Rotating in to help the first phase guys work Hell Week wasn’t so bad. Matt rather enjoyed the five-day-long vetting process. Watching boys become men and men become SEALs. Nothing much had changed in over fifty years. The class attrition rates still hovered around the historical norm of seventy-five percent.

  An old saying, burned into a wood plaque hung above the entrance to the facility, bluntly summed up the reality of the BUD/S experience. It simply said, “The cowards never started, and the weak dropped out along the way.” The words were harsh, but reflected the reality of the experience.

  You volunteered in and you volunteered out. Of the seventy-five percent who didn’t finish, approximately sixty percent decided to quit and move on with their lives. The rest were dropped or rolled back for injuries, safety issues, and academic failures. To Matt, the madness he remembered as a student was really a well-orchestrated dance supported by SEALs dedicated to finding the next true warriors.

  Chapter Five

  Matt couldn’t help but flash back to his experience as a BUD/S student, marveling that somehow he’d made it through the grueling process. When you were in the middle of the student experience, time slowed down, unless a bad event was coming; then time accelerated, pushing the student into yet another test of endurance.

  Putting one foot in front of the other, living and surviving one training evolution at a time; that was the path to success for him. For the class going through Hell Week right now, it wasn’t any different.

  Matt slowed to a crawl as he drove through the back gate. The oncoming shift’s trucks were parked near the first phase office. They clearly were staged and ready to go, but there were no instructors in sight. Matt cursed under his breath and picked up the radio.

  “Blue shift chief - this is blue shift OIC.” OIC stood for officer-in-charge, and at BUD/S it held weight. The blue shift’s chief responded immediately.

  “ROGER - blue OIC - I’m all ears - OVER.”

  “Chief, continue to bring the kids home. I don’t think the group here is leaving anytime soon.”

  “I’m way ahead of you, blue OIC. I started moving the herd in your direction right after you left. We should be there in less than ten minutes.”

  Matt again was amazed at how navy chiefs seemed to anticipate and make the right call in almost any situation. But then Matt had always been lucky enough to work with great senior-enlisted SEALs.

  “Roger that, chief - I’ll wait until I see them entering the compound before I go searching for the oncoming OIC.”

  “Copy that sir - blue chief out!”

  Matt sat in the truck pondering his predicament. The Hell Week shifts rotated in three eight-hour sessions. The first-phase instructors supervised most of the work in each shift and that made sense. These guys knew the drill, understood the evolutions, and were able to extract just the right amount of pain and anguish without stepping over the line.

  The other second- and third-phase instructors like Matt assisted by covering logistics and safety. They drove trucks, provided medical support, acted as lifeguards, and arranged chow for the students.

  In addition to safety, shift officers were responsible for preparing the formal documentation of any incidents, accidents, or student requests to volunteer out of the program. In the late 1990s, the demanding SEAL course underwent intense scrutiny from liberal congressional delegations.

  Some of the visiting staffers felt the training procedures were antiquated and out of touch with modern and more humane techniques.

  These political lightweights believed that it was time for a change at BUD/S. In their opinion, a politically correct America could no longer tolerate the harsh reality experienced by the SEAL students. They were able to get the bell removed from BUD/S for a year or so before it was quietly brought back.

  Their interference did result in the creation of a complicated assortment of additional legal paperwork. Paperwork designed solely to cover the navy’s ass. Quitting was an event that required multiple counseling sessions, logbook entries, and eventually lots of forms and signatures. The shift OIC was the guy responsible to make sure the paperwork was right.

  Matt was parked near the student classrooms. He heard the Hell Week class before he saw them. The forty-nine dog-tired students shuffled into the compound. Each boat crew carried a two-hundred-pound rubber boat on top of their heads. They moved to an area just to the right of Matt’s truck and waited for the command to lower their black rubber boats.

  “Prepare to down boat, DOWN BOAT!” Chief Jackson’s voice boomed across the compound.

  The class boat crew leaders repeated the command to their six-man crews and lowered the boats to the compound’s surface, a rough concrete mix referred to as “the grinder.” The IBS, or in official navy jargon, the inflatable boat small, was manned by a seven-man student crew: six paddlers and one coxswain, usually an officer.

  The officer, or if one was not available, the senior enlisted man in the crew, sat in the back of the rubber boat, shouting commands to the paddling crewmen and steering with a paddle. It was crude, but it worked, as long as everybody paddled together. If they did not, the little boats spun sideways and rolled over in the rough California surf.

  The class leader put the class at parade rest with a barely audible command. The students obeyed, feet slightly apart, hands clasped behind their backs, while the boat crew leaders shuffled up to stand in front of their boats awaiting instructions.

  They all wore life jackets, an oversized, bright orange pain in the ass. The nylon straps were routed across the butt and through the crotch, finally attaching to the front of the flotation device.

  The straps relentlessly sawed back and forth against their inner thigh muscles. The camouflage fatigues worn by the students provided little protection from the abuse, and the addition of the beach made wearing the combat fatigues an ordeal as sand filled up every one of the oversized pockets.

