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

room inspection. The guy couldn’t work out whether to be furious or
heartbroken, but he spent most of the night cleaning up and still had to be in the
showers at 0430 with the rest of us.
I asked Reno about this weeks later, and he told me, “Marcus, the body can
take damn near anything. It’s the mind that needs training. The question that guy
was being asked involved mental strength. Can you handle such injustice? Can
you cope with that kind of unfairness, that much of a setback? And still come
back with your jaw set, still determined, swearing to God you will never quit?
That’s what we’re looking for.”
As ever, I do not claim to quote Instructor Reno word for word. But I do
know what he said, and how I remember it. No one talks to him and comes away
bemused. Trust me.
Thus far I’ve only dealt with that first two weeks of training on the land and
in the pool, and I may not have explained how much emphasis the instructors put
on the correct balanced diet for everyone. They ran classes on this, drilling into
us how much fruit and vegetables we needed, the necessity for tons of
carbohydrates and water.
The mantra was simple — you take care of your body like the rest of your
gear. Keep it well fed and watered, between one and two gallons a day. Start no
discipline without a full canteen. That way your body will take care of you when
you begin to ask serious questions of it. Because there’s no doubt in the coming
months you will be asking those questions.
This was an area, I remember, where there were a lot of questions, because
even after those first few days here, guys were feeling the effects: muscle
soreness, aches and pains in shoulders, thighs, and backs where there had been
none before.
The instructor who dealt with this part of our training warned us against very
strong drugs like Tylenol, except for a fever, but he understood we would need
ibuprofen. He conceded it was difficult to get through the coming Hell Week
without ibuprofen, and he told us the medical department would make sure we
received a sufficient amount to ease the pain, though not too much of it.
I remember he said flatly, “You’re going to hurt while you’re here. That’s our
job, to induce pain; not permanent injury, of course, but we need to make you
hurt. That’s a big part of becoming a SEAL. We need proof you can take the
punishment. And the way out of that is mental, in your mind. Don’t buckle under
to the hurt, rev up your spirit and your motivation, attack the courses. Tell
yourself precisely how much you want to be here.”