Lone Survivor_ The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 ( PDFDrive )

feet, remain afloat for five minutes, and then swim fifty yards using any stroke. I
could have done that in my sleep, especially without having to worry about the
occasional alligator or water moccasin.
The running would not have been that bad in decent weather, but the campus
was absolutely frigid, and the wind off the lake was cutting. A penguin would
have had trouble out there. We ran through snow, marched through snow, and
made our way to classes through snow.
In that first week, while we were trying to avoid freezing to death, they
instilled in us three words which have been with me ever since. Honor, Courage,
Commitment, the motto of the United States Navy, the core values that
immediately became the ideals we all lived by. I can remember to this day an
instructor telling us, “What you make of this experience here at Great Lakes is
what will make you as a person.” He was right. I hope.
In the second week, they put us through the Confidence Course. This is
designed to simulate emergency conditions in a U.S. Navy warship. They taught
us to be sharp, self-reliant, and, above all, to make key decisions on which our
lives and those of our shipmates might depend. That word: teamwork. It
dominates and infiltrates every single aspect of life in the navy. In boot camp,
they don’t just tell you, they indoctrinate you. Teamwork. It was the new driving
force in all of our lives.
Week three, they put us on board a landbound training ship. Everything was
hands-on training. We learned the name of nearly every working part of that
ship. They taught us first aid techniques, signaling ship to ship with flags
(semaphore). We spent a lot of time in the classroom, where we focused on navy
customs and courtesies, the laws of armed conflict, shipboard communication,
ship and aircraft identification, and basic seamanship.
All this was interspersed with physical training tests, sit-ups, sit-reaches, and
push-ups. I was fine with all of those, but the one-and-a-half-mile run in that
weather would have tested the stamina of a polar bear. They told us anyone who
failed could come back and take it again. I decided I would rather run barefoot
across the Arctic than take it again. Gave it my all. Passed, thank God.
During week four, we got our hands on some weaponry for the first time —
the M16 rifle. I was pretty quick with that part of the course, especially on the
live-fire range. After that, the navy concentrated on which path through the
service everyone wanted to take. That was also easy for me. Navy SEALs. No
bullshit, right?
The firefighting and shipboard damage-control course came next. And we all