  The crews of young men stood next to their boats three men to a side, their heads dropping to their chests as they fell asleep standing upright. Matt got out of the truck and quietly closed the door. Nodding off in any position or situation was a prudent coping mechanism.

  The students were severely sleep-deprived and kept that way. Little catnaps were tolerated and even encouraged by the first-phase instructors on each Hell Week shift. It provided just enough rest to keep the miserable exercise going all week long.

  Matt watched as weary heads dropped forward, resting on the padded collar of their life jackets. The sleeping men wobbled a little, but found some way to keep from falling down while taking their short catnap.

  A paddle clattered to the concrete and a startled student quickly picked it up, resuming the parade rest position. If the class stayed here any longer, more than paddles would be bouncing off the hard surface of the grinder.

  Matt exited the truck and walked briskly toward the first-phase instructor’s office. The shift change delay would most likely provide the tired students with a much appreciated unscheduled sleep period, but too much of a break could adversely impact the programmed pace of Hell Week.

  Matt sidestepped the shiny brass ship’s bell that hung just outside the office and walked inside. He scanned the room but saw it was empty. There were daypacks scattered about on the instructors’ desks, indicating that the oncoming shift instructors were somewhere in the compound. On a hunch, Matt left the office, heading straight for the classrooms.

  As he got closer, Matt heard men’s voices punctuated with laughter. He pulled his jacket sleeve up and checked his watch again. It was twelve forty-nine in the morning. He was truly fucked if he didn’t get on the road soon.

  He opened the classroom door and found the oncoming shift of instructors engaged in a safety briefing for their first event of the night. Near the back of the classroom, the off-going shift officer was chuckling at something he heard when he spotted Matt coming through the door. His smile faded when he saw Matt’s angry, bloodshot eyes.

  The delay hadn’t been his fault, but there was no way for Matt to know that. The third shift of instructors had been forced by the school’s director to wait for the medical team to show up. The doc and his navy corpsman were supposed to conduct a checkup at two o’clock in the morning; but according to the schedule, the students would be too far away for an easy linkup.

  To make the original schedule work, the instructors would’ve had to shuttle the medical team back and forth, messing up the tight Hell Week schedule. Lieutenant Smith didn’t want to get into a pissing contest with Lieutenant Barrett; he really admired the man.

  Smith knew Matt Barrett was a recipient of the navy’s highest award for courage under fire, the Navy Cross. His combat exploits in Egypt a few years back were also well known in the SEAL community.

  According to people who were close to the operation, Matt Barrett led a small team of SEALs into Egypt to conduct a reconnaissance of a critical airport in support of a United States rescue operation. His team’s original mission was to take a look around and report the target’s status to the oncoming raid force comprised of Army Rangers.

  The Rangers eventually flew in by helicopter to assault the airport, but that’s when things went to shit. The Ranger force got waxed by the Egyptian military. As a result of this disaster, Barrett was ordered to put his SEALs on target and hold the airport until a second raid force could be assembled and launched.

  Before it was over, Barrett’s eight men had accounted for one hundred and eleven enemy dead, killed directly by the recon team or indirectly by the fire support Matt brought down on the Egyptians. Barrett ended up badly wounded, but all the SEALs were extracted from the airport without loss of life.

  Smith decided he would be apologetic and defer to the angry war hero out of respect. “Hi, Matt! Good to see you!”

  “Well, Dave, great to finally see you, too!” Matt said sarcastically. “Why don’t we go outside and talk about it?” Matt swept his arm toward the door. Lieutenant Smith sighed, stood up, and walked outside. Just outside the door to the classroom was a covered walkway.

  There was a pipe running the length of the overhang horizontally for the students to use as a pull-up bar. Smith turned and placed his hands over his head, gripping the pipe.

  “Matt, before you get started, hear me out. The old man told me to stay and police up the medical guys and take them with us in the trucks. Our linkup with your shift was too far away to get the med check completed without a lot of shuttling and a big loss of time. You know Doc. He takes forever to get his shit together. As a result, we fell behind schedule for the shift change.”

  Before Matt could respond, Smith realized the Hell Week class was in the compound. “Looks like my chief called your chief,” observed the oncoming shift officer.

  Matt shook his head. “Nobody called us. The chief took the initiative to move the kids into the compound until I found out what the fuck was going on.”

  Chapter Six

  Both officers watched as Chief Jackson directed the class leader to have the students ditch their life jackets. The class office saluted and passed the command to his boat crew leaders. There was a flurry of activity and then the class resumed the position of parade rest, all the jackets draped neatly over the tubes of their boats.

  The oncoming shift chief strolled out onto the grinder to watch and assess the physical and mental state of the class. Chief Jackson walked over, shook hands, and conferred with the newcomer for a few seconds before shouting out a new command.

  “Mr. Gonzales! Have the class move to classroom seven for a safety brief. Move, sir!”

  The class leader gave a command for the students to muster in a single-file line and then led them quietly toward the classroom near the first-phase office. Two weeks ago they would’ve been screaming “Hooyah” as they sprinted to the briefing. In this early hour, they were unwilling to expend any more energy than necessary.

  “Come on, Matt. Let’s go back inside and listen to the safety brief.”

