more to the left.”
What the hell, I thought. I shifted my paddle and steered the IBS to the left. Moments later, in complete unison, the entire crew looked to the starboard side of the IBS and watched as we passed the “fence.” We were in the middle of San Diego Bay. There was no fence!
Thirty minutes later we reached the rocky shoreline of the Naval Amphibious Base. We found the next clue, which led us back to the BUD/S compound. With the rubber boat on our heads, we jogged the two miles back to BUD/S, where we picked up the last and final clue. The men could barely walk and our objective was two miles away, up the beach to the North Island Naval Air Station fence. We had been dry for the past several hours and nothing felt better than being dry, but carrying the IBS to the fence two miles away seemed a daunting task.
“We paddle down to the fence,” I said.
The boat crew let out a collective groan. “Sir, we can’t get back in the water. What if we dump? We’ll be wet the rest of the night.”
“Do you guys really think you can walk the two miles to the fence and then two miles back?” I asked.
“It’s better than being wet. Yeah,” came the refrain.
“Let’s go, guys,” I said without further discussion. “To the beach.”
It was 2300 and the tide was out and the surf low. It was a good decision, I thought. We entered the water and everyone immediately jumped into the IBS, not wanting to get any wetter than they had to.
We negotiated the first wave without a problem. Only two more waves to go and we would be out in calm water. After that we could take our time paddling down to the North Island fence. The second wave seemed a little bigger, but only the bow men got splashed and we paddled onward, confident in our seamanship.
As I saw the third wave building, the poem “Casey at the Bat” flashed through my head: “There was no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.”
“Waaater!” came the familiar yell.
“Stroke! Stroke!” I screamed.
It was too late. Tossing the tiny IBS in the air, the wave sent us hurtling into the surf, paddles and men flying everywhere, fully clothed, deeply fatigued, swollen and raw from chafing. The hundred-yard swim back into the beach felt like an English Channel crossing. Crawling out of the water, I looked around and saw the men starting to emerge from the surf.
Body language is an interesting study. Even at midnight, soaked from head to toe, covered in sand with their utility uniforms sagging around their ankles, I could see the frustration in each man’s posture. They were cold and wet… again—and it was my fault. On top of the sand berm, which separated the BUD/S compound from the beach, I could hear the booming voice of Doc Jenkins broadcasting over the bullhorn.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Mr. Mac?” He laughed maniacally just for theatrical emphasis. “Now you’re all wet again. It would have been a lot easier to walk—and much, much dryer. I bet your boat crew loves you for that decision.” He laughed again.
It was certainly not the first mistake I had made in BUD/S, but somehow it seemed to be the most egregious because it affected other guys—and we were cold and wet. We hated being cold and wet.
Within a minute all the men were on the beach with their paddles and mustered beside our IBS. I expected a small mutiny on my hands, or at least a full ration of shit. But with Doc Jenkins’ laughter echoing off the compound walls, my boat crew—my fellow trainees, my teammates—grabbed the rubber straps and with an act of defiance picked up the IBS and charged back into the surf. It was all I could do to keep up. Each man leaped into the boat exactly on time and began stroking hard with a determination we didn’t have during the first attempt.
“You’ll never make it, Mr. Mac!” Jenkins yelled from the berm.
But we did.
Within a minute we had cleared the set of three waves without incident and found ourselves paddling easily toward the North Island fence. Whether from exhaustion or out of spite, we began laughing as loud as we could. Loud enough for Doc Jenkins to hear that we had not been beaten. Forty-five minutes later we crossed back through the surf and arrived dry and spirited at the fence. There, waiting for us, were Jenkins and Senior Chief Grenier. They had driven to the fence.
We placed the IBS with the bow facing outward, came to attention at our spots, yelled a hearty “Hooyah,” and stood by for instructions.
“Don’t be so fucking cocky,” Jenkins said. “The night is young and you still have another day of Hell Week. In fact, we may just extend it an extra day.”
There were always rumors that the instructors had the authority to make Hell Week seven days long. Start on Sunday, finish on Sunday. No one could ever remember a time when that happened, but the threat scared all of us and we quickly quieted down.
