INTO THE SEA

Take your seats, gentlemen. Welcome to Second Phase. My name is Steve McKendry and I will be your class proctor. Do you have a report for me, Mister Gallagher?”

Gallagher rises. “Hooyah, Instructor. Thirty-six men assigned, thirty-six men present.”

Class 228 has been reconfigured, just as it was after Hell Week. And once again, eleven men have been added to the class—this time, two officers and nine enlisted men. Most are rollbacks from Class 227. The rollbacks are like replacements for battlefield casualties in 228's war of attrition at BUD/S. The character of the class changes with each of these augmentations. Since the class must function as a unit, these new men will have to meld quickly into the group. Gallagher and Yost organize the class into six boat crews, with one of the six class officers to head each crew. There are no boats in Second Phase; it's an accountability convenience. When Gallagher asks for a count, his boat-crew leaders answer: “One's up … Two's up …,” and he can quickly report the status of the class.

McKendry is one of the junior instructors in Second Phase and no older than some of the senior petty officers in Class 228. He is a very fit man with a calm intensity. He looks young, with choirboylike good looks and a soft manner. McKendry deployed with SEAL Team Two and served with Special Boat Unit Twenty before coming to BUD/S. Like many BUD/S instructors, he is finishing his college degree in his spare time. For McKendry, it's computer science. He consults his notes for a few moments, then speaks in a quiet, measured voice.

“Most of you have just completed First Phase. Some of you have been here before and are back for another try at this phase. You are all the same class now, Class 228. Let me tell you what I expect—what you will need to do if you want to successfully complete Second Phase.

“First of all, I like being an instructor here. This may sound strange, but I even liked being a BUD/S student. I think you need to like this business to be successful at it. At least, that's how I see it. Let me tell you what I don't like. I have little tolerance for anyone who sandbags it—does just enough to get by or cuts corners. That may have been tolerated to some degree in First Phase. Not here. We don't cut corners underwater. You cut corners here and it can get someone killed, your swim buddy or possibly yourself.” He pauses a moment. “I also have little patience for those who lack spirit. You get through this training as a class. If you aren't contributing to your class spirit, then you're holding your classmates back— you're sandbagging it.” He again pauses a moment to regard the class. “And what I will not tolerate at all is being late for watch or missing watch. This is a duty you have to perform. If you're late, it shows you don't care about your classmates—your future teammates. Miss a watch or show up late and I'll see you out of here. Is that clear?”

“HOOYAH!”

“Now, you've all been around here long enough to know the rules, but for the record, let's make sure. Mexico is off-limits; stay away from the border. Alcohol. If you are involved in any alcohol-related incident, no matter what the provocation or circumstance, you will be removed from training. Is there any question about that?”

“NEGATIVE!”

“Good. Let me tell you something about myself. I don't drink. I used to, but I don't anymore. I had a couple of ‘almosts.’ You know the kind of thing I'm talking about—things that almost get you into a whole lot of trouble. I decided that if I kept drinking, sooner or later it would cost me something very valuable. So I quit. You all can do what you like, but don't let alcohol come between you and accomplishing your goals here at BUD/S.

“You have duties and responsibilities here in Second Phase, more so than in First Phase. In addition to the vehicles, medical equipment, diving equipment, charging bottles, and all that, you are responsible for the phase status boards. The rollbacks know about the collateral duties and can help you with the office chores. And don't forget the cartoon. Every day we want a new cartoon in the Second Phase office. It better be well drawn and it better be funny. Now, your Second Phase training will have a Christmas break. We shut down training for the Christmas holiday. Don't lose your focus over Christmas.

“It goes without saying that we expect you to show respect for the staff and for the chain of command. I expect you to have respect for your classmates as well.” Again he studies his notes. “The performance standards from First Phase will not be good enough here. The four-mile-run time will have to come down to thirty-one minutes. Swim times in open water: two miles in eighty minutes. Your obstacle course times will start at eleven minutes, but after pool comp week you'll have to do the O-course under ten and a half minutes. You all know the policy about performance rollbacks—they don't exist at BUD/S anymore. Meet the standards or you're history.”

He gives them a shy smile. “I tend to like physical conditioning, and if you're having a problem, I can help. Especially with the runs. I'll work with you and help get those run times down. This also goes with any problem you may have, training-related or personal. Let me know and I'll help. I know two of you guys are married. So am I. This business can be hard on a spouse, but you have to stay focused on training. Any of you can call me anytime, day or night—weekends, anytime. I'm here to help you get through this training. Questions?” There are none.

Friday night, the last day of First Phase the class holds their end of First Phase party. It's basically the same venue as the class-up party after Indoc, only there are fewer of them to celebrate. Some of the trainees find a stack of pallets nearby and build a fire on the beach. They were up most of the previous night and worked late that afternoon following Instructor McKendry's Second Phase briefing. The elation of leaving First Phase is giving way to weariness. They'll have one evening to celebrate, and those who don't have watch will have Saturday free. Sunday will be devoted to preparing their rooms for inspection on Monday and attending to their collateral duties in the Second Phase spaces. And they have to repaint their helmets. The green helmets are no more; the white 228 numerals will adorn blue helmets for Second Phase.

The new First Phase graduates begin to gather shortly before 1800. They sit around in small groups and drink beer or hard cider, and talk about training. Those who remain in Class 228 have won a major battle, but the outcome of the war is still to be decided. Each of them understands this.

“It seems like no matter how far you get in this business,” Bill Gallagher remarks, “you still have a long way to go. In some ways, it's gone by quickly, but I'm getting so tired of the long days. Thank God for the weekends.”

The original fifteen members of 228 are now a minority in their own class, but the class leadership remains with Lieutenant (jg) Bill Gallagher and Petty Officer Pat Yost. They are still the senior officer and senior enlisted members of the expanded class, but had that not been the case, they would remain the class leaders. By tradition, they retain these positions as legacy of their unbroken training record.

Among the new men are Ensign Eric Oehlerich and Ensign John Green. Oehlerich came to BUD/S from the Naval Academy, where he was a classmate of Jason Birch and Clint Burke—Class of ‘99. Naval Academy graduates from the same year group are spread over several BUD/S classes. Oehlerich came to the Naval Academy from Whitefish, Montana, where he had to choose between Annapolis and the U.S. Alpine Ski Team. Oehlerich is a strong BUD/S trainee, a leader in Class 227 until the accident that broke his hand. For the last two months, he has endured the purgatory of PTRR, waiting to begin Second Phase with 228. John Green has been in PTRR with Oehlerich, healing from stress fractures in his shins. Green is a linguist and a Harvard graduate. He speaks seven languages— eight counting English—and is fluent in Arabic and French.

The twenty-five recent First Phase graduates know their new classmates; they've all been around BUD/S for a while. For the 228 originals, many of the new men were the ones who helped them during Hell Week. Among the most welcome of the new faces is Seaman Marc Luttrell. LuttreU's goal is to become a SEAL team corpsman. He, too, is recovering from stress fractures. Luttrell is a legacy; his father, Danny Luttrell, was a Vietnam-era frogman. Dad expected that Marc would come into the family business after he graduated from college. It was with mixed feelings that Danny learned his son had enlisted in the Navy to become a SEAL.

“I heard too many stories about the teams when I was growing up, Dad,” he told his father. “Now it's my turn to follow my dream.”

Marc's younger brother recently flew out to Coronado to visit his brother and to meet with the BUD/S medical officers. Recovering from a badly broken femur, he wanted to see if it would prevent him from also coming to BUD/S. As soon as he graduates from college, he, too, will enlist and follow his brother and father to BUD/S.

The party starts slowly, but soon gathers momentum. Most of the men in Class 228 have had little alcohol for several months. A cup or two of beer from the keg and they begin to loosen up.

John Owens is still basking in his victory at the Monster Mash. “You know,” he tells his classmates, “I think that evolution says a lot about a man's character and his ability to deal with adversity. A guy who can handie the Monster Mash is a real stud.” Owens is wearing a gaudy belt buckle that his classmates presented him for winning the Monster Mash.

“What are you talking about?” sputters Otter Obst, always the competitor. “You cheated; I saw you. You ran completely around the high wall.”

Owens sips his beer and pats Obst on the shoulder. “It's okay, son. You've done well in training and you're going to do just fine in Second Phase. But … you came in second on the Monster Mash. Otter, that makes you a loser. Hey, a nice guy and all that, but a loser.”

“Yeah, right—I'm a loser.” Obst rolls his eyes. He knows Owens is the last person to take himself seriously, but Obst is a competitor. He hates to lose under any circumstances.

“Hey, Otter, why don't you just call me ‘Champ’.” Owens looks around with an easy grin. “Y'know, that has a nice sound to it—John Owens, champ.”

“I can't stand this,” the Otter replies. “I'm going for another beer.”

“How do you feel about heading into Second Phase?” I ask Owens.

“I'm kind of looking forward to it, actually. Maybe we won't be so cold in Second Phase. I'm really tired of being cold all the time.”

“Are you serious?” says Zack Armstrong, who joins us. “Second Phase is dive phase. We'll be in the water. The water's cold.”

“I know that. I'm talking cold like in Hell Week cold or hydro cold.”

Armstrong nods. Both of them remember the hydro recon in the bay when Instructor Patstone sent them back out without wet suits to finish.

Owens and Armstrong are solid, archetypal BUD/S trainees. Both are about five-nine, 155 pounds. Neither has the bulk nor the impressive physique of a Hollywood SEAL. Both are hard as nails. John Owens is from Fort Lauderdale; Zack Armstrong is from Thornton, Colorado, just north of Denver. During Hell Week, they could always muster a smile, and they always had time to help a classmate when things really got bad. They've been here before. Owens joined the Navy after two years of college; Armstrong, right out of high school. Both first came to BUD/S from Navy boot camp. Both DORed from a previous class— Owens with Class 208, Armstrong with Class 212. After a tour in the fleet, they are back as second class petty officers—more mature and very focused.

When I asked him about it, Owens downplays his strong motivation to be a Navy SEAL. “I just want to do something special before I get too old—ah, no offense, sir,” he quickly adds with a grin. “When I was here before, I don't think I had the right attitude. I didn't want it bad enough. Now? Well, now I'm here, ready to give it my best shot. If my best shot isn't good enough, so be it; I'll move on and not look back. But this time I'll know I held nothing back. I won't quit, though. If they want me to leave, they'll have to drag me out of here.”

When he was in Class 212, Zack Armstrong DORed after Hell Week. His knees were swollen and he simply couldn't pass the run times. He gutted it out as long as he could, but quit just a week before the end of First Phase. This was Armstrong's second Hell Week. Few BUD/S trainees who survive one Hell Week have the courage to come back a second time. BUD/S lore has it that one man did it three times.

“I've been really curious to know,” I ask him. “Which Hell Week was the hardest?”

Armstrong is on his second beer and gives me a lopsided grin. “It's hard to say; they both really sucked. But I think this one was a little easier. It's a stronger class—better organized—and we seem to catch less heat from the instructors for the little things. Also, I think these First Phase instructors were more positive than when I was here before. There was nobody here then like Chief Taylor. You don't want to disappoint a man like that.”

“You guys like Taylor, don't you?”

“Yeah, he's a great role model and you can trust him. As long as you put out, he'll do his best to help you get through.”

“About Hell Week. How did you feel about having to do it a second time?”

Armstrong just shrugs. “I had no choice. Along about Monday night I said, ‘Hey, this really hurts.’ But I just told myself that I did it once and I can do it again. Now all I want to do is get this behind me and get to the teams.”

“No third Hell Week?”

“No way.”

A few of the First Phase instructors arrive, led by Sean Mruk. He's almost as glad to have Class 228 gone as they are to be out of First Phase. Class proctors work hard; they come in very early and often stay into the night to work with their class. Mruk will get a week off from BUD/S, partial compensation for all the extra hours he put in with 228. Then he will be back as a regular instructor for the next class. As he was with Class 227, he will be one of the haters in First Phase for Class 229.

Class 228's First Phase party attracts some other graduates. The SEAL Tactical Training class had their graduation that afternoon. STT is a three-month advanced training course that serves the active SEAL and SDV teams. New BUD/S graduates attend this training soon after they return from Army Airborne School. The West Coast STT training is conducted by Naval Special Warfare Group One for SEAL Teams One, Three, and Five and SDV Team One. Group Two sponsors similar training for SEAL Teams Two, Four, and Eight and SDV Team Two. Since the STT graduation was earlier that afternoon, many of them have been at McP's, so they have a good start on Class 228. McP's Irish Pub in Coronado is the unofficial West Coast SEAL watering hole, similar to The Cutter in Virginia Beach for the East Coast teams. STT is an intense and challenging course, and a milestone in qualifying for the SEAL Trident pin. Nonetheless, these soon-to-be SEALs remember what it was like to finish First Phase. Everyone is talking shop, swapping Hell Week and training stories. The officers tend to seek each other out. Since a majority of them are from the Naval Academy, they all know each other. They form a kind of executive, junior officer Mafia. But their BUD/S affiliation transcends the Academy connection. Ensigns McGraw and Green move comfortably among the Annapolis men. The STT-Annapolis grads are anxious to know why so many of their alumni in 228 quit in Hell Week. It's a small community and there are few secrets. The STT officers have already heard about Clint Burke's strong performance in Hell Week, and they want to know more about it. Chad Steinbrecher and Will Koella are also there; they are no longer in 228, but their gritty performance in Hell Week earned them the privilege. They congratulate the First Phase graduates and bravely accept the condolences of their former classmates.

“Hey, Captain Couch,” Bill Gallagher says as he beckons me to join them, “we heard that when you went through training, there were no billets to BUD/S directly from the Naval Academy. None at all?”

“That's right. The few of us from the Boat School who came to BUD/S had to do a tour in the fleet, just like you did, Bill. In my case, I was discouraged from the highest level.”

“Sir?”

“Well, it's a bit of a story.”

“Hey, sir,” says Chad Steinbrecher as he hands me a cup of beer, “that's what we're here for. Let's have it.”

“As you guys know, Admiral Draper Kauffman is the founder of UDT and the Navy frogmen. He was also an Academy graduate. He was not commissioned in the Navy due to his poor eyesight, so he went to Europe and served in France and England prior to our entry into World War II. In England during the Blitz, he became a demolitions expert. In 1941, the Navy called him home to active duty. After the casualties on the beaches at Tarawa, the Navy sent then-Lieutenant Commander Kauffman to the east coast of Florida to solve the problem. At Fort Pierce, Kauffman began to train men for demolition work on landing beaches. So he was the first Naval Academy man in the teams. And we're all the descendants of those first frogmen trained by Admiral Kauffman at Fort Pierce.

“In spring of 1967, I was a first class midshipman just a few months from graduation. Boy, did I want out of there.” This gets a round of chuckles. “That April my company mates and I were required to attend a reception at the home of the Academy superintendent. You guys have to do that as firsties?” I get a round of knowing looks and grimaces. “Then you know the deal. We had to remain there for an hour, and we all kept an eye on our watches. When it was my turn to meet the admiral, he asked, ‘Mister Couch, what will be your choice on Service Selection Night?’ I replied, destroyer out of Japan to begin with, sir. But as soon as I can, I'm going to go to UDT.’ Well, the great man put his arm around me like he was my dad and says, ‘Son, you're regular Navy. You have a wonderful career ahead of you in the fleet. You can be a destroyer man, an aviator, or a submariner, but there's no future for you in underwater demolition. That's not why you're here at Annapolis.’ He had a deeply tanned face, thick glasses, and rows of combat decorations. For me, it was like talking to God. ‘Thanks for the advice, sir,’ I told him, ‘but I'm going to do it anyway.’ He smiled, I smiled, and he moved on to talk with one of my classmates. Well, guys, that superintendent was none other than Rear Admiral Draper Kauffman.”

“You mean the Draper Kauffman tried to talk you out of going to BUD/S?”

“You're shitting us, sir.”

I shrug. “That's the way it was then. Most of us were told it was career suicide. The CO on my ship endorsed my request to BUD/S, ‘forwarded, not recommended.’ How many of you came to BUD/S from the Class of Ninety-nine?”

“Sixteen,” replies Clint Burke.

“The same from my class,” says Gallagher. “How many in your class got to the teams?”

“Seven of us from the Class of Sixty-seven. Only one, Admiral Ray Smith, is still on active duty.”

“Did you ever talk to Admiral Kauffman again?” Will Koella asks.

I shake my head. “No, but he did sign my diploma from the Naval Academy. I have it at home.”

Unlike the trainees at the Indoc party, the members of Class 228 here tonight look much less like a group of college students. Collectively, there is little attempt to be trendy; the dress is more conservative. It's colder than it was just eight weeks ago at the beginning of First Phase. Most of them wear jeans or shorts, sneakers, and sweaters or sweatshirts. The STT graduates have not yet earned their Tridents, but many of them wear their ball caps with team logos. Only Harry Pell shows up in different attire. Pell is a biker, and he turns out in black leather and a head scarf. Few take notice, but one of the STT grads makes a comment about the little guy in the Zorro outfit. “Hey, he was in my boat crew during Hell Week,” Zack Armstrong tells him. “He pulled his load and then some.” End of discussion.

A spirited debate breaks out between two members of 228, one of the new men and one of the originals, as to who had been wet and sandy last. They decide to settle the issue by seeing who can get wet first. They disappear over the berm and return a few moments later, soaked to the skin. The two men get a fresh beer and go stand by the fire to dry out.

Seaman Chris Baldwin is his usual talkative, affable self, and with the addition of Ensign John Green to the class, he now has someone to speak Arabic with. Jason Birch wanders about with a Coke in his hand and his familiar grin. He's like a man running for office. At one time or another during training, everyone in 228 has received a helping hand from Ensign Birch. He makes sure he spends a few minutes with each of his classmates, old and new. Clint Burke and Bill Gallagher pull on their beers and talk with Ensign John Cremmins, who is at SEAL Team Three. Cremmins just finished STT. Cremmins and Burke were classmates at the Academy until Burke took his year's leave of absence. Pat Yost is at his ease, but he's still the leading petty officer. When he sets down his beer and begins to change the keg, Dan Luna and Tyler Black are right there to help him. Dan Luna is one of the quiet originals from 228. No one noticed him until he was still there at the end of Hell Week. Black is an affable prankster who grew up in Tyler, Texas, and always has a mischievous grin. A medical rollback from 227, Tyler Black is an anomaly at BUD/S—he's chubby. But while he doesn't look like a BUD/S trainee and is never at the head of the pack, he always gets the job done. His classmates call him “D-8,” a reference to the largest bulldozer in the Caterpillar line of earthmovers.

Courtesies between the officers and the enlisted men are carefully observed and seemingly effortless. Bill Gallagher is often addressed as “El-Tee,” for lieutenant, and the ensigns are called “Mister.” For the most part, the officers call the enlisted men by their first name. This protocol seems to work in military and nonmilitary situations, and this is very important. In the teams, the junior officers and enlisted men live, train, deploy, and fight together. They are teammates first; rank and privilege are secondary issues. All of this is a part of Class 228's training. The First Phase party is a gathering of apprentice warriors. They are a long way from becoming SEALs, but they are already in a class by themselves. They've all been through Hell Week.

By 2200, the beach is almost clear. Some of the partyers head off for the Night&Day Cafe in Coronado that serves breakfast twenty-four hours a day. BUD/S students are like hunting dogs; they can always eat. John Owens finds Zack Armstrong asleep, propped up against one of the cabanas near the fire. “Hey, pal, the party's about over. Let's go home.”

“Over? Already?”

Armstrong rubs his eyes, and Owens pulls him to his feet.

“G'night, Captain Couch.”

“G'night, guys.”

Leaning on each other, the two of them shuffle off in the direction of the Naval Special Warfare barracks a short walk down the beach.

At 0500 on Monday, 13 December, Class 228 officially begins Second Phase with PT on the Second Phase grinder—a blacktop area just outside the dive locker. It is a rough PT. After a run across the base for breakfast, and back, they file into the Second Phase classroom. Their schedule will keep them close to the classroom for the next two weeks. Except for room and personnel inspections, the O-course, timed and conditioning runs, and timed two-mile ocean swims, they will focus on academics. The class takes one morning off for oxygen tolerance tests. In small groups, they are taken down to sixty feet in the recompression chamber, where they breathe pure oxygen. A small percentage of the population has a toxic reaction to oxygen under pressure. The men of Class 228 come through just fine.

