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

boats out through the waves, dumping boat, righting boat, paddling in,
backward, forward, boat being dragged, boat on our heads.
It never ended, and by the close of that first week we had lost more than
twenty men, one of them in tears because he could not go on. His hopes, his
dreams, even his intentions had been dashed to bits on that Coronado beach.
That was more than sixty rings on the big bell right outside the office door.
And every time we heard it, without exception, we knew we’d lost an essentially
good guy. There weren’t any bad guys who made it through Indoc. And as the
days wore on and we heard that bell over and over, it became a very melancholy
sound.
Could I be standing there outside the office door, a broken man, a few days
from now? It was not impossible, because many of these men had had no
intention of quitting a few hours or even minutes before they did. Something just
gave way deep inside them. They could no longer go on, and they had no idea
why.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Marcus. Because the son-ofabitch might toll
for thee. Or for any one of the sixty-odd others still standing after the brutal
reality of week one, first phase. Every time we crossed the grinder, we could see
the evidence right there before our eyes, a total of twenty helmets on the ground,
lined up next to the bell. Each one of those helmets had been owned by a friend,
or an acquaintance, or even a rival, but a guy whom we had suffered alongside.
That line of lonely hard hats was a stark reminder not only of what this place
could do to a man but also of the special private glory it could bestow on those
who would not give in. It drove me onward. Every time I looked at that line, I
gritted my teeth and put some extra purpose into my stride. I still felt the same as
I had on my very first day. I’d rather die than surrender.
The third week of first phase brought us into a new aspect of BUD/S
training, called rock portage. This was dangerous and difficult, but basically we
had to paddle the IBS along to an outcrop of rocks opposite the world-famous
Hotel del Coronado and land it there. I don’t mean moor it, I mean land it, get it
up there on dry land with the surf crashing all around you, the ocean swell trying
to suck that boat right back out again.
I had to figure pretty big in this because of my size and ability to heave. But
none of my crew was quite ready for this desperate test. It was something we just
had to learn how to do. And so we went at it, paddling hard in from the sea,
driving into those huge rocks, straight into waves which were breaking every
which way.