THE WEEK

On most Sunday evenings, the Naval Special Warfare Center is bathed in a soft yellow halogen glow. Invariably there is some activity behind the BUD/S compound and around the student barracks as trainees prepare for the next day's training. Not tonight. The area is completely dark and no one is about—no roving patrols, no student movement, no one from the watch section checking the back gates. There is a fluorescent bloom from the quarterdeck, where two Indoc students sit confined to the reception desk. They have been told to remain at their post and to stay away from the glass doors that lead out to the grinder. Next to the barracks, six IBSs have been readied for rock portage. Helmets with attached Chemlites sit perched on the main tube at each paddler's position. Between the chain-link compound fence and the tall beach berm, two large tents wait silently. These will serve as makeshift barracks for the trainees for the next week—where they will be allowed their meager ration of sleep. Inasmuch as Class 228 will have a home during Hell Week, it will be these two canvas shelters.

It is Sunday, 14 November, at 2000 hours. A file of men in dark clothes and bloused boots emerges from the administration complex on the south side of the grinder. The sliver of moon has not yet risen and only a few of the brighter stars have found their way through the light sea mist. It is a clammy sixty degrees—about the same temperature as the ocean. The men all wear ball caps and three of them carry automatic weapons. They move soundlessly across the grinder like a SWAT team moving into position. As they approach the First Phase classroom, light filtering around the shade on the door reveals that the armed men have ammunition belts clipped around their torsos. The leader gives a signal and three of the men break away to make their way down the outside hallway to the side door of the classroom. Other dark forms move into position around the grinder.

Inside, the forty-two men of Class 228 and Instructor Sean Mruk are halfway through Old Yeller. They all know it's coming; only Mruk knows exactly when and how.

Since noon, the class has been confined to the classroom, allowed to leave only to make a head call. No one has been allowed to leave for the last few hours. The classroom looks like a Red Cross shelter. The one-arm student chairs are pushed and stacked to one side, and blankets and pillows litter the floor. Each man's change of clothes, identical to what he is wearing, has been neatly stacked in the back of the room. Each item of clothing is stenciled with his name. The brown paper bags with casual civilian gear—for the most part sweat clothes and sandals—are piled in a corner near the chairs. Each bag bears a student's name written in black Magic Marker.

That morning, before the Hell Week lockdown, Chaplain Bob Freiberg held a service for Class 228. It was a voluntary, nondenominational gathering attended by most of the class. Chaplain Freiberg is Baptist by training, but he casts a big tent for the Hell Week class. He read the passage about deliverance from the Valley of the Shadow of Death and led them in the Lord's Prayer. Then he asked God to bless and watch over these young men during the trial ahead. Together we sang “Eternal Father,” the standard Navy version:

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hast bound the restless wave,

Who bids the mighty ocean deep,

Its own appointed limits keep,

O hear us when we cry to thee,

For those in peril on the sea.

This is followed by verse 17, the one for Navy SEALs:

Lord Father of sea, air and land,

Protect us with thy mighty hand,

For in your cause we do so strive,

Be present as we jump and dive,

Lord keep our SEALs within your care,

That liberty we all may share.

Amen

It's been a long day of eating, watching videos, and waiting anxiously. Some watch the movies, some don't. Some try to sleep while others read. Individually, they move in and out of small groups. Often they gather in boat crews and reaffirm their collective resolve. There is a quiet restlessness in the room. They are a class, but each man has to come to terms within himself about the ordeal ahead. Some are quiet and reflective. Others are talkative and social, wanting to be in the company of others. Stories abound about the start of previous Hell Weeks. Five of the trainees have been here before: Mark Williams, John Owens, Zack Armstrong, Lawrence Obst, and Daniel Bennett. Only Williams, who made it to Wednesday in Hell Week with Class 227, is willing to talk. He roams the First Phase classroom offering encouragement to his classmates.

“You ready for this, man? Hey, it's doable; we just got to suck it up and get it done.”

“Thanks, Mark.”

“Hey, let's kick ass, guys.”

“Right on, Mark.”

“How about it, sir. You ready for this?”

Bill Gallagher is among those who wait quietly. “I guess—ready as I'll ever be. Thanks for all your help so far. Good luck, Williams.”

“Good luck to you too, sir.”

Those uninterested in the diversion of the video wait silently, lost in their own thoughts. The room is warm, close to ninety degrees, and the air heavy with anticipation. It happens quickly. There is a crash as the side door of the classroom is kicked open, the rear door a second later. A hand reaches in and sweeps off the lights. The big yellow dog fades from the screen, and all hell breaks loose.

First there are the whistles—shrill police-type whistles. Class 228 has been told what to do when they hear a whistle. They hit the deck, cross their legs, and cover their ears with the palms of their hands. The six men move in, three from each open door, and the shooting starts.

“Hit the deck!”

“Incoming!”

“On the floor! Get your heads down!”

“Welcome to hell, gentlemen!”

The Mk-43s, a SEAL version of the M-60 light machine gun, begin to bark. The 7.62mm blank rounds don't have the brisance of live rounds, but the noise is still deafening. More whistles, more shouting, and lots of shooting—for sixty seconds, nothing can be heard but the sound of gunfire and shouting. The room is lit by muzzle flashes. The machine gunners step over and around the prone trainees as they do their work, mindful of the stream of expended shell casings from their weapons. They are hot and can cause angry welts if they land on exposed skin. Soon the room is heavy with smoke and the stench of cordite.

“Everybody outside!”

“Move, people! Let's go! Let's go!”

The forty-two members of Class 228 scramble from the previously warm, secure environment that has suddenly turned violent, and break out onto the grinder. More whistles and they fall to the blacktop, covering their ears, heads down. There they are met with fire hoses, more instructors, and more shooting. Barrels have been placed around the grinder, secure receptacles for the artillery simulators. Soon there is the scream and boom of imitation artillery rounds to accompany the shooting. Shouting instructors are everywhere, herding them to the center of the grinder. The class bunches together on the blacktop as they are assaulted by the fire hoses. Then the whistle drills begin.

Fweet! The mass of confused students melts to the grinder. They scoot about on the wet blacktop so their heads are in the direction of the instructor with the whistle—ears covered, legs crossed. They knew it was coming— the shooting, the explosions, the shouting, and the fire hoses. But it's one thing to know it's coming and yet another to be in the middle of it. In some ways, it's more difficult on the five in Class 228 who have been here before. They know how much it will hurt and how long the sleepless days ahead will be. More than one of them envies the relative ignorance of the first-timers.

Fweet! Fweet! They begin to crawl toward the sound.

Fweet! Fweet! Fweet! They scramble to their feet.

Fweet! Back on the grinder—legs crossed, hands over their ears.

“Get your head down, turkey!”

“Don't just lay there; crawl to the whistle!”

“Hey, only five more days of this! Quit now—avoid the rush later!”

“How about a hot shower? All you gotta do is ring that little bell!”

For the next five minutes, they crawl about the grinder, treated to sporadic bursts of machine-gun fire and explosions. Knees and elbows start to abrade on the wet blacktop.

This Hell Week breakout for Class 228 is as effective and successful as it could have been. The breakout evolution is designed to create chaos and confusion. It sets the tone for this difficult and challenging ordeal. The First Phase staff can only vary the standard fare of noise, shock, and chaos so much. The last Hell Week class was ordered into the grinder before the shooting started. This time the machine gunners assaulted the class inside their classroom. Often, the Hell Week class is tipped off about the instructor's method of attack by the brown shirts, former Hell Week graduates.

All students in First Phase wear white T-shirts. After Hell Week and for the rest of training, they wear brown, or olive drab, T-shirts. A crew of post-Hell Week rollbacks in PTRR, all brown shirts, will work around the clock to support 228's Hell Week. They are in PTRR waiting for injuries suffered in training or a previous Hell Week to heal. They will also work tirelessly to covertly help the Hell Week class and, on occasion, to thwart the instructors. This is not just a gesture of sympathy or solidarity. Most of them will join 228, either after Hell Week or in Second Phase. The guys being punished on the grinder are their future classmates. To make sure that Class 228 had no warning, Ensign Joe Burns ordered the brown shirts quarantined to the Center barracks and a guard placed on them.

The shock of breakout has its effect on Class 228. They are confused and disoriented. Many wonder if it is real. For the moment, they are no longer trying to be Navy SEALs, BUD/S graduates, or even First Phase graduates. All they want to do is get through Hell Week. They want to become brown shirts. But first they have to get through Sunday evening.

Breakout is an all-hands evolution for the First Phase staff and the Hell Week instructor-augmentees, which puts the ratio at one instructor for every two trainees in Class 228. Ensign Burns watches the controlled mayhem with apparent satisfaction. Captain Ed Bowen observes off to one side; he lets his staff do their job without comment. Then someone informs Burns that they may be short one of the trainees.

“May be? What the hell do you mean, may be short? Get a count.”

The students are ordered to their feet and into a line. “Count off!”

“One! Two! Three! …” This will happen often during Hell Week. Until the class stabilizes and boat crews become relatively fixed, they will muster like this. “… Forty! Forty-one!”

This is serious. People get hurt during Hell Week—even during breakout, which is a highly supervised evolution. Burns says nothing, but he is clearly unhappy. If a trainee gets hurt during breakout, he'll have to answer for it.

“We got him, Joe,” says one of the instructors.

“What the hell happened?” Burns is relieved, but not mollified.

“He got confused coming out of the classroom and ran for the beach. We found him out in the surf.”

Burns scowls, wondering how his instructors managed to let a student get to the beach undetected, and wondering what the student must have been thinking out there in the surf by himself. Sometimes the confusion and disorientation works too well.

“Put ‘em all in the surf,” he says. “We'll sort ‘em out on the beach.”

The class makes a quick pass into the surf, then is lined up for another count. Back in the soft sand, the whistle drills continue. The wet students worm their way through the sand like a litter of suckling animals, gathering at the feet of the instructor who owns the whistle. Fweet-fweet; fweet-fweet! They keep crawling. Then another instructor up on the berm dune or down by the water sounds two blasts and the crawling mass wheels in his direction. They do this for half an hour, rubbing their knees and elbows raw. Then they're back in the water for the next evolution, surf conditioning.

Surf conditioning, surf torture—same thing. First, fifteen minutes immersed in a line, arms linked. This is the maximum time allowable at sixty degrees. Fweet! Fweet! They crawl from the surf up into the sand, then back in the water for flutter kicks and games for another ten minutes. Then they crawl out of the water for more whistle drills and back into the water, this time without their shirts.

“J.B., I can't stand this. I'm gonna quit.”

Jason Birch watches in disbelief as the man next to him pulls away from his linked arm and begins to stagger through the shallows toward the beach.

“No, wait!” Birch dives for him and misses as a wave knocks him sideways. He rises and tries to pursue his classmate across the wet sand, but an alert instructor steps between them.

“Get back in the water, Mister Birch.”

“But, Instructor, he doesn't really want to do this! Honest!”

“You want to quit, Mister Birch?”

“No, Instructor.”

“Then get back in the water, sir.”

Birch returns to the line of shivering trainees. Up on the beach, the lone trainee approaches Joe Burns. He is the first.

“You want to quit, sir?” Burns doesn't have to call him sir; they are both ensigns. The trainee is shaking so bad he can hardly talk. He nods in the affirmative.

“Are you sure? It's not too late if you go back in the water right now.”

“I j-just don't like this shit.”

“Very well. Go get in the truck and wait for an instructor to take you back.” The ambulance and an extended-cab pickup truck, both with big beach tires, are always close at hand.

In just under an hour and a half of Hell Week, the first man quits—and it's a Naval Academy ensign. He's also a boat-crew leader.

“Go figure,” one of the other instructors says quietly as they watch the student officer climb into the pickup. “He was a tough kid—good runner, good swimmer.”

Burns shrugs. If he is concerned, he doesn't show it. He cares little about the officer who quit; if he doesn't want to be here, good riddance. But he's worried about the other men out there in the water. When an officer quits, a strong performer like this one, it's not good for the class. Burns's fears are not groundless. Moments later three enlisted men quit. The DORs come in spurts. It's never pretty, but Burns had hoped the first group would not leave for a while. Surf torture on Sunday night is a double-edged sword. The men in the sixty-degree water are cold, but they've all handled this much immersion time before. The difference is that they will be tormented like this again and again for the next five days, with little sleep and without ever getting warm. Just thinking about it can cause a trainee to ring the bell.

The games on the beach continue. For close to an hour they do run-paddle-run. The IBS crews are sent out through the surf line where they dump boat, paddle up the beach a few hundred yards, come back in, and then race down the beach with their boat to the starting line. At 2300, Class 228 trades their IBSs for logs, and they begin log PT—in the surf. The log PT degenerates into more surf torture and three more men quit. Then it's off to the O-course with the boats. The forty-two have now become thirty-five. They run the O-course in boat crews with their boats, hauling the bulky rubber craft over the obstacles. And another man quits. Following the O-course, the class puts to sea and paddles north for rock portage. It's now 0200—2:00 A.M., Monday morning—and Hell Week is six hours old.

The paddle north to Hotel del Coronado is the real first break for the Hell Week class. They are still cold and wet, but once beyond the surf line, there are no instructors yelling at them. The serenity of the night on the water seems surreal. They're like shell-shocked infantry troops between artillery barrages. As each boat reaches the Hotel del, it turns right, paddles shoreward, and crashes into the rocks.

“Okay, uh, bow-line man, out.”

“What the hell are you doing, sir?” screams an instructor.

“Paddles forward … I mean, keep paddling!”

“Think, sir, what comes next?”

“One's out … Two's out.”

“Wrong, sir, wrong. If this was a combat insertion, you just killed your entire squad! Hey, you! Yeah, you. How many times do we have to tell you guys not to get between the boat and the rocks? Get this damn boat up on the beach and start pushing ‘em out!”

The makeshift, reshuffled boat crews attack the rocks, and most do it poorly. There are still plenty of instructors present, but only about half as many as there were during breakout. Lieutenant Norm Moser is standing by. He or one of the other medical officers will be on hand for all high-risk evolutions. Moser has a unique blend of skills. He is a qualified physician's assistant and a qualified Navy SEAL—a warrior and a healer. After two rounds of rock portage, the IBS crews are sent into the water without boats for more surf torture—flutter kicks, push-ups, and sit-ups in the surf—or worse—sitting in neck-deep water, arms locked and doing nothing.

“Okay,” Chief Nielson tells the line of trainees sitting in the surf. “You guys look like you're getting too warm. Take off your shirts.”

They're too tired to complain. They simply begin to fumble with the buttons on their blouses. All but one.

“To hell with it; this is bullshit. I ain't doin’ it.” He rises and walks up to Chief Nielson. Another man joins him.

“Me, too,” he says. “I've had enough.”

Nielson regards them. Both are strong First Phase trainees. “Are you guys sure? You won't get another chance to do this, but if you want to take off your shirts and get back in the water, I'll let you.”

“I'll g-go back if you will,” says the second man, clenching his teeth to keep from shivering.

“No way,” says the first. “I've had it.”

“Me, too, then,” and the class becomes two men smaller.

Nielson watches them go with a measure of sadness. “We always give them a minute to think about it and a chance to go back,” he tells me. “But they're given this second chance only once.” He pauses a moment. “Come to think of it, I can't ever recall a trainee finishing Hell Week who quit— one who quit and then went right back.” I asked several other instructors about this. They all remember trainees who quit, thought better of it, and went back, but none who ever ended up making it through.

At 0450, the class brings their boats up to a head carry and begins the run-shuffle across the base for breakfast. At the chow hall, they do IBS drills, mostly overhead IBS push-ups. When they finally bring the boats down to the ground, it's regular IBS push-ups with their feet up on the boats. Once inside the chow hall, the class gets their first rest since breakout the evening before. Well ahead of the rest of the sailors on base, they crowd through the chow line. Two men guard the boats while the rest eat. There are thirty-two of them—ten gone in a little under nine hours.

“Let's go, let's go, people,” barks Instructor Terry Patstone. “No coffee or soft drinks and everybody drinks two glasses of water. C'mon, let's go.”

At the tables, Class 228 settles down to their first meal. This is their first chance to take stock of what has happened. They will be allowed as much as a half hour with no harassment to eat and drink as much as they want. Over at a table away from the trainees, the night shift is having its breakfast. There are seven of them. Hell Week is a three-shift duty for the instructors, but the night shift has been on duty since breakout. They, too, are tired and tend to their meals, allowing the class to eat in peace.

The class collects at the six-man tables in boat crews. Most of the trainees shovel it in; they're hungry and they've been told to eat as much as they can. A few of them already have the “thousand-yard stare” and have to be prodded by their classmates to eat. Some of them still have a smile and want to talk; others want to eat in silence. Still others sit staring at their plates, hands clamped around mugs of hot water. There is a dark cloud gathering over the trainees; Hell Week has just begun and already they are very cold and very tired. Gallagher breaks away two men who are finished and sends them out to relieve the men guarding the boats. They each leave behind a puddle of sand and seawater in their chairs.

Instructor Terry Patstone, the shift corpsman, calls out the names of trainees on prescribed medication, and motions them over to his table. Chief Nielson gets a cup of coffee and wanders among the seated trainees. He's casual with them, even friendly.

“How's it going, Baldwin?”

“Oh, just terrific, Chief Nielson.”

“Really? You look like crap. How you doing, Mister Steinbrecher?”

“Couldn't be better, Chief. How about yourself?”

Nielson ignores the query, smiles, and moves on. It was not an idle question. He saw Steinbrecher limping a little, and this was his offhand way of checking on him.

“Let's go, children,” Patstone yells at them, and they begin to push away from the tables. “Recess is over. Boy, are you guys gonna have fun in school today.”

The trainees are allowed a quick stop at the Porta Pottis outside; they're too wet and sandy to use the inside toilets. Inside the plastic facilities, they find the handiwork of the brown shirts. The Porta Pottis have been stocked with Snickers and PowerBars stashed along the ceiling ledges. Back at the boats, Instructor Darren Annandono, the leading petty officer of the night shift, is waiting for them. After several sets of push-ups, the class tosses their boats back onto their heads and lines up behind Annandono for the march back to the Center. When on the move, it's an elephant walk. The boats line up bow to stern and the trainees follow the instructor who's leading them. He usually walks at a brisk pace, forcing the trainees to shuffle-trot along behind, banging the boats roughly on their heads. Today Annandono varies his pace, causing the boats to periodically string out, then bang together when they race to catch up.

“Let's go, bow to stern—bow to stern. Close it up!”

“You in charge of this boat, sir? Then move the hell out; you're holding up the parade.”

The class pauses briefly at the BUD/S clinic for a quick inspection by the medical staff, then heads for the beach. These medical exams will become more comprehensive as the class gets further into Hell Week. Across the compound in the First Phase classroom, ten former BUD/S trainees sleep on canvas cots. Inside the dim room, the air is rich with snoring and the stench of damp clothing and urine. At the entrance, two former BUD/S students sit at a table and keep a log of all activity. All students who DOR must spend twelve hours in this makeshift dormitory and be cleared by the BUD/S medical staff before they can return to the Center barracks. When one of them has to go to the head, he is accompanied by one of the men on watch. The ex-228ers wear the sweat clothes and sweaters they brought to wear at the end of Hell Week. None had planned on wearing them this soon. Wrapped in Navy blankets, they sleep soundly while their former classmates begin the first day of Hell Week out on the beach.

“All right, fellows, guess what's first on the schedule this fine morning?”

“Surf passage?” offers one of the trainees. The five crews are lined up on the beach under their boats—cold, wet, and sandy.

“Good guess,” Chief Taylor replies, “but the wrong answer.” Taylor and the day shift have replaced Chief Nielson and the night shift. “We're going swimming. Prepare to down boat—down boat.” The five boats drop from the trainee's heads to the sand. “Your swim gear is in the tents just over the berm. Wet-suit tops and hoods. Two minutes; move it, move it!”

The class races to the tents for their swim gear. Inside the tents, there is a fumbling scramble as each trainee finds his duffel bag, strips off his wet clothes, and struggles into his swim gear. The brown shirts help, but there is a great deal of confusion. Back on the beach they line up by swim pairs.

“Too slow, guys. Much too slow. Everybody drop.”

Taylor gives them fifteen minutes of PT with the IBSs until they're sweating in their wet-suit tops.

“Okay, gang,” he tells them while they are in the leaning rest, feet on their IBSs, “here's the drill. Go through the surf, swim north to the rocks at the Hotel del, and back to here. Safety first—stay with your buddy. Naturally, it pays to be a winner. Line it up, quickly.”

Sixteen swim pairs line up. Two instructors from the day shift work the line of swimmers, checking life vests, not that they will need them; the wet-suit tops will keep them buoyant.

“Go, go, go!”

The class lumbers into the surf and trainees groan as they trade the sweat inside their wet suits for cold seawater. At this point, most of them have been awake going on twenty-four hours. Two more trainees decide that this is not for them. They walk back ashore and quit. Heads hung, the two DORs are escorted back to the compound by an instructor.

“Hey, Pat, we can win this thing,” Lawrence Obst tells his swim buddy.

“I don't know,” replies Pat Yost. “The two jg's are pretty fast.” Bill Gallagher and another junior grade lieutenant, a competition swimmer from the Naval Academy, have recorded the fastest swim times in the class.

“No way,” says Obst. “Did you see them at the chow hall? They're both draggin’ butt.”

“Let's go for it,” Yost agrees.

Petty Officer Second Class Pat Yost is five-nine and stocky, perhaps 160 pounds. He was a good high school swimmer back in Omaha. Yost is a Naval Reservist who came back on active duty for BUD/S training. Prior to returning to active duty, he was head counselor at the Stanford National Swimming Camp. At thirty years old, he's still a strong swimmer. Petty Officer Third Lawrence Obst, twenty-five, is five-ten, weighs 155, and never swam competitively. But he is a fierce competitor. His classmates call him Otter; he's quick in and out of the water. Obst grew up in Florida and is more accustomed to warm water. He, too, came to BUD/S from the reserves—twice. While in Hell Week with Class 217, he broke his leg during surf passage. On the one-mile swim, most of Class 228 chooses a steady stroke, relishing the comfort of a wet-suit top and the absence of instructors. Yost and Obst open a quick lead on the other swim pairs and finish the swim going away.

“Yost and Obst,” Taylor observes as the two struggle back in through the surf. “I should have known. Good job, you guys. Have a seat on the beach. Take a break.”

Gallagher and the other lieutenant finish next. The first three pairs get to sit on the beach. As the rest of the pairs make their way ashore, Chief Taylor has them strip off their wet-suit tops and puts them through surf torture.

Taylor continues to chide them. “Hey, fellows, hot showers just over the berm—dry clothes and a warm rack,” he offers, but he gets no takers. Just to be fair, he puts the six winners back in the surf, but they don't mind. A little praise from Chief Taylor goes a long way. As the Hell Week class struggles in the surf, five of the previous DORs ring out all at once on the BUD/S grinder. Down on the beach, it sounds like a church bell calling the faithful to worship.

The class secures their swim and climbs back into their cold, wet fatigues. Brown shirts are again there to help out and slip them candy bars. Back on the beach, Instructor “Reg” Register, the day shift's leading petty officer, puts them back in the surf. Then he calls them back out for more run-paddle-run. As always, it pays to be a winner.

After the first race, it's obvious that two of the trainees are having difficulties. One of them is having trouble breathing; the other is throwing up blood. The instructors outwardly show no sympathy, but they carefully watch trainees who may be in physical distress. Chief Taylor calls over HM1 Richard Sprunger, the shift corpsman. Register is also standing by. The man in respiratory distress is sent immediately to medical; the one with the blood in his vomitus says he'll be all right, and rejoins his crew for another race. After the second race, he, too, is sent to medical. Neither man will finish the day with Class 228. The first, Airman Chris Robinson, is certified unfit to continue training after a chest X ray at the base clinic. He has pneumonia and is medically rolled back to a future class. The second is Daniel Bennett, Class 228's leading petty officer.

Bennett is simply too sick to continue and decides to leave training—to DOR. This was Bennett's second try at BUD/S. He and John Owens, also in 228, were here with Class 208. Both made it to Tuesday of Hell Week with 208. When I asked Daniel Bennett if he would be back again, he said probably not. Like most experienced petty officers who come to BUD/S, he has options in the Navy. Bennett is a qualified air crewman and a search-and-rescue instructor. He entered the Navy right out of high school and has ten years of service. Along the way, he earned a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice. He plans to apply for an aviation officer program. But Daniel Bennett left his mark on Class 228. He helped Bill Gallagher to organize the class for Hell Week, and he worked to develop the class petty officers into a solid cadre of enlisted leaders. While he was with 228, he earned the respect of his classmates and the instructors.

When the class comes off the beach and heads across the base for noon chow, they are down to four boat crews.

“Pat, you got it,” Gallagher says as they run under the IBS. “Bennett's gone.”

“Gone?” replies Pat Yost. He can't believe it. “You're kidding.”

“I wish; you're my leading petty officer. Okay, Pat?”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“Cut the grab-ass under there and keep moving,” Instructor Register tells them. “Bow to stern—bow to stern!”

Meals are a brief oasis in the middle of the suffering. Before and after entering the mess hall, the instructors put the trainees through PT and boat drills; once inside the chow hall they are given time to eat. After the noon meal, the four boats head for San Diego Bay. They launch on the eastern shore of the Amphibious Base, dump boat in the bay, and paddle for Fiddler's Cove, the Amphibious Base's marina, two miles south of the main base. During these paddles, the Hell Week class has some respite from the instructors, but it's still a race and it always pays to be a winner. Once at Fiddler's Cove and after another dunking, the trainees take their boats to a head carry. They jog across the sand spit and the Strand Highway to the Pacific. Chief Taylor halts them at the surf line.

“Ready to down boat—down boat.” The trainees heave the boats off their heads and catch them by the carrying handles, careful not to bounce them on the sand.

“All right, gang,” Taylor continues, “let's everybody get wet and sandy. I don't want to see one square inch of flesh or green material that's not covered with sand.”

The trainees jog into the knee-deep surge and topple over into the water. Then they return to the soft sand and flop around until they look like cake doughnuts. Then Taylor has them do surf passage races. Winners get to sit for awhile. The sun is out and Taylor has them sit in a boat-crew file, bobsled fashion, and lean back with faces up to work on their tans. Losers have to do surf laundry. They take off each piece of clothing, down to their tri-shorts, wash them in the surf, and neatly fold them on the hard sand. Hell Week is the first time the trainees are allowed to wear tri-shorts—black, Speedo-type nylon tights that come down to just above the knee. Tri-shorts help to combat what the trainees call crotch rot—the chaffing of their genitals and the inside of their thighs. Once a losing crew has done their laundry, they take a surf plunge and get dressed for the next race. It's not a bad evolution. Chief Taylor has a knack for keeping trainees cold, wet, and engaged.

Taylor, Register, and the rest of the day shift work the class under the watchful eyes of the shift officer in charge, or OIC. The shift OICs, with exception of Ensign Joe Burns on the evening shift, serve primarily as safety observers and seldom get involved with the mechanics of Hell Week. The day shift OIC is Lieutenant Phil Black. He is a Second Phase officer and the world's tallest SEAL. The height cutoff for BUD/S training is supposed to be six feet, six inches. Black was able to slump a little during his screening test and get into the program. He's six-foot eight. He has an easy smile and lets his shift chief do his job. Apart from his primary job as safety officer, he is also responsible for the Hell Week log. This official record of Hell Week training is passed from shift OIC to shift OIC.

After boat drills and surf laundry, the class takes their boats at a head carry and follows Register two miles back up the beach to the BUD/S compound. Once there, they park the boats on the beach, then Taylor orders them to remove their fatigue blouses. They line up on the beach.

“Every week at BUD/S you have a four-mile beach run. Hell Week is no different. What's the First Phase cutoff time, Mister Gallagher?” Taylor demands.

“Uh, thirty-two minutes, Chief.”

“That's right, fellows, thirty-two minutes, and it pays to be winner. Ready, GO!”

Twenty-eight white shirts head north along the beach toward the Hotel del Coronado. As they pass the rocks, the class is badly strung out. A few tourists on the beach watch with fascination and concern as these obviously tormented young men straggle past the hotel.

Three vehicles accompany the Hell Week class at all times. One is the ambulance. The other two are extended-cab pickup trucks, one blue and the other white—Big Blue and Great White. Near the North Island fence, the trainees round Big Blue and head for home. Most are moving at little more than a jog.

“What'd Chief Taylor mean,” gasps one trainee to his running mate, “thirty-two minutes?”

“Beats me. Maybe … maybe this is a graded run.”

“No way,” says the first runner. Then he adds, “You really think so?”

For one of them, it doesn't matter. If it's a race of any kind, Otter Obst will try to win it. And he usually does. It's not often that a trainee makes the thirty-two-minute cutoff in Hell Week, but Obst does easily. Chief Taylor is at the finish line with Stephen Schultz, the evening shift chief petty officer.

“H-T-Three Obst,” he gasps as he runs past them. “H-T-Three Obst.”

Hull Technician Third Class Obst has at least three hundred yards on the next trainee. The two CPOs exchange a grin; they like a good effort and they really like Obst.

“Not bad, Obst, not bad,” Taylor says, looking at his watch. He turns to two of the brown shirts. “Morrison, Luttrell. Take this man up to the compound and find him some dry clothes.”

The two brown shirts guide the Otter over the berm. Behind the BUD/S clinic there is a laundry facility where the brown shirts wash and dry the Hell Week class's shirts, socks, and fatigues. Clothes from those who DOR are cycled into the rotation as fatigues and T-shirts become ripped or lose buttons. While Lawrence Obst sits on the beach in dry fatigues, Taylor surf-tortures the rest of Class 228.

“Good run, Obst.”

“Thank you, Chief Schultz.” Schultz slips him a candy bar. “Thanks again, Chief.”

Schultz doesn't reply. He wanders out to where Taylor is working the others in the surf. He watches for a while, then relieves Taylor in mid-surf torture. Ensign Joe Burns takes the Hell Week log from Phil Black and the evening shift takes over.

“Let's round them up, Tim,” Schultz says. “Time to start across the base for the chow hall.”

The four IBSs leave the center in elephant-walk file, following Instructor Timothy Hickman at a brisk pace across the berm dune. They cross the Strand Highway to the main portion of the base. Hickman gives them a brisk round of boat drills and sends them into the chow hall.

“Eat well,” he tells them. “Tonight you're going to need all your strength.”

To survive Hell Week, a trainee has to do two things: take the punishment being dished out, and get past thinking about the punishment to come. Often, the latter will break a man quicker than the former. Hell Week lasts five days and five nights, but most SEALs will tell you that Monday night of Hell Week was the most miserable experience of their life. The trainees in Class 228 know what's coming. The brown shirts and trainees from previous classes have told them what to expect. They all fear Monday night.

“Come Tuesday morning,” one instructor tells me, “we will pretty much have what we want out of a class. From then on we try to keep them moving and keep them from getting hurt.”

The Hell Week class goes into Monday evening having had little rest and no sleep for the past thirty-six hours. The men have been cold, wet, and tormented for the last twenty-four. They still have four nights and four days ahead of them—an eternity. As they eat their evening meal, they think about this. For three of them, just thinking about it causes them to get up from the table and DOR. One of them is another Naval Academy ensign. Class 228 began First Phase with eight officers, all Academy men. Now six remain.

After chow, four boats and twenty-five trainees head for the combat training tank (CTT) for a quick hygiene inspection. They strip to their tri-shorts and stand in the decontamination station, a tubular, awninglike affair that serves as a car wash for BUD/S trainees prior to entering the pool. It's a miserable, cold-water treatment, but they've all done it before. The class is in the decon station for only a few minutes—a few minutes in the cold mist with time to think. Two more DORs.

From the CTT, the four boats elephant-walk a few hundred yards to the SDV piers, also called the steel piers by the Hell Week classes due to their construction. This pier complex served SDV Team One until the team relocated to Hawaii. The tide is low. Just off the quay wall, there is a floating steel caisson served by a steep metal brow. Burns tells the trainees to take off their boots, then sends them down the ramp to form in a line along the edge of the steel float. He gives them a few moments to think about what's in store for them. Another man DORs.

“Everyone in the water,” he yells from the top of the brow, and the twenty-two remaining members of Class 228 splash into the dark waters of San Diego Bay. Instructor Dan Maclean, the shift corpsman, checks the water temperature—sixty-six degrees. He relays this to Joe Burns. Burns checks his watch; he knows the immersion tables by heart. He tells them to spread out and tread water. After about ten minutes of treading water, he tells the trainees to take off their fatigue blouses and toss them up onto the steel deck. It makes little difference temperature-wise, but undressing in cold water makes them feel more vulnerable and cold. One of the brown shirts collects their blouses and takes them to the top of the quay wall. After another ten minutes Burns calls, “All right, out of the pool and back up on the shore.” The trainees numbly hoist themselves from the water and file up the ramp, hugging their shivering bodies for warmth. Most can't stop their teeth from chattering.

Instructor Hickman gives them back their shirts, leads fifteen minutes of calisthenics, and then sends them back into the water. Burns checks his watch; they get fifteen minutes this time.

“You guys having fun?” Burns yells to them.

“You bet, Mister Burns.”

“C'mon in, the water's f-fine.”

Joe Burns grins. He likes it when tired, cold trainees show a little spunk.

“Cap-tain Bow-en!”

“HOOYAH, CAPTAIN BOWEN!”

Bowen makes his way down the ramp and joins Burns, who is now on the steel float.

“Evening, sir,” the First Phase officer greets him.

“Evening, Joe,” Bowen replies, returning his salute. “How we doing?”

“Hard to say. They're feeling pretty sorry for themselves right now. We'll see.”

Bowen nods. He knows about Monday night. He kneels and splashes his hand in the water.

“Yep, feels like bathwater to me.” He regards the class for a long moment. “You guys hanging in there?”

“HOOYAH!” comes the weak response.

“Carry on, men,” he replies, and heads back up the brow.

They hooyah him again as he leaves. Bowen joins the medical officer and Chief Schultz on the quay wall. There is a tense feeling among those gathered to watch the class during the steel piers evolution. This is a fragile time for Class 228. None of them want to see any more DORs, but it's not in their hands. The evolution has to run its course, and 228 will have to get through it, just like Class 227 and all the classes before them. Burns again checks his watch and the class continues to tread water.

“Bill, I'm cold. I'm gonna quit.”

“What?”

“I've had it. I'm gonna quit. You going with me?”

Gallagher stares at him; he can't believe it. It's his swim buddy, the other lieutenant in the class. Like Gallagher, he's a fleet officer, surface warfare qualified. And a Naval Academy graduate.

“You coming?”

Adam Karaoguz, a durable, no-nonsense second class petty officer, is close enough to catch the exchange. He doesn't mince words. “Let the sonuvabitch quit if he wants,” he says to his class leader, “but you stay right here.” If Gallagher had any thoughts of joining his swim buddy, Karaoguz quashes them. The tall officer pulls himself up onto the float, leaving Gallagher and Karaoguz behind. Burns is waiting for him.

“You want to quit, sir.”

“Yes, Ensign Burns.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure,” he says without hesitation.

“Go on up there and see Chief Schultz.” Burns turns his back on him and looks at the trainees in the water. He doesn't like quitters—officer quitters even less. Class 228 is down to five officers. Then he again checks his watch. Fifteen minutes: no more, no less.

The trainees get ten minutes more PT on the quay wall, shed their shirts and socks, and get another ten minutes in the water. After another round of PT, they are again sent down the ramp to see if anyone else is thinking about quitting. Instead of ordering them into the water, Burns calls them back up to the quay wall. They are told to climb back into their wet clothes and to fall in on their boats. The brown shirts pass among them with cups of hot chicken broth. Most of the trainees are shaking so badly they can scarcely hold a cup with both hands, let alone guide it to their mouth.

“Oh, man,” says Seaman Brendan Dougherty. “I never tasted anything this good in my life.” He turns to a brown shirt and trades his empty cup for a full one.

“Mister Gallagher, get over here.”

Gallagher steps over to where Joe Burns waits for him by the ambulance.

“Mister Gallagher, I know you've lost a lot of guys in the last few hours, but that happens in Hell Week. Don't let it get to you.”

He nods. “Understood.”

“You going to quit?”

“No way, Ensign Burns. No way I'm going to quit.”

“Then step it up a notch, sir. This class needs you to take charge. They need you to lead these men. Get with it, okay?”

“Yes, Ensign Burns. I'll do my best.”

Gallagher rejoins his classmates, and tries to control his shaking enough to drink some broth. He thinks about what Burns has just said and resolves to do better. But his confidence is badly shaken. He never believed so many would quit so soon. Some of them he thought would never DOR. And his own swim buddy; he was the best swimmer in the class.

“Okay, fall in by height and count off,” Chief Schultz tells them. They mingle and try to get in a line. “Too slow, too slow. Drop.”

After several sets of push-ups, Schultz gets them in a line by height, cuts them into three boat crews, and sends them to their boats. Hell Week is a little more than twenty-four-hours old and the class has been cut in half.

The three boats are ordered to proceed on to Turner Field on the eastern portion of the Amphibious Base. This evolution is a Hell Week boat-crew Olympics of sorts referred to as Lyons’ Lope. Lyons’ Lope is another anticipated, dreaded evolution of Hell Week. It's named for Scott Lyons—the same Vietnam-era SEAL and former First Phase officer who spoke at Class 225's graduation. The crews race around Turner Field with and without the boats on their heads. Back in the water without boats, the crews form caterpillar-like daisy chains and stroke back and forth around the eastern end of the base. Sometimes the human chains use IBS paddles, sometimes they paddle with their hands. The water temperature away from the steel piers is a little colder, but the trainees are now fully clothed and have on their life vests. As the human centipedes paddle close to the shoreline, one of the taller men in each chain is able to touch the bottom and propel the crew along due to the low tide. The trainees think they are having one over on the instructors, and that warms them. In reality, Chief Schultz and his crew know exactly what they're doing. If the boat crews are trying to cheat a little, it means they're working together. The instructors won't call them on it unless it's blatant. It takes about forty-five minutes to complete Lyons’ Lope. The winners are the tall crew led by Clint Burke.

“I'd say that was a pretty good race, Chief Schultz,” Joe Burns says within hearing of the trainees. “What do you think?”

“I'm not so sure. I think Mister Burke's crew cheated on their last run around the field. I don't think they stayed on the road the whole way. I think they cut across the grass.”

“Cheated?” Burns does his best to sound incredulous. The semicoher-ent trainees hang on every word. “Chief, I'm shocked. But if you think there was foul play, then I guess we'll just have to do it again. Line ‘em up. Coxswains, get over here.”

