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

And now we were going for runs along the beach, trying to get in shape for
the first week of Indoctrination. That’s the two-week course known as Indoc,
where the SEALs prepare you for the fabled BUD/S course (Basic Underwater
Demolition/-SEALs). That one lasts for seven months and is a lot harder than
Indoc. But if you can’t get through the initial pretraining endurance test, then
you ought not to be in Coronado, and they don’t want you anyway.
The official navy literature about the reason for Indoc reads: “To physically,
mentally and environmentally prepare qualified SEAL candidates to begin
BUD/S training.” Generally speaking, the instructors do not turn on the pressure
during Indoc. You’re only revving up for the upcoming trial by fire.
But they still make it very tough for everyone, officers and enlisted men
alike. The SEAL programs make no distinction between commissioned officers
coming in from the fleet and the rest of us. We’re all in it together, and the first
thing they instill in you at Indoc is that you will live and train as a class, as a
team. Sorry. Did I say instill in you? I meant, ram home with a jack-hammer.
Teamwork. They slam that word at you every other minute. Teamwork.
Teamwork. Teamwork.
This is also where you first understand the concept of a swim buddy, which
in SEAL ethos is an absolutely gigantic deal. You work with your buddy as a
team. You never separate, not even to go to the john. In IBS (that stands for
“inflatable boat, small”) training, if one of you falls over the side into the
freezing ocean, the other joins him. Immediately. In the pool, you are never more
than an arm’s length away. Later on, in the BUD/S course proper, you can be
failed out of hand, thrown out, for not staying close enough to your swim buddy.
This all comes back to that ironclad SEAL folklore — we never leave a man
behind on the battlefield, dead or alive. No man is ever alone. Whatever the risk
to the living, however deadly the opposing fire, SEALs will fight through the
jaws of death to recover the remains of a fallen comrade. It’s a maxim that has
survived since the SEALs were first formed in 1962, and it still applies today.
It’s a strange thing really, but it’s not designed to help widows and parents of
lost men. It’s designed for the SEALs who actually do the fighting. There’s
something about coming home, and we all want to achieve that, preferably alive.
But there is a certain private horror about being killed and then left behind in a
foreign land, no grave at home, no loved ones to visit your final resting place.
I know that sounds kind of nuts, but nonetheless, it’s true. Every one of us
treasures that knowledge: No matter what, I will not be left behind, I will be
taken home. We are all prepared to give everything. And in the end it does not