following Saturday. The first event is “Break Out,” a daunting affair in which students are rousted from the barracks by instructors armed with concussion grenades, artillery simulators, and M-60 machine guns. Students rush about while smoke grenades billow, machine guns are fired, and a fire hose sprays water. Explosions rip the night as a contradictory series of orders and uniforms are announced. The net result is that students begin their weeklong ordeal with every piece of equipment and every scrap of uniform wet, sandy, and scattered in heaps. The event is designed to disorient, and it does. While explosions rock the formation, the bell clangs as shell-shocked students begin to quit.
During Hell Week, students are allowed from zero to three hours of sleep—the entire week. Events continue twenty-four hours a day for six days. Students run, swim, paddle, and generally get fucked about by three shifts of instructors who rotate in around the clock.
The class is again broken up into boat crews, and every event, called an “evolution,” is a race. Students drag three-hundred-pound IBSs with them everywhere they go. It pays to be a winner: Boat crews who win an evolution such as the paddle around Coronado Island might be allowed a cup of coffee, chow earlier, or a twenty-minute nap on their boat. Those who finish last must do the evolution over again. Like the denizens of the goon squad, losing boat crews are hammered by the instructors.
The boats must constantly be ready for sea, that is, be in perfect operational order. Likewise the students. The task is nearly impossible; the instructors can always find a twisted life-jacket strap or an unbuttoned pocket. Then it’s hammer time.
The constant running, paddling, and cold-water immersions require huge amounts of energy. Students burn upward of five thousand calories a day and are fed four meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight meal called “mid-rats.” Students are not allowed to talk or doze off during meals. It is not unusual to watch students pass out facedown in their oatmeal. Those who face-plant are tossed out of the chow hall and into the surf zone.
With lack of sleep come hallucinations, and tempers and judgment fray. This is part of the process. Instructors watch carefully, pressing officers to lead and boat crews to work together. Lack of organization is not tolerated.
Each time a boat-crew member quits, his mates are left to pull his load, humping the three-hundred-pound boat through the evolutions with one fewer person. Everyone works harder to make up for the lost man, but the boat is slower, and that makes the instructors very cross. It’s easy to see how the loss of a single individual could lead to an entire crew washing out. Hell Week is an object lesson in teamwork.
It is not unheard of for a class to lose 60 percent of its members during Hell Week alone. Very few classes come through the entire week without losing a single individual. These classes are awarded a “No Bell Prize,” and their class number is engraved on a plaque on the BUD/S quarterdeck. As I write this, that plaque has perhaps four class numbers carved into it—out of the 280 classes that have graduated.
Of all the experiences a student will have at BUD/S, Hell Week is probably the most crucial. Students emerge with the realization that the human body is capable of ten times the output previously thought possible. There are few limits and no limitations to what a determined individual can accomplish. After Hell Week, the class is allowed to commission a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Naval Special Warfare Training Command and the class number. If you can survive Hell Week, you’ll probably survive the remainder of training.
After Hell Week injuries are feared more than the instructors. Little provision is made for the wounded, and there is no convalescent leave. Nor is the medical attention particularly fawning. Advice from the corpsmen in sick bay is
During Hell Week, students are allowed from zero to three hours of sleep—the entire week. Events continue twenty-four hours a day for six days. Students run, swim, paddle, and generally get fucked about by three shifts of instructors who rotate in around the clock.
The class is again broken up into boat crews, and every event, called an “evolution,” is a race. Students drag three-hundred-pound IBSs with them everywhere they go. It pays to be a winner: Boat crews who win an evolution such as the paddle around Coronado Island might be allowed a cup of coffee, chow earlier, or a twenty-minute nap on their boat. Those who finish last must do the evolution over again. Like the denizens of the goon squad, losing boat crews are hammered by the instructors.
The boats must constantly be ready for sea, that is, be in perfect operational order. Likewise the students. The task is nearly impossible; the instructors can always find a twisted life-jacket strap or an unbuttoned pocket. Then it’s hammer time.
The constant running, paddling, and cold-water immersions require huge amounts of energy. Students burn upward of five thousand calories a day and are fed four meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight meal called “mid-rats.” Students are not allowed to talk or doze off during meals. It is not unusual to watch students pass out facedown in their oatmeal. Those who face-plant are tossed out of the chow hall and into the surf zone.
With lack of sleep come hallucinations, and tempers and judgment fray. This is part of the process. Instructors watch carefully, pressing officers to lead and boat crews to work together. Lack of organization is not tolerated.
Each time a boat-crew member quits, his mates are left to pull his load, humping the three-hundred-pound boat through the evolutions with one fewer person. Everyone works harder to make up for the lost man, but the boat is slower, and that makes the instructors very cross. It’s easy to see how the loss of a single individual could lead to an entire crew washing out. Hell Week is an object lesson in teamwork.
It is not unheard of for a class to lose 60 percent of its members during Hell Week alone. Very few classes come through the entire week without losing a single individual. These classes are awarded a “No Bell Prize,” and their class number is engraved on a plaque on the BUD/S quarterdeck. As I write this, that plaque has perhaps four class numbers carved into it—out of the 280 classes that have graduated.
Of all the experiences a student will have at BUD/S, Hell Week is probably the most crucial. Students emerge with the realization that the human body is capable of ten times the output previously thought possible. There are few limits and no limitations to what a determined individual can accomplish. After Hell Week, the class is allowed to commission a T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Naval Special Warfare Training Command and the class number. If you can survive Hell Week, you’ll probably survive the remainder of training.
After Hell Week injuries are feared more than the instructors. Little provision is made for the wounded, and there is no convalescent leave. Nor is the medical attention particularly fawning. Advice from the corpsmen in sick bay is
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