By the time it ended, everyone wanted to be a SEAL, just not me. However, as recruits eagerly signed up for the screening test the following week, I was summoned to the back of the room by one of the CCs. “Seaman Recruit Donald, this is Boatswain’s Mate First Class Harry O’Connor,” he said, introducing me to the SEAL who had just spoken to us.
“Donald, they tell me you were a Recon Marine,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I answered crisply. Then came the typical string of questions special operations ask one another to verify the person they’re talking with is actually who he claims to be. I could see my company commander out of the corner of my eye as we spoke and couldn’t help but notice a sigh of relief when BM1 O’Connor had concluded I was who I claimed to be. I explained how I came to be there and how I just wanted to return to the Corps. However, it didn’t take long for an experienced SEAL to read this former lance corporal and react in a way that would psychologically control him.
“I respect your decision, and I must say I’m impressed with your ability to accept your limitations,” he said in a way that both sounded professional and poked at my ego. Then he went on, “We’ve had quite a few marines wash out of training.”
“Those weren’t Recon Marines,” I said in a questioning tone, nearly interrupting him.
“No, I believe they all were,” he answered back. Needless to say, over the course of our conversation he successfully reverted me back to an egotistical Hispanic kid that had no choice but go to BUD/S to prove to the world he can make it.
Nearly four weeks had passed since my arrival at Recruit Training Command, and everything was going along just fine. I had passed the BUD/S screening test, developed a friendship with Harry O’Connor, as much as the circumstances would allow, and given up on trying to explain what my recruiter had told me. Top was right; navy administration screws marines. I was a sailor now, though, and to be honest I was pleased with how things were panning out. That is, until I was called back into the company commander’s office to make a decision with a senior chief petty officer I had never met before.
Turns out that once I passed the screening test for BUD/S they had to take another look at my orders. “Donald,” he said—which after weeks of boot camp sounded strange to hear without having “Seaman Recruit” before it—“it looks as if someone may have made a mistake.” Wow, I thought to myself, what a great way to start the conversation. Even so, I listened intently as he proceeded to tell me that although I qualified for OSVET and should have been placed into the program, somehow I foolishly waived the option and the processing command had cut my current set of orders. Unbeknownst to me, passing the screening test for BUD/S was akin to accepting orders, and BUD/S superseded everything else in the navy.
He continued explaining my options. I could be pulled from training, have my rank and pay restored, and enter the next OSVET class, which started a couple of months out. I would then continue on to corpsman school. Or I could stay, graduate with my class, and have a guaranteed shot at BUD/S but not a specific job in the navy. If I took OSVET, I would lose the opportunity to attend BUD/S before having to go to the fleet for at least two years of service, which he assumed would be with Recon, although he couldn’t guarantee that either. If I stayed in boot camp, the navy couldn’t guarantee me Hospital Corps School, but more than likely I would end up as a corpsman because the job was undermanned, especially in the SEAL Teams. He also mentioned that he had spoken with the SEAL motivator, who said that he would make a couple of calls to help me get to Hospital Corps School before I started BUD/S. They gave me a couple of days to think about it, but it only took a few minutes. These men had no reason to help make things right other than being a good shipmate. Instantly it reminded me of how the marines came together to get me here in the first place. I knew medicine was my calling and God would get me there, so I was keeping my promise to Harry and going off to BUD/S even if it killed me.
We graduated boot camp on Friday, and I can’t explain how good it felt putting a SCUBA badge and parachute wings back on my uniform the night before. I had grown close to the men in my company the same way I did at marine boot camp, but neither the fleet Marine Corps nor the navy offered the same level of camaraderie I felt within special operations. Up until that point I never recognized how important that degree of brotherhood was to me, but having been away from it for over two months, there was no use denying it.
I looked forward to going home to visit my mom, my platoon, and a certain navy recruiter, but it would have to wait. I had one more stop before my triumphant return home.
HOSPITAL CORPS SCHOOL
United States Navy Corpsman “A” School, in those days, was a ninety-six-calendar-day course held at the Naval School of Health Sciences. The schoolhouse was built on the grounds of Naval Medical Center San Diego, but due to its location within the city the vast compound was more commonly known throughout the fleet as Balboa.
I checked into corpsman school on a Monday morning, and the process was relatively smooth except for one small bump in the road. I arrived in my navy dress blues, known to the world as “Cracker Jacks,” which were meticulously pressed and, frankly, immaculate thanks to my marine training. While I was filling out paperwork, a navy nurse, rank of commander, walked through the reception area and did a double take when she saw the scuba bubble, jump wings, and marksman badge on my navy uniform. She immediately called me into her office and gave me the third degree about the “unauthorized” badges on my chest. I calmly explained my background, and she made a few phone calls to confirm it. Half an hour later, she gave me a red-faced apology and sent me back to processing.
Academically the coursework was on par with the first semesters of an associate’s nursing degree, but the hands-on training conducted at the hospital was wholly dependent on which staff member a student received as daily supervisor.
Generally speaking, the senior enlisted corpsmen and the commissioned nurses, who were once corpsmen themselves, were top-notch instructors, but occasionally we would get someone on the opposite end of the teaching spectrum. I always felt like it was a bit of a crapshoot when I walked onto the ward. Would I leave trying to remember all the things I learned? Or would I try to forget the nurse who spent hours pointing out how much I didn’t know? Thankfully, we had a great officer assigned to oversee our instruction and get us past any personality shortfalls that hindered our education.
Lieutenant Marty was a dark-haired, slightly bug-eyed officer with a boyish face and comedic charm, and folks instantly loved him. He was both a nurse version of Patch Adams and a highly proficient naval officer, making him the best mentor on the instructor staff. Teaching wasn’t his only duty; he spent plenty of time ensuring we learned the material and had a good time in the process.
As class leader I usually sat toward the back with my assistant and good friend Eric Sine so we could watch the flock, so to speak. So it wasn’t unusual for Lieutenant Marty to pop into the classroom or catch us on a hospital rotation to speak with us and gauge our progress. If we made a mistake during a training evolution, he’d make it right, and then he’d make a few jokes about it to enlighten the class on how trivial some of our complaints actually were. In addition to LT (pronounced “el tee,” a nickname given to all lieutenants in the navy), there were two hospital corpsmen assigned to the class to act as our primary instructors. Unfortunately, they weren’t both of the same caliber. It was almost a Jekyll and Hyde team that would have certainly driven us insane if it weren’t for the humor of LT and Sine.
HM1 Kleinfelter was laid-back, helpful, and well versed in medicine, while his counterpart’s challenging personality traits exposed envy of his partner to even the most naive members of the class. Neither man had spent time with the marines, but both were experienced with first aid and had mastered improvised methods of care necessary for shipboard medicine. I had received basic medical training in the Marine Corps, but that was nothing like what I learned in corpsman school. The first part of their class
room instruction was always by the book, but Eric and I would wake everyone for the second half, which at times was genius. Years of caring for sailors at sea had taught these two how to treat and move men in the most confined spaces imagined. I quickly learned that transporting patients was as much an art form as it was a skill, and for the first time in my life I truly felt I was in my element. In the classroom everything was so easy to absorb that I often found myself reading ahead. During our practicals the minutiae that slipped past my classmates jumped out at me as if it were saying, “Attention to detail, attention to detail!” A paradigm shift began inside me, and I felt like a new man.
Over the first twenty years of my life, I was either in a fight or training for one. In the streets of Albuquerque, I fought on the playground to defend my honor or protect my lunch money. Later, as a teen, I fought to defend my friends—and, on a couple of occasions, my life. Then came the Marine Corps, an adrenaline-charged community whose main purpose in life is vanquishing the enemy. Now, at Balboa, I was learning how to save lives and live by a Hippocratic Oath. I assisted with the delivery of babies, treated victims of drunk driving, and sat with veterans from past wars while they awaited their next dose of chemotherapy. I was beginning to understand the fragility of life and appreciate the talents of health care professionals in all the fields of medicine. From the emergency room to the radiology suite, everyone had the same goal: to save and preserve life. Just as Mom had prophesied, it wasn’t my career choice; I was called by a higher power. Still, I did have a say on who I wanted to serve. Once again, fate and ambition had stepped in, and my calling was about to take on a whole new meaning.
6
BUD/S—JUST THE BASICS
Given enough time, any man may master the physical. With enough knowledge, any man may become wise. It is the true warrior who can master both … and surpass the result.
—TIEN T’AI SCHOOL OF BUDDHISM
I stepped onto the beach ready for our class’s first timed swim. This would be one of the few timed events in First Phase that didn’t come with a must-pass requirement. We sounded off with a full head count to the instructors. They lined us up side by side and started inspecting our gear, first to ensure everything was operational, next to see if we were familiar with how to use it, and finally to find if anything was improperly rigged. Of course, something was always improper or fell short of BUD/S standards, and we as a class would pay for it with a short but intense preswim warm-up. That morning was no exception. Our “remedial activity,” which was actually punishment for a student’s inadequately sharpened dive knife, consisted of an exercise the students referred to as surf-torture, which meant locking arms, walking out into the surf zone, then facing toward shore and falling back into a reclining position. This was followed by calisthenics in the sand just to make sure the granules were in all the wrong places under our wetsuits before we started the swim. These sessions usually went until the instructors grew tired of watching or they began to impinge on the day’s schedule. Generally, the latter was the deciding factor. After half an hour of “warm-up” we gathered around Instructor Kress and received our brief, each and every one of us resembling a human sugar cookie.
Instructor Kress informed us our swim times would determine our swim buddy, the classmate who would remain no more than one arm’s length away from this day forward. The concept is a simple one: No student was ever to move alone or be found alone on the compound again. Being left alone can mean being left out, being uninformed, or, worse, left behind, and that simply doesn’t happen in an organization that has the word “team” in its name. That was fine for all of us. With a few rare exceptions, it was an individual journey getting orders to the renowned Naval Special Warfare Center, and the thought of having a partner made us feel like we were already a member of “the teams.”
The swim was designed to pair us with someone of near or equal speed. It wasn’t based on military rank, experience, friendship, or any other factor. It was solely based on a need to break us into two-man teams of comparable ability so no one student held another back. Rather, the competitiveness between two equally matched BUD/S candidates would motivate the pair to push one another harder. So it came as no surprise when our highest-ranking officer was paired with our lowest-ranking enlisted sailor. I believe this is where the strong officer-and-enlisted relationship found in the SEAL Teams all starts. If you were a fly on the wall and heard a SEAL officer and SEAL enlisted carrying on a conversation in the platoon hut, you’d have a difficult time discerning who’s who. Sure, when they’re in uniform at a navy function they’ll follow the same military protocols that rank and tradition require; we are professionals, after all. What the world doesn’t see is how they interact with one another in the team area, where only team guys are allowed access. It’s not unusual for them to address one another by first name rather than by rank and last name, the tradition nearly everywhere else in the military. They discuss personal matters as if they were speaking to their own brothers. This is not a sign of disrespect. On the contrary, speaking to one another in this relaxed fashion is a sign of the greatest respect. They speak as family, as teammates … as SEALs, and it all stems from a personal bond that is forged when men face adversity as one.
As a former marine I often wondered why the Special Warfare device, also known as the “Trident” or “Budweiser,” was gold for both officer and enlisted. Everywhere else in the navy, officers wear gold and enlisted wear silver, but not in Special Warfare. Over time I learned that unlike the rest of the navy, Special Warfare officers and enlisted go through the same six-month qualification process at BUD/S, which has essentially remained unchanged since its inception. After graduation from BUD/S the few remaining students in the class attend SEAL Qualification Training (SQT), an additional half-year advanced training program that instills the skills necessary to qualify as a modern-day SEAL. Although I cannot be certain, I believe this to be the only training pipeline in the U.S. military in which both officer and enlisted share the exact same qualification standard for their military occupation. This equality in earning the title is what allows the enlisted member to wear the gold Trident following graduation from SQT. Every SEAL and their UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) predecessors before them have endured the same twenty-four weeks of SEAL basic training. This combat-proven and time-tested pipeline is the foundation for an undying unity that exists among all members of the community regardless of their rank, experience, or generation.
There I stood at the gateway to the frog family with absolutely no idea it all started with that first swim.
Unlike distance running, ocean swims require constant diligence; you must maintain a constant state of awareness of your position in the water if you expect to stay on course. Otherwise you might find yourself swimming hundreds of extra, unintentional meters. Like runners, though, distance swimmers find a rhythm and then lose themselves in thought, some focusing on a personal mantra or visualizing a future event, like graduation from BUD/S. I had my own unique method for ocean swims: find a tempo and let the mind wander, usually to something in the past. As I made my way through the water I thought about graduating from Hospital Corps School a couple of months earlier and how it was the beginning of my journey to fulfilling a personal calling to medicine. The differences I encountered between the United States Marine Corps and the Navy Hospital Corps were extreme. The marines base effectiveness on military discipline and practice it in everything they do. Perfect appearance in uniform and execution of close order drill are indicative of their lifestyle. Navy medicine was equally professional but far more relaxed. The hardened look and crisp “yes, sir” and “no, sir” of the Corps were replaced with a smiling face and “sure, let me see what I can do.” Both were effective methods, but they were dramatically different. One was for operating on the battlefield and the other on the hospital wards after the fight. Then there was BUD/S, which was all business. No babysitting here; sailors who needed it were weeded out of the system long before rece
iving orders to Coronado, California. At BUD/S the class is told one time where to be, when to be there, and what to have ready. If an individual can’t figure it out, he has no business being there.
I was no stranger to Coronado. I was stationