5.
The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday
When I showed up at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, California, I walked over the sand berm and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Huge waves crashed in. Holy crap. I jumped into the balmy California water. It wasn’t balmy—especially in comparison to the Florida gulf waters I’d trained in. That’s freezing. I popped out quicker than I’d jumped in. Wonder how much time we’re going to have to spend in that.
During the days leading up to training, SEAL Master Chief Rick Knepper helped prepare us with early-morning swims in the pool and late-afternoon calisthenics on the beach. Master Chief looked like an ordinary guy in his forties, calmly exercising as we grunted and groaned. He didn’t seem to break a sweat.
Master Chief didn’t tell us about his experiences in Vietnam. We would have to find out about them from others. Master Chief had served with SEAL Team One, Delta Platoon, 2nd Squad. His squad thought they knew about Hon Tai, a large island in Nha Trang Bay. From a distance, the island looked like a big rock sitting in the ocean for birds to take a crap on. Then two Vietcong, tired of fighting and being away from family, defected from the island and told U.S. intelligence about the camp full of VC they left behind.
Under the cover of darkness, Master Chief Knepper’s squad of seven SEALs arrived by boat. Not even the moon shone. His squad free-climbed a 350-foot cliff. After reaching the top, they lowered themselves into the VC camp. The seven-man squad split into two fire teams, taking off their boots and going barefoot to search for a VIP to snatch. Going barefoot didn’t leave behind telltale American boot prints in the dirt. It also made it easier to detect booby traps, and bare feet were easier to pull out of mud than boots. In the camp, though, the VC surprised the SEALs. A grenade landed at Lieutenant ( j.g.) Bob Kerrey’s feet. It exploded, slamming him into the rocks and destroying the lower half of his leg. Lieutenant Kerrey managed to radio the other fire team. When the team arrived, they caught the VC in a deadly crossfire. Four VC tried to escape, but the SEALs mowed them down. Three VC stayed to fight, and the SEALs cut them down, too.
A hospital corpsman SEAL lost his eye. One of the SEALs put a tourniquet on Kerrey’s leg.
The SEAL squad snatched several VIPs, along with three large bags of documents (including a list of VC in the city), weapons, and other equipment. Lieutenant Kerrey continued to lead Master Chief Knepper and the others in their squad until they were evacuated. The intel received from the documents and VIPs gave critical information to the allied forces in Vietnam. Lieutenant Kerrey received the Medal of Honor and would go on to become Nebraska’s governor and senator.
Our mentors were among the best in the business.
* * *
On the first morning of indoctrination into BUD/S, we had to do the physical screening test again. After a cold shower and some push-ups, we began the test. Afraid of failing the swim, I kicked and stroked for all I was worth. Somehow, I completed it in time. Then we did the push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and run. One guy failed; he hung his head as the instructors sent him packing.
That evening, the SEAL instructors stood before us and introduced themselves. At the end, Lieutenant Moore told us we could quit if we wanted to by walking outside and ringing the bell three times.
“I’ll wait,” Lieutenant Moore said.
I thought the lieutenant was bluffing, but some of my classmates began ringing the bell.
* * *
A number of my remaining classmates were impressive: an Iron Man triathlete, a college football player, and others. One evening in the barracks, I looked at myself in the mirror. These guys are like racehorses. What the hell am I doing here?
The next day, Iron Man rang the bell. I couldn’t understand why.
One of our first training evolutions included the obstacle course (O-course). One night a SEAL might have to exit a submerged submarine, hang on for dear life as his Zodiac jumps over waves, scale a cliff, hump through enemy territory to his objective, scale a three-story building, do his deed, and get the hell out. The O-course helps prepare a man for that kind of work. It has also broken more than one trainee’s neck or back—climbing over the top of the 60-foot cargo net is a bad time to lose arm strength. Much of our training was dangerous, and injuries were common.
We lined up in alphabetical order by our last names. I stood near the end, watching everyone take off before me. When my turn came, I took off like a cruise missile. I couldn’t understand why I was passing so many people.
Partway through, I ran to the bottom of a three-story tower. I jumped up and grabbed the ledge to the second floor, then swung my legs up. I jumped up and grabbed the ledge to the third floor, then swung my legs up. Then I came back down. As I moved on to more obstacles, I noticed someone stuck behind on the three-story tower. There stood Mike W., who had played football at the University of Alabama, tears of frustration streaming down his face because he couldn’t make it to the third floor.
With a hint of Georgia in his accent, Instructor Stoneclam yelled, “You can run up and down a college football field, but you can’t get up to the top of one obstacle. You sissy!”
I wondered what the hell was wrong with Mike W. He was in way better shape than I was. Wasn’t he? (Mike would severely injure his back, but Captain Bailey kept him around doing therapy for almost a year. Later, he became an outstanding SEAL officer.)
A number of the racehorses were the biggest crybabies. They’d probably been number one much of their lives, and now when they had their first taste of adversity—BUD/S style—they couldn’t handle it.
What the hell is wrong with these prima donnas?
Although running and swimming came hard for me, the obstacle course turned out to be one of my favorite events. Bobby H. and I were always pushing each other out of the number one ranking. Instructor Stoneclam advised a student, “Look how Wasdin attacks the obstacles.”
I’d rather be doing this than picking watermelons.
* * *
Danger had become a constant companion. Danger or no danger, one of our instructors always spoke in the same monotone. In a classroom at the Naval Special Warfare Center, Instructor Blah’s jungle boot stepped on a 13-foot-long black rubber boat resting on the floor in front of my class. “Today, I’m going to brief you on surf passage. This is the IBS. Some people call it the Itty-Bitty Ship, and you’ll probably have your own pet names to give it, but the navy calls it the Inflatable Boat, Small. You will man it with six to eight men who are about the same height. These men will be your boat crew.”
He drew a primitive picture on the board of the beach, ocean, and stick men scattered around the IBS. He pointed to the stick men scattered in the ocean. “This is you guys after a wave has just wiped you out.”
He drew a stick man on the beach. “This is one of you after the ocean spit you out. And guess what? The next thing the ocean is going to spit out is the boat.”
