Marcus luttrell

Big time.
You will regret those 
moments of ridicule for a long time. I advise you not even to consider it.” 
He closed by telling us the real battle is won in the mind. It’s won by guys who understand their 
areas of weakness, who sit and think about it, plotting and planning to improve. Attending to the 
detail. Work on their weaknesses and overcome them. Because they can. 
“Your reputation is built right here in first phase. And you don’t want people to think you’re a 
guy who does just enough to scrape through. You want people to understand you always try to 
excel, to be better, to be completely reliable, always giving it your best shot. That’s the way we 
do business here. 
“And remember this one last thing. There’s only one guy here in this room who knows whether 
you’re going to make it, or fail. And that’s you. Go to it, gentlemen. And always give it 
everything.” 
Chief Nielsen left, and five minutes later we stood by for the commanding officer’s report. Six 
instructors filed into the room, surrounding a navy captain. And we all knew who he was. This 
was Captain Joe Maguire, the near-legendary Brooklyn-born Honor Man of Class 93 and 
onetime commanding officer of SEAL Team 2. He was also the future Rear Admiral Ma-guire, 
Commander, SPECWARCOM, a supreme SEAL warrior. He had served all over the world and 
was beloved throughout Coronado, a big guy who never forgot a fellow SEAL’s name, no matter 
how junior. 

---

He talked to us calmly. And he gave us two pieces of priceless advice. He said he was addressing 
those who really wanted this kind of life, those who could put up with every kind of harassment 
those instructors at the back of the room could possibly dish out. 
“First of all, I do not want you to give in to the pressure of the moment. Whenever you’re hurting 
bad, just hang in there. Finish the day. Then, if you’re still feeling bad, think about it long and 
hard before you decide to quit. Second, take it one day at a time. One evolution at a time. 
“Don’t let your thoughts run away with you, don’t start planning to bail out because you’re 
worried about the future and how much you can take. Don’t look ahead to the pain. Just get 
through the day, and there’s a wonderful career ahead of you.” 
This was Captain Maguire, a man who would one day serve as deputy commander of the U.S. 
Special Operations in Pacific Command (COMPAC). With his twin-eagles insignia glinting on 
his collar, Captain Maguire instilled in us the knowledge of what really counted. 
I stood there reflecting for a few moments, and then the roof fell in. One of the instructors was 
up and yelling. 
“Drop!”
he shouted and proceeded to lay into us for the sins of one man. 
“I saw one of you nodding off, right here in the middle of the captain’s briefing. How dare you! 
How dare you fall asleep in the presence of a man of that caliber? You guys are going to pay for 
this. 
Now push ’em out!
” 
He drilled us, gave us probably a hundred push-ups and sit-ups, and he drove us up and down the 
big sand dune in front of the compound. He raved at us because our times over the O-course 
were down, which was mostly due to the fact that we were paralyzed with tiredness before we 
got there. 
And so it went on, all week. There was a swim across the bay, one mile with a guy of 
comparable swimming ability. There were evolutions in the pool, in masks, wearing flippers and 
without. There was one where we had to lie on our backs, masks full of water, flippers on, trying 
to do flutter kicks with our heads out over the water. This was murder. So was the log PT and our 
four-mile runs. The surf work in the boats was also a strength-sapping experience, running the 
boats out through the waves, dumping boat, righting boat, paddling in, backward, forward, boat 
being dragged, boat on our heads. 
It never ended, and by the close of that first week we had lost more than twenty men, one of 
them in tears because he could not go on. His hopes, his dreams, even his intentions had been 
dashed to bits on that Coronado beach. 
That was more than sixty rings on the big bell right outside the office door. And every time we 
heard it, without exception, we knew we’d lost an essentially good guy. There weren’t any bad 
guys who made it through Indoc. And as the days wore on and we heard that bell over and over, 
it became a very melancholy sound. 
Could I be standing there outside the office door, a broken man, a few days from now? It was not 
impossible, because many of these men had had no intention of quitting a few hours or even 
minutes before they did. Something just gave way deep inside them. They could no longer go on, 
and they had no idea why. 

---

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Marcus. Because the son-ofabitch might toll for thee. Or for any 
one of the sixty-odd others still standing after the brutal reality of week one, first phase. Every 
time we crossed the grinder, we could see the evidence right there before our eyes, a total of 
twenty helmets on the ground, lined up next to the bell. Each one of those helmets had been 
owned by a friend, or an acquaintance, or even a rival, but a guy whom we had suffered 
alongside. 
That line of lonely hard hats was a stark reminder not only of what this place could do to a man 
but also of the special private glory it could bestow on those who would not give in. It drove me 
onward. Every time I looked at that line, I gritted my teeth and put some extra purpose into my 
stride. I still felt the same as I had on my very first day. I’d rather die than surrender. 
The third week of first phase brought us into a new aspect of BUD/S training, called rock 
portage. This was dangerous and difficult, but basically we had to paddle the IBS along to an 
outcrop of rocks opposite the world-famous Hotel del Coronado and land it there. I don’t mean 
moor it, I mean land it, get it up there on dry land with the surf crashing all around you, the 
ocean swell trying to suck that boat right back out again. 
I had to figure pretty big in this because of my size and ability to heave. But none of my crew 
was quite ready for this desperate test. It was something we just had to learn how to do. And so 
we went at it, paddling hard in from the sea, driving into those huge rocks, straight into waves 
which were breaking every which way. 
The bow of our boat slammed into the rocks, and the bowline man, not me, jumped forward and 
hung on, making the painter firm around his waist. His job was to get secure and then act like a 
human capstan and stop the boat being swept backward. Our man was pretty sharp; he jammed 
himself between a couple of big boulders and yelled back to us,