“But Chief, we didn't cheat,” Burke protests, quickly adding, “on the run, I mean.” He's like a grade school kid being wrongly accused of a playground infraction. “Honest, we didn't cut across the grass.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Schultz says in a show of sympathy, working to suppress a smile, “but it's out of my hands.”

Burke, Gallagher, and Ensign Will Koella are now the boat-crew leaders. Schultz again briefs the three boat crews on Lyons’ Lope and they race off once more around Turner Field.

One man is unable to continue, Seaman Miguel Yanez came into Hell Week with a partial shoulder separation. He was offered a medical rollback, but he wanted to try to stay with his class. Now he's in a great deal of pain, and he knows he's hurting his boat crew. He goes to Instructor Maclean, who sends him off to the Center clinic. Joe Burns gives him a pat on the back as he gets into the ambulance. It's interesting for me to watch the different ways men leave Class 228. For some, it's a curt nod from the shift chief and a simple formality for the shift OIC. Others, like Yanez, are escorted from the field with honor. The instructors saw Yanez as a team player who played with pain. His classmates hate to see him go. So does his boat crew, even though he was holding them back. The staff wants to afford a man like this every opportunity to get through training. Yanez's shoulder will need time to heal. He'll be rolled back to a future class; he'll get another chance.

Ensign Burke's crew, Boat One, again wins Lyons’ Lope, and the three crews move on to the CTT for pool games. Time in the pool is a blessing for the class; the water temperature is in the high seventies. At the pool, Ensign Burns has them swimming relay races, then involves them in a diving contest from the one-meter platform. They are graded on backflips and belly flops. Winners get a few moments in the locker room, where it's warm; losers go to the decon station for a cold shower. After one of the decon sessions, Will Koella signals for the corpsman.

“Instructor Maclean, I think you better have a look at Ensign Birch. I think he's in trouble.”

Maclean nods. He had been watching Birch for a while, noticing that he occasionally ran in the wrong direction on Lyons’ Lope. Now he was having trouble in the pool.

“Mister Birch, get over here.”

Jason Birch pads over to him. Maclean asks him a few questions and gets gibberish for a reply. Birch's tightly muscled body is shaking all over, but then so is Koella's.

“I got it, sir,” Maclean tells Koella. “Go on back with the class.” Koella leaves them.

“Mister Birch. How old are you?”

“H-how old am I?” Birch replies. “W-why do you want to know that?”

“How old are you, sir?”

Birch forces a smile. “Y'know, I should know that. H-how old are you, Instructor?”

While Birch ponders the question of his age, Maclean leads him to the ambulance parked outside the CTT. He puts the trainee inside and proceeds to shove a temperature probe up his rectum. A moment later, the digital readout flashes 89.5 degrees. Maclean disconnects the probe from the monitor, not from Birch. Next, the corpsman pricks Birch's finger for a quick blood sugar reading. It's low, as Maclean suspected it would be. The ensign's temperature is dangerously low, and he doesn't have the fuel to stoke the furnace. He gives Birch a tube of glucose to suck on.

“How is he?” Chief Schultz, seeing them leave the pool area, had followed them to the ambulance.

“He's a cold puppy,” Maclean replies. “Call medical and tell them I'm on the way.” Maclean speeds across the base for the BUD/S clinic while Jason Birch sucks the plastic tube of glucose flat.

At the BUD/S clinic, Lieutenant Pete Witucki is waiting for them. They help Birch from the ambulance; he's still talking gibberish. They quickly plug him into the clinic monitor, but he's not gaining much ground. His body temp is 90.1. They begin to slowly immerse Birch in the clinic hot tub that's kept on standby at 98 degrees for this very purpose. First, just his pelvis and torso. Dr. Witucki immediately starts an IV of warm saline and again checks his blood sugar; it's still low. The oral glucose takes a while, so Witucki begins to push dextrose through the IV By the time his limbs are fully immersed, Jason Birch is sleeping soundly and there is a huge smile on his face.

“How are you feeling?” Witucki asks him as he prods him awake.

Birch comes awake with a start, then realizes where he is. “I feel great,” he says with a broad grin, then admits, “I can't believe it; I'm warm.”

“You're 98.6. Ready to go back?”

“Do I have to?” Birch replies, still grinning.

“It's up to you,” says Witucki, watching him carefully. Many are not able to face the cold after finally getting warm.

Birch doesn't hesitate. “Yes, sir, I'm ready to go back.”

Ensign Birch is put in a dry set of clothes and one of the clinic corps-men drives him back across the base. Class 228 is running relay races on Turner Field and is now being hounded by the night shift. The underground sprinklers are on, and the trainees run through the cold rain with their shirts off.

“Well, if it isn't Ensign Birch. Welcome back, sir.”

“Thank you, Instructor Patstone.”

“Are you nice and warm?”

“Yes, Instructor Patstone.”

“And dry, too?” He fingers Birch's fresh fatigues.

“Yes, Instructor Patstone.”

“Why don't you just trot over to the bay and get yourself wet and sandy?”

Birch heads for the bay. Since there is very little sand on the bay side, he rolls in the mud. Once back to Turner Field, he strips off his shirt and joins the relay races in the sprinklers. After the races, the class falls back in on the boats for IBS drills.

“I could sure use a dip,” announces Instructor Ron Rector. “Any of you guys got some snuce?”

“Sure, Karaoguz does,” replies one of the trainees. Karaoguz glares at him, but his classmate is too goofy from exhaustion to understand what he's done.

“Excellent,” Rector says politely. “Do you mind?” Adam Karaoguz pulls a round tin of snuff from his blouse and offers it to him. “I just need a small pinch,” Rector continues as he carefully takes some. “You can have the rest—all of it—right now.”

The class continues with IBS and whistle drills. It's another half hour or more before Karaoguz has a chance to spit out the mouthful of tobacco. At 0200 Class 228 starts running with the boats on their heads. This evolution is called the Base Tour. They will run around the base for the next two hours with only two water breaks, one to drink and one to get wet and sandy. For many in 228, the Base Tour is the worst they will suffer during this long and punishing night. More than a few will call this the worst night of Hell Week. During the IBS tour of the base, Petty Officer Mark Williams is pulled from his IBS and probed. He registers 90.5 degrees and is sent to medical to be thawed out. The rest of the class keeps running under the boats. Williams is able to rejoin the class for breakfast. It's Tuesday morning, and twenty men from Class 228 are there to greet Chief Taylor and the day shift when they come on duty.

Tuesday is one long day of beach games, surf passage, run-paddle-run, and dragging the boats over the O-course. Always, it pays to be a winner. Chief Taylor is everywhere—pushing them, flying into mock fits of rage, challenging them to do their best. When they put out and show spirit, he rewards them. When they finish a race last or start to feel sorry for themselves, he comes down on them. The day shift has a special treat for losers. In the back of Great White is an IBS full of ice and water. Losers or trainees who show poor spirit are sent for a quick dip through the cold slurry. Most of them have now been up for over fifty-six hours. They're in a mental fog, yet none of them wants to disappoint Chief Taylor. The losers take their licks, ashamed that they didn't do better. Clint Burke, with the Otter and some of the taller men in Boat One, wins most of the competitions. Bill Gallagher, in Boat Two, and Will Koella, with the smurfs in Boat Three, fight it out not to be last.

Late that afternoon, Mark Williams DORs. Few in 228 are more respected or better liked than Williams. That goes for trainees as well as the First Phase staff. He's with Boat One, and he's starting to hold them back. It's Tuesday afternoon, and he's having trouble breathing due to fluid in his lungs. This is his second Hell Week and he's having the same problem.

“Anything we can do for you?” Taylor asks him. Williams is surrounded by concerned instructors. They want Williams to stay, but it has to be his choice. He shakes his head, thanks them for their concern, and walks off the beach. HM1 Sprunger, the shift corpsman, accompanies him over to BUD/S medical. Since this is his second consecutive Hell Week, Williams will have to leave BUD/S.

After evening chow, the three boats do their elephant walk back to the Center and to medical for a hygiene check. To one degree or another, most of them have swollen knees and ankles. Many are starting to develop a bald spot on top of their heads from the boats. Ensign Chad Steinbrecher is held at the clinic; his knees are badly swollen and he can barely walk. The previous night and day of walking under the boats have almost made a cripple of him. He stays in medical, but he's not happy about it. Ensign Will Koella is not much better, but able to stay with his classmates as they launch their boats for the paddle to North Island Naval Air Station.

The night's drill will be IBS cache and E&E —escape and evasion. After the two-and-a-half-mile paddle to North Island, they cache the boats and are divided up into pairs. Chad Steinbrecher clears medical and rejoins the class. The trainees are sent at a run north along the beach for a half mile to the main lifeguard tower on the North Island recreational beach. From there they have to make their way back to the boats and trucks while avoiding the instructors who are out looking for them. It's a grand game of hide-and-seek. This is another traditional Hell Week evolution, and the evading pairs all have their own ideas on how to beat the instructors.

Brendan Dougherty and Seaman Grant Terpstra hatch a glorious scheme to get dry and warm. They sprint over to the bachelor enlisted quarters, an out-of-bounds area, and make for the laundry. Confident no one will be there at that time of night, they plan to strip down and dry their clothes. But a woman is there doing her laundry, so their plan is foiled. But since they're out of bounds, they're relatively safe from the instructors. They walk south across the North Island base golf course and sneak up close to the boats. There they are able to hide and take turns dozing until the recall.

Gallagher and Karaoguz do a low crawl across the sandy backshore away from the beach. They, too, decide to walk back across the golf course, but they get caught. The instructor pretends to buy Gallagher's story about not understanding boundaries, and he lets them go. Yost and John Owens are caught in one of the parking lots near the beach. They are ordered across the beach and into the surf. When they get to the waterline, they drop down and begin crab-walking south along the beach toward the boats. There they are able to hide until the recall. Most of the trainees have daring stories of outfoxing the instructors, but for the most part, Chief Schultz and the evening crew simply turn a blind eye. As long as the trainees make an attempt to evade and don't get too far out of bounds, they let them go. However, one pair really does get one over. A white pickup rolls slowly along the road that parallels the beach and stops near two not-so-well-hidden trainees.

“Hey, you guys want a lift?” Seaman Dan Luna and Airman Zack Shaffer don't move, unsure how to respond. “C'mon, jump in the back. It's okay, we're not the bad guys.”

It's a pair of U.S. customs agents on patrol who decide to help the BUD/S trainees. Luna and Shaffer look at each other and shrug, then scramble into the back of the pickup. One of the agents covers them with a blanket and hands them a couple of sandwiches. A thermos of hot coffee follows. The customs agents continue their patrol and deliver the two trainees to a spot near the boats shortly before the end of the evolution. Luna and Shaffer arrive at the IBS cache a bit less haggard than their classmates. It's not the first time American servicemen have been aided by friendly partisans while crossing enemy-held territory.

Every night except Monday night, the trainees are allowed midnight rations, or midrats. Tonight it's field rations, known as MREs (short for meals ready to eat), and hot broth. Again they are given time to eat, and allowed to eat as much as they want. By the time Ensign Burns hands the Hell Week log to Warrant Officer Randy Beausoleil, the trainees are almost dry. The demons of the night shift, as Class 228 calls them, immediately put them in the water.

“It's part of the process,” Chief Nielson says. “If they're warm and dry, we get them wet. If they're cold and wet, we warm them up. Since we usually pick them up after midrats, we become the bad guys and get them wet.”

Nielson is more philosophical than Taylor or Schultz, the other two shift CPOs. “How do you organize the shift?” I ask him. “How do you decide who's going to harass the trainees and how?”

“I get the shift together before we go on duty and we talk about who's going to do what—who will be in charge of each evolution.”

Every Hell Week evolution, from the E&E exercise to IBS rock portage, is conducted from an approved Navy training plan. Each instructor must be certified before he can be in charge of an evolution. To earn this certification, an instructor must first observe the evolution, and then conduct the evolution under the supervision of a certified instructor.

“Who becomes huggers and who becomes haters is something we sort out among ourselves. Usually, it follows the personality of the instructor and their level of experience. It just isn't in some guys to be a hard-ass. It doesn't work for them. And it's not easy to be mean. The haters have a more difficult job and they work a lot harder. Overall, we try to be consistent. If the trainees do it right, we give them a break; they do it wrong, we hammer them. Sometimes getting hammered is preplanned—just part of the evolution.”

After a short period of surf torture, the three boats begin paddling south from North Island for Silver Strand State Park, some six miles down the coast. The trainees have quickly learned that when they are paddling, they don't have to put up with harassment from the instructors. If it's a long paddle, they have a chance to dry out. Except for the pain of not being a winner, the three-boat regatta has little incentive to make the paddle swiftly.

Nielson, Instructor Annandono, the night shift LPO, and Warrant Officer Beausoleil roll along the beach in Big Blue. Instructor Patstone follows in the ambulance. Nielson looks at his watch and then at Beausoleil. Beausoleil, the night shift OIC, is a quiet former enlisted man who is in charge of PTRR and the Indoctrination Course. He saw action in Panama. For the most part, he lets Chief Nielson run the shift. The trainees are taking their time on the paddle south, probably even taking turns trying to get some sleep. The instructors don't necessarily mind this, but they're starting to fall behind a very strict schedule.

“Call ‘em in?” asks Nielson.

Beausoleil agrees. “Call ‘em in.”

The trainees are called to shore just south of the Hotel del—no more paddling. They now have to run with the boats bouncing on their heads trying to keep up with a fast-walking instructor. The composition of the boat crews, which continually changed as the class shrunk, now has a new look. Ensign Clint Burke—at six feet, five inches—is now a smurf. The crews are normally sorted by height and to evenly distribute the officer and petty officer leadership. The shorter crew has survived well. Four of the original seven smurfs—Harry Pell, Dan Luna, Zack Shaffer, and Zack Armstrong—are still aboard. But Boat Three was falling behind Boats One and Two. With the big officer in the rear and the smaller men forward, the boat now has the forward lean of a classic hot rod. The smurf boat is also suddenly very competitive in the boat races. For the moment, the race is to stay up with the long-striding Annandono as he walks them south along the water's edge. Terry Patstone tailgates the third boat with a laugh box held to a loudspeaker. The penalty for being last is the shrieking laugh track that is played over and over again at full volume.

Upon arriving at the state beach, four miles south of the Center, the three boats cross over the Strand Highway to the San Diego Bay side and the mudflats. Trial by mud has been a part of Hell Week since the days at Fort Pierce in the mangrove swamps of the Florida coast. First, the trainees are directed to build a fire. The ambulance, Great White, and Big Blue are parked facing east so their headlights play across the fine, silty goo that collects in this part of San Diego Bay. The mudflat games begin. There are boat-crew races, wheelbarrow races, relay races, leapfrog races, fireman's-carry races; races where the trainees crawl on their stomachs; races where they wriggle along on their backs. They make mud angels, on their stomachs, facedown. This is dirty work, but relatively harmless. However, John Owens does a head-plant so deep in the mud that he needs help from another trainee to pull him free before he smothers or breaks his neck.

Winners get a few moments by the fire; losers race again. The stench and taste of the brackish silt cause a few to bring up their midrat MREs. No matter how tired they are, the trainees always compete, trying for a break from the misery or to earn an extra bit of warmth. At first, this seems like mindless harassment, but BUD/S is a sorting process to identify those who have a will to win—to win under any conditions. The Vietnam-era SEALS recall the mudflats as training wheels for combat patrols in the rice paddies and mangrove swamps of the Mekong Delta. Bill Gallagher and Adam Karaoguz finish one of the footraces in a dead heat. But Instructor Annandono declares Gallagher the winner and sends him to the fire.

“What?” challenges Karaoguz. “Hey, I won that race.”

Annandono directs him back to the starting line for the next mud sprint.

“This is bullshit!”

“Say what?” Chief Nielson steps from behind the muddy trainee and confronts him. Nielson has his hands in his pockets and speaks quietly.

Karaoguz doesn't back down, but his tone is more respectful. “I said this is bullshit, Chief.”

“Really?” He regards Karaoguz a moment. “Come over here.”

Adam Karaoguz came to BUD/S from the USS Tarawa (LHA-1), where he was a second class boatswain's mate. He grew up in upstate New York and is a first-generation Turkish-American. Karaoguz is one of the better runners in the class, but otherwise an average performer. His strong suit is his durability; he's very tough. His division officer on the Tarawa claimed, “If there's anyone on this whole ship who can make it through SEAL training, it's Adam Karaoguz.”

Nielson takes Karaoguz over to a fresh, untracked plot of mud for some individual attention. Soon the trainee is breaststroking, duckwalking, and burrowing through the silt. After a few minutes of this both of them are laughing. Karaoguz can handle whatever is asked of him, willingly and often with a grin on his face. He's an ideal Hell Week trainee; the harder it gets, the stronger he gets. Nielson knows this and approves. Both tormentor and tormented understand their roles.

“Go get a swim buddy,” Nielson tells him. Karaoguz pulls Pat Yost from a relay race, and soon the two of them are doing Eskimo rolls—somersaults with each man holding the other's ankles. They look like fudge brownies with arms and legs.

Mud games last an hour and a half. The class is then sent into deeper water to wash off enough of the mud so they can get into the chow hall. Following the wash down, they paddle north along the western shoreline of the bay to return to the Amphibious Base.

After breakfast, it's back to the Center for hygiene inspection. The Hell Week class has been checked morning and evening by the medical staff, but now the clinic medical officers are inspecting them very closely. In spite of the antibiotics they received before Hell Week began, their immune systems are struggling. By Wednesday morning, most of them have been up for three full days with no sleep. The two doctors and their very capable physician's assistant are alert for a host of problems, not the least of which could include an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria.

The medical inspection is a gauntlet of sorts—much like what happens when a race car comes in for a pit stop. First the trainees strip to their tri-shorts in the outside shower at the Center barracks. Here they wash off the top layer of mud and dirt. The brown shirts pack their wet clothes off to the laundry and the trainees move on to the inside showers. After they get spritzed with a disinfectant, they scrub themselves down with antiseptic scouring pads. They get a brief taste of hot water, followed by a cold shock as they stand before hall fans to dry off. They then pad over to the clinic, where they queue up to be inspected by one of the three medical officers. Along the way, the brown shirts take every opportunity to slip them a candy bar or a wedge of orange.

The medical officers are meticulous and quick. They inspect their hands, feet, and genitals, and carefully listen to their chests. All the while, they ask questions. Some trainees will admit to problems and others won't; often the docs have to be detectives as well as physicians. Instructor Patstone is on hand with each trainee's chart of medication history. Some continue with prescribed antibiotics; others will now begin to take them. Patstone notes any dosage changes. A few of the trainees are allowed Motrin, but the medical staff does not dispense it freely.

After they leave the exam room, the trainees pause to swab their crotch and groin areas with a vitamin A&D ointment. Most pull on one of the available cloth penis socks that will help with the sand and chafing. They leave the clinic through the side door, where two brown shirts are waiting for them. One at a time, the trainees step through an ice-water bucket in their bare feet and take a seat on a picnic table. One of the brown shirts sprays their feet with a disinfectant, another swabs them with a topical silicon gel, and they're done—good to go for another round. Next to the picnic table is a line of milk crates, one per trainee with his name on it. Each has a change of dry clothes; for a brief moment, they are warm and in dry clothes. But just around the corner is an instructor from the day shift ready and waiting with a water hose to get them wet. Next is a trip across the beach and into the surf. Then a roll on the beach and 228 is again cold, wet, and sandy.

Wednesday morning means the day shift, Chief Taylor, and beach games. There are nineteen of them left; five officers and fourteen enlisted men. Ensign Steinbrecher has pneumonia, and is sent across the base for a chest X ray to see how bad. Seaman Chris Baldwin is running a fever. Both clear medical and are able to rejoin the class, but Steinbrecher now has problems with his lungs and his legs. Wednesday afternoon brings something new and different to the weary trainees—a sleep period.

How much sleep a class gets and when it gets it varies from Hell Week to Hell Week. Class 228 will be given a total of five hours of scheduled sleep during its Hell Week. After noon chow and a full hour of run-paddle-run, Chief Taylor sends the trainees to the one remaining tent for their first sleep period. The second tent is no longer needed and has been struck. The brown shirts are waiting to slip them a candy bar and help them to their cots. Inside the tent, the air is damp and heavy with stale sweat. Some fall asleep immediately. Others have fought to stay awake so desperately, their bodies will not turn off. They simply lie on their cots staring mindlessly at the canvas ceiling. A few sit and doze, or walk around, afraid that if they give themselves over to sleep, they will lose the courage to get up and keep going.

The brown shirts are led by Ensign Eric Oehlerich and Petty Officer Sean Morrison. They do what they can to help the Hell Week class. Oehlerich was a Naval Academy classmate of the four ensigns in 228; Morrison is a former marine. Both successfully completed Hell Week with Class 227 and will join Class 228 in Second Phase. They encourage their future classmates and tell them that they're doing well—to hang in there and not give up.

Oehlerich and Morrison are assigned to the day shift to help with Hell Week, but they work around the clock to support 228. The previous night they swam out to intercept the three boats as they paddled north to North Island. They delivered bananas and candy bars in Ziploc bags to the Hell Week class. The chow was appreciated, but it was the show of support and the idea of getting one over on the instructors that really cheered the men of 228. In reality, very little gets past the instructors. Brown shirts slipping treats to the Hell Week class is as much of a BUD/S tradition as cold water and sand. Many a future SEAL conducted his first special operation in clandestine support of a Hell Week class.

While 228 sleeps, or tries to, the instructors leave them alone in the care of the brown shirts. For those who are awake or struggling to stay awake, Seaman Marc Luttrell, a corpsman striker and a brown shirt, is there to help. Luttrell works with them to stretch and massage their legs to avoid cramping. For some, the problem is with their hamstrings and hip flexors. These muscles have been worked constantly for three days and now convulse with inactivity. The first sleep period lasts an hour and forty-five minutes.

Fweeeeet! A long whistle breaks the silence. “Let's go! Let's go! Time to hit the surf!” It's Instructor Hickman with the evening shift.

Inside, some trainees simply rise and stagger to the tent opening. Others bolt upright, wide awake but totally confused. It takes a few moments for them to break through their dazed condition to figure out where they are. Once reality sinks in, they drag themselves from their cots to shuffle after their classmates. Still others need to be called back from the dead. With assistance from the brown shirts, they rise like zombies, unsure of what's happening, but somehow knowing that they must be up and moving. The brown shirts help them move toward the door and prod them along. “C'mon, you can do it. Once you get moving you'll be all right. Hang in there; you're gonna be fine.”

“Come on sleepyheads, time for a little dip. Let's go!”

Like baby loggerhead turtles, they scramble across the sand and into the surf. Some literally crawl up the berm and down the other side to the water. Trainees have been known to quit when sent into the water after a sleep period. All nineteen members of Class 228 get themselves into the surf. Hickman surf-tortures them for fifteen minutes—no quitters. They fall in on the boats and take them to a head carry for the run to chow.

After the evening hygiene inspection at the CTT, they have pool games— and warm water. Joe Burns takes over from his shift petty officers and directs 228 in a game of king of the hill, or king of the IBS. The trainees fight to see who can stay in the IBS and who gets tossed over the side. More often than not, Clint Burke is the king. He's bigger than his classmates and a growing force in 228's Hell Week. The class is slowly dividing into those who have the strength and drive to perform and those who are just hanging on. Often this is a simple matter of who is eating and able to keep it down, and who cannot. But the water is not cold and it's competition—a good evolution for Class 228.

After pool games, the class dresses and rigs the boats for land travel. They're soaked and cold from a good dousing in the CTT decon area. Chief Schultz quietly approaches each of the boat crews.

“You guys did a good job during pool games. We got a long night ahead of us. I want you to stay focused and work together.”

He slips each boat-crew leader a handful of candy. Each crew thinks they have joined Schultz in getting one over on Ensign Burns and the rest of the staff. It's part of a good cop-bad cop routine. Schultz has not misled them. They do have a long night ahead. Soon they are back across the base and following Ensign Burns south along the beach. He doesn't walk fast, but he keeps walking for about four miles to Silver Strand State Park and back. Burns literally walks their legs off; they can barely stand by the time they get back near the Center. They've been walking for four hours. This walk south on the beach was a last-minute change. The Hell Week schedule called for them to carry the boats around the base on what is known as the Treasure Hunt evolution. Boat crews are given clues from one destination to the next. They must solve the riddle and lug the boats to and from a series of checkpoints. But Burns is concerned about some of the leg and knee problems in the class. Racing around the base, with its curbs and uneven ground, is an invitation to further leg injuries. He elects a beach walk—a long beach walk. The boat crews can barely stand, but at least there are no injuries and they've had time to dry out.

“Ready to down boat,” Burns commands. “Down boat.” The trainees gratefully heave the boats from their heads to the sand. “Rig for surf passage.” The trainees take their life jacket straps and loop them down under their crotches to secure them in place. They take their places by their boats with paddles in hand, knowing what is next.

“Hit the surf!”

After a half hour of surf passage, the boats are back on their heads and they're doing the familiar elephant walk back across the base for midrats. Meals have become a dreamy hiatus in an existence of cold and pain. But midrats mean that Instructor Patstone is back, along with the dreaded night shift.

“Two glasses of water,” Patstone tells them as he walks among the seated trainees. “At least two glasses of water or we all drop for push-ups. You, sir, drink—eat!”

The class continues to segregate itself into eaters and nibblers. Clint Burke, Pat Yost, Lawrence Obst, Adam Karaoguz, and Chris Baldwin lead the eaters. Bill Gallagher, Will Koella, and Brendan Dougherty are among the nibblers. Patstone tries, but he can do little to change these patterns. The eaters continue to shovel it in while the nibblers barely get enough to keep them going; ultimately, the nibblers struggle to perform.

After midrats they are back on the beach near the Center for the evolution called Surf Camp. Chief Nielson sets them to digging a large pit on the beach. Pell, the former marine, is made to walk sentry duty around the beach dig with his paddle shouldered like a rifle. When the pit is finished, they are instructed to build a large roaring fire nearby. After some miscellaneous beach games and surf torture, they gather back near the fire. Next the boats are placed over the large sandpit and the nineteen trainees crowd into this beach burrow. They are allowed ten minutes of rest under the boats, ten seconds by the fire, and two minutes in the surf. It's a hideous, abusive sequence—dozing under the boats, a fleeting pass by the warm fire, then a plunge into the now fifty-seven-degree water. They do it again and again. At 0400 they begin their second sleep period.

The instructors again leave the trainees alone. Some of them cuddle together in the pit and sleep like a warren of opossums. Others, remembering the pain of waking up from a sound sleep, doze lightly and try to keep from going down hard. Many simply stretch and walk about, trying to keep their leg muscles and hip flexors from seizing up. Even the ones who remain awake hover on the ragged edge of consciousness. Some are beginning to hallucinate—to see things that are not there.

Patstone rouses them after an hour and forty-five minutes—first by sounding the siren from the ambulance, then the laugh box on the loudspeaker. Again there is confusion, then acceptance; they are back in hell. The groggy trainees tumble from the sleeping pit and into the surf. Again, some of them have to crawl, but they do it.

Back under the boats, they struggle across the base to the chow hall for breakfast and back to the Center for morning hygiene check. The medical staff gives them a thorough inspection. This is the last full-on medical class inspection until the class secures from Hell Week tomorrow afternoon. Ensign Steinbrecher is again pulled from the class—knees and lungs. The other eighteen men cross the base to CTT for pool games.

The warm water in the pool somewhat revives them. Chief Taylor has them doing IBS races in the pool, but with simple, very specific instructions. And it pays to be a winner. For one of the races he selects a junior man in each crew to be the boat-crew leader. He tells them that they must have their boat crews paddle one length of the pool using only their hands. On the return trip they all have to be in the water, but they can paddle using only their feet—and every man must have a hand on the bow line. The three young coxswains return to their boats to brief their crews, and the race is on. Only one boat crew remembers to hold onto the bow line on the return trip. The other two, in an effort to win, kick from the sides of the IBS while holding onto the carrying handles.

“Okay, we have a winner,” Taylor announces, “Boat Crew Three.” The men in Boat Two, which arrived first, can't believe it. “Boat Three came in last, but they followed the rules; they all had a hand on the bow line. Boat Crew Three, take five in the shower room and warm up.” The hot showers are running to heat the room, but the trainees are not allowed in them. “Boat Crew One and Two, start counting ‘em out.”

While Boat Crews One and Two do push-ups with their feet on the spray tubes of their boats, Boat Crew Three jogs off to get warm. The two losing crews finish their push-ups and are sent to the decon area for a cold shower. Ensign Steinbrecher again clears medical and joins the trainees in pool games. He can hardly walk, but he can manage as long as he's in the water.

“Saddle up and rig for land travel, fellows,” Taylor tells them. They dress quickly and get the boats up on their heads. “Fall in, bow to stern,” he says, then walks them over to Turner Field. Turner Field is also the base soccer field. Taylor lets them choose teams and the Class 228 World Cup soccer match begins. It's a surprisingly hard-fought and intense game. The trainees are groggy and half-dead on their feet, but they're still competitors. Some have played soccer before and some haven't. Spirit counts as much as skill. Steinbrecher can't run, but he's a tenacious goalie. A few of them have good soccer skills, but none can match Seaman Chris Baldwin. Baldwin's father was a petroleum engineer and Baldwin spent much of his childhood in the soccer-mad Middle East. Soccer is his game. He's everywhere, taking out classmates with vicious slide tackles and shouting in Arabic. The fact that Baldwin speaks Arabic was unknown to the instructors and most of his fellow trainees. It seems as if Chris Baldwin thinks he's back on a soccer field in Saudi Arabia. The active soccer game and the warmth of the California sun give Class 228 a chance to dry out.

After the noon chow, the trainees walk the boats back to the beach near the O-course. The next evolution is stretch PT Chief Taylor puts them through a quick regime of serious stretching exercises, then some not-so-serious ones, like eye-openers and eyebrow stretches. It's Thursday afternoon of Hell Week. Chief Taylor is keeping them moving and keeping them amused. On the berm further down the beach from the class, two young women watch the trainees from a safe distance.

“Yost!”

“Yes, Chief Taylor.”

“Take a swim buddy and go check out those two girls down the beach. Make sure they aren't someone's girlfriend in the class.”

“Got it, Chief.”

He grabs John Owens and they shuffle down to where the two girls are sitting.

“You don't know any of the guys in the Hell Week class, do you?” Owens asks. The girls eye the two trainees with caution. They look like refugees from a soup kitchen.

“No,” one of them answers. “Is that a problem?”

“Would you like to?” Yost asks.

“I'm not too sure,” she replies with a smile. “You guys look awful.”

“But we clean up real good,” Yost persists. “What's your name?” She tells him, and he and Owens run back to the class.

“You guys took long enough,” Taylor says. “What's the deal?”

“Just a couple of tourists, Chief. They never heard of SEALs or BUD/S training.”

While Yost and Owens join the class, Taylor considers the next evolution—beach games. He turns to his lead brown shirt. “Mister Oehlerich.”

“Hooyah, Chief Taylor.”

“What was the beach game that you disliked most during your Hell Week?”

“Hide-and-seek, Chief. No question about it.”

“Hide-and-seek, huh? Why's that, sir?”

“Uh, well, you find a hiding place, but you cramp up while you wait for the instructors to find you. Then when you get caught, you get surf-tortured.”

“Is that right?”

“Honest, Chief.” Eric Oehlerich is not a big man, about five-nine, but he is a tough one. He was one of the strongest trainees in Class 227 and a class leader. In Second Phase, a classmate dropped a scuba tank on his hand and broke it. Now he will begin Second Phase with 228.

“Okay then, we'll play hide-and-seek.”

Taylor calls the class in and explains the rules. The instructors will stay on the beach side of the berm while the trainees hide in the backshore between the berm and the Strand Highway. The staff will then try to find them. The backshore area in question is a storage area for pilings, wooden shoring, stacks of pallets, and large culvert piping. The trainees scatter among the debris and hide as best they can. Soon Taylor and the other instructors are walking casually about looking for them.

Oehlerich remembers hide-and-seek from his first Hell Week. It was one of the easier beach games and a chance to stay dry. He thinks he put the hustle on Chief Taylor, and Taylor allows him to think so. The class put out during pool games and soccer, and Chief Taylor had planned all along to give them an easy beach game. But it still pays to be a winner. As the trainees are found, they are sent over the berm to another instructor for whistle and surf drills. Only three of them—Zack Shaffer, Grant Terpstra, and Pat Yost—are able to remain undiscovered. Their reward is that they get to stay dry. Yost, as the class leading petty officer, is a visible member of Class 228. Shaffer and Terpstra are both junior enlisted men and both airmen—quiet, solid trainees who attract little attention to themselves. As the class got smaller, they simply continued to perform and survive—really only noticed by the instructors because they remained while others quit.

After noon chow, the class is sent to their tent home on the beach for their third and final sleep period. Even though their bodies are desperate for sleep, most of them fight it, not wanting to suffer the agony of waking up. Some lie down only to rest, but sleep claims them immediately. Others sit on the side of a cot and doze fitfully. The brown shirts are there, doing what they can. Adam Karaoguz, who has hidden cans of snuff all over the base, can't find any when he needs one most. Morrison gives him a dip. Brendan Dougherty bums a cigarette from one of the other brown shirts. Even though he smokes, he is one of the better runners in the class. Dougherty attended the Coast Guard Academy, but it didn't work out for him. Now he wants to be a Navy SEAL. He and Karaoguz sit on a cot and stare into space like a couple of tramps in a train yard, enjoying their tobacco.

A few BUD/S trainees go through Hell Week, take what comes, and never consider quitting. Pat Yost, Adam Karaoguz, and Otter Obst seem to be like that. They know what they want and will pay the price. Unless they get hurt, they'll make it or die trying. But most trainees, at one time or another, become weary enough to question their stamina and their ability to endure this training. This may cause them to ask if they really belong here. A few experience a real personal crisis. Is this what I really want to do? Is it really worth all the pain and the cold and the lack of sleep to be a Navy SEAL? Some get past it, some don't. For Bill Gallagher, it was the steel piers on Monday night. He's wanted to be a SEAL since he was in junior high school. Last Monday he decided he would pay the price. For Clint Burke, it is Thursday of Hell Week.

Like many of the others, Burke refuses to sleep during the last sleep period. He lays in his cot and tries to relax. Burke has the ideal build for a BUD/S trainee, much like John Owens or Zack Armstrong, lean and well-proportioned, only there's six feet, five inches of him. He's now half mad from lack of sleep, his hip flexors are frozen, and his whole body seems to be in convulsions. By the end of the hour and a half sleep session, he's laying in his own urine and wondering how he can possibly go on. He has nothing left. He hasn't thought of quitting, but he doesn't feel he can go any farther. Clint Burke has committed the cardinal sin of Hell Week; he's feeling sorry for himself.

Burke almost didn't graduate from the Naval Academy. During the summer following his second year at Annapolis, he was caught trying to pass a phony ID in a bar. But he didn't go quietly; he was taken into custody by the police only after a lengthy foot chase. For this, Clint Burke was expelled from Annapolis. He enrolled at the University of North Carolina, but it was not right for him. He had unfinished business in the Navy. With help from friends, professors, and the Navy lacrosse coach, a contrite Clint Burke was allowed back into the Naval Academy a year after his expulsion. Annapolis is a four-year school, period. A very few are allowed an extra year for academic reasons. Most five-year graduates are Mormons who are allowed a year off for missionary work. Clint Burke got a rare second chance at the Naval Academy. During the first four days of Hell Week, he has been a tower of strength. Under the boat, he has been awesome. Now he's not sure he has it anymore.

“Let's go, girls, time to rise and shine.” It's Instructor Getka on the bullhorn. “Swim call, swim call. Everybody in the pool.”

This is a defining moment for Ensign Clint Burke. It's either curl up in the fetal position and give in to the pain, or peel himself from the cot and keep going. I'm not sure I can do this, he tells himself, but if I have to go, it's full speed or not at all. He lurches from the cot and bursts through the tent flap. Running through the pain, he races up the berm and past his classmates toward the surf. Instead of wading out, he gallops into the waves and plunges in. Once out of the surf, he sprints back to where the instructors are waiting.

“Hooyah, Instructor Getka!”

Getka regards the big trainee. “Get your boat crew and rig for land travel, Mister Burke.”

“Hooyah, Instructor Getka!”

Burke runs off to organize his smurfs. Getka glances at Joe Burns and Chief Schultz. The three instructors exchange quiet nods of approval; none suspect that just a few moments earlier, Clint Burke was close to giving up.

The two-mile round-trip to chow is agony, and the trainees stagger under the boats trying to keep it together. In the chow hall, they try to encourage each other, but many begin to slump into their food trays.

“C'mon, man, stay awake.”

“Hang in there, we're almost home.”

“Hey, it's almost Thursday night. It is Thursday, right?”

“Thursday! We get through tonight and it's done.”

After a wash down at the clinic and a quick hygiene check, they begin the Around-the-World Paddle. Everyone in the class is battered, but Ensign Chad Steinbrecher is in the worst shape. He cannot bend one of his legs due to a knee the size of a football, and he still has fluid in his lungs. He begs the doctors to let him continue. Since the remainder of Hell Week will, for the most part, be in the boats rather than under them, he joins his boat crew for the big paddle.

The Around-the-World Paddle is, by tradition, the last major evolution in Hell Week. The trainees must take their boats into the surf at the Naval Special Warfare Center, then paddle up the Strand, around the northern end of Coronado, and back down San Diego Bay to the Amphibious Base. Many will remember this as the longest night of their lives. But lurking deep in the fog of their semiconsciousness, they know it's the last night. This sense of knowing that there will be an end to their pain and suffering is almost too delicious to think about.

They enter the water about 1930, just after sundown. As they begin the paddle north, they are dry. The three boats stay together and make steady progress. Bill Gallagher's crew in Boat Two takes turns—five men paddle while one man dozes in the middle of the boat. Sometimes they doze while paddling. Pat Yost falls asleep in mid-stroke and tumbles into the Pacific. Bill Gallagher grabs him as the boat coasts past and hauls him back aboard. Adam Karaoguz has managed to procure a fresh tin of snuff. This one came from one of the potted plants in the chow hall.

“You guys want a dip?”

“What th’ hell,” Gallagher replies, “let me have some of that.”

Everyone has some. A few have tried it before, but only John Owens is an occasional user. For Gallagher, Steinbrecher, and Fireman Matt Jenkins, it's their first chew. The first-timers get an immediate buzz from the nicotine. Soon they are all as alert as squirrels, and Boat Two surges ahead. They may be talking nonsense, but they're wide awake and paddling.

About 2200, the instructors call the boat crews in to shore along the North Island NAS beach. Joe Burns and the evening shift check them out, and the brown shirts give them water and hot broth.

“Keep stroking, men,” Chief Schultz tells them. “Stay focused and work as a team.”

“HOOYAH, CHIEF SCHULTZ!” they yell, and they're back under way.

The little flotilla rounds the rock jetty that marks the entrance to San Diego Bay and paddles east toward the lights of the city. Across from the northern end of North Island, Oehlerich and Morrison again swim out with bananas and bags of candy bars. “I'll have to be very hungry,” John Owens will later say, “to ever eat another Snickers bar. But they were great at the time.” Things are going well—too well. At 0130 Friday morning, near the North Island pier, the instructors again call them in for midrats. Only this time it's Instructor Patstone and the demons of the night shift.

Patstone hails them through the bullhorn. “Dump boat!”

“Asshole!” someone screams back. It's Petty Officer Zack Armstrong in Boat Three, standing up in the IBS, yelling at the top of his lungs. He's half mad from lack of sleep.

“Dump boat,” Patstone calls back.

Soon there are trainees and candy bars bobbing around the overturned boats. Once ashore, they build a fire and set up a mini surf camp. For being caught with candy bars, the trainees are made to eat their MREs sitting in the bay. Then it's the Chief Nielson treatment—ten minutes to doze, ten seconds by the fire, and two minutes in the water. After an hour of this, they are again paddling east for San Diego.

Patstone yells on the bullhorn, “Dump boat!”

Armstrong responds in Boat Three, “Asshole!”

They tumble into the water, flip the boats, pull themselves back aboard, and keep paddling. By 0300 they have cleared the north end of Coronado and the air station and are paddling south. By 0400 three of the smallest crafts in the Navy pass one of the largest as they stroke by the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74), a 1,092-foot, 98,000-ton aircraft carrier.

“Uh-oh,” says John Owens as they near the Coronado Bay Bridge. “We got some trouble coming. There's some buildings up ahead. Hey, Mister Gallagher, watch out for those buildings.”

“Huh,” Gallagher replies, half asleep. “What're you talking about?”

“The goddamn buildings, sir. We're gonna run right into ‘em.” Gallagher tries to ignore him. “Sir! Hang a right at this intersection or we'll hit ‘em.”

Owens tries unsuccessfully to alert the others in Boat Two of the imminent collision with the buildings.

“Just keep paddling, John,” Yost tells him, too tired to explain to Owens that the buildings he sees are only the lights from the bridge and that his mind is playing tricks on him.

They make it to the boat ramp at the Amphibious Base shortly after 0500. There is still no sign of dawn as the exhausted trainees rig for land travel and take the boats to a head carry. The chow hall is only a few hundred yards from the boat ramp at Turner Field. For the men under the boats, it seems like several miles.

“Ready to down boat—down boat.”

“Ready to up boat—up boat.”

Patstone works them from low carry to head carry, up and down, until it appears that another cycle or two of this might bury one of the crews under their boat. Finally he gives them a last “down boat” and they begin to square away their boats in anticipation of chow. A few of them start to unbuckle their life vests, and Patstone is back on them.

“Did I tell you to get unrigged? Did I?” The class stands numbly by its boats. Some of the trainees feign coming to attention, others just stare at their tormentor. “You people just don't listen, do you? Push ‘em out.”

The reaction is immediate but slow. They struggle into the IBS push-up position. Ensign Steinbrecher can barely walk. He has to drape himself across the cross tube and wriggle out to where only his boots are on the rubber. But he can still do the push-ups.

“Ready!” groans Bill Gallagher.

“Ready!” replies the hoarse chorus.

Gallagher begins to count them off, and is answered in staccato fashion. There is not much left in their arms, just a slight bending at the elbow and a bobbing of heads.

“No, no, no!” Patstone appeals to them. “If we can't do them together, we'll just keep starting at the beginning until we can.”

They wait, swaybacked, until Patstone finishes and Gallagher again calls for the count. After several more tries, they manage to count together, but the push-ups consist of a bobbing of heads.

“Okay, people, we've got a busy day. Get those life jackets off and let's get to chow. What day is this, Darren?” Patstone inquires of Instructor Annandono. “Is this Wednesday or Thursday?”

“C'mon now, Instructor Patstone,” Annandono says in mock seriousness, “don't fool with them. It's Thursday.”

The men of Class 228 know it's Friday. They talked about it on the Around-the-World Paddle. Yet they're vulnerable to anything someone tells them, even if it's unreasonable. They're starting to have memory lapses. While standing, they can drift off for a few seconds, and when they snap back awake, it takes them a moment to reconnect.

“It's about my turn,” says Jason Birch. “I'll stay with the boats.”

Gallagher stares dully at him. “J. B., didn't you stand guard last time … or was it the time before?” They both shrug; neither really remembers.

“I'll take the first shift with you, sir,” says Adam Karaoguz. It's settled, and the other seventeen shuffle off to chow.

There is undisguised pity on the faces of the food service workers as the trainees stumble past.

“Eggs? Pancakes? Hash browns?”

Decisions like this are hard, and require energy and concentration. Most just nod and take what's given to them. They queue up at the drink dispenser, for there is immediate warmth there. Most take several cups of hot water. When they reach the tables, they immediately wrap their hands around a cup for warmth. Some pause to dump in packets of hot chocolate mix; others simply sip and blow at the hot water. Soon the eaters begin to eat and the nibblers begin to nibble. Outside, the two sentry-trainees stand guard.

“Hey, sir, look at that.”

“Yeah, what.” Jason Birch is going from boat to boat in a clumsy attempt to square away the life jackets and paddles.

“I think I see some light.”

“No way.”

“No shit, sir. I think that's dawn over there.”

Birch stares to the east for a long moment. They don't really have a clear view from here because of the buildings.

“Maybe,” Birch concedes, “just maybe.”

“You want a dip, sir?”

Birch grins through cracked lips. “Naw, man, I don't want a dip.”

“Snickers?”

“Yeah, I'll have a bite of Snickers.”

Inside, Patstone has gone from hater to healer. He lays out his portable dispensary and starts checking names against his list.

“You guys who need meds, get over here.”

Some of them respond and make their way over to where the corpsman is dealing out pills. Others, Patstone has to seek out. Either they have forgotten they were on medication, or they don't care at this point. But Patstone tracks each one down, and carefully notes the individual dosage in his log. Terry Patstone is an energetic first class hospital corpsman from Maine. He has ten years in the teams, and is one year away from his bachelor's degree in organizational behavior. If the members of Class 228 were to vote on which instructor they fear the most, it would be Instructor Terry Patstone.

“Lots of water. Two full glasses at a minimum. Gallagher, drink. Luna, drink. I want to see those glasses empty.” Some of the men don't have two water glasses on their tray. “You either drink it or we'll put you back into it, right now—your choice.” This rouses Ensign Koella and Seaman Pell, and they return to the mess line for water. “It doesn't matter,” Patstone tells the other students seated at the tables, “you're all going back in the water.”

Gallagher pushes back from the table. “We gotta relieve J. B. and Karaoguz. Who's finished?”

Both Owens and Yost are still eating. As soon as they hit the table, they cram in food as fast as they can. Their mess trays are a disaster, like those of two preschoolers.

“We'll get it, sir,” says Yost. He and Owens jam in another mouthful of food and head for the door. Soon Jason Birch and Adam Karaoguz are seated before piles of food. Birch picks at his tray; he's a nibbler. Karaoguz shovels it down. Warrant Officer Jim Locklear, who has relieved Randy Beausoleil as OIC, escorts his coffee cup over to the seated trainees. A few of them snap awake at his approach.

“Okay, men, we have some time to kill this morning before we go through the O-course. Now, I'm going to give you a choice. We can do a base tour with the boats, we can do surf passage, or”—he pauses for effect—“door three—a mystery evolution. What'll it be?”

There is a stumbling, semicoherent discussion among trainees on what they should choose. It's an important topic and they try to focus, but no one is thinking clearly.

“Base tour—we don't want to go back into the water.”

“Yeah, but I'm not sure I can carry the boat anymore. Paddling is easier.” Some of them seem totally baffled by the idea of making a choice; others drift off in the middle of a sentence.

“Okay, if that's the way you want it—door three. We'll go get wet and sandy, carry the boats through the O-course, and then do surf passage.” The assembled students accept the verdict like a death sentence. But none question it.

Patstone buttons up his medical kit. “Let's go, people. Forks down.” He carefully watches Birch and Karaoguz to make sure they've had a chance to eat. “You think you can hang out at the chow hall all day. We've got a full day ahead of us.”

Outside, Pat Yost and John Owens totter on the edge of sleep as they stand a loose parade rest by the boats.

“Friday, right, John?”

“Yep, it's Friday. Wanna go drinking tonight?”

“I wanna get through the day. Hey, John, if something happens to me, you gotta take over as LPO; you're the next senior petty officer. Remember that.”

“Ain't nothing gonna happen to you, Pat,” says John Owens. “We started this thing together and we'll finish it together.”

Chief Nielson arrives ahead of the others, and shares a joke with the two men guarding the IBSs. He senses these two could do another two days of Hell Week if they had to. Patstone and Locklear arrive with the rest of the class. After some light boat drills, they head across Turner Field into the growing dawn. Patstone puts them in the bay and makes them dump boat, then sends them paddling south toward Fiddler's Cove. They're right on schedule for the last day of Hell Week.

The three weary crews head down the bay, each boat trying to maintain a stroke count. Some fall asleep paddling and have to be roused by their crewmates. But gradually, as the dawn swells to daylight, each is becoming more aware that this is Friday, the last day. It's a powerful concept for the nineteen survivors of Class 228—Friday. When they go into the fog for a moment and snap back out, it's still there—Friday.

“It really is Friday, right, man?”

“Damn straight—last day.”

“I can't believe it. Friday.”

“When do you think they'll secure us?”

“Two-two-seven got secured about one-thirty.”

“I heard it was noon.”

“Noon? You think they'll secure us by noon?”

At Fiddler's Cove, Chief Taylor and the day shift are waiting for them. Two boats are tied for the lead while Clint Burke's smurfs are trailing badly.

“Okay, who's it gonna be?” Taylor yells across the water. “Who's gonna be the winner?”

Once again, the competitive fires are banked. This time it's Fireman Jenkins who steps up in Boat Two. “Hey, we can win this one. C'mon, guys, let's go for it!” Matt Jenkins is the youngest man left in the class— an eighteen-year-old from New Hampshire. He has often been a source of frustration for the older members of his boat crew, but today he takes charge. They pick up Jenkins's stroke and Boat Two surges ahead. On the beach inside the cove, Taylor is all smiles. Nothing pleases him more than a good race—winners and losers.

“All right, it's Mister Gallagher's crew. Good work, men. Why don't you gents have a seat over there while I attend to these other guys.”

Taylor drops the other crews for push-ups, then sends them back out on a boat race around the mooring buoys in the cove. Soon all three boats are racing from the inner shore of the cove out to the buoys and back. These are Taylor's races, Taylor's rules. He chooses a new coxswain each time and gives them specific rules for the race—which buoy they must round, and how, before returning to the starting point. Between races, Chief Taylor checks his watch. He has to have them across the highway to the demo pits by 1000.

“How they doing, Ken?” One of the instructors from Third Phase who will work the demo pits later that morning has come early to watch.

“I think what we have left are good to go. A couple of them are real studs—watch this. Hey, Obst, get over here.”

Obst, who is sitting out a race with his winning crew, jumps to his feet. “Hooyah, Chief Taylor.”

“Take a swim in the Great White.”

The Otter climbs quickly to the back of the pickup and dives into the IBS full of ice water. He emerges from the cold plunge and leaps from the truck to stand before Taylor.

“Okay, get back with your crew.”

“Hooyah, Chief Taylor,” he says with a grin. Neither the ice water, nor Taylor's apparent lack of a reason for sending him into it, seem to bother Obst. “See what I mean?” Taylor says to the other instructor. “He's one tough kid.”

They finish a few more races, then Taylor gets them moving down the sand road that leads westward from the cove across the Strand. Once across the highway, they park their boats by the entrance to a small chain-link compound. So Sorry Day is about to begin.

So Sorry Day has its origins back in the early days at Fort Pierce, where the first demolition trainees were exposed to explosives and simulated combat conditions. They were forced to crawl under barbed wire and through mud while live explosions were set off around them. The half-pound blocks of TNT that used to create the explosions for So Sorry Day at BUD/S have since been replaced by artillery simulators. In deference to the local ecology and the seabird population on the Strand, TNT is no longer used. Even so, as Class 228 crawls into the demo pits, they are about to be treated to an evolution laced with noise, gunfire, and tradition.