Instructor Blah used his eraser like a boat. “Now the hundred-and-seventy-pound IBS is full of water and weighs about as much as a small car, and it’s coming right at you here on the beach. What are you going to do? If you’re standing in the road, and a small car comes speeding at you, what are you going to do? Try to outrun it? Of course not. You’re going to get out of the road. Same thing when the boat comes speeding at you. You’re going to get out of the path it’s traveling. Run parallel to the beach.
“Some of you look sleepy. All of you drop and push ’em out!”
After push-ups and more instruction, we went outside, where the sunshine had dimmed. Soon we stood by our boats facing the ocean. Bulky orange kapok life jackets covered our battle dress uniforms (BDUs). We tied our hats to the top buttonholes on our shirts with orange cord. Each of us held our paddle like a rifle at the order-arms position, waiting for our boat leaders to come back from where the instructors were briefing them.
Before long they returned and gave us orders. With boat handle in one hand and paddle in the other, all the crews raced into the water. Losers would pay with their flesh—it pays to be a winner.
“Ones in!” our boat leader, Mike H., called.
Our two front men jumped into the boat and started paddling.
I ran in water almost up to my knees.
“Twos in!”
Two more jumped in and started paddling.
“Threes in!”
I jumped in with the man across from me, and we paddled. Mike jumped in last, using his oar at the stern to steer. “Stroke, stroke!” he called.
In front of us, a seven-foot wave formed. I dug my paddle in deep and pulled back as hard as I could.
“Dig, dig, dig!” Mike called.
Our boat climbed up the face of the wave. I saw one of the other boats clear the tip. We weren’t so lucky. The wave picked us up and slammed us down, sandwiching us between our boat and the water. As the ocean swallowed us, I swallowed boots, paddles, and cold seawater. I realized, This could kill me.
Eventually, the ocean spit us out onto the beach along with most of the other boat crews. The instructors greeted us by dropping us. With our boots on the boats, hands in the sand, and gravity against us, we did push-ups.
Then we gathered ourselves together and went at it again—with more motivation and better teamwork. This time, we cleared the breakers.
Back on shore, a boyish-faced trainee from another boat crew picked his paddle up off the beach. As he turned around to face the ocean, a passengerless boat filled with seawater raced at him sideways.
Instructor Blah shouted into the megaphone, “Get out of there!”
Boy-Face ran away from the boat, just like the instructors told us not to. Fear has a way of turning Einsteins into amoebas.
“Run parallel to the beach! Run parallel to the beach!”
Boy-Face continued to try to outrun the speeding boat. The boat came out of the water and slid sideways like a hovercraft over the hard wet sand. When it ran out of hard wet sand, its momentum carried it over the soft dry sand until it hacked Boy-Face down. Instructor Blah, other instructors, and the ambulance rushed to the wounded man.
Doc, one of the SEAL instructors, started first aid. No one heard Boy-Face call out in pain. The boat broke his leg at the thigh bone.
As training progressed, dangers increased. Later in training, instead of landing our boats on the sand under the sun, we would land our boats on boulders at night in front of the Hotel del Coronado while ocean currents cut at us from two directions. Legend has it that those boulders used to be one rock before BUD/S trainees cracked it with their heads.
* * *
The sun lay buried in the horizon as we marched double-time through the Naval Amphibious Base across the street. Wearing the same green uniforms, we sang out in cadence, looking confident, but the tension in the air was thick. If anybody is going to die, this is going to be the time.
We arrived at the pool located at Building 164 and stripped down to our UDT swim shorts. An instructor said, “You are going to love this. Drown-proofing is one of my favorites. Sink or swim, sweet peas.”
I tied my feet together, and my swim partner tied my hands behind my back.
“When I give the command, the bound men will hop into the deep end of the pool,” Instructor Stoneclam said. “You must bob up and down twenty times, float for five minutes, swim to the shallow end of the pool, turn around without touching the bottom, swim back to the deep end, do a forward and backward somersault underwater, and retrieve a face mask from the bottom of the pool with your teeth.”
The hardest part for me was swimming the length of the pool and back with my feet tied together and hands tied behind my back. I had to flip around like a dolphin. Even so, I’d rather be doing this than being awakened from a dead sleep and slapped around.
Although I did my duty, others didn’t. We lost a muscular black guy because his body was so dense that he just sank like a rock to the bottom of the pool. A skinny redheaded hospital corpsman jumped in the water, but instead of swimming straight, he swam in a horseshoe. An instructor told him, “Swim in a straight line. What the hell is wrong with you?” The instructors found out later that Redhead was almost blind. He had forged his medical records to get to BUD/S.
For every guy who would do anything to get in, there were guys who wanted to get out. Stoneclam wouldn’t let them.
“You can’t quit now!” Instructor Stoneclam screamed. “This is only Indoc. Training hasn’t even started yet!” We were still only in the indoctrination phase.
* * *
After three weeks of Indoc, we began First Phase, Basic Conditioning. Our class continued to shrink due to performance failures, injuries, and quitting. I wondered how much longer I could continue without being dropped because of a performance failure or an injury. Of course, most evolutions were a kick in the crotch, designed to punish us. Woe to the trainee who let the pain show in his face. An instructor would say, “You didn’t like that? Well, do some more.” Likewise to the trainee who showed no pain. “You liked that? Here’s another kick in the crotch.” The torment continued throughout each day—push-ups, runs, push-ups, calisthenics, push-ups, swims, push-ups, O-course—day after day, week after week. We ran a mile one-way just to eat a meal. Round-trip multiplied by three meals made for 6 miles a day just to eat! We never seemed to have enough time to recover before the next evolution hit us. On top of everything, the instructors poured on the stress with verbal harassment. Most of them didn’t need to raise their voices to tell us, “Grandma was slow, but she was old.”
Each one of us seemed to have an Achilles’ heel—and the instructors excelled at finding it. The hardest evolutions for me were the 4-mile timed runs on the beach wearing long pants and jungle boots. I dreaded them. Soft sand sucked the energy out of my legs, and waves attacked me when I tried to run on the hard pack. Some guys ran out in front, some stayed in the middle, and others like me brought up the rear. Almost every time, at the 2-mile marker at the North Island fence, an instructor would say, “Wasdin, you’re getting behind. You’re going to have to kick it on the way back.” With each run, the time demands became tougher.
I failed one 4-mile timed run by seconds. While everyone else went back to the barracks, the four or five others who also failed joined me to form a goon squad. After having spent nearly everything I had on the run, I knew this was going to suck. We ran sprints up and down the sand berm, jumped into the cold water, then rolled up and down the sand berm until our wet bodies looked like sugar cookies. The sand found its way into my eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. We did squat thrusts, eight-count bodybuilders, and all manner of acrobatic tortures until the sand rubbed our wet skin raw and nearly every muscle in our bodies broke down. It was my first goon squad—and the only one I ever needed. I may die on the next timed run, but I ain’t doin’ this crap again. There was one guy who swam like a fish but ended up in goon squad time and time again for not keeping up on the runs. I wondered how he ever survived all the goon squads.
* * *
In First Phase, one thing sucked more than the four-mile timed runs: Hell Week—the ultimate in train the best, discard the rest. It began late Sunday night with what is called breakout. M-60 machine guns blasted the air. We crawled out of the barracks as an instructor screamed, “Move, move, move!”
Outside on the grinder, an asphalt-covered area the size of a small parking lot, artillery simulators exploded—an incoming shriek followed by a boom. M-60s continued to rattle. A machine pumped a blanket of fog over the area. Green chemlights, glow sticks, decorated the outer perimeter. Water hoses sprayed us. The smell of cordite hung in the air. Over the loudspeakers blasted AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.”
Terror covered the faces of many guys. Their eyes looked like two fried eggs. Only minutes into it, the bell started ringing—people quit. You can’t be serious. What the hell’s wrong? Yeah, instructors are running around shooting off machine guns and everything, but no one has smacked me in the face or beat me with a belt yet. I couldn’t comprehend why people were quitting already. Of course, my tough childhood had prepared me for this moment. More than physically, I knew that mentally I had mastered pain and hard work, and I knew I could master more. My father’s expectations for high performance from me produced my own expectations for high performance. In my mind, I strongly believed I wouldn’t quit. I didn’t need to express my belief in words—talk is cheap. My belief was real. Without such a strong belief, a tadpole has already guaranteed his failure.
* * *
One legendary Hell Week event occurs on a steel pier where the navy docks its small boats. We took off our boots and stuffed our socks and belts in them. My fingers were so numb and shaky that I had a tough time taking off my boots.
Wearing our olive drab green uniforms, we jumped into the bay with no life jackets, shoes, or socks. I immediately laid out in a dead man’s float while I undid the fly on my trousers. Still in a dead man’s float, when I needed air I’d bring my face out of the freezing water and take a quick bite of oxygen, then resume my position facedown in the water. When I started to sink too much, I kicked a couple of strokes. Meanwhile, I pulled off my trousers. Then I zipped the fly shut.
With my trousers off, I tied the ends of the legs together with a square knot. Then, using both hands, I grabbed hold of the waist and kicked until my body straightened up from its float. I lifted my pants high in the air, then slammed them forward and down on the water, trapping air in the trouser legs.
As my upper body hung over the valley in the V of my homemade trouser flotation device, I felt relief. I had been so concerned about drowning that I had forgotten how frigid the water felt. Now that I wasn’t drowning, I started to remember the cold.
Some of our guys swam back to the pier. We tried to call them back, but they’d had enough. Ring, ring, ring.
Instructor Stoneclam said, “If one more of you rings the bell, the rest of you can come out of the water, too. Inside the ambulance we have warm blankets and a thermos of hot coffee.”
After one more ring of the bell, Stoneclam said, “Everybody out of the water!”
“Hooyah!”
We crawled out of the water and onto the floating steel pier.
Instructor Stoneclam said, “Now strip down to your undershorts and lie down on the pier. If you don’t have shorts, your birthday suit is even better.”
I stripped down to my birthday suit and lay down. The instructors had prepared the pier by spraying it down with water. Mother Nature had prepared the pier by blowing cool wind across it. I felt like I was lying down on a block of ice. Then the instructors sprayed us with cold water. Our muscles contracted wildly. The spasms were uncontrollable. We flapped around on the steel deck like fish out of water.
The instructors took us to the early stages of hypothermia. I would’ve done almost anything to get warm. Mike said, “Sorry, man, I gotta pee.”
“It’s OK, man. Pee here.”
He urinated on my hands.
“Oh, thanks, buddy.” The warmth felt so good.
Most people think it’s just gross—they’ve obviously never been really cold.
* * *
Wednesday night—halfway through Hell Week—was the one time I thought about quitting. The instructors wasted no time beginning Lyon’s Lope, named after a Vietnam SEAL. We paddled our black inflatable boat about 250 yards out to pylons in San Diego Bay, turned the boat upside down, then right side up (called “dump boat”), paddled back to shore, ran half a mile on land carrying only our paddles, tossed our paddles into the back of a truck, sat in the bay to form a human centipede, hand-paddled 400 yards, ran 600 yards, grabbed our paddles and used them to centipede-paddle 400 yards, grabbed our boats, and boat-paddled out to the pylons, then back to shore. We all had Stage Two hypothermia. Stage One is mild to strong shivering with numbness in the hands—most people have experienced this level of hypothermia. Stage Two is violent shivering with mild confusion and stumbling. In Stage Three, the core body temperature drops below 90 degrees, shivering stops, and a person becomes a babbling, bumbling idiot. There is no Stage Four—only death. The instructors calculated air and water temperatures along with how long we stayed in the water in order to make us as cold as possible without causing permanent damage or killing us.
It was standing room only at the bell. My classmates rang it like Coronado was on fire. The instructors had backed up ambulances and opened the doors. Inside sat my former classmates wrapped up in wool blankets drinking hot chocolate. Instructor Stoneclam said, “Come here, Wasdin. You’re married, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Instructor Stoneclam.” My muscles felt too exhausted to move, but they shivered violently anyway.
“You don’t need this. Come here.” He walked me to the backs of the ambulances, so I could feel their warm air hit me in the face. “Have a cup of this hot chocolate.”
