better banging six miles to and from the mess hall each day. Longer runs, called “conditioning hikes,” are pounded out on miles of soft beach sand. The most a BUD/S student will run in a day is approximately twenty miles, with most days averaging between eight and fifteen. Gangs of instructors lead and follow each run, harrying the class formation like wolves after a herd of migrating caribou.
On a long run, the faster runners move toward the front as the lame, tired, and out of condition fall back. The formation is not allowed to straggle. On each outing, instructors separate the last 20 percent from the main body. This group is called the “goon squad,” and they are singled out for special attention. That means at least an extra half hour out on the sand, running in circles, doing push-ups, rope climbs, or carrying telephone poles out into the surf zone. The weakest and slowest are the ones who get screwed the hardest. During first phase, the goon squad contributes the majority of the helmets under the bell.
For every student, the push-ups are uncountable. Any breach of decorum, military etiquette, or operational procedure earns the transgressor fifty push-ups. Any time a class member superior in rank to you is “dropped,” everyone in the unit does push-ups as well. When a boat-crew leader is made to do push-ups, his boat crew does them with him. When the class leader is dropped, the entire class does push-ups. It’s an effective way to teach accountability.
It isn’t just the instructors who are sons of bitches. Another nemesis is the obstacle course. Scattered across a couple hundred yards of sand are two dozen contraptions made from telephone poles, hawser, cargo net, and barbed wire. Obstacles with names like the Belly Robber, the Dirty Name, and the Slide for Life teach balance, physical technique, and confidence to students who will later scale embassy walls, climb offshore oil rigs, and pull themselves down lines attached to submerged submarines. Each time a student runs the O-course, his completion time is expected to improve. If it does not, the student can enjoy a refreshing dip in the Pacific, a bracing roll in beach sand, and the opportunity to run the O-course one more time. Wet.
Another first-phase pastime is boat work. The class is broken into seven-man boat crews and each is assigned to an IBS, or inflatable boat, small. Dressed in kapok life jackets, the boat crews paddle through the surf zone for hours in a series of races and long-distance paddles. Although boats are frequently swamped and run ashore by gigantic surf, and hands are rubbed raw from miles and miles of paddling, the surf zone offers some relief: It’s the only place in first phase where the instructors can’t scream in your face.
At an Olympic-sized pool reserved for SEALs, students learn Red Cross lifesaving and drown-proofing, a technique that allows individuals to stay afloat and swim without the use of their arms and legs. In the drown-proofing practical, students are thrown in the pool, hands and feet tied together with parachute cord. They have to swim four hundred yards, retrieve a face mask from the bottom of the deep end with their teeth, then “tread water” for forty minutes—all of this while trussed up like Esther Williams in bondage.
Between runs, swims, and surf work, first-phase students take academic classes in advanced first aid, the history of naval special warfare, communications, beach reconnaissance, and cartography. Any grade below 3.0 is considered failing. Exhausted students who fall asleep during lectures are splashed awake with a wastebasket full of seawater and have a tear-gas grenade placed in their hands. The instructor then pulls the pin, requiring the sleepy student to keep his hand tightly on the grenade, holding the safety handle down to prevent the tear gas from going off.
The fourth week of first phase is Hell Week, which begins around midnight on Sunday and ends sometime the
On a long run, the faster runners move toward the front as the lame, tired, and out of condition fall back. The formation is not allowed to straggle. On each outing, instructors separate the last 20 percent from the main body. This group is called the “goon squad,” and they are singled out for special attention. That means at least an extra half hour out on the sand, running in circles, doing push-ups, rope climbs, or carrying telephone poles out into the surf zone. The weakest and slowest are the ones who get screwed the hardest. During first phase, the goon squad contributes the majority of the helmets under the bell.
For every student, the push-ups are uncountable. Any breach of decorum, military etiquette, or operational procedure earns the transgressor fifty push-ups. Any time a class member superior in rank to you is “dropped,” everyone in the unit does push-ups as well. When a boat-crew leader is made to do push-ups, his boat crew does them with him. When the class leader is dropped, the entire class does push-ups. It’s an effective way to teach accountability.
It isn’t just the instructors who are sons of bitches. Another nemesis is the obstacle course. Scattered across a couple hundred yards of sand are two dozen contraptions made from telephone poles, hawser, cargo net, and barbed wire. Obstacles with names like the Belly Robber, the Dirty Name, and the Slide for Life teach balance, physical technique, and confidence to students who will later scale embassy walls, climb offshore oil rigs, and pull themselves down lines attached to submerged submarines. Each time a student runs the O-course, his completion time is expected to improve. If it does not, the student can enjoy a refreshing dip in the Pacific, a bracing roll in beach sand, and the opportunity to run the O-course one more time. Wet.
Another first-phase pastime is boat work. The class is broken into seven-man boat crews and each is assigned to an IBS, or inflatable boat, small. Dressed in kapok life jackets, the boat crews paddle through the surf zone for hours in a series of races and long-distance paddles. Although boats are frequently swamped and run ashore by gigantic surf, and hands are rubbed raw from miles and miles of paddling, the surf zone offers some relief: It’s the only place in first phase where the instructors can’t scream in your face.
At an Olympic-sized pool reserved for SEALs, students learn Red Cross lifesaving and drown-proofing, a technique that allows individuals to stay afloat and swim without the use of their arms and legs. In the drown-proofing practical, students are thrown in the pool, hands and feet tied together with parachute cord. They have to swim four hundred yards, retrieve a face mask from the bottom of the deep end with their teeth, then “tread water” for forty minutes—all of this while trussed up like Esther Williams in bondage.
Between runs, swims, and surf work, first-phase students take academic classes in advanced first aid, the history of naval special warfare, communications, beach reconnaissance, and cartography. Any grade below 3.0 is considered failing. Exhausted students who fall asleep during lectures are splashed awake with a wastebasket full of seawater and have a tear-gas grenade placed in their hands. The instructor then pulls the pin, requiring the sleepy student to keep his hand tightly on the grenade, holding the safety handle down to prevent the tear gas from going off.
The fourth week of first phase is Hell Week, which begins around midnight on Sunday and ends sometime the
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