Grenier came around to the bow of the boat and faced my crew and me. “Mr. Mac, the Treasure Hunt is over. Proceed back to the compound, and you had better hurry. The other crews are already moving in that direction and the last boat crew to arrive will regret their tardiness. Move it!”
This time we decided to walk back to the compound carrying the IBS on our head. While defiance was all well and good, none of us wanted to be wet again.
On the way back, I could see one of the other boat crews several hundred yards ahead of us. Just off to the left of the beach was the famous Hotel del Coronado. This grand old Victorian landmark had been around for almost a hundred years and guests had included presidents, kings, movie stars, and sports figures. Jutting off from the beach was a concrete pathway that took visitors right up to the entrance of the hotel. As my boat crew plodded painfully back to the BUD/S compound, I looked up and noticed that the boat in front of me was gone. Shifting my head, I tried to look through the glaring lights of the hotel and the Coronado Shores condominiums, which lay just beyond the Del. Where had that boat gone? Was there a shortcut I didn’t know about? At this point, even a few hundred yards made a huge difference.
We continued on down the beach until we came abreast of the hotel. It was a little after midnight on a Friday and there were still a lot of tourists milling about. I heard the commotion before I could see anything. There in the glare of the Hotel del Coronado lights, the missing boat was being escorted out. In a state of complete oblivion, the boat crew had walked up the concrete path into the hotel lobby, coming to rest in the middle of a large crowd of partiers. The Del’s manager, who was a Coronado resident and well acquainted with Hell Week, very gently eased the men back onto the path and down to the beach, much to the amusement of the hotel guests.
By 0100 all the boat crews were back at the compound. It was Saturday morning and, barring any extension of Hell Week, we had just one day to go.
By Saturday, your feet were so swollen you couldn’t get your boots off without cutting them clear. Your hands were so enlarged that you couldn’t close them to grasp things. Your thighs were chafed raw from the constant exposure to sand and water. But, interestingly enough, most of us had caught our second wind—no sleep for five days, constantly cold and wet, nonstop harassment, physically exhausted. Still, we were young and incredibly motivated, and at this point the only thing that would stop us was death—and the instructors wouldn’t allow that.
“Muster on the grinder in five minutes,” Steward yelled, his voice hoarse from a week of giving orders.
With IBSs firmly planted on our heads, we jogged to chow, ate, and then spent the rest of the morning doing relay races at the base athletic field. By noon, most boat crews were unable to walk at all. While no one was going to quit, we also couldn’t complete the events. Finally, out of anger because of our apparent “lack of effort,” Instructor Faketty marched us from the athletic field to the bay and ordered everyone into the water. One by one the boat crews set down their IBSs and waded into the harbor.
We were just about at our breaking point and the instructors knew it. We were bone tired: the kind of fatigue where every breath takes effort. We had no energy reserves left. The cold water sapped every last ounce of strength. Huddled together in the bay, the remaining men were just barely holding on.
“You guys are pathetic,” Jenkins yelled. “I can’t bear to look at you. Everyone turn around so I don’t have to look at your face.”
As directed, we slowly turned from the beach and faced outward, treading water and looking toward the south end of San Diego Bay.
“We still don’t have our quota of quitters yet,” Jenkins announced. “So the class will stay in the water until five more men quit.”
The threat of quitting brought us closer in the water, like a herd protecting itself from an outside threat. “Don’t quit. Everyone stay together.” Whispers of encouragement spread across the class.
“I figure in thirty minutes at least five of you will quit. Let’s start the clock now.”
Thirty minutes. We couldn’t make thirty minutes and we all knew it. Maybe now was the time we died. Would they let us die? Because no one was going to quit. Not now, not this class. Not after six days of hell.
“What are you whispering about?” Faketty shouted. “Stop the fucking whispering and give me five quitters.”
We got closer.
“Turn around, you maggots!”
Slowly the class did a pivot in the water, and there, standing beside Instructor Faketty, dressed in starched green utilities and standing at parade rest, were all the instructors who had put us through Hell Week.
Faketty smiled. “Congratulations, Class 95. Hell Week is over.”
None of us moved, none of us cheered. The past six days had been one test after another. Was this another test? To lift us up and then break us down again?
