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

Then he ordered us out to the grinder for physical training. “Move! Move!
Move!”
And finally we formed up, for the first time, on the most notorious square of
black tarmac in the entire United States Armed Forces. It was 0515, and our
places were marked by little frog flippers painted on the ground. It was hardly
worth the visit.
“Hit the surf. Get wet and sandy!” yelled Schulz. “Fast!”
Our adrenaline pumped, our legs pumped, our arms pumped, our hearts
pumped. Every goddamn thing there was pumped as we thundered off the
blacktop, still dressed in our squelching boots and fatigue pants, went back down
to the beach, and hurled ourselves into the surf.
Jesus, it was cold. The waves broke over me as I struggled back into the
shallows, flung myself onto the sand, rolled over a couple of times, and came up
looking like Mr. Sandman, except I wasn’t bringing anyone a dream. I could
hear the others all around me, but I’d heard Schulz’s last word. Fast. And I
remembered what Billy Shelton had taught: pay attention to even the merest
suggestion...and I ran for my goddamned life straight back to the grinder, right
up with the leaders.
“Too slow!” bellowed Schulz. “Much too slow...drop!”
Schulz’s instructors roamed among us, berating us, yelling, harassing us as
we sweated and strained to make the push-ups...“Like a goddamned fairy.” “Get
a grip on yourself.” “For Christ’s sake, look as if you mean it.” “C’mon, let’s
go! Go! Go!” “You sure you wanna be here? You wanna quit right now?”
I learned in the next few minutes there was a sharp difference between “get
wet and sandy” and just plain “get wet.” Parked at the side of the grinder were
two of the inflatable boats, laden to the gunwales with ice and water. “Get wet”
meant plunge over the bow, under the water, under the rubber seat struts, and out
to the other side. Five seconds, in the dark, in the ice, under the water. A killer
whale would have begged for mercy.
Now, I’d been cold before, in the freakin’ Pacific, right? But the water in that
little boat would have frozen the balls off a brass monkey. I came out of there
almost blue with the cold, ice in my hair, and blundered my way to my little
frogman’s marker. At least I’d gotten rid of the sand, and so had everyone else.
Two instructors were going down the lines with freezing cold power hoses,
spraying everyone from the head down.
By 0600 I had counted out more than 450 push-ups. And there were more, I
just couldn’t count anymore. I’d also done more than fifty sit-ups. We were