The first week is devoted to diving physics. Their proctor, Steve McKendry, is also their instructor—and he is tireless. Classes last most of the day. Each night, they are back in the classroom for study time. McKendry is there, patiently explaining the relationship between temperature, pressure, and volume—Boyle's law and Charles's law. Some of the trainees have difficulty with basic algebra. For others, it's simply a problem of multiplication and long division—with pencil and paper. The diving physics test at the end of the first week is a timed examination, and time runs out for several in the calculator generation. All pass the retest but two; one of them is Airman Harry Pell. He is given a third exam, but he fails this one, too. He's out, and he's not alone. One of the rollbacks from First Phase hydro joins him.

Harry Pell, the former Marine Corps officer, has a hard-won degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania. Between his sophomore and junior years at Penn, he was in a serious automobile crash. The accident left him unable to walk or talk. He had to learn to do both again. He understands the diving physics material, but sometimes he is slow and unable to manage the math and algebra in the allotted time. The Second Phase Review Board recommends that he be dropped from the phase, and the Academic Review Board sends him back to the fleet. Well, almost back to the fleet. They would like to have Pell back, so he is given orders to the Naval Special Warfare Detachment in Bahrain in a physical security billet. There he will be able to stay in shape and work on his diving physics and math skills. It's a twelve-month assignment.

“I'll be back,” Pell says with conviction. “This is where I belong.”

The loss of Harry Pell, one of the originals from 228, brings the whole class down, especially those that were in his Hell Week boat crew— Shaffer, Armstrong, and Dan Luna. Like most of them during Hell Week, Pell could be up or down. But when he was up, his spirit was highly contagious and he could carry his entire boat crew. He never quit, and he will be missed.

The future of Harry Pell illustrates the fate that awaits any enlisted man who leaves BUD/S, whether they DOR during Indoc or leave training the week before graduation. They are U.S. Navy sailors. Not all are as fortunate as Pell and get a shore assignment. Many are assigned to the fleet and find themselves in a crowded berthing compartment on a carrier in the Indian Ocean or assigned to a destroyer—like the USS Cole. A high percentage of these BUD/S attrites are college graduates or men who have left successful civilian careers. They joined the Navy to become a SEAL. Now they find themselves at sea with a highly restrictive lifestyle, long work hours, and few privileges. Some, like John Owens, use this at-sea time to grow and mature, and return to BUD/S better able to succeed. But most simply endure as much as four more years in the Navy, waiting to begin a new life out of uniform.

For the officers, it's different. They will go to a shipboard wardroom or a shore facility with officer's clubs and comfortable quarters. Their pay is reasonable and their life comfortable. If they elect not to stay in the Navy, their time in uniform will become a good bullet on their resume. This is why the BUD/S instructors, who are all enlisted men, lean heavier on their officer trainees. They know officers who leave BUD/S get treated much differently than enlisted men.

Class 228 finishes the first week of Second Phase on the afternoon of 17 December. That Friday morning, Class 226 graduated from BUD/S. That class was led by two very talented trainees. Lieutenant David Ismay was 226's class leader. Ismay graduated first in his class from Annapolis and is a Rhodes scholar, having taken an advanced degree at Oxford after leaving the Naval Academy. Lieutenant Andrew Ledford, also a Naval Academy graduate, was a captain in the Marine Corps before deciding he wanted to become a Navy SEAL. These two full lieutenants led thirty-three trainees from Class 226 through BUD/S and into the teams.

Class 228's two weeks of classroom work is bisected by the two-week break in training for Christmas leave. The trainees return to BUD/S on 2 January 2000. After the final week in the classroom, they are scheduled for the critical pool competency testing. But not all of them make it to pool comps. In addition to Pell, Seaman Chris Baldwin is forced out of the class. After living with pains in his stomach for several days, he finally turns himself into the BUD/S medical clinic. There he learns that he has a double hernia that will require surgery. He is medically rolled back from Class 228. Baldwin is put on light duty in the Second Phase dive locker, so he is near his class but not with them. Seaman Chris Baldwin was a solid performer. He will go into surgery the same day Class 228 begins their pool competency testing.

Another loss to the class is Ensign Matt McGraw. Since he joined Class 228 in hydro, he has quietly become one of the class leaders. The enlisted men look to him for guidance, and Bill Gallagher has come to rely on him. McGraw graduated from Ohio State, where he excelled at water polo before attending Officer's Candidate School. He came to Class 228 with stress fractures in his shins that appeared to be healed. He had no problem with the physical evolutions in hydro during First Phase, but then the 228 originals were still healing after Hell Week—PT was light and the runs short. During the first timed run in Second Phase, McGraw turned in one of the fastest times of the class. Then the stress fractures returned. He tried to tough it out, but his injuries are serious; his legs are broken. Still, he tried to limp on, hoping to stay with his new class. Finally, the BUD/S senior medical officers pronounced Ensign McGraw medically unfit to continue training.

This put the Academic Review Board in a bind. BUD/S students are normally not allowed a second medical rollback, and officers are given only one shot at BUD/S training. Unlike enlisted men, they cannot go away and come back a year or two later and try again. McGraw's training record speaks for itself with the board; he is an outstanding trainee and a promising leader, consistently ranked high by the instructor staff and his fellow students.

“Mister McGraw, if we send you away, you will not be allowed to come back to BUD/S,” Lieutenant Phil Black tells him at the Academic Review Board. Black is the Second Phase officer and chairs the board. “You know that, don't you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We have a policy against two medical rolls and if we send you back to the fleet, you're gone forever. Doctor Witucki says it may take as long as six months for you to heal. We don't have a lot of options here. In all fairness, we should have given you more time to heal when you were first injured.”

“You have to do what you have to do, sir. If I have to leave, I'll resign my commission and come back as an enlisted man. But I will become a Navy SEAL, one way or another.”

The board looks for a way to save McGraw and finds one. He will be kept in the community, but sent down the street to the Naval Special Warfare Command. There he will serve as a staff officer until his legs heal, then be reassigned to another BUD/S class in Second Phase. Often the system cannot find a way to keep a man like Matt McGraw, but this time there was a solution.

Four other students, men who joined Class 228 in Second Phase, are lost before the class gets to pool comp week. One man is medically rolled to Class 229 because of an injury to his Achilles tendon, and another is medically dropped from the program. Yet another DORs during the O-course. After two unsuccessful tries at one of the more challenging obstacles, he turns to Instructor McKendry and says, “That's it; I'm done with this.” He walks away wanting nothing more to do with training. The fourth member of 228 has a minor run-in with the Amphibious Base Police. There is zero tolerance for trainees who violate regulations; he is quickly separated from the class and from BUD/S.

A relatively high dropout rate for students who roll into a phase from PTRR is not uncommon. While they are in PTRR, it is easy for trainees to lose momentum and get discouraged. PTRR students live in the BUD/S compound and have no class affiliation. They have scheduled evolutions designed to rehabilitate their injuries, but they are not a class. At one time or another, every BUD/S trainee needs his classmates to help him through. Some, like Ensign Eric Oehlerich and Seaman Marcus Luttrell, desperately want to be SEALs and stay focused. They come out of PTRR fired up, ready to pull with their new class. Others are never able to get back on track.

The academic portion of Second Phase concludes at the end of week two. The students must pass exams in diving physics, diving medicine, and diving decompression tables. Only one student gets a perfect score on all three—Seaman Casey Lewis. None of the officers—four Naval Academy men and a Harvard graduate—are able to match this performance. I asked Casey Lewis about this.

“I studied engineering at Oklahoma for two years. I carried a good grade point average there, but I wanted a challenge—a physical challenge. That's why I left college and came here.”

“But the three exams,” I pointed out. “You never missed a single question.”

An easy smile comes over his handsome face. “You just wouldn't believe this high school physics teacher I had. He was incredible. He taught us more than just formulas; he taught us to understand physical relationships—how forces reacted and why. I never had any problem in college with math or physics. And I have no problems here.”

On the Friday before pool comp week, the class spends the day at the dive tower. Here the trainees are introduced to free-swimming ascents, or FSAs. They make one FSA from twenty-five feet and another from fifty feet. At the end of First Phase, they swam down to the twenty-five- and fifty-foot levels, tied knots, and returned to the surface. Today they enter a diving bell at each depth, breathe air under pressure, then make the FSA. Breathing air in the bell at twenty-five feet, they will have nearly twice the amount of air in their lungs as they do at the surface—and close to three times the normal amount at fifty feet. As they swim to the surface, they must continuously exhale—blow bubbles—or risk an overexpansion of air in their lungs with potentially fatal results. This training is as dangerous as any they will do at BUD/S; a diving medical officer is on scene and the recompression chamber stationed at the top of the tower is on standby. FSAs are taught so that in the event a SEAL should ever have to abandon his diving rig while on a mission, he can do so and safely get to the surface.

This is a stressful evolution for Class 228. While they rise from the fifty-foot bell to the surface, they must continuously expel air. There is an instructor right there with them, one on one, to ensure they do it properly. If the instructor feels his student is not expelling a sufficient amount of air, he will stop the FSA or jab his student in the stomach to demand a stronger blow. This is the last evolution before the class begins open-circuit training and pool comp week. They all pass FSA training. Only the Otter has problems. Obst is having difficulty clearing his ears due to a persistent sinus infection left over from Hell Week. The medical staff is keeping an eye on him. After FSA training at the end of week two, there are twenty-eight trainees. Only thirteen of them are originals.

Week three is pool competency week. The last time they were in the CTT was during Hell Week for pool games and general surface harassment from the First Phase instructors. Now they are back for diving instruction and underwater harassment. Pool comp week is the Hell Week of Second Phase. With the exception of Hell Week and possibly the first week of First Phase, pool comp week usually has the highest attrition. It's an anxious time for Class 228, just as it is for every class.

