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Hit the surf...all of you!
”
There were, by my count, thirty rooms. Only three of them had passed muster. And even those
guys were not exempt from our first ocean plunge of the afternoon. In our shiny boots and
pressed fatigues, we pounded back down to the beach, leaving a scene of total chaos behind us.
We raced into the water, deep, right into the waves. Then we turned and floundered back to the
beach, formed up, and headed back to the BUD/S area. Chief Taylor was back in our lives with a
major rush, obviously preparing for the last evolution of the day, on the beach or in the water.
We did not know which.
All day long we had been wondering precisely who he was, but our inquiries had yielded little
save that the chief was a true veteran of the teams who had seen combat in overseas deployment
four times, including the Gulf War. He was a medium-sized man but immensely muscular; he
looked like he could walk straight through a wall without breaking stride. But you could see he
had a sense of humor, and he was not averse to telling us we were doing okay. Sweet of him,
right? Half of us were hanging in there by willpower alone.
And we needed all the willpower we had, because in a few moments we were preparing to take
the boats into the water again. I have never forgotten that surf drill on that first day because
Chief Taylor made us paddle the boats out backward, facing aft. When we returned through the
surf to the beach, we faced aft again, but now we were paddling forward.
When we first started, the journey out beyond the breakers seemed impossible to do while facing
the beach and holding the oar so awkwardly, but we got better. And somehow we got it done.
But not before all kinds of chaos had broken out. We capsized, flipped over, crashed backward
trying to drive head-on into a big wave. And there was a lot of spluttering and coughing when we
attempted Chief Taylor’s finale, which was to dump boat, right it again, stow the oars correctly,
and then swim the boat back in through the surf and onto the beach.
Before we left, we were taken through an exercise called surf observation, in which two-man
teams observe the condition of the sea and make a report. I paid strict attention to this, which was
good, since from now on, every morning at 0430, two of our number would go down to the
water’s edge and come back to make that report. Chief Taylor, smiling, as he was prone to do,
dismissed us with the words “And don’t screw up that report. I want no discrepancies about sea
conditions, or there’ll be hell to pay.”
We sharpened up our rooms that evening, and on day two were under way with the normal
morning grind of push-ups, running, and getting wet and sandy. Our first classroom involved
meeting our leading petty officer instructor, Chief Bob Nielsen, another Gulf War veteran of
several overseas deployments. He was tall, slim for a SEAL, and, I thought, a bit sardonic. His
words to us were packed with meaning, edged with menace, but nonetheless optimistic.
He introduced himself and told us what he expected. As if we didn’t know. Everything, right? Or
die in the attempt. He gave us a slide presentation of every aspect of first phase. Before the first
picture had been taken off the screen, he told us to forget all about trying to put one over on the
instructors.
“Guys,” he said, “we’ve seen it all. You can try it on, if you like, but it won’t do anyone any
good. We’ll catch you, and when we do, watch out!”
I think everyone in the room made a mental note not to “try it on.” We all listened carefully
while Chief Nielsen ran quickly through the first four weeks and what we could expect — more
running, log PT boats, and swimming, the full catastrophe. Purely to find out how tough we
really were.
“Conditioning,” he said. “Conditioning and a whole lot of cold water. Get used to it. The next
month represents a hard kick in the crotch. Because we’re going to hammer you.” I still have my
notes of Bob Nielsen’s speech.
“You fail to meet those standards, you’re out. Of course most of you will end up being dropped.
And most of you will not be back. You must make that four-mile thirty-two-minute run, and you
must make the two-mile swims in an hour and a half. You’ll get a tough written test. There’s
pool standards, there’s drownproofing. With and without the fins — kick, stroke, and glide.
“You may be thinking, What does it take? What must I do to make it through? The cold truth is,
two-thirds of you sitting right here will quit.”
I remember him standing next to my row and saying, “There’s seven rows of you sitting here.
Only two rows will succeed.” He seemed to look straight at me when he said, “The rest of you
will be gonzo, history, back to the fleet. That’s the way it is. The way it’s always been. So try
your best to prove me wrong.”
He issued one further warning. “This training does not suit everyone. We get a lot of very good
guys through here who just decide this is not for them. And that’s their right. But they will walk
away from here with dignity, understand? We catch one of you laughing or making fun of a man
who has requested DOR, we’ll hammer you without mercy.
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