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Honor, Courage, Commitment,
the motto of the
United States Navy, the core values that immediately became the ideals we all lived by. I can
remember to this day an instructor telling us, “What you make of this experience here at Great
Lakes is what will make you as a person.” He was right. I hope.
In the second week, they put us through the Confidence Course. This is designed to
simulate emergency conditions in a U.S. Navy warship. They taught us to be sharp, self-reliant,
and, above all, to make key decisions on which our lives and those of our shipmates might
depend. That word:
teamwork.
It dominates and infiltrates every single aspect of life in the navy.
In boot camp, they don’t just tell you, they indoctrinate you. Teamwork. It was the new driving
force in all of our lives.
Week three, they put us on board a landbound training ship. Everything was hands-on
training. We learned the name of nearly every working part of that ship. They taught us first aid
techniques, signaling ship to ship with flags (semaphore). We spent a lot of time in the
classroom, where we focused on navy customs and courtesies, the laws of armed conflict,
shipboard communication, ship and aircraft identification, and basic seamanship.
All this was interspersed with physical training tests, sit-ups, sit-reaches, and push-ups. I
was fine with all of those, but the one-and-a-half-mile run in that weather would have tested the
stamina of a polar bear. They told us anyone who failed could come back and take it again. I
decided I would rather run barefoot across the Arctic than take it again. Gave it my all. Passed,
thank God.
During week four, we got our hands on some weaponry for the first time — the M16
rifle. I was pretty quick with that part of the course, especially on the live-fire range. After that,
the navy concentrated on which path through the service everyone wanted to take. That was also
easy for me. Navy SEALs. No bullshit, right?
The firefighting and shipboard damage-control course came next. And we all learned
how to extinguish fires, escape smoke-filled compartments, open and close watertight doors,
operate the oxygen breathing apparatus, and move fire hoses around. The last part was the worst
— the Confidence Chamber. You get in there with your class and put on a gas mask. Then
someone unleashes a tear-gas tablet, and you have to take off your mask, throw it in a trash can,
and recite your full name and Social Security number.
Every single recruit who joins the navy has to endure that exercise. At the end, the
instructors make it clear: you have what it takes. There’s a place in the navy for you.
The final task is called battle stations. Teams are presented with twelve situations, all of which
have been addressed during the previous weeks. This is where they grade the recruits,
individually and as teams. When you’ve completed this, the trainers present you with a U.S.
Navy ball cap, and that tells the world you are now a sailor. You have proved you belong, proved
you have the right stuff.
The following week, I graduated, in my brand-new dress uniform. I remember passing
the mirror and hardly recognizing myself. Standing tall, right there. There’s something about
graduating from boot camp; I guess it’s mostly pride in yourself. But you also know a lot of
people couldn’t have done it. Makes you feel pretty good. Especially someone like me, whose
major accomplishment thus far had involved hurling some half-drunk cowboy out of an East
Texas bar and into the street on his ear.
After I graduated, I flew immediately to San Diego, headed to Coronado Island and the
navy amphibious base. I made my way there alone, a couple of weeks early, and spent my time
organizing my uniforms, gear, and rooms, and trying to get into some sort of shape.
Most of us had lost a lot of condition at boot camp because the weather was so bad. You couldn’t
just jog outside and go for a run because of the blizzards and the deep snow. Perhaps you
remember that very brave guy who made the journey to the South Pole with the Royal Navy
officer, Robert Falcon Scott, in 1912. He believed he was hindering the entire team because of
his frostbite. Captain Oates was his name, and he crawled out into a raging blizzard one night
with the immortal words, “I am going outside now. I may be gone for some time.”
They never found his body, and I have never forgotten reading his words. Guts-ball, right? Well,
going outside at Great Lakes would have been a bit like that, and almost as brave. Unlike the
gallant captain, we stayed by the heater.
And now we were going for runs along the beach, trying to get in shape for the first week
of Indoctrination. That’s the two-week course known as Indoc, where the SEALs prepare you for
the fabled BUD/S course (Basic Underwater Demolition/-SEALs). That one lasts for seven
months and is a lot harder than Indoc. But if you can’t get through the initial pretraining
endurance test, then you ought not to be in Coronado, and they don’t want you anyway.
The official navy literature about the reason for Indoc reads: “To physically, mentally and
environmentally prepare qualified SEAL candidates to begin BUD/S training.” Generally
speaking, the instructors do not turn on the pressure during Indoc. You’re only revving up for the
upcoming trial by fire.
But they still make it very tough for everyone, officers and enlisted men alike. The SEAL
programs make no distinction between commissioned officers coming in from the fleet and the
rest of us. We’re all in it together, and the first thing they instill in you at Indoc is that you will
live and train as a class, as a team. Sorry. Did I say
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