The students muster at the dive locker well before 0430 on Monday to prepare their scuba rigs and the required medical and support equipment. Outside the Second Phase dive locker, the twin 80s are charged and gauged to 2,250 pounds per square inch (psi), then arranged in dive pairs—fourteen of them. Next to each set of tanks, the trainees lay out their weight belts and life vests. Lines of swim fins bound upright by face masks stand as sentinels to the prepped dive rigs. After an hour of PT and a run to the chow hall, 228 returns to the classroom for a two-hour presentation on open-circuit scuba—self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. They pay close attention. For many of them, this will be their first experience breathing underwater. For all of them, it's the first time they will use the Jacques Cousteau-style, double-hose regulators.

Class 228 gets a complete briefing on the open-circuit, two-hose scuba. The tanks are two steel cylinders connected by a manifold with a J-valve, manual reserve. They are called twin 80s because eighty cubic feet of air is compressed into each tank when fully charged. The double-hose scuba regulator is something out of the past. In the early 1960s, single-hose regulators replaced the two-hose models because they were simpler, safer, and easier to maintain. Only in BUD/S training do they still teach open-circuit scuba with the old double-hose equipment. There's a good reason for this. Next week the trainees will transition to the Draeger Lar V closed-circuit diving rig. Two hoses are required for closed-circuit operation.

After lunch and a detailed dive briefing by Instructor Michael Peters, the twenty-eight trainees of Class 228 scramble from the classroom to their dive gear. First they are inspected wearing only their life jackets. Following the life jacket check, they get fully jocked-up with twin 80s and a weight belt. Each trainee carries twelve pounds of lead around his waist. With face mask in one hand and fins in the other, they line up to be inspected by their diving supervisor, or dive supe. The instructors check the fit of every diver's straps and weight belt, and ensure that their air supply is fully functional.

“How many fingers should I be able to get in the loop of your quick-release straps!”

“Three fingers, Instructor Calvin.”

“Then how come I can only get two fingers in the loop on your chest strap?”

“Uh, I'm not sure, Instructor,” the trainee slurs around his mouthpiece. When the students are fully jocked-up with tanks, they always have their scuba mouthpieces in their mouths. “Maybe you just have big fingers?”

“Oh, yeah, wise guy. Well, maybe you just have a little brain.” Calvin adjusts the strap and completes his inspection of the student. “Drop.”

The hapless student drops and so does his swim buddy. Twin 80s weigh just under sixty pounds when fully charged, slightly less when empty. The weight belt adds another twelve. The two students push them out while Instructor Spencer Calvin moves on to inspect the next swim pair. Infractions are not always punished with push-ups. Sometimes students have to flop down on their backs—on their tanks, really—and do flutter kicks. Once inspected, the trainees board an old school bus for the drive across the Amphibious Base to the CTT

Second Phase pool evolutions are formatted, well-orchestrated events in which students are expected to follow strict procedures and display specific skills. This begins on the first dive—open-circuit familiarization. The dive has three limited but important objectives: familiarization, buddy breathing, and student gear inspection. After the class has prepared the medical equipment and pool gear, they are again inspected and sent into the pool.

“It was a strange feeling, breathing underwater,” recalls Seaman Grant Terpstra. This was his first experience with scuba. “It wasn't so bad at first. Then we had to take off our face masks. Breathing without a mask took some getting used to. Inhaling through the mouthpiece with water in my nose was weird until I got the hang of it. But once I did it a few times, no problem.”

“I had a little problem with the double-hose regulator,” said Zack Shaffer. “It's harder to draw on than I thought it would be. I did a lot of diving before I came in the Navy, but only with a single-hose rig. For a while, I had trouble clearing water from the mouthpiece. Then I got used to tilting to the left to clear and it was okay.”

For the next hour, the swim pairs circle the pool, practicing mask clearing, buddy breathing, clearing their mouthpieces, and getting comfortable with breathing underwater. With twelve pounds of lead strapped to their waist, they half paddle, half crawl around the pool. They also do their first in-water dive supe checks. This is a drill that they will do again and again, under stress and in strict order of precedence. Today there is no harassment from the instructors, although a half dozen of them circle above the submerged swim pairs. Occasionally, they bring two students to the surface for some coaching. Everyone is getting the hang of it. It's an easy day for everyone except one trainee.

Otter Obst is having no problem with the equipment, but he is having problems with his sinuses. When his lingering sinus infection flares up, he cannot clear or equalize the pressure in his ears and sinuses. Obst was able to complete the dive tower evolutions, the fifty-foot free dive in First Phase, and the fifty-foot FSA last week, but today he's having difficulty. Obst is not a whiner; he's in serious pain. Try as he may, he cannot relieve the air trapped in his sinus cavities. When he finally does make it to the fifteen-foot depth in the CTT, the pain overwhelms him and he has to surface.

“I can't clear my ears, Instructor, and my sinuses are killing me.”

“Finish the dive or get out of the pool,” Obst is told. “And if you get out, you're done.”

“I can't go back down,” Obst tells them. There's frustration and anger in his voice. “I guess I'm done.”

Just like that, Class 228 loses its strongest trainee. The Otter owned the best time on the O-course and the fastest four-mile run time. He always finished in the top two or three pairs for timed swims. Lawrence Obst was one of the few who could do it all and do it well—a complete BUD/S trainee. When examined at BUD/S medical, Obst is found to have a severe squeeze in both ears and his sinus cavities. The senior medical officer immediately takes him off dive status. He needs time to heal. If he can clear up his sinus problems, he will be medically rolled back to the next class. Obst has been a class leader as well as a strong trainee. His classmates, especially the 228 originals, are stunned.

The Otter is gone, but there is little time for reflection. A BUD/S class is like an infantry company assaulting a strongly fortified position. Men get wounded and killed in the assault, but the company has to keep moving; they have no time to bury their dead. Following the post-dive briefing, they form up for the run to evening meal. They will be back after supper to charge the tanks and prepare for the next day's dive. There will be one less set of gear paraded outside the dive locker the next morning.

Tuesday is ditch-and-don day. Technical Sergeant Bruce Barry, USAF, will brief and supervise the ditch-and-don dives. Barry is an exchange instructor from the Air Force's Combat Control Teams. The combat controllers, a component of the Air Force Special Operations Command, are trained to swim or parachute into enemy territory to prepare landing zones for special air operations. After Barry's dive brief, the trainees jock-up for inspection and board the bus for the CTT. Once in the water, they practice taking off all their gear and arranging it on the bottom of the pool. The last item to come off is the face mask. Then they secure all the gear with their weight belt and make an FSA to the surface. All FSAs are controlled by the instructors. When a trainee signals he is ready to go to the surface, his instructor will swim down and tap him twice on the back of the head. The student diver then secures his air, kisses the bottom of the pool, and, while maintaining a steady exhalation, allows the instructor to guide him to the surface. Like the dive tower, pool FSAs are considered hazardous training, and there is a diving medical officer present.

Once on the surface, the trainees get a critique of their ditching procedures. They then swim back down to their gear, reestablish their air supply, and put on their rigs. During this underwater ditch and don, it is essential that the trainees maintain control of their weight belts and move smoothly. Smooth is fast underwater, the trainees are continually reminded. After they are jocked-up, they have to perform a full dive supe check on themselves. Once they have successfully ditched and donned their equipment twice, the swim pairs are released into the shallows to practice buddy breathing until they expend their air.

The afternoon's diving evolution is equipment ditch and don—at night. For this evolution they do the same thing they did in the morning dive, only this time they use blacked-out face masks. Everything is by feel. The only time they can “see” is when they take off their face masks to begin their FSA. The blind ditch and don takes longer, but the trainees are beginning to know and trust their equipment. It's a matter of confidence and familiarity. Seaman Marc Luttrell, the class corpsman, has trouble with the morning evolution. It takes him several tries to properly ditch and don his equipment. Back in the pool that afternoon, he does it perfectly the first time—in the dark.

“Feet!”

“FEET!”

“Give me a report, Mister Gallagher.”

“Twenty-seven assigned, Instructor Surmont. Twenty-seven men present.”

“Take your seats, gentlemen,” says Petty Officer John Surmont. Surmont is an intense, demanding instructor with a hard edge. He grew up in Kentucky and has a degree in information technology. John Surmont came to BUD/S from SEAL Team Three and has four operational deployments behind him. It's Wednesday morning, 12 January. Today, Class 228 begins their pool comps; he has their full attention.

“This morning we have gear exchange. Gear exchange is nothing more than ditch and don, but in this case, you do it while you buddy-breathe. One man takes the gear off, the other puts it on, understand?”

“HOOYAH!”

“But you have to work together to get the job done. You have to communicate underwater, right?”

“HOOYAH!”

“And hear me on this one, guys, you have to anticipate. Think ahead; don't just react to what happens. Think of yourselves like a linebacker in football, waiting for the play to begin. You have to carefully watch what's going on, access the situation quickly, and react properly. And above all, work together. You will have twenty minutes to complete this evolution. Sounds like a long time, and it is, but you have to think. Remember, smooth is fast.”

Surmont walks them through the evolution, beginning with a proper water entry and through the gear-swap procedures. Two trainees—one of them jocked-up in scuba, the other clean—will go to the bottom together. They swap all gear except for their swim trunks and brown T-shirts. When they surface, all equipment has to be in place with no twisted straps. After a critique from the instructor who is observing, they go back down to swap back the gear. At the pool, the members of Class 228 work smoothly through the gear exchange, gaining trust in the equipment and their ability to handle themselves underwater. This morning's dive is the last time they will perform in the pool without physical harassment from the instructors. During pool comp week, they dive morning and afternoon, eating MREs at noon in the dive locker while they charge bottles. They hustle to get their equipment staged, then crowd back into the classroom for the afternoon dive brief.

“Feet!”

“FEET!”

The class has learned to sit on the front of their chairs so there is no scraping when they stand for an instructor.

“Give me a count, Mister Gallagher.”

“Twenty-seven men assigned, Instructor Calvin, twenty-six men present. One man DOR.”

During the noon break, Seaman Chris Gardener decides that this training was not for him—that, at this point, he will be unable to handle the stress of the pool-harassment evolutions ahead. He quit, requesting only that he be allowed to come back to BUD/S at a later time.

“I was very uncomfortable in the water; I thought I was going to be a danger to myself and to my swim buddy. I plan to take a civilian scuba course and get comfortable in the water. Then I'll be back.”