Demo pits is a misnomer. The “pits” is a single oval hole dug into the sand that is served by several culverts. The pit measures perhaps a hundred feet on the long axis. During Hell Week, seawater is pumped into this hole to a depth of six or seven feet. The man-size culverts buried into the berm that surrounds the pit allow the trainees to crawl into and out of the hole. Across the length of the oval, two nylon lines have been strung. One is six feet off the surface of the water and another six feet above that.

The trainees begin their journey into the demo pits by crawling under a field of barbed wire just inside the gate. Their vision is cut by thick smoke from smoke grenades, which also produce a strong stench of sulfur. Artillery simulators on either side of the field of barbed wire start their whistle and boom. Then the Mk-43s begin to bark. So Sorry Day is under way. Class 228 approaches the end of Hell Week just as it began, with plenty of shooting and explosions. The noise is not so bad as it was in the enclosed grinder of the BUD/S compound, but the smoke adds another element to the chaos. Two blasts on the whistle, they crawl on their bellies; one blast, they cover up—more shooting and explosions.

For the better part of an hour, the students crawl under barbed wire, through smoke, and in and out of the pit by way of the concrete culverts. A thick layer of scum has formed on the surface of the pit from the reaction of the seawater and the freshly dug sand. The students are past caring or questioning as they half swim, half slither through the pit, occasionally shouting encouragement to each other. They are fairly sure that the end of Hell Week is not too far off. Yet they are very, very tired, and not thinking clearly. The only thing that they do know is that they have to keep moving and do what is asked of them, whatever that may be.

Finally, the remaining nineteen trainees are lined up on one side of the pit, immersed to their necks. One man at a time, they mount the two ropes, standing on the lower line and hanging from the upper line. They have to tell a joke or a story while they try to make their way across the pit. Two of the brown shirts pull on straps tied to the upper line in an attempt to shake the suspended trainee loose. While his classmates cheer him on, the man on the two lines fights to stay aloft. It's a short struggle for most; the brown shirts make sure that no one gets as far as the halfway point. But a few get close. Harry Pell hauls his feet up to the top line and is able to inch-worm his way down the line. Clint Burke, because of his height and tenacity, comes within a few feet of the center marker. If just one of them makes it, the brown shirts have to get wet and sandy. They don't particularly like dumping their future classmates off the lines, but it pays to be a winner— always.

As the last of the Hell Week class is dumped into the water, the instructors present—some twelve of them—line up on the far side of the demo pit. There is a ceremonial presence to this line of instructors, and the students sense the magic moment has arrived. It's time to secure! Hell Week's over! As quickly as their spirits soar, they come crashing to earth. It's only a hoax—a trick to get their hopes up—a test to see if they can keep going. The ruse works. They are clearly discouraged, but the members of 228 manage to answer the whistle call and crawl out of the pit.

“Let's hit the beach, men,” Taylor yells at them. “Time for … you guessed it—surf passage!”

The trainees are allowed a quick lunch of cold MREs, then Taylor sends them on boat races into the surf. There is no wind and the day is relatively warm and sunny. The three boats are greeted by only two to three feet of spilling surf. Even so, two of the poorly crewed boats manage to slew sideways and overturn. Yet the boat crews grimly go through the motions— the stronger men helping the weaker ones and trying to manufacture spirit. Obst, Baldwin, Burke, Yost, and Karaoguz are still strong; they do their best to motivate their classmates. Others are not. Airman Alexander Lopez and Ensign Will Koella have knees so swollen they are unable to run and can walk only with great difficulty. Ensign Steinbrecher is effectively a cripple; he can still paddle, but can only stagger after his crew when they bring the boats from the surf across the sand.

“Cap-tain Bow-en!”

“HOOYAH, CAPTAIN BOWEN!”

Bowen has a few words with Joe Burns, then walks down among the students and their boats. Class 228 stands a little taller now that the commanding officer is among them—partly out of respect and partly because they think, just maybe, he will deliver them from their misery.

“Carry on, men,” he tells them before he heads back over the berm. “You're doing a terrific job; keep up the good work.”

They hooyah him again and watch as he disappears over the beach. Once again their hopes of relief are dashed. Ensign Joe Burns steps over to where Otter Obst is standing beside his IBS.

“You know, it's like I told the CO, we have to keep going.” He looks at his watch. “Hell Week has to run for a certain number of hours or it's not official. Since we got a late start Sunday evening, we have to stay out here until late afternoon.”

Obst receives this information stoically. He may be stronger than most of his classmates, but he knows he can't keep this up too much longer. Burns's comments start him to thinking. Maybe, just maybe, we do have several more hours ahead of us. But I'll not quit—not now, not ever.

“Okay, fellows,” Chief Taylor tells them, “let's leave the boats here and do a little surf conditioning. Everybody in the pool.”

Taylor sends them into the surf. They are starting to lean on each other, and two trainees have to help Chad Steinbrecher into the water. They resemble stiffly animated rag dolls. Taylor has them lay in the surf and begin a series of flutter kicks. He watches them carefully, professionally, with no sense of pity for their suffering. He knows it's a hard business, one that demands hard men. Burns walks over and says something to Taylor. Taylor nods and sends Class 228 out to deeper water to let some of the sand drain out of their clothing from lying in the surf.

This is Ed Bowen's first class at the Naval Special Warfare Center and his first Hell Week. Hell Week is secured in accordance with the wishes of the commanding officer. In times past, visiting admirals or other dignitaries were allowed to secure Hell Week. Captain Joe McGuire, Bowen's predecessor, would muster the class on the BUD/S grinder with a roster of those who began Hell Week and read the Hell Week class list aloud. If a man was still there he would answer, “Present!” If the man had quit, the whole class would roar “DOR!” This is not to be Ed Bowen's way.

“Hell Week is something between the instructors and the students. It's my view they should finish the process together.”

“Is my presence here appropriate?” I asked Ed before he left the beach.

“I don't see any problem, Dick,” he told me. “You've been out here with them for most of the week.”

Chief Taylor calls them in from the ocean, and Joe Burns motions them to gather around him.

“Okay, men. The next evolution is … well, there is no next evolution. Hell Week is over; you're secured.”

There is a pause while the survivors of Class 228 take this announcement in. At first they suspect this is some sort of deception; they wait a moment for the other shoe to drop. Burns just looks at them and smiles. The trainees know Ensign Burns might try to trick them, but he would never straight-out lie to them—not like this. “Congratulations,” he adds. “You guys did a helluva job. I'm proud of you.”

“It's over?”

“Really—no bullshit?”

“Hey, man, it's over!”

“Oh, God! Oh, dear God!”

“That's it! We're secure!”

“We did it! Sonuvabitch, we did it!”

“It's really over—we're really secure!”

“Yeessss!”

Some grasp their deliverance quickly—for others it takes a few stunned moments. Slowly, the nineteen members of Class 228 begin to hug each other and hoarsely cheer their survival and fellowship. Some, like Zack Shaffer, are in shock and just stand there with a goofy grin on their faces. A few weep with joy that the torment and the cold are over. Bill Gallagher drops his head a moment, crosses himself, then goes about shaking each of his classmate's hands. “I never,” Gallagher will later say, “in my wildest dreams, would have thought that it could hurt that much, or I could be that cold. And I never thought I could have taken that much punishment. I still don't believe it.”

Joe Burns quiets them down and motions them in closer. “All right, guys, I want you to take a minute and think about this. No matter what you do in the future, remember this moment; you men just finished Hell Week. Few men are able to do what you just did. Whether you stay in the Navy or get out and run a latte stand—whatever—never, never forget this moment or what you achieved here this week. When things get tough in life, this will be your benchmark. Others will quit, but you won't. Because if you can do this, you can do anything, right?”

“HOOO-YAAAAAH!”

He again quiets them down. “Okay, we know you're tough. Now we're going to see if you're smart and technically proficient. There's still a lot to do; you have the rest of First Phase ahead of you. Then, pool comps in Second Phase and weapons practicals in Third Phase. You need to stay focused on training and keep this in perspective. Hell Week is just a speed bump in BUD/S—an important step, but only one step. You'll have a few days to rest and heal up, but you have to be ready to start back at it on Monday. But today you guys can stand tall and be proud. Whatever happens, never forget what you accomplished here this week.”

Sean Mruk and many of the other First Phase instructors are there to congratulate them. “Good goin’, guys,” Mruk tells them as he shakes each man's hand. “There's beer and snacks on the bus.” Then he adds with a grin, “Well, maybe some snacks.”

They're still wet, cold, chafed, and battered, but the sure knowledge that they made it through Hell Week carries the ragged band of trainees back over the rise of the beach to the demo pits. Those who can still walk help those who barely can. It's a scene from the Bataan Death March, only these men know they are survivors. As they make their way around the chain-link fence surrounding the demo pits to the waiting bus, a surprise and an honor await them. Along with Captain Bowen, the commanding officers and command master chiefs of the West Coast SEAL teams are lined up, waiting to shake their hands.

“Congratulations.”

“When you finish BUD/S, come on over to Team One.”

“Tough Hell Week from what I hear; you guys should be proud.”

“SEAL Team Five is looking for a few good men.”

“Good job; well done.”

Soon they are on the bus, heading north on the Strand Highway for the Center. They are terminally weary but, for the moment, no longer sleepy. They made it; it's really over! True to his word, Sean Mruk has candy bars and sodas on the bus for them. Once back at the Center, Class 228 makes its way along a familiar route through the showers and around to where the three medical officers are waiting for them. Three by three, they parade nude before the medical examiners. The medical team carefully scrutinizes them—checking here, poking there, asking questions. Some are given antibiotics and vitamins. Most are pronounced battered but basically sound. Ensigns Steinbrecher and Koella and Airman Lopez are sent into the treatment room. Outside, between the clinic and the Center barracks, each man finds his milk crate with dry UDT trunks, a fresh new pair of fuzzy socks, and—best of all—a brown T-shirt with his name on it. It's only a cheap military T-shirt of a particular color, but it is everything—they're brown shirts.

The trainees sit basking in the sun, eating candy bars and waiting for the last of their classmates to finish their treatment. Then they move as a class along the grinder to the First Phase classroom. There are nineteen chairs arranged in the front of the room. The temperature is uncomfortably high—unless, of course, you just finished Hell Week. On the arm of each desk are two sixteen-inch pizzas and a large bottle of Gatorade. A few in the class are beginning to fade as they shuffle into the class, but the aroma of the pizza revives them.

“Okay, heroes,” Mruk says as they file in, “have a seat and dig in. As soon as Doctor Witucki gets here and gives you your medical briefing, we'll drive you back to the barracks and tuck you in.” Class 228's proctor steps from the podium and retrieves a slice of pizza from one of his students. The Otter offers me a piece and I accept. It's lukewarm, drenched in grease, and wonderful. A few moments later, Lieutenant Peter Witucki enters the room and stands in front of the class. They regard him through puffy eyes and continue to shovel in pizza.

Witucki, Josh Bell, Norm Moser, and the clinic corpsmen get to know the students as well as any of the instructors. They examine them prior to Indoc and certify them fit to leave BUD/S at the end of Third Phase. Their responsibilities are medical, not military, but they become attached to their patients. A great deal rides on their judgment, so their job is both a medical and an emotional one.

“I know you guys are dying,” Witucki begins, “but stay with me for a bit longer, then we'll get you out of here. Tomorrow morning, I want to see you all back here at zero eight hundred—eight o'clock, got that?” There is a muffled, pizza-clogged round of hooyahs.

“Good. Now your job today and for the rest of the weekend is to sleep and eat. You'll be surprised what food and rest can do in just a few days. I know some of you have some problems we'll have to deal with, but we'll take a good look at them tomorrow after you've had some rest. When you get back to the barracks, get into bed and try to sleep on your back. If you can, keep your feet and hands slightly elevated from your torso. This will help the swelling. Drink lots of water. Take two bottles to bed with you, one full of water and one empty. Believe me, you're not going to want to get up for a head call. And try not to get the bottles mixed up.

“There will be a watch posted at the barracks to see you're not disturbed. They will check on you every hour between now and tomorrow morning. If you have a problem, have the watch call us. Either myself or one of the other medical officers will be on call. If it's an emergency, call nine-one-one, but don't go to a civilian doctor unless you have to. They don't know what you've been through. If they see you looking like this, they'll admit you to the hospital immediately, and we won't see you for a week. Got that?” Another weak round of hooyahs.

After Lieutenant Witucki leaves them, Mruk gives them a few more minutes to work on their pizza, but he's running out of time. Some of them are already drifting off to sleep.

“Box up what you have left and take it with you. It'll taste great cold later on tonight, guaranteed. Grab your clothes in the paper sacks over by the wall. I'll give you a few minutes to pull on some sweats or whatever clothes you brought. Then we gotta get moving.”

Some quickly pull on the clothes they left in the classroom last Sunday. Others simply board the bus with a box of pizza under one arm and a bag of clothes under the other. Mruk drives them over to the barracks. Only two flights of stairs stand between Class 228 and their rooms, but they seem like Mount Everest. As they file off the bus, Mruk hands each of them a cold bottle of beer. Most of them will not even remember drinking it, or how they got from the door of the bus to their beds. It is Friday, 19 November, and Hell Week is over for Class 228.