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

The water was only a fraction above sixty degrees. We all knew we had to
take that first wave bow on, but we didn’t want the biggest, so we waited. Then
the crew leader spotted a slacker one, and he bellowed, “Now! Now! Now!” We
charged forward, praying to God we wouldn’t get swept sideways and capsize.
One by one we scrambled aboard, digging deep, trying to get through the
overhanging crest, which was being whipped by an offshore breeze.
“Dig! Dig! Dig!” he roared as we headed for two more incoming walls of
water. This was the Pacific Ocean, not some Texas lake. Close to us, one of the
nine boats capsized, and there were paddles and students all in the water. You
could hear nothing except the crash of the surf and shouts of “Dig! Stroke!
Portside...starboard...straighten up! Let’s go! Go! Go!”
I pulled that paddle until I thought my lungs would burst, until we had driven
out beyond the breakers. And then our class leader yelled, “Dump the boat!”
The bow-side men slipped overboard, the others (including me) grabbed the
strap handles fixed on the rubber hull, stood up, and jumped over the same side,
dragging the boat over on top of us.
As the boat hit the water, three of us grabbed the same handles and climbed
back on the upturned hull of the boat. I was first up, I remember. Weightless in
the water, right? Just give me a chance.
We backed to the other side of the hull and pulled, dragging the IBS upright,
flipping it back on its lines. Everyone was aware that the tide was sweeping us
back into the breakers. Feeling something between panic and frenzy, we battled
back, grabbed our paddles and hauled out into flatter water and took a bead on
the finish line. We paddled like hell, racing toward the mark, some tower on the
beach. Then we dumped the boat again, grabbed the handles, carried it through
the shallows onto the beach, and hauled it into a head carry.
We ran up the dunes around some truck, still with the boat on our heads, and
then, as fast as we could, back along the beach to the point where we had started,
and the instructors awaited us, logging the positions we finished and the times
we clocked. They thoughtfully gave the winning crew a break to sit down and
recover. The losers were told to push ’em out. It was not unusual to complete six
of these races in one afternoon. By the end of Indoc week two, we had lost
twenty-five guys.
The rest of us, somehow, had managed to show Instructor Reno and his
colleagues we were indeed fit and qualified enough to attempt BUD/S training.
Which would begin the next week. There would be just one final briefing from
Reno before we attacked BUD/S first phase.