“Mr. Steward. Get the class out of the water. Hell Week is secure. Well done.”
It was over. As a class we had survived. As men we had pushed ourselves to our limits and found the inner strength to carry on. The remaining men could barely exit the water. Tired well beyond exhaustion, we helped each other to the beach and once again lifted our IBSs atop our heads and made our way back to the barracks.
For the next thirty-seven years I would compare every tough situation I was in to the rigors of Hell Week. Throughout the rest of my career I was never as cold, or wet, or exhausted as I was in Hell Week, and therefore I knew whatever life threw at me, I could make it.
But BUD/S was far from over. In the next five months the class would lose another fifteen good men. Phase Two, the diving portion of training, weeded out most of them. Those who hadn’t been raised around the water struggled with the long nighttime dives and the claustrophobia that came with diving under ships in the harbor.
The land warfare phase took out the final few, men who had trouble maintaining their situational awareness in the middle of live fire exercises. By the end of February 1978 we were down to thirty-three men and only two days from graduation. There was one final training evolution—helicopter cast and recovery.
The evolution was simple. Two squads of eight men each would load a twin-bladed CH-46 helicopter and fly from the athletic field to a position over the bay. Once in position, the helo would lower its ramp, and one by one the men in the first squad would leap from the helo into the water. This would be followed by the second squad. Soon thereafter, the helo would come around, dangle a rope ladder from a hole in the center of the aircraft, and the swimmers would climb up the ladder back into the helicopter. Simple.
In fact it was so simple and fun to watch that the families of the graduating frogmen were invited to view the event from the beach.
“Bill, your squad ready?” Steward asked.
“Good to go, sir!”
The haze gray Navy helicopter set down on the football field and lowered its ramp. Steward and his squad loaded up first and I motioned to my squad to follow. The roar of the engines made communication difficult, but the crew chief standing on the edge of the ramp directed us to our places on the nylon bench.
The helo held about sixteen troops, eight on each side. We sat on nylon benches that folded up when not in use. As with most Navy helos, the overhead piping dripped hydraulic fluid, and a thin film of slick brown liquid covered the metal floorboard, making walking tricky.
The Navy cast master, the enlisted man in charge of the evolution, gave us the buckle-up sign, and soon after we lifted off. Looking out the small porthole, I could see the families sitting on bleachers anxiously awaiting the first cast of swimmers.
It was a beautiful San Diego day, clear blue skies. The winds were softly blowing out of the south. The bay was flat and the water no longer seemed like our enemy. Our spirits were sky high, knowing that we were only forty-eight hours from becoming full-fledged Navy frogmen.
The helo banked to the north and the cast master gave us the two-minute warning. Steward’s squad unbuckled, stood up, and began to move toward the ramp. Dressed in swim trunks, a wet suit top, a mask and fins hooked on their web belts, they looked like real frogmen. The helo dropped down to about six feet off the water and slowed to ten knots. Hooked into a gunner’s belt securing him to the helo, the cast master leaned over the edge of the ramp and waited for the aircraft to slow. Raising his hand, the cast master looked toward Steward and yelled, “Go, go, go!”
Leaping from the ramp, Steward held a tight body position and entered the water smoothly. The rest of his squad followed, splashing into the bay and then swimming apart to ensure they were properly separated for the helo pickup. Minutes later, my squad received the order to unbuckle and stand up.
I moved to the edge of the ramp and the cast master gently put his hand on my chest, stopping me from going any farther. I looked out the back end and could see the spray kicking up as the helo dropped to several feet off the water. My heart was pounding, not from any fear of jumping out the back, but from the excitement of knowing that I was really going to be a frogman.
This was the last event. No more harassment. No more forced entry into the cold water. More important, I felt like I had earned the respect of the Vietnam-era SEAL and UDT instructors. I was about to become part of the Teams. Just this one final event.
“Stand by!” came the order from the cast master.
He looked down, checked the height of the helo, and then turned to me, gave a clear, definitive hand signal, and yelled, “Go, go, go!”
Tucking my head into my chest, crossing my arms and gripping my thighs tightly, I leapt from the ramp and plunged about ten feet into the water. A second later I popped to the surface and saw the helo moving away, still dropping the rest of my squad.