  Matt couldn’t stay mad. Dave wasn’t trying to fuck him over; he was just following orders. “All right, Dave,” Matt responded as he turned to follow the long conga line of sandy, tired sailors into the classroom.

  The two SEAL shift officers moved to the back of the room as the students found their seats and settled down. An instructor from the oncoming shift stood by the whiteboard. He took a long moment to survey the tired faces, then smiled a big toothy smile.

  “Good morning, gents!” The instructor turned to the board and pointed to the upper left corner.

  “This morning’s evolution I call ‘Around the World.’ Pay close attention. Any mistake could add miles to your course, and poor leadership will be recognized by the staff with an appropriate punishment . . . for the entire boat crew. So it pays to pay attention!”

  For the next ten minutes, he ran his index finger along an elaborate navigation map marked on the whiteboard. To Matt, it looked like the board game Life, except the milestones were places like the Coronado municipal pool, the Hotel Del Coronado, and the base laundry. He knew he’d also suffered this classic Hell Week evolution in his day, but he didn’t have a single clear memory of the event.

  According to the instructor, the tired students would roam the base and the island of Coronado, looping the course multiple times until the sun came up. The endurance course required them to walk or run with their boats and paddles.

  It would be interesting, at least for the instructor staff. The whole thing was a well-designed mindless expenditure of energy that, at this point in Hell Week, would cause many in the class to experience hallucinations brought on by fatigue and sleep deprivation.

  The students would never stop moving or stop competing; boat crews vied against each other to earn a few minutes sleep, ten minutes of warmth, or a little extra food. With the closing words of the briefing, the two shift officers moved away from the door.

  The lead instructor in charge of the evolution shouted the order for the Hell Week class to man their boats, and the room exploded with the rumble of scrambling students. Student desks toppled over and men fell down. Matt and Dave waited for the herd of students to squeeze through the door.

  The two officers walked out onto the grinder and continued to watch the class as they raced to get their life jackets back on. In Hell Week it paid to be a winner. Matt knew this frantic activity was a waste of vital reserves. No one started a fifty-mile endurance race by sprinting the first two miles.

  Just then they heard the loud and unmistakable clang of a ship’s bell. The sound echoed across the compound and bounced off the walls. Matt and Dave looked at each other before walking over to the first-phase office. There was nothing they could do now, except the paperwork, of course.

  The officers arrived just as the third and final ring echoed throughout the school’s compound. A forlorn-looking student stood in front of the first-phase office door, his hand still resting on the fancy rope work hanging from the bell’s striker.

  The young man reached up and pulled off the green helmet liner that signified his status as a first-phase student. The helmet liner was marked in white paint to show his rank and name.

  Matt knew what was coming next, so he attempted to beat feet. “Is the turnover complete?” Matt asked.

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Smith knew exactly what Matt meant. The officer stuck with this quitter would have a lot of forms to fill out. Smith checked his watch. “Yeah sure, Matt. Get your guys out of here. This bonehead just created half an hour of paperwork for me.”

  Matt paused. Tina already was pissed at him for being late; a few more minutes wasn’t going to matter. “Look, Dave, why don’t you get going? I can handle the report on this quitter. He’s really my responsibility anyway, since my shift drove him to this decision.”

  Dave didn’t have to think the proposal over for very long. “Are you sure, Matt? I mean, if you are, that would be great!”

  “Yeah sure, why not? I’m already in deep shit with Tina. How much more damage can I do if I’m another thirty minutes late?”

  Dave tilted his head. “What’s going on? I thought you two were getting really serious.”

  Matt shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, well she’s all into the marriage thing, and I don’t know if I want that, at least not yet. Sometimes I think I’d rather have my life simple again. You know? Single and free of attachments.”

  “Well, if I can help . . .”

  “No, I’m just whining, Dave. You’d better get moving.” Dave gave up. “Okay thanks, Matt. I owe you one.”

  “Bullshit! You don’t owe me anything. You know the deal. We’re in this together–teams and shit!”

  Dave reached out his hand. A guy wearing the Navy Cross could get away with being an asshole. But Matt was truly a good guy. “You’re right on that point, Matt. But I can still say thanks.”

  With that, the oncoming shift leader turned to address the nearest instructor. “All right, boys, let’s saddle up!”

  It took Matt forty-five minutes to interview the young student who quit. The paperwork was tedious and overly redundant. In the old days, if a man rang the bell three times that was it. No psycho evaluation stuff. Just goodbye and there’s the door.

  Matt was having a hard time keeping the student awake, and the warm office was causing the guy’s face and hands to swell. Matt knew that most Hell Week students reacted this way after being cold and wet for so long.

  He directed the young man to sign the final document and called in the student duty officer. “Escort this student to the Hell Week tent and help him collect his personal belongings. Then take him to the duty bunkroom. Make sure the roving patrol checks on his status from time to time until eight o’clock when the master-at-arms takes over handling the quitters.”

  Matt left the phase office and walked over to the instructors’ locker room. He stopped before opening the door and checked the time. Boy, was he late! Screw it, he thought. I’ll skip the shower and wear my stuff home. That ought to shave a minute or two off my drive to Mission Valley.

 

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