Spencer Calvin surveys the remaining twenty-six men. “Okay, guys, this afternoon we're going to dial it up a notch. It'll be important to stay focused and perform, since this afternoon we're going to challenge you a little. We're going to see if you can handle some adversity and still do your job. That's what being a SEAL is all about. The setup at the pool will be the same as it was this morning, only you will enter the pool one at a time. An instructor will come and get you, and lead you to a lane in the pool.” Calvin signals to an instructor in the back of the room and a PowerPoint slide of the pool bottom appears on the screen. “Once in your assigned lane, you are to move between the two weights on the bottom of the pool— back and forth, understand?”

“HOOYAH!”

“If you have fins on, swim along the bottom between the weights. If you don't have fins, and you won't have them for long, crawl between the weights. With twelve pounds on, you won't have any problem staying down. But we want you to crawl—no standing. If you stand up, it tells us that you are panicky and you flunk the dive.”

Quartermaster First Class Spencer Calvin is a solid six-footer, weighing close to two hundred pounds. He grew up in Florida and is another BUD/S instructor with a college degree. Calvin came to the Center from SEAL Team Five. The class regards him warily. He has taken over from Terry Patstone as the phase hard-ass. He's one of the haters. Calvin is capable of turning nasty at any time, and they give him their full attention.

“The drill is called pool skills. We want to see if you can think and problem-solve while you're being bounced around a little. This will not be the full-tilt harassment you will experience tomorrow, but it will give you a taste of it. The first thing you will experience will be a pretend surf surge. This is to simulate being tossed about in the surf while on scuba.” He gives them a malicious grin. “The size of the surf will depend on the instructor. When Instructor Surmont tries to screw you into the bottom of the pool, you may think you've been hit with a tsunami.

“Expect to have your fins pulled and your face mask ripped off. You will be tumbled about to see if you can handle some disorientation. When the wave passes and you can get your bearings, what do you do? Owens?”

“Petty Officer Owens,” the trainee says, scrambling to his feet. “Dive supe check.”

“That's right. Always go back to the dive supe check. You will have to execute a good dive supe check to pass this dive and to pass pool competency tomorrow. Let's go over it again. Get over here, Shaffer.”

While Calvin has been going through his presentation, Seaman Zack Shaffer has been patiently standing by. He is all jocked-up with twin 80s and weight belt, the regulator in his mouth. He dons his face mask and steps to the podium next to Calvin. Shaffer is perhaps five-eight and a solid 170 pounds—stout for a BUD/S trainee. After high school, he worked as an electrician for two years before joining the Navy. Then he decided he wanted to be a SEAL. He has a brother who just joined the Navy and is slated for Class 332. Calvin grabs the yoke of Shaffer's tanks and jostles him.

“Okay, Shaffer here is being tossed about in the surf. In the process he loses his face mask.” Calvin jerks off his mask. “Okay, he finds some quiet water. Now what?”

“DIVE SUPE CHECK!”

“Right. Let's go through it. First thing, release the mouthpiece and extend the hoses over your head—let it free flow.” Shaffer removes his mouthpiece and lets Calvin hold it over his head. Calvin jiggles the hoses. “If there's air to the mouthpiece, the regulator will free flow and you'll hear it bubbling above your head. Next trace the hoses from the horns to the mouthpiece.”

Shaffer reaches behind his head with both hands and grasps the hoses where they are attached to the regulator—the horns. Then he follows the hoses up to his mouthpiece, grasps the mouthpiece, and pulls it down to his face. As Shaffer goes through the motions, each step of the dive supe check slides onto the screen from the PowerPoint projector. Calvin's presentation is similar to Surmont's briefing that morning, but not entirely. Each instructor composes his own slides.

“Next, bite the bubble and clear the mouthpiece.” Shaffer, holding the mouthpiece down, rotates it toward his chin and puts it in his mouth. Then he tilts his head to the left, in the direction of the exhalation hose, and blows. “Now retrace the hoses from the mouthpiece to the regulator horns.” Shaffer does this.

“What's next Mister Green?”

“Check air supply and reserve.”

“Correct.” Shaffer reaches behind his head and turns his air valve fully counterclockwise and back a quarter turn. Then he checks to see that his reserve J-valve is in the up position.

“What next … Dougherty?”

Brandon Dougherty grins as the instructor running the PowerPoint laptop prematurely sends the answer to the screen.

“Trace the straps, check for twists in the straps, and that all quick-releases have three-finger loops.”

“That's right. Now drop for reading it off the screen. Last step? Lewis?”

While Dougherty cranks out his push-ups, Lewis recites the next step. “Make sure the weight belt is over all tank straps and that the release buckle pulls to the right-hand side.” Shaffer leans forward and checks his weight belt and the release buckle with his right hand. Calvin hands him his face mask and tells him to stand by. With his seventy-five-odd pounds of extra gear, Shaffer steps to the side and waits patiently.

“Sometime during the surf hits, you may experience some other difficulties. You may find that you have a kink in one of your hoses. Or that somehow your air got turned off. Imagine that,” Calvin adds with a grin. “What do you do? Dive supe check, right?”

“HOOYAH!”

“When the mouthpiece over your head is free flowing, the air is on and your inhalation hose is working. So where is the kink? Probably in your exhalation hose, right? If the regulator is not free-flowing, you have a problem with the inhalation hose or the air is not turned on. Remember, if you can inhale, but can't exhale, you're okay. Just breathe out through your nose, complete your dive supe check, and fix the problem. Got that?”

“HOOYAH!”

“Here's how we fix the problem in the pool. When you trace the hoses with your hands and you find that the hand of an instructor is crimping one of your hoses, tap the hose-crimping hand of the instructor twice. Then trace the hoses from the mouthpiece back to the crimp. Again, tap the hand twice. That will tell the instructor that you are following procedure to clear the crimping. He will release the hose. We clear on that?”

“HOOYAH!”

“If you can breathe and not exhale, continue to breathe while you fix the problem and exhale through your nose. If you can't breathe, hold your breath and calmly—I emphasize calmly—fix the problem. Perhaps you need only to turn your air back on and the problem is solved. If your air is on and you still can't get a breath, what is the problem? What do you do? Karaoguz?”

Adam Karaoguz is on his feet. “Petty Officer Karaoguz. You probably have a crimped inhalation hose. After making sure the air is turned on, trace the hoses from the horns. When you find a hand on the hose, probably the right hose, tap twice. Then trace the hoses from the mouthpiece back to the horns and again tap twice.”

“That's it. We see you starting to panic down there and you'll flunk the dive. So just relax and do the job. And don't fight the instructors. Let us do our job, then you do your job. If you have trouble with this evolution, gents, you're definitely going to have some serious problems tomorrow during the final pool competency. Today, I want you to relax, think, and just do it.

“After we finish with the pool skills, it's gut-check time. The last class didn't get to do this, but we've managed to put it back in the curriculum.” Calvin is suddenly all smiles. “It's one of my personal favorites. We're going to see if you can tread water for five minutes, fully jocked-up with your hands out of the water—using only your feet. We'll see how many of you can suck it up and do it. Okay, let's head for the pool.”

At the CTT, the instructors put them through their paces. Often the simulated surf tumble is more than a gentle surge. Some instructors simply grab the students’ tanks and flip them over onto their heads. Others grab them by the legs and twist full-circle, again and again, like an alligator who has caught a hapless deer drinking at the edge of his glade. By and large, the students ride out the storm and go about checking their equipment. A few of the weaker ones are sent back for a second round of surf tumble. None of them have a serious problem with a crimped hose or turning his air back on. The harassment is one-on-one. When an instructor is satisfied with a student's performance, he will take him to the surface for a critique, then send him into the shallow end of the pool with another student to practice buddy breathing. They swim in circles until they drain their tanks. The Second Phase staff want all the students to experience the feeling of running out of air, as well as the gentle rush of air that comes with activating the J-valve reserve. With the bottles breathed down, the class lines up on the pool deck at the deep end for the final evolution of the day.

“Proper water entry, people,” Calvin yells at them. “Let's do it. It's gut-check time!”

Class 228 splashes back into the pool. They begin to tread water while keeping their hands above the surface. With twelve pounds of lead around their waists and the dual tanks on their backs, they kick furiously to keep their heads above the surface and their hands visible.

“Five minutes, that's all we ask. Gut it out for five minutes and you're a winner. Touch the side of the pool or use your hands and you're a loser.”

The instructors line the edge of the pool and shout encouragement. Yet one by one, the students reach for the side of the pool or have to use their hands to keep from going down. All but one. Seaman John Collins alone is able to kick for five minutes with his hands and wrists above the surface without touching the side of the pool.

Collins was a water polo standout in high school and a serious triath-lete. He's only twenty-one, but he has competed in eighteen triathlons, finishing first in his age group in eleven of them. He left the University of Washington after his freshman year to be a Navy SEAL. Collins was rolled back from Class 227 for poor times on the O-course. He is still having problems with the O-course, but today John Collins is able to do what the other twenty-five in 228 cannot do. As a payback for their failure, Class 228 will have to wear their weight belts at all times for a full week—in the classroom, while staging equipment, while doing push-ups, and on the runs to chow. Only Collins will be free of the excess twelve pounds.

After the trainees return to the Naval Special Warfare Center, they set about charging scuba tanks and preparing support equipment for the next day's evolution, the final pool competency dive. Pool comp is the crucible of Second Phase and a major hurdle in BUD/S. The men seem focused on their tasks, but one member of the class is caught taking a break in the compressor room while his classmates work. Worse yet, it's Instructor Calvin who finds him. When this happens, sometimes the individual pays—sometimes the whole class pays. This time it's the whole class.

“You guys just can't deal with prosperity, can you? Drop.” While the class pushes out the first set of forty, Instructor Calvin walks among them. In Second Phase, when they drop for push-ups, it's forty at a time. “You did a decent job over in the pool today, and now one of you has blown it. Actually, all of you have blown it, because you aren't pulling as a class. On your feet!”

“FEET!”

“Okay, guys, get jocked-up and fall in a line out here on the grinder. Now!”

There is a flurry of activity as the students race to find their personal dive equipment, get regulators mated to tanks, and put their gear on. In less than ten minutes, the class is on line wearing tanks and weight belts, and carrying their fins and face masks.

“Prepare to make a proper water entry,” Calvin tells them.

The students don their fins and face masks. There are twenty-six of them standing in a line. Each has one hand holding his face mask and mouthpiece in place, the other anchoring his weight belt and tank strap. The men are ready to enter the water, but there is no water.

“Gentlemen, the drill is ditch and don. We're all going to do it again. Since we're high and dry, pretend you have just entered the water and that the piece of asphalt in front of you is the bottom of the pool. Standing on the bottom is considered a safety violation, so you better get down on your hands and knees.”

After a moment's hesitation, the class melts to the blacktop. Gingerly, the students assume the bottom-crawl position on all fours. They look like a line of aquarium figurines.

“All right, I want you to completely ditch your equipment and prepare for an FSA. That's right, girls, remove your equipment just as you would in the pool and prepare for a free ascent.”

Kneeling on asphalt without gear is painful enough, but more so with tanks and weight belt. The swim fins only force them to put more weight forward on their knees. They are in pain, but none wants it to show to Calvin. One by one, they remove their tanks and lift them forward and over their heads.

“Gently! Don't be banging my tanks on the blacktop. Once you have your tanks off, secure your mask and fins with your weight belt and prepare for an FSA. None of us goes to the surface until everyone's ready.”

After more struggle, the line of students are kneeling before their diving rigs, mouthpieces in, like a row of Muslims at prayer. Their masks and fins are neatly stowed under their weight belts.

“Okay now, what's the signal to request an FSA?”

Each student holds out a “thumbs-up” signal to one side.

Calvin walks down the line returning the thumbs-up signal to one diver at a time. In turn, each man relinquishes his mouthpiece and makes paddling motions with his hands, and rises to his feet. When a diver reaches the “surface,” Calvin drops him for push-ups and moves on to the next man. Soon they are all standing by their dive rigs wearing only swim trunks, booties, T-shirt, and life vest. Their knees are red and abraded from kneeling on the blacktop.

“Now, let's swim back down and get jocked-up.”

Minutes later the students are back on their knees, struggling to lift the twin 80s back over their heads and strap them to their backs. Then they don their fins, weight belts, and face masks. They are all in pain, and unable to see clearly as the exertion fogs their face masks. When they are all geared up, they are allowed to “swim” to the surface.

“Some of you guys are getting the hang of handling yourselves underwater, but you still have a ways to go as a class. You officers and petty officers need to show better leadership. You have a lot of work to do to get ready for tomorrow's evolution. Work together as a class, all of you, or you'll pay the price as a class. Am I clear on this?”

“HOOYAH!”

“Feet!”

“FEET!”

There are twenty-six members of Class 228 in the classroom and almost half as many instructors. It's the big day—the final pool competency evolution.

Instructor Mike Peters mounts the podium and surveys the class. He will give the briefing, as he did for their familiarization dive, and he will be the diving supervisor. Peters is a veteran of SEAL Team Eight. Along the way he picked up the nickname of Batman. He is a serious, intense petty officer, and very professional. Peters knows this is a key evolution for Class 228—for some of them, possibly their last at BUD/S. He has spent several days preparing for this briefing.

“Okay, gents, it's showtime. Today you show us if you can function and follow proper procedure while under pressure. I will be the diving supe, Lieutenant Black is the diving officer, and Doctor Bell will be the diving medical officer. The entire instructor staff will be standby divers. Okay, let's have a gear check. Medical?”

“Seaman Luttrell, Instructor Batman. All medical gear is up.” Luttrell details a list of medical equipment that has been staged for the event.

“Chamber operator notified and on standby?”

“Hooyah, Instructor.”

“Very well. Comms?”

Luttrell takes his seat as Petty Officer “Beaver” Cleaver scrambles to his feet. Chad Cleaver joined 228 at the beginning of Second Phase. Cleaver is another medical rollback because of stress fractures in his legs. He's from Costa Mesa, California. After two years in college and a short professional boxing career, he joined the Navy to become a SEAL.

“Comms are up: three Sabers and three extra sets of batteries.”

“All tested?”

“Hooyah,” Cleaver replies.

“Admin?”

“Petty Officer Karaoguz, Instructor Batman. Three current class rosters are ready with clipboards.” Karaoguz has served as the class administrative officer since he took over from Ensign Will Koella at the end of First Phase.

Peters nods his approval. “Equipment?”

“Ensign Oehlerich, Instructor. We have eight extra complete regulators tested and ready to go, plus a bucket of weights for lane markers.”

“Toothpaste?” The instructors like a tube of toothpaste at the side of the pool. Toothpaste in an excellent antifogging agent for face masks.

“Hooyah, Instructor Batman.”

“Vehicles?”

“Seaman Lewis, Instructor. All the vehicles have been fueled and the trip tickets are current.” Peters again nods.

“This is the day, gentlemen. Today you will have to perform under stress. If you can do this, you stay. If you can't, you're history. Each of you must pass this evolution. We'll give you more than one chance, but I don't recommend it. Make it easy on yourself, and us. Pass it the first time and get it over with.” After a long look at the group before him, he continues with a detailed briefing of the pool comp evolution.

“Men, it's not that hard. All you have to do is relax, think about what you're doing, and make it happen. When you're on the surface, the instructor will take you to the side of the pool for a critique. If you pass, we'll put you to work to help support the rest of the dive. If you fail, you know the drill. Take a seat along the wall of shame and wait for your next chance.” Peters begins to pace the front of the room. “It's like this. You stay with your rig as long as you can. Reestablish your air source—continue with a good dive supe check. When you can no longer get your rig to function, and you've done everything you can to establish your air source, you ditch the rig and go for the surface. This is what you will do in the teams; it's what we want you to do here. Just look at it as a simple series of tasks in a stressful environment.” He pauses and regards the remaining twenty-six members of Class 288. “Any questions?” The room is very quiet. “Okay, we're going to watch a video that covers everything we've talked about. Then we're going over to the pool and go to work.”

The students and instructors watch a video of a BUD/S student as he is put through a pool comp session. It is exactly as Peters described in his briefing.

“Once again, any questions?” Again, silence. “All right then, let's do it.”

“Feet!”

“FEET!”

After the instructors file out, the class falls in on their gear and begins to jock-up for inspection.

“CDO, this is the dive supe.”

“This is the command duty officer, go ahead.”

“This is the dive supe,” Peters says into the Motorola Saber transceiver. “We're commencing diving operations.”

“Roger, understand you are commencing diving operations.”

Mike Peters ensures that the BUD/S chamber is on standby and holsters the Saber. He quickly surveys the pool deck to again make certain that the support and medical equipment are properly staged. He notes that Lieutenant Josh Bell, a diving medical officer, is present. A medical officer is always on-scene when free ascents are a part of the training. Three years ago a student died in this pool after an improper free ascent. Peters turns to Lieutenant Black.

“We're all ready, sir.”

Black nods his approval. It's an important day at Second Phase for Class 228. Later that morning, Captain Bowen will stop by to observe the progress of the pool comp evolution.

“Okay,” Peters tells the line of waiting students, “first four men enter the water.”

They don't have to be reminded to make a proper water entry. Bill Gallagher and Pat Yost, as class leader and LPO, are the first to enter the pool to be tested. Two more students splash into the CTT right behind them, surface, and grip the side of the pool.

“You ready to go, sir?”

“Hooyah, Instructor,” Gallagher says around his mouthpiece.

“All right then, I want you to take the second lane over. Stay between the marker weights and let's get this done. Any questions?”

“Negative,” Gallagher manages.

“Then, after you, sir.”

Gallagher heads for the bottom with the instructor holding his manifold yoke, riding him like a remora. Once between the painted lane stripes, he begins to travel between the two weights, which are about thirty feet apart. Instructor John Surmont immediately pulls off his fins and face mask and delivers them to the side of the pool. Surmont earned a reputation from previous classes as being very demanding in pool comp. If Gallagher had a choice, he would not pick Surmont for his pool comp grader.

Moments later, Surmont swoops down behind 228's class leader and grabs his feet. He tumbles him violently and almost carries him out of the lane. Then he cranks Gallagher's air valve almost off—not quite, but almost. Surmont returns to the surface for a bite of air. By the time Gallagher gets to his knees and begins a dive supe check, the instructor is on him again. This time he grabs his student's exhalation hose and turns his air fully off. Gallagher can neither breathe in nor out. He releases his mouthpiece and begins to trace his hoses from the regulator. He finds Surmont's hand on his left hose and taps it twice. Tracing back from his mouthpiece, he again double-taps the hand on the hose. Then he finds his air valve and cranks it on. Gallagher manages only a few breaths in and out when he finds he again can't exhale. But he can breathe in. Exhaling through his nose, he begins a dive supe check, twice double-tapping the hand crimping his exhalation hose. Then he completes his dive supe check without interruption. He begins crawling along his lane, waiting for the next assault. Bill Gallagher knows John Surmont is above him planning his next attack.

He doesn't have to wait long. On his first pass, Surmont again turns Gallagher's air nearly off and gives him a good tumble. The next time down, he grabs the mouthpiece, allowing Gallagher a full breath before he pulls it from his mouth. Gallagher braces himself on all fours, like a cow being milked, while Surmont fully secures his air and pulls the regulator hoses through the manifold yoke and back up over the air valve. He gives Gallagher a good shove and heads for the surface. Snorkeling above, he watches as Gallagher goes to work.

His dive supe check is short-lived. Reaching back, he finds the horns of his regulator, but the hoses will not budge. Gallagher drops his weight belt, draping it across the back of his knees. Then he methodically pulls the three quick-release straps and brings the twin 80s over his head. With the bottles in front of him, he is able to free the tangled hoses and turn on his air. After a few sweet breaths, he reseats the tanks on his back and begins to strap them on. As he goes for the weight belt, suddenly he can't breathe. He hesitates, but only for a second. He releases the mouthpiece and starts to trace his hoses, finding Surmont's hand clinched on his right hose. Two double-taps later he is breathing normally. Strapping on the weight belt, Gallagher again starts through his dive supe check. He does not get far. Again, there is a hand on his mouthpiece. Surmont allows him to draw a single deep breath—his last for awhile.

Bill Gallagher waits while John Surmont works. Another shove and it's Gallagher's turn. As before, he can't breathe and he can't find his hoses. Off come the tanks. This time the hoses are rubber-banded around the manifold yoke in a Gordian knot. Gallagher knows he'll not solve this one on the air he has left, but he makes a show of it. Quickly, he steals a glance at the surface. There are several instructors milling above him. He is vaguely aware of a fellow student being tossed about to his left. That's enough; no way it's gonna come loose! Time to ditch this rig. Gallagher signals for an FSA and goes back to work, just maybe, if I can find a loop in the hose … There it is; the two taps on the back of the head. I'm outta here! Gallagher quickly drags his weight belt from the back of his legs and lays it across the tank. He tries to find the tank valve to secure the air, but it is buried under the tangle of rubber. Outta here! He kisses the bottom of the pool and begins blowing bubbles. An instant later, Surmont takes a handful of his shirt from the middle of his shoulder blades and guides him to the surface.

“I feel fine!”

“Again!”

“I feel fine!”

Surmont guides him over to the side of the pool. “How do you think you did, Mister Gallagher?”

“Uh, okay, Instructor. I couldn't get the air turned off before the FSA, though.”

“I think you did fine, too. But don't look up at me when you have a fouled rig. Do your job; do what you're supposed to, okay?”

“Hooyah.”

“Good job, sir. Now get out of the pool.”

One of the other instructors hands Gallagher his tanks and he makes his way along the side to the ladder. Surmont looks at his watch and slides down to where Lieutenant Black is sitting on a folding chair with a clipboard.

“Gallagher: eighteen minutes, fifteen seconds. He's a pass.”

Without looking up, Black makes a note. John Surmont goes over and gets another student from the queue waiting by the side of the pool near Batman Peters.

Pat Yost is not so successful. Instructor Barry brings him over to the side of the pool for his debriefing.

“Look, you're not having any problems down there, and I can see that you're comfortable in the water. But you're anticipating the sequence of events; you're getting ahead of me. Then you made an improper FSA. I'm going to have to fail you, but you'll do it next time, okay?”

“Hooyah, Instructor.”

Yost passes easily on his next attempt. This is not his first pool harassment drill. Yost is a Second Class Navy Diver, so he has a good deal of underwater time. I later asked him how this experience compared with pool comp in Second Class Diver training.

“We underwent pool harassment as a dive pair. You had your swim buddy to help you. The instructors attacked you as a swim pair, and you were able to help each other fix the damage. If they couldn't drive you to the surface, you passed. Here, there is more emphasis on procedure. And you have to go it alone.”

“But which would you say is more difficult?” I ask.

Yost grins. “I didn't need a second try to pass pool comp at Second Class School.”

Not all the instructors are as understanding as Sergeant Barry, nor all the trainees as proficient as Pat Yost. One unfortunate student is brought up halfway through the trial.

“Didn't you hear anything Instructor Peters said during the briefing? Why are you wasting my time? Piss-poor performance; get out of the pool and against the wall. You failed.”

Another is brought up early. “What the hell were you doing down there? Do you know what a dive supe check is?” The student looks down and says nothing. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking. Get the hell out of my pool.”

Occasionally, a student is brought up for a teaching point and allowed to go back down and continue. Sometimes there is an equipment problem. Often, one of the hoses pulls loose from the regulator or the mouthpiece, and the regulator has to be changed out. As the day wears on, the class divides into two groups. One group is collecting and sorting equipment, gauging the remaining pressure in tanks, and supporting those yet to be tested. These are the winners; they have passed pool competency and a milestone in their journey to graduate from BUD/S. The other group sits in a line facing a cinder-block wall, waiting to be retested—the wall of shame, the instructors call it, or the wailing wall.

As the retesting begins, the instructors try to focus their students on what they have to do. They will encourage them, but they will not let them slip through. Each has to perform.

“Am I dirty on you, Mister Birch?”

“No, Instructor Troy.” The instructors purposely avoid testing the same student a second time. So if a student fails twice, two different instructors will have failed him.

“Do you know what you did wrong last time?” Jason Troy is a new instructor. He came to BUD/S from SDV Team One, where he was a very highly regarded SDV pilot.

“Hooyah,” Birch replies.

“Then let's go down there and do it right this time.”

“Hooyah, Instructor Troy,” Birch says, and they disappear.

Instructor Spencer Calvin picks up another retestee. “What's your name?”

“Seaman Terpstra, Instructor.”

“Terpstra, I don't care what you did wrong last time. I want you to relax and get it right this time. So how about let's you and me go down and get this over with, okay?”

“Hooyah, Instructor Calvin.”

By the end of the morning it's fifty-fifty. Thirteen have passed pool comp and thirteen have not. The unlucky thirteen will be back at the pool that afternoon for remediation drills, working on the specific areas that caused them to fail their two attempts at pool comp that morning. The next day, they are back at the pool for two more tries. All but four pass pool comp on the second day. There is no third day. While the four failures are sent before the Second Phase Review Board and processed out, the rest of the class prepares for their open-water dive. Class 228 is down to twenty-two men, including twelve of the originals. For these original members who began Indoc together, they are about halfway through their twenty-seven weeks at BUD/S.

The open-circuit portion of Second Phase concludes with a 120-foot bounce dive off Point Loma. It's almost anticlimactic after their struggles in the pool. The water is clear and cold, and there is no harassment. The students are dressed in wet-suit tops and hoods. Four students and an instructor go down the descent line from the boat to a bar at the 120-foot depth. They hang there and watch the jellyfish for a few minutes and begin their ascent. At this depth, due to the pressure, their air bubbles “tinkle” rather than “burble,” a distinctly different sound. Otherwise, it is a quick, painless, cold experience—another check mark in Second Phase.

Thirty-six students began Second Phase and now there are twenty-two. Among those who remain, most are solidly meeting every challenge. A few are just hanging on. These few have performance deficiencies they must correct or be dropped from training. Even those performing well, at one time or another, have failed a timed or graded evolution. All but two. On the wall of the Second Phase classroom is a colorful rendering of a UDT frog. The cartoon frog has a white sailor's cap set at a rakish angle and a cigar clamped in his teeth. He carries a submachine gun in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other. Surrounding the frog is a scattering of class numbers going back to Class 208. Most classes are unrepresented. Of the ones that are, there is at least one name under each class numeral. This is the first-time, every-time wall. Of the hundreds of students who have come through Second Phase, only a dozen or so have passed every test, every swim, every O-course, every graded evolution the first time, every time. After 228's pool comp week, only Ensigns Clint Burke and Eric Oehlerich have zero failures. Yet only Clint Burke has a chance to have his name on the first-time, every-time wall. Good as he is, Oehlerich is not a 228 original; this is his second try at Second Phase.

The balance of Second Phase will be devoted to mastering the Lar V scuba. Instructors and trainees call it by its manufacturer's name, the Draeger. It is a closed-circuit, 100 percent oxygen rig. The Draeger is the current edition of a long line of combat swimmer scubas, tracing its lineage back to crude British and Italian models developed during World War II. The diver breathes pure oxygen and his exhalation gas is sent through a canister that scrubs away the carbon dioxide. Additional oxygen is added to the breathing gas as needed. The theory of the oxygen rebreather has changed little over the past five decades, but the design and safety of these scubas have undergone considerable refinement. The Draeger is a light, compact rig worn on the diver's chest. There are no bubbles; with it, a combat swimmer has up to six hours of underwater time to complete his mission.

The Draeger is a safe rig as long as it is properly maintained and properly prepared for the dive. It is a shallow-water scuba; divers using the Draeger are restricted to a working depth of thirty feet. Below two atmospheres of pressure—pressures found below the thirty-two-foot depth— pure oxygen can become toxic. During the first two days of closed-circuit instruction, the class is introduced to the diving rig that will become their underwater companion in the teams. During classroom and hands-on evolutions, they learn the care and feeding of the Draeger—how to set it up for a dive, in-water procedures, and how to maintain it. In addition to these pre- and post-dive procedures, they learn to recognize signs of hypoxia, an oxygen-deficient condition, in themselves or their dive buddy. They also learn emergency procedures should these symptoms appear or their Draegers become flooded and force them to the surface. The students pay close attention. During the two intense days that precede their first Draeger dive, Class 228 loses two more of their number—two of the originals.

Pat Yost is notified that his father has died and heads home on emergency leave. He is needed there for an extended period of time, and this will cost him his place in Class 228. If Otter Obst was the strongest in 228, Pat Yost was the most dependable. Yost will return to BUD/S, to begin Second Phase with Class 229. He has served as the class enlisted leader with grace and humor; he will be missed. Petty Officer John Owens steps up to take his place as the class leading petty officer. The affable Owens is a solid BUD/S student and well liked by his classmates. He becomes 228's fourth leading petty officer. The class also loses Seaman Grant Terpstra.

Terpstra has problems on the four-mile timed runs. Last week, he missed the thirty-one-minute threshold by only nine seconds. But this week he misses the cutoff by more than a minute, and he is gone. Rollbacks to the next class for performance reasons have become a rare exception at BUD/S. Since Terpstra successfully made it through pool comp, the Academic Review Board does not send him back to the fleet. Terpstra must instead start at the beginning with Class 230 in Indoc. He will again be a white shirt, but will not have to go through Hell Week with Class 230. With Terpstra's departure, Class 228 stands at twenty—ten originals and ten rollbacks.

The loss of Yost and Terpstra illustrates the two dimensions of a successful BUD/S trainee: you have to be lucky and you have to have a complete game—no weaknesses. Yost's loss was unfortunate, yet unavoidable. He was a top trainee, doing everything well, and a superb leader, but there's no way to foresee a death in the family.

“The instructors are good at their jobs,” he later told me, “but I was never given the impression that they personally cared all that much about us trainees. Boy, was I wrong. When the news came about my dad, they couldn't do enough. They had me processed out with emergency leave orders in about ten minutes and drove me to the airport. They told me not to worry about training; it'd be here for me when I returned. I was impressed. I hated to leave 228, but I'll get there with 229.”

Terpstra is a solid BUD/S trainee, but he was never a consistent runner. Running at BUD/S is a unique challenge. Runs are on the beach in boots and long trousers, often after a recent plunge in the surf. And since BUD/S students run eight to ten miles a day in boots, or more, a runner has to be durable as well as have endurance. Terpstra was a starting wide receiver at Northern Iowa University for three years. He has good foot speed and he's quick, but he lacks endurance on the long runs. Now with Class 230, he will have more time to work on his durability and endurance.

A few days after the loss of Yost and Terpstra, Clint Burke almost becomes a casualty. While surfing on the weekend, he wipes out on a roller and manages to slice his leg with the skeg of his surfboard. It's a nasty gash. With some stitches from the BUD/S medical department and a green light from the Second Phase officer, he's allowed to continue diving.

For the next two weeks, Class 228 dives the Draeger. The first two dives are familiarization evolutions in the pool. Then the students begin boring holes in San Diego Bay. Each time the swims are longer, and each one has a new objective or new combat swimmer technique. Once the trainees master the Draeger during the day, they begin the night swims. They learn to calibrate their kick count, or pace, so they can judge distance on a given course. Each swim pair has an attack board—a pie-plate-sized Plexiglas board with mountings for a compass, a wristwatch, and a depth gauge. The trainees take turns “driving” on a compass heading. Gradually, the class begins to learn the basic tools of the combat swimmer—the ability to swim a good line of bearing and know how far he's traveled. It's underwater navigation, the same as if they were on land with a map and compass.

The third week with the Draeger is, by consensus of the class, the most difficult in Second Phase. Each morning they have a physical evolution— a timed run, a timed surface swim, or the O-course. There is PT most mornings. They dive once in the afternoon and again at night. Because of the lengthy setup and post-dive procedures with the Draeger, as well as the support equipment that has to be staged for each dive, the trainees work halfway through the night. Then they are back in the dive locker well before sunrise. The class is performing well, but they sometimes operate on less than three hours of sleep. Midweek, one of the students lets the dip tank overflow onto the grinder. This minor infraction does not escape the attention of Instructor Spence Calvin. After their weekly four-mile timed run on the beach that day, Calvin makes them do it a second time. In addition to the two dives, and counting the trips to chow, they log about fourteen miles on the run that day. But that's what BUD/S students do. They absorb long days, cold water, periodic harassment, and a lot of running. They do this day after day, and they do it on very little sleep. Few big men with deep muscular chests and large biceps can take this kind of punishment. And that is why there are few beefcakes in BUD/S training.

While week three on the Draeger is something of a gut check, the students are starting to master the basics of a combat swimmer. In addition to the night compass courses and pace work, they conduct underwater hull inspections of patrol craft and a Navy destroyer at night. This is a steep learning curve, especially for those in 228 who, until three weeks ago, had never taken a breath underwater. With a week to go in Second Phase, the trainees are becoming frogmen.

Class 228 begins its final week in Second Phase on 7 February. The final dive problem that week is a night ship attack. As with many of the Draeger dives, the trainees first do it during the daylight, then repeat the same problem again at night. Instructor Steve McKendry gives them their final dive brief. Their proctor will also be the dive supervisor for their last dive. Unlike their hydrographic reconnaissance training, the trainees take no part in the planning or briefing of these dives. The student combat swimmers will be briefed on the mission, then swim the problem as they are briefed. They begin staging their gear late that afternoon, and McKendry briefs them right after evening chow. One last night dive; one last evolution in Second Phase.

No one wants this dive or this day behind him more than Lieutenant (jg) Bill Gallagher. He has struggled with Second Phase. The diving part of it has been easy for him. He was scuba qualified before he came to BUD/S, and he has found the Draeger to be a good rig—comfortable, reliable, light, and safe. He came to Second Phase ready to learn. Like his classmates in 228, he expected more training and less harassment after First Phase. With the exception of Instructor McKendry and the first week or so of academics, they've been worked very hard. As class leader, he gets the hammer when the whole class or any one trainee screws up.

“What bothers me is that they'll beat us for something trivial or for no reason at all. Just when I get to thinking that they're going to treat us as students and really teach us something, we're wet and sandy and getting pounded on the grinder.” He smiles shyly and shakes his head. “Maybe that's just the way it is for the whole six months. Maybe I shouldn't expect anything more.”

Like most in Class 228, the long days with night dives on four hours of sleep are having their effect on Bill Gallagher. And he's held responsible for the entire class and for all the equipment and preparation for the dives. He led thirty-five trainees into Second Phase and now he's about to take nineteen with him to Third Phase—less if someone doesn't pass tonight's dive. He's lost some good friends from the class. And he's very tired; they're all very tired.

“Which of the Second Phase instructors is the hardest?” I ask.

“Instructor Calvin,” he replies without hesitation. “The guy's a sadist. He can turn on you like a rattlesnake, sometimes for the smallest detail. He can be very nasty.”

“Which one do you respect the most?”

Again the shy smile. “Instructor Calvin.” When I pressed him as to why, he had to pause a moment. “I think it's because I can count on him when I have a problem with the class. I can ask him how we should handle an evolution or how to better organize the class to get the job done. He listens, and he always has good ideas and good feedback. He knows his stuff and he can be very professional—when he's not beating on us.”

Right after McKendry's briefing, the trainees jock-up and stand by their Draegers for the bench inspection. Each trainee has predived his rig, and has it laid out in a prescribed manner for inspection. An instructor scrutinizes each rig, checking the fittings and hose connections before the trainees don the scuba. Once they have the Draeger strapped on, they are inspected again. Then they board the bus that will drive them across the Amphibious Base to the waiting boats.

Steve McKendry surveys the dark waters around the San Diego Naval Station piers from the dive supe boat. He's looking for stray surface craft. He notes that his safety boat is patrolling a hundred yards off the piers to protect his divers. Satisfied, he pulls the Saber transceiver from his belt.

“First pair in the water.”

On another of the whaler-type support boats, another instructor gives Bill Gallagher and John Owens a final check. “You're good to go,” he tells them, and Gallagher and Owens slip over the side.

The bay is about sixty degrees, and the cold knifes through them. It becomes bearable when their bodies warm up the water that seeps into their wet-suit tops and hoods. Owens drove on the afternoon dive; Gallagher will drive tonight. He lines them up on a compass bearing, and they begin swimming on the surface roughly parallel to the shoreline. They have their oxygen turned off and the Draegers rigged for surface swimming. Both have their face masks around their necks and turned back around behind their heads to avoid reflections from pier lights. This surface swimming with Draegers is called turtlebacking. Combat swimmers often turtleback on the surface at night as they approach a harbor and submerge to make their attack. Owens and Gallagher swim like this for close to a thousand yards. As they approach McKendry in the dive supe boat, they execute an emergency dive. This simulates the sudden arrival of a patrol boat or searchlight, and they have to get under quickly. The swim pair drops below the surface, turns on the oxygen to their Draegers, and begins their purge procedures. This replaces the air in their lungs with pure oxygen. Finally they get their face masks in place and are ready to continue. With his surface references gone, Gallagher concentrates on the compass strapped to his attack board. John Owens flies in formation to his right and slightly above him.

The attack plan calls for them to swim another five hundred yards underwater, then make a dogleg turn to the right and swim shoreward between two mooring piers. Gallagher counts his kicks to the five-hundredyard point and looks up to Owens. He gives Gallagher a thumbs-up; his own kick count confirms the five hundred yards. Gallagher wheels to the right and they head in. Trailing on the surface behind them on a nylon tether is a marking buoy with a Chemlite attached. On a dark night with big ships about, McKendry wants to know where all his chicks are.

Bill Gallagher and John Owens swim between two long mooring piers that are approximately a hundred yards apart. This is confirmed by the rumbling noise off to their left where the USS Tarawa (LHA-1) is berthed. Big ships put a lot of noise into the water, even when they're tied up.

The two men continue toward the seawall some 300 yards from the end of the piers. They tag the seawall and then swim a reciprocal compass bearing seaward. Their target ship is on the pier across from the Tarawa. Gallagher and Owens kick for 250 yards on their swim count and get ready to make their attack. In order to check their position, Gallagher pauses and Owens does a shallow-water peek. He eases up to within three or four feet of the surface, but is careful to remain underwater. The shallow-water peek was not part of the dive brief. Gallagher hangs below him on the buddy line that connects them. Owens can see the lights on the superstructure of the Tarawa and takes a bearing. He estimates that they are between the two piers and that they should be close to the stern of the target ship. He signals Gallagher to adjust the final attack course a little to the right so as to hit their target amidships. They set off, and in less than three minutes are under their target, an old coastal survey ship, long since a derelict. They make their way to the stern, where a line hangs from the surface by the rudder. Owens ties a Chemlite with a tag that reads “Swim Pair #1” to the line. They've made their hit. Had they not found the ship, they would have to begin a box search until they did—more bottom time, more cold water.

Bill Gallagher takes them out on another dogleg course and gets another hit on their extraction point, a channel-marking buoy. Their pickup boat is waiting for them. Owens raises his arm, index finger extended, to indicate their swim pair number. They scramble aboard and secure their Draegers.

“Nice shot, sir,” Owens says to Gallagher. “You nailed it going in and coming out.”

“Any chance they saw you on the shallow-water peek?”

“Naw,” Owens replies, “I was super careful. That's it, sir, the last dive. We're outta here.”

For Gallagher, it's not that easy. As the class leader, he will be responsible for closing down Class 228's Second Phase. The trainees will be in the diving locker well past midnight, charging bottles and cleaning the Second Phase spaces. The following day they will have to inventory and return their diving equipment, and get the dive locker ready for Class 229. The Second Phase staff seems to be satisfied that Class 228 is good to go, and allows them to finish their dive locker chores in relative peace.

There is no Monster Mash in Second Phase like in First Phase, just a monster surface swim. They swim from the BUD/S compound south to the pier at Imperial Beach, five and a half miles of open ocean. Since the water is below sixty degrees, they will also get wet-suit bottoms. They are in the water for close to four hours, but the full wet suit makes the swim almost pleasant.

“Good job, sir,” Instructor McKendry tells Lieutenant Gallagher on Friday. “You're secure.” The trainees are running to the noon meal when it dawns on them that Second Phase is over. Class 228 now moves on to Third Phase—another phase and another challenge in the making of a Navy SEAL. But they did leave their mark on Second Phase—or at least one of them did. In the Second Phase classroom, there's a new entry on the first-time, every-time wall: Ensign Clint Burke, Class 228.