I got a quick head count and a thumbs-up from each swimmer to make sure everyone was okay. We were straight and lined up evenly behind Steward’s squad.
The helo had already swung around and the cast master had lowered the rope ladder out the “hell hole.”
As the slow-moving helo approached each man, they grabbed the ladder and muscled their way up the rungs back into the helicopter. Within minutes all of Steward’s men had been collected. I was the first swimmer in the second squad, and as the helo approached I could see the helmeted faces of the pilots flying the aircraft.
The ladder was down, but the twin blades of the helo blasted the water with such force that it shrouded the aircraft in a cloak of spray and mist. Pulling my mask over my face, I braced for the blast as the helo approached. The ladder was well over ten feet long and dragged over the top of me. Reaching for one of the wooden rungs, I pulled myself up the short distance and into the helo. Scrambling through the hell hole, I made my way into my assigned seat on the bench.
Something was wrong! Water was lapping at my feet. Suddenly, a wave of water rushed down the aisle and now we were waist deep and the helo was sinking. Looking toward the cockpit, I could see the crew furiously trying to get control of the aircraft. Power in the number one engine was lost and the helo had settled into the bay and was going down fast. As trainees, we were briefed that if the helicopter went in the water to sit tight and wait for the blades to stop moving. Then we could exit the side door in an orderly fashion. Right…
Out the side door I could see the blades just several feet off the water, spinning at full speed. It looked like a blender, and any attempt to exit out the side could get us all cut to pieces. We waited for a signal from the cast master. The ramp and the tail section were underwater and there was no way out the back. Struggling to keep the helo afloat, the pilots were trying to nudge it toward land and beach it to save the aircraft—but there was too much weight in the tail end. Either we got out or all of us would perish.
Eyes wide and looking for options, the cast master knew there was only one choice. Pointing to the side door, he screamed, “Out, out, out!” I looked at the men surrounding me and nodded. We had to go! It was either out or down.
Steward waved his hand. “Follow me!”
The blades were only three feet off the water, turning at a blinding speed, trying to get all the torque they could to lift the drowning aircraft out of the water. Without hesitation I dove out the side door, driving my body as deep underwater as I could. The neoprene wet suit top was incredibly buoyant and fought my efforts to get deeper.
Dig, dig! I yelled in my brain. Kicking as hard as I could, I stroked underwater, knowing that if I came up too soon the blades would decapitate me. Above me I could see the shadows of the blades, whop, whop, whop, as they tried to grab air.
Deeper, deeper, deeper! You have to get deeper. I was losing my breath fighting the wet suit. Finally, I could see the shadow of the rotors behind me and I surfaced a good twenty meters beyond the tip of the blades. Everywhere beside me my men were popping up, and once again, I looked around for a thumbs-up and counted heads. We had all made it out safely.
“Mr. Mac! Mr. Mac!” Lubin, who was about ten yards ahead of me, was frantically waving his hands, urging me to look over my shoulder. Like some maniacal out-of-control machine, the helo was moving in our direction, the blades beating just above the water, and the pilots couldn’t control it.
“Holy shit!” I turned and began stroking as fast I could. Churning the water around me, I clawed as hard as I could to gain some distance between the helo and me. Within a few moments the helo turned back away from the clump of swimmers and we were out of danger. Minutes later a small safety boat picked us up out of the bay and returned us to the shore.
The parents who were attending the final exercise rushed toward the safety boat, hugging their sons as they disembarked and wondering what their boys had gotten into. The rest of us were laughing. We had responded well under pressure and we were giddy with pride. An hour later the pilot, with a fully flooded fuselage, managed to maneuver the helicopter to the beach and the crew got out unharmed.
“One hell of a way to end your training,” Faketty said to me.
“Well,” I replied. “Let’s just hope it’s not an indication of things to come.”
We all boarded the bus, headed back to the barracks, and two days later thirty-three men from Class 95 graduated from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training. I could never have imagined that thirty-six years after graduation I would still be a frogman, having served longer than any other SEAL on active duty. And that our final evolution at BUD/S was in fact an indication of many things to come.