I held it in my hand. It was warm.
“If we’d wanted you to have a wife, we would’ve issued you one,” he explained. “Go over there and ring that damn bell. Get this over. I’ll let you drink that hot chocolate. Put you in this warm ambulance. Wrap you up in a thick blanket. And you don’t have to put up with this anymore.”
I looked over at the bell. It would be that easy. All I have to do is pull that mother three times. I thought about the heated ambulances with blankets and hot chocolate. Then I caught myself. Wait a minute. I’m not thinking clearly. That’s quitting. “Hooyah, Instructor Stoneclam.” I gave him back his hot chocolate.
“Get back with your class.”
Handing him back that cup of hot chocolate was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Let me go back and freeze while I get my nuts kicked some more.
Mike H. and I had a six-man boat crew before the other four quit. Now it was only the two of us struggling to drag our boat, weighing nearly 200 pounds, back to the BUD/S compound—instructors yelling at us for being too slow. We cussed at the quitters. “You sorry pieces of crap.” When Mike and I arrived at the compound, we were still angry.
Mike and I had gone from being their comrades to cussing them out for abandoning us. It’s why the training is so brutal. To find out who has your back when all hell breaks loose. After Wednesday night, I don’t remember anyone else quitting.
Early Thursday morning, I sat in the chow hall. They’re going to have to kill me. After everything I’ve been through, they’re going to have to cut me up in little pieces and mail me back to Wayne County, Georgia, because I’m not quitting now. Inside me, something clicked. It no longer mattered what we did next. I didn’t care. This has got to end sometime.
Deprived of support in our environment and the support of our own bodies, the only thing propping us up was our belief in accomplishing the mission—complete Hell Week. In psychology this belief is called self-efficacy. Even when the mission seems impossible, it is the strength of our belief that makes success possible. The absence of this belief guarantees failure. A strong belief in the mission fuels our ability to focus, put forth effort, and persist. Believing allows us to see the goal (complete Hell Week) and break the goal down into more manageable objectives (one evolution at a time). If the evolution is a boat race, it can be broken down into even smaller objectives such as paddling. Believing allows us to seek out strategies to accomplish the objectives, such as using the larger shoulder muscles to paddle rather than the smaller forearm muscles. Then, when the race is done, move on to the next evolution. Thinking too much about what happened and what is about to happen will wear you down. Live in the moment and take it one step at a time.
Thursday night, we’d only had three to four hours total sleep since Sunday evening. The dream world started to mix with the real world, and we hallucinated. In the chow hall, while guys’ heads were bobbing in and out of their food and their eyes were rolling back in their heads from sleep deprivation, an instructor said, “You know, Wasdin, I want you to take this butter knife, go over there, and kill that deer in the corner.”
Slowly rising from my oatmeal daze, I looked over and, sure as hell, there was a buck standing in the chow hall. It didn’t dawn on me why the deer was in the chow hall or how it got there. Now I’m on a mission. I stalked up on it with my Rambo knife and got ready to make my death leap.
Instructor Stoneclam yelled, “Wasdin, what are you doing?”
“Getting ready to kill this buck, Instructor Stoneclam.”
“Look, that’s a tray table. It’s what they haul trays in and out of the kitchen with.”
What the…? How did it turn into a tray table?
“Just sit your dumb ass down and finish eating,” Instructor Stoneclam said.
The instructors had a big laugh about it.
* * *
Later, Mike H., Bobby H., and the rest of our crew paddled from the Naval Special Warfare Center south to Silver Strand State Park. It felt like we were paddling to Mexico, but the trip was only 6 miles. Paddle, fall asleep, paddle, fall asleep … Suddenly, Bobby banged the bottom of the boat, yelling, “Aaagh!”
“What the hell?” I asked.
“Big snake!” Bobby yelled.
We helped him kill the snake. “Snake!”
One guy stopped. “That’s the bowline.” We were beating the rope that’s used to secure the front of the boat.
We all looked at the rope and returned to our senses.
Five minutes later, Mike yelled, “Aaagh!”
“Is the snake back?” I asked.
Lights from the city glowed in the sky. “I just saw my dad’s face in the clouds,” Mike said.
I looked up. Sure enough, I saw his dad’s face in the clouds. I’d never met his dad and didn’t know what his dad looked like, but I saw Mike’s dad’s face in the clouds.
* * *
Another guy in our class, Randy Clendening, was bald. Everywhere: head, eyebrows, eyelashes, armpits, nut sac—like a snake. As a child, he ate some red berries and had a fever so high that it killed all his hair follicles. (When he made it to SEAL Team Two, someone called him Kemo—short for chemotherapy. The nickname stuck.) During Hell Week, Randy wheezed and sputtered.
“You OK, Randy?” I asked.
“The instructors just told me I had a dirty carburetor.”
“Wow, that must suck to have a dirty carburetor.” It hadn’t occurred to me that Randy had fluid in his lungs. The instructors discussed rolling him back to another class so he could recover, but that would mean doing Hell Week again—and we were so close to finishing.
* * *
On Friday, the instructors took us out into the surf zone. We sat in the frigid ocean facing the sea with our arms linked, trying to stay together. Instructor Stoneclam stood on the beach talking to our backs. “This is the sorriest class we’ve ever seen. You couldn’t even keep the officers in your class.” Officers and enlisted men undergo the same training together. “You didn’t support them. You didn’t back them up. It’s your fault you don’t have any officers left. This last evolution, you had the slowest time in history. We have just received permission from Captain Bailey to extend Hell Week one more day.”
I looked over at my swim partner, Rodney. He seemed to be thinking what I was: Damn, we got to do this for one more day. OK, you’ve been screwing us for this long, stick us in the ass for one more day.
Somebody else, I don’t remember who, wasn’t going to do an extra day. He would rather quit. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.
“Turn around and look at me when I’m talking to you!” Instructor Stoneclam said.
Like a platoon of zombies, we turned about-face.
There stood our commanding officer, Captain Larry Bailey. He had led one of the first SEAL Team Two platoons in Vietnam. He also helped create the SEAL Team Assault Boat (STAB). “Congratulations, men. I am securing Hell Week.”
Some of the others jumped for joy—I was hurting too bad for that kind of celebration. Randy Clendening cried tears of relief; he’d made it through with walking pneumonia. I stood there with a dumb look on my face. What am I doing here? I looked around. Where did everybody go? We’d started with ten or twelve boat crews, six to eight men in each. Now we only had four or five boat crews. Why did those guys even start Hell Week if they knew they didn’t want it? They didn’t know they didn’t want it.
Medical personnel took Randy directly to the infirmary to ventilate him. They screened the rest of us. Some of the guys had cellulitis—infection had traveled from cuts to deep inside the skin. Others had damaged the band of tissue over their pelvis, hip, and knee, causing iliotibial band syndrome. All of us were swollen. The physician reached down and squeezed my calves. As he pulled his hands away, I saw the indentation of his hands imprinted on my legs. They also examined us for “flesh-eating bacteria” (actually, the bacteria release toxins that destroy skin and muscle rather than eating them). Since trauma covered our bodies from head to toe, we were meals on wheels for the killer bacteria.
I took a shower, then drank some Gatorade. In the barracks, on the top rack of the bunk bed, lay my brown T-shirt. A friend had given it to me as a post–Hell Week present. We bought our own underwear using our clothing allowance, but only guys who finished Hell Week were allowed to wear the brown T-shirts. Having it made me so happy. I lay down and went to sleep. People kept watch on us while we slept to make sure we didn’t swallow our tongues, drown in our spit, or simply stop breathing due to fatigue.
The next day, I rolled over on the top rack of my bunk bed and jumped off the way I always did, but my legs weren’t working. My face hit the deck, giving me a bloody nose and lip. I tried to call Laura collect, to let her know I made it through Hell Week, but when the operator came on the phone, my voice wasn’t working. It took a few hours for my voice to come back.
A driver took us over to the chow hall in a van. People helped us get out of the vehicle. As we hobbled into the chow hall, all eyes seemed to be on us. We were the ones who had just made it through “the week.” It had been the coldest week in twenty-three years; hail had actually rained down on us at one point. While eating, I looked over at the tables where the guys who had quit during Hell Week sat. They avoided eye contact.
I had begged one of them not to ring out, but he abandoned Mike and me to carry that boat by ourselves. Could’ve at least waited to quit until after we got that boat back to the barracks. He walked over to my table. “I’m sorry, man. I know I let you guys down, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
I looked up at him. “Get out of my face.”
* * *
Training resumed slowly, starting with a lot of stretching exercises. Then it picked up speed. Time limits tightened. Distances increased. More swims, runs, and obstacle course trials. Academic tests continued. Pre–Hell Week, we had focused on topics such as first aid and boat handling. Now we focused on hydrographic reconnaissance. Enlisted men like me had to score 70 percent or higher. Although we had lost all our officers, officer standards were 80 percent or higher.
A new evolution we had to pass was the 50-meter underwater swim. At the pool, Instructor Stoneclam said, “All of you have to swim fifty meters underwater. You’ll do a somersault into the pool, so no one gets a diving start, and swim twenty-five meters across. Touch the end and swim twenty-five meters back. If you break the surface at any time, you fail. Don’t forget to swim along the bottom. The increased pressure on your lungs will help you hold your breath longer, so you can swim farther.”
I lined up with the second group of four students. We cheered the first group on. “Go for the blackout,” some of us said. It was a new way of thinking that would influence future activities—pushing the body to the edge of unconsciousness.
When it was my turn, I hyperventilated to decrease the carbon dioxide in my body and decrease the drive to breathe. During my somersault into the pool, I lost some breath. I oriented myself and swam as low as I could. After swimming 25 meters, I neared the other side. During my turn, my foot touched the wall, but I didn’t get a great push-off.
My throat began to convulse as my lungs craved oxygen. Go for the blackout. I swam as hard as I could, but my body slowed down. The edges of my vision began to gray until I found myself looking at my destination through a black tunnel. As I felt myself begin to pass out, I actually felt peaceful. If I’d had any lingering thoughts about drowning, they were gone now. I tried to focus on the wall. Finally, my hand touched it. Instructor Stoneclam grabbed me by the waistband of my swim shorts and helped pull me out. I passed. Others were not so lucky. Two failed their second chance and were expelled from training. (NOTE: Do not practice underwater swimming or breath holding at home because it will kill you.)
Another important post–Hell Week evolution was underwater knot tying. Wearing only our UDT shorts, my class climbed the outside stairs to the top of the dive tower and entered. Inside, I lowered myself into the warm water. The depth was 50 feet. I would have to dive down 15 feet and tie five knots: becket bend (sheet bend), bowline, clove hitch, right angle (rolling hitch 1), and square knot. These included some of the knots we would have to use for demolitions. For example, the becket bend and square knot can be used for splicing the end of detonating (det) cord. We had practiced these knots during the few breaks we had, so I experienced no problem tying them, but this was the first time doing the knots at 15 feet underwater.
We could tie one knot for each of five dives, but I thought that five dives would be too tiring. Or one dive with five knots—I didn’t think I had the lungs for that. Or any combination we wanted. I greeted Instructor Stoneclam, who wore scuba gear. “Respectfully request to tie the becket bend, bowline, and clove hitch.” He gave me the thumbs-down, giving me permission to descend. I mirrored his thumbs-down, showing him that I understood. Stoneclam gave me the sign again, and I did my combat descent 15 feet below, where I had to tie into a trunk line secured to the walls. I tied the three knots. Then I gave the instructor the OK sign. He checked the knots and gave me the OK sign. I untied them and gave him the thumbs-up. He acknowledged, pointing his thumb up—giving me permission to ascend.
On my second dive, I tied the last two knots and gave Instructor Stoneclam the OK sign. He didn’t even seem to look at the knots, staring into my eyes. I saw he was going to give me trouble. I gave him the thumbs-up sign to ascend, but he just kept staring. The depth put pressure on my chest, and my body craved air. I knew what he was looking for, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. The SEAL instructors had taught me well. I can ascend myself, or you can drag my body to the surface when I pass out. Either way. He smiled and gave me the “up” signal before I even came close to passing out. I wanted to shoot to the top, but I couldn’t show panic, and shooting to the top isn’t tactical. I ascended as slowly as I could. Pass. Not all of my classmates were as lucky, but they would get a second chance.
In Second Phase, Land Warfare, we learned covert infiltrations, sentry removal, handling agents/guides, gathering intelligence, snatching the enemy, performing searches, handling prisoners, shooting, blowing stuff up, etc. As a child, I learned attention to detail—making sure that not one single pecan remained on the ground when my dad came home saved my butt from getting whipped. Now, that same attention to detail would save my butt from getting shot or blown up. Attention to detail is why I would never have a parachute malfunction.
We became the first occupants of the new barracks building, just down the beach from the multimillion-dollar Coronado condos. One Saturday afternoon, I sat in my room shining jungle combat boots with Calisto, one of the two Peruvian officers going through BUD/S with our class. They had our training schedule, complete with days and times. Both of them had been through Peru’s BUD/S, which was a mirror image of our training. Calisto and his buddy had been operating for nearly ten years as SEALs, including real-world ops. We received a lot of intelligence about training from them.
I asked him, “If you’re already a Peruvian SEAL, why are you doing this again?”
“Must come here before become Peru SEAL instructor.”
“I understand you’ll get more respect and all…”
“Not respect. More money.” His family had come with him, and he stayed with them on weekends in an apartment downtown. They bought a lot of blue jeans and sent them home. He explained that the amount of money they would receive would change their lives.
They were the only officers remaining in our class, but because they weren’t American, they couldn’t lead us. Mike H., an E-5, led our class. He and I shared the same rank, but he was senior to me. We didn’t have any cake-eaters (commissioned officers). The enlisted instructors seemed to enjoy it.
* * *
Out at San Clemente Island, I served as a squad leader and once led my squad to assault the wrong target. Calisto led us the next time. He was an excellent land navigator. We assaulted the instructors while they were still sitting around the campfire jacking their jaws. Our squad hit them so fast that they didn’t even have their M-60s set up yet. They were not happy. The instructors changed our exfil route and made us go out through a field of cacti. Later, the corpsman had to come around with pliers to pull the needles out of our legs.
During the debrief, the instructors explained, “Sorry we had to send you out another way, but the exfiltration route was compromised.” The instructors always had the last laugh.
We ran before each meal on even days. On odd days, we did pull-ups before each meal. One day, the number of pull-ups had just changed from nineteen to twenty. I must’ve had a brain fart because I dropped off the bar after nineteen pull-ups.
“Wasdin, what the hell are you doing?” an instructor asked. “That was only nineteen.”
I didn’t understand what he was asking me.
“The pull-up count is twenty. Just to make sure you know how to count to twenty, drop down and give me twenty.”
I did twenty push-ups.
“Now get back up on the bar and give me my twenty pull-ups.”
That wasn’t happening. He got maybe three or four more out of me before my arms gave out.
“Get your MRE and hit the surf.”
I got to sit down in the chilly ocean and eat a cold Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE). Randy Clendening and some others joined me. We were shivering our petunias off.
Randy had a smile on his face.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” I asked. “We’re up to our nipples in freezing water eating cold MREs.”
“Try doing this every other day.” Randy always made the timed sprints but failed the pull-ups. Every other day he sat in the ocean with water up to his chest and ate his cold MRE for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He wanted the program way more than I did.
After that, I risked trouble with the instructors to sneak food into the barracks for him on odd days. Other guys snuck him food, too. I have the greatest respect for guys like Randy who work harder than everyone else and somehow manage to finish BUD/S. More than the gazelles running ahead, more than the fish swimming in front, more than the monkeys swinging through the O-course—these underdogs were hardcore.
One of the most famous of these underdogs was Thomas Norris, BUD/S Class 45. Norris wanted to join the FBI but got drafted instead. He joined the navy to become a pilot, but his eyesight disqualified him. So he volunteered for SEAL training, where he often fell to the rear on runs and swims. The instructors talked about dropping him from the program. Norris didn’t give up and became a SEAL at Team Two.
In Vietnam, in April 1972, a surveillance aircraft went down deep in enemy territory where over thirty thousand NVA (North Vietnamese Army) were preparing for an Easter offensive. Only one crew member survived. This precipitated the most expensive rescue attempt of the Vietnam War, with fourteen people killed, eight aircraft downed, two rescuers captured, and two more rescuers stranded in enemy territory. It was decided that an air rescue was impossible.
Lieutenant Norris led a five-man Vietnamese SEAL patrol and located one of the surveillance aircraft pilots, then returned him to the forward operating base (FOB). The NVA retaliated with a rocket attack on the FOB, killing two of the Vietnamese SEALs and others.
Norris and his three remaining Vietnamese SEALs failed in an attempt to rescue the second pilot. Because of the impossibility of the situation, two of the Vietnamese SEALs wouldn’t volunteer for another rescue attempt. Norris decided to take Vietnamese SEAL Nguyen Van Kiet to make another attempt—and failed.
On April 12, about ten days after the plane had been shot down, Norris got a report of the pilot’s location. He and Kiet disguised themselves as fishermen and paddled their sampan upriver into the foggy night. They located the pilot at dawn on the riverbank hidden under vegetation, helped him into their sampan, and covered him with bamboo and banana leaves. A group of enemy soldiers on land spotted them but couldn’t get through the thick jungle as fast as Norris and his partner could paddle on the water. When the trio arrived near the FOB, an NVA patrol noticed and poured heavy machine-gun fire down on them. Norris called in an air strike to keep the enemy’s heads down and a smoke screen to blind them. Norris and Kiet took the pilot into the FOB, where Norris gave him first aid until he could be evacuated. Lieutenant Thomas Norris received the Medal of Honor. Kiet received the Navy Cross, the highest award the navy can give to a foreign national. That wasn’t the end of Norris’s story, though.
About six months later, he faced the jaws of adversity again. Lieutenant Norris chose Petty Officer Michael Thornton (SEAL Team One) for a mission. Thornton selected two Vietnamese SEALs, Dang and Quon. One shaky Vietnamese officer, Tai, was also assigned to the team. They dressed in black pajamas like the VC and carried AK-47s with lots of bullets. The team rode a South Vietnamese Navy junk (U.S. Navy ships were unavailable) up the South China Sea, launched a rubber boat from the junk, then patrolled on land to gather intelligence. Norris walked the point with Thornton on rear security and the Vietnamese SEALs between them. The junk had inserted them too far north, and during their patrol, they realized they were in North Vietnam. While hiding in their day layup position, the Vietnamese SEAL officer, without consulting Norris or Thornton, ordered the two Vietnamese SEALs to do a poorly planned prisoner snatch on a two-man patrol. The Vietnamese SEALs wrestled with the two enemy.
Thornton rushed in and knocked out one of the enemy with his rifle butt, so he couldn’t alert the nearby village. The other enemy escaped and alerted about sixty North Vietnamese Army troops. Thornton said, “We’ve got trouble.” The SEALs bound the knocked-out enemy, then had Dang interrogate him when he became conscious.
Norris and Dang fired at the approaching enemy. Between shots, Norris used the radio on Dang’s back to call for naval gunfire support: coordinates, positions, types of rounds needed, etc. The navy operator on the other end (his ship under enemy fire in a separate battle) seemed new at his job, unfamiliar with fire support for ground troops. Norris put down the phone to shoot more enemy. When he got back on the radio, his call had been transferred to another ship, which was also under enemy fire—and unable to help. Norris and Dang moved back while firing at the enemy.
Thornton put the Vietnamese lieutenant in the rear while he and Quon defended the flanks. Thornton shot several NVA, took cover, rose in a different position, and shot more. Although Thornton knew the enemy popped up from the same spot each time, they didn’t know where Thornton would pop up from or how many people were with him. While maneuvering back, Thornton shot through the sand dune where the enemy heads had ducked, taking them out.
After about five hours of fighting, Norris connected with a ship that could help: the Newport News.
The enemy threw a Chinese Communist grenade at Thornton. Thornton threw it back. The enemy threw the same grenade back. Thornton returned it. When the grenade came back the next time, Thornton dove for cover. The grenade exploded. Six pieces of shrapnel struck Thornton’s back. He heard Norris call to him, “Mike, buddy, Mike, buddy!” Thornton played dead. Four enemy soldiers ran over Thornton’s position. He shot all four—two fell on top of him, and the other two fell backward. “I’m all right!” Thornton called. “It’s just shrapnel!”
The enemy became quiet. Now they had the 283rd NVA battalion helping them outflank the SEALs.
The SEALs began to leapfrog. Norris laid down cover fire so Thornton, Quon, and Tai could retreat. Then Thornton and his team would do the same while Norris and Dang moved back. Norris had just brought up a Light Antitank Weapon (LAW) to shoot when an NVA’s AK-47 shot him in the face, knocking Norris off a sand dune. Norris tried to get up to return fire but passed out.
Dang ran back to Thornton. Two rounds hit the radio Dang carried on his back.
“Where’s Tommy?” Thornton asked.
“He dead.”
“You sure?”
“He shot in head.”
“Are you sure?”
“See him fall.”
“Stay here. I’m going back for Tommy.”
“No, Mike. He dead. NVA coming.”
“Y’all stay here.” Thornton ran 500 yards to Norris’s position through a hail of enemy fire. Several NVA neared Norris’s body. Thornton gunned them down. When he reached Norris, he saw that the bullet had entered the side of Norris’s head and blown out the front of his forehead. He was dead. Thornton threw the body on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and grabbed Norris’s AK. Thornton had already used up eight grenades and his LAW rockets and was down to one or two magazines of ammo. It looked like the end for him, too.
Suddenly, the first round from the Newport News came in like a mini Volkswagen flying through the air. When it exploded, it threw Thornton down a 30-foot dune. Norris’s body flew over Thornton. He picked himself up and walked over to pick up Norris.
“Mike, buddy,” Norris said.
“You sonofabitch. You’re alive!”
Thornton felt a new burst of energy as he picked up Norris, put him on his shoulders, and took off running. Dang and Quon gave cover fire.
The Newport News’s artillery round had bought them some time, but that time was now up. Enemy rounds rained down on the SEALs again.
Thornton reached Dang and Quon’s position. “Where’s Tai?”
When Thornton went back to get Norris, the shaky Vietnamese lieutenant had disappeared into the water.
Thornton looked at the two Vietnamese SEALs. “When I yell one, Quon, lay down a base of fire. When I yell two, Dang, lay down a base of fire. Three, I’ll lay down a base of fire. And we’ll leapfrog back to the water.”
Shooting and retreating, as Thornton reached the water’s edge, he fell, not realizing he’d been shot through his left calf. He picked up Norris and carried him under his arm. In the water, he felt a floundering movement—he had Norris’s head under the water. Thornton got his buddy’s head above water. Norris’s life vest was tied to his leg, standard operating procedure for Team Two. So Thornton took off his own vest and put it on Norris, using it to keep both of them afloat.
Quon fluttered in the water, the right side of his hip shot off. Thornton grabbed him, and Quon hung onto Norris’s life preserver. Dang helped as they kicked out to sea. Thornton could see bullets traveling through the water. Thornton prayed, Good Lord, don’t let any of those hit me.
Norris came to. He couldn’t see the Vietnamese officer. “Did we get everybody?” Pushing down on Thornton, immersing him, Norris rose high enough to see the Vietnamese officer, swimming far out to sea. Norris blacked out again.
After swimming well out of the enemy’s range of fire, Thornton and the two Vietnamese SEALs saw the Newport News—then saw it sail away, thinking the SEALs were dead.
“Swim south,” Thornton said. He put two 4" × 4" battle dressings on Norris’s head, but they couldn’t cover the whole wound. Norris was going into shock.
Another group of SEALs, manning a junk searching for their buddies, found the Vietnamese lieutenant and debriefed him. Then they found Thornton, Norris, Dang, and Quon. Thornton radioed the Newport News for pickup.
Once aboard the Newport News, Thornton carried Norris to medical. The medical team cleaned Norris up as best they could, but the doctors said, “He’s never going to make it.”
Norris was medevaced to Da Nang. From there, they flew him to the Philippines.
