Marcus luttrell

“Dump boat!”
It was like taking a kick at a dying man. But we kept quiet. Not like an earlier response from a 
student, who had earned everlasting notoriety by yelling back the most insubordinate reply 
anyone had ever given one of the instructors. Never mind 
“Hooyah, Instructor Pat-stone!”
(Because Terry Patstone was normally a super guy, always harsh but fair.) That particular half-
crazed paddler bellowed, 
“Ass-h-o-o-ole!”
It echoed across the moonlit water and was greeted 
by a howl of laughter from the night-shift instructors. They understood, and never mentioned it. 
So we crashed over the side of the boat into the freezing water, flipped the hull over and then 
back, climbed back in, soaking wet, of course, and kept paddling. I locked one thought into my 
brain and kept it there: everyone else who ever became a U.S. Navy SEAL completed this, and 
that’s what we’re going to do. 
We finally hauled up on our home beach at around 0500 on Friday. Instructor Patstone knew we 
just wanted to hoist boats and get over to the chow hall. But he was not having that. He made us 
lift and then lower. Then he had us push ’em out, feet on the boat. He kept us on the beach for 
another half hour before we were loosed to make the elephant walk to breakfast. 
Breakfast was rushed. Just a few minutes, and then they had us right out of there. And the 
morning was filled with long boat races and a series of terrible workouts in the demo pits — 
that’s a scum-laden seawater slime, which we had to traverse on a couple of ropes, invariably 
falling straight in. To make everything worse, they kept telling us it was Thursday, not Friday, 
and the entire exercise was conducted under battle conditions — explosions, smoke, barbed wire 
— while we were crawling, falling into the slime. 
Finally, Mr. Burns sent us into the surf, all the time telling us how slow we were, how much 
more there was to accomplish this day, and how deeply he regretted there was as yet no end in 
sight for Class 226. The water almost froze us to death, but it cleaned us off from the slime pits, 
and after ten minutes, Chief Taylor ordered us back to the beach. 
We now didn’t know whether it was Thursday or Friday. Guys collapsed onto the sand, others 
just stood there, betraying nothing but in dread of the next few hours, too many of them 
wondering how they could possibly go on. Including me. Knees were buckling, joints throbbing. 
I don’t think anyone could stand up without hurting. 
Mr. Burns stepped forward and shouted, “Okay, guys, let’s get right on to the next evolution. A 
tough one, right? But I think you’re up for it.” 
We gave out the world’s weakest 
hooyah.
Hoarse voices, disembodied sounds. I didn’t know 
who was speaking for me; it sure as hell sounded like someone else. 
Joe Burns nodded curtly and said, “Actually, guys, there is no other evolution. All of you. Back 
to the grinder.” 
No one believed him. But Joe wouldn’t lie. He might fool around, but he would not lie. It slowly 
dawned on us that Hell Week was over. We just stood there, zonked out with pure disbelief. And 
Lieutenant Ismay, who was really hurting, croaked, “We made it, guys. Sonofabitch. We made 
it.” 

---

I turned to Matt McGraw, and I remember saying, “How the hell did you get here, kid? You’re 
supposed to be in school.” 
But Matt was on the verge of exhaustion. He just shook his head and said, “Thank God, thank 
God, Marcus.” 
I know this sounds crazy if you haven’t gone through what we went through. But this was an 
unforgettable moment. Two guys fell to their knees and wept. Then we all began to hug one 
another. Someone was saying, “It’s over.” 
Like the remnants of a ravaged army, we helped one another back over the sand dunes, picking 
up those who fell, supporting those who could barely walk. We reached the bus that would take 
us back to base. And there, waiting for us, was Captain Joe Maguire, the SEAL commanding 
officers, and the senior chiefs. Also in attendance was the ex-SEAL governor of Minnesota, 
Jesse Ventura, who would perform the official ceremony when we returned to the grinder. 
But right now, all we knew was the baptism of fire that had reduced Class 226 by more than half 
was over. It hadn’t beaten thirty-two of us. And now the torture was completed. In our wildest 
imaginations, no one had ever dreamed it would be this bad. God had given us justice. 
We lined up on that sacred blacktop, and Governor Ventura formally pronounced the official 
words that proclaimed we never had to tackle another Hell Week: “Class Two-two-six, you’re 
secured.” We gave him a rousing