For Thornton’s actions, he received the Medal of Honor. It is the only time a Medal of Honor recipient has rescued a Medal of Honor recipient. Years later, Thornton would help form SEAL Team Six and serve as one of its operators.
Norris survived, proving the doctor wrong. He was transferred to the Bethesda, Maryland, Naval Hospital. Over the next few years, he underwent several major surgeries, as he had lost part of his skull and one eye. The navy retired Norris, but the only easy day was yesterday. Norris returned to his childhood dream: becoming an FBI agent. In 1979, he requested a disability waiver. FBI Director William Webster said, “If you can pass the same test as anybody else applying for this organization, I will waiver your disabilities.” Of course, Norris passed.
Later, while serving in the FBI, Norris tried to become a member of the FBI’s newly forming Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), but the FBI’s bean counters and pencil pushers didn’t want to allow a one-eyed man on the team. HRT founder Danny Coulson said, “We’ll probably have to take another Congressional Medal of Honor winner with one eye if he applies, but I’ll take the risk.” Norris became an assault team leader. After twenty years with the FBI, he retired. He was last on the runs and swims at BUD/S, and he only had one eye when he went to the FBI Academy, but Norris had fire in the gut.
Some legends are passed down to BUD/S trainees, but I wouldn’t learn about Norris until after I became a SEAL. In such a small, tight-knit community, a SEAL’s reputation, good or bad, travels fast. That reputation begins at BUD/S. Norris remained the underdog throughout his careers in the Teams and the FBI. Now I had to forge my own reputation.
* * *
During one of our long runs, halfway through training on the island, we ran behind a truck while music played. I actually visualized myself wearing the SEAL trident. I’m either going home in a coffin or I’m going home wearing the trident. I’m going to make it through training. It felt like a vision had opened up in my mind. It was the first and only time I got a runner’s high. Some guys got that runner’s high repeatedly. For me, it sucked every time I ran.
In Third Phase, Dive Phase, we learned underwater navigation and techniques for sabotaging ships. Some of my classmates had trouble with dive physics and pool competency (pool comps). I had difficulty treading water with tanks on and keeping my fingers above the water for five minutes. An instructor would yell, “Get that other finger up, Wasdin!” So I would.
* * *
BUD/S prepares us to believe we can accomplish the mission—and to never surrender. No SEAL has ever been held prisoner of war. The only explicit training we receive in BUD/S is to look out for each other—leave no one behind. A lot of our tactical training deals with retreats, escape, and evasion. We are taught to be mentally tough, training repeatedly until our muscles can react automatically. Looking back, I now realize that my mental toughness training started at an early age. Our planning is meticulous, which shows in our briefings. In my encounters with the army, navy, air force, and marines, I’ve only seen Delta Force brief as well as we do.
A SEAL’s belief in accomplishing the mission transcends environmental or physical obstacles that threaten to make him fail. Often we think we’re indestructible. Forever the optimists, even when we’re outnumbered and outgunned, we still tend to think we have a chance to make it out alive—and be home in time for dinner.
Nevertheless, sometimes a SEAL can’t find his way back to Mother Ocean and must make a choice between fighting to the death or surrendering. For many brave warriors, it’s better to roll the dice on surrendering in order to live to fight another day—SEALs have incredible respect for those POWs. As SEALs, though, we believe our surrender would be giving in, and giving in is never an option. I wouldn’t want to be used as some political bargaining chip against the United States. I wouldn’t want to die in a cage of starvation or have my head cut off for some video to be shown around the world on the Internet. My attitude is that if the enemy wants to kill me, they’re going to have to kill me now. We despise would-be dictators who wish to dominate us—SEALs steer the rudders of their own destinies. Our world is a meritocracy where we are free to leave at any time. Our missions are voluntary; I can’t think of a mission that wasn’t. Ours is an unwritten code: It’s better to burn out than to fade away—and with our last breaths we’ll take as many of the enemy with us as possible.
* * *
Laura and Blake, who was just a toddler, flew out for my graduation. Blake rang the bell for me. I told him, “Now you never have to go to BUD/S, because you’ve already rung out.” In his teenage years, he would want to become a SEAL, but I would talk him out of it. Half a dozen people in my hometown would have kids who wanted to go to BUD/S. I would talk every single one of them out of it. If I’m able to talk someone out of it, I’m just saving them time, because they really don’t want it anyway. If I can’t talk them out of it, maybe they really want it.
* * *
After BUD/S, we went directly to airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the army’s airborne and infantry schools. The summer was so hot that they had to run us through the sprinklers two or three times a day to cool us off. Even so, people still fell out from heatstroke and heat exhaustion. Some of the soldiers talked as if the training were the hardest thing in the world. They thought they were becoming part of some elite fighting force. Coming from BUD/S, airborne training was a joke.
“This isn’t hard,” I said. “You’ve got women here making it through the training.” I felt like we could have done their two weeks of “intensive training” in two days.
Army regulations didn’t allow the instructors to drop anyone for more than ten push-ups. One airborne instructor was a “good old boy” who always had a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his mouth. We tadpoles screwed around with him wanting more push-ups.
“Give me ten, Navy,” he said.
We did ten push-ups, then stood up.
“Hell no.” He spit his tobacco. “Too damn easy.”
We dropped down and did ten more.
“Hell no. Too damn easy.”
We did ten more.
At night, we went out drinking until late. For us, airborne training was a holiday.
West Point gave its seniors a choice of what army school to attend during summer. Some of the officer candidates chose airborne school. Two or three would polish our boots if we told them BUD/S stories. I felt like a celebrity. Seems strange thinking back on it now. They were officer candidates from the army’s most prestigious school, and they were polishing my E-5 enlisted boots just so I would tell them about BUD/S. I wasn’t even a SEAL yet and had never seen combat. The West Point guys were mesmerized by our tales. Soon we had to leave our rooms for a bigger area because there were so many guys who wanted to hear us.
By the end of airborne training, we had completed five static-line “dope on a rope” jumps, meaning the parachute automatically deploys immediately after leaving the plane and there is no need to pull a ripcord. It was real, and it was fun—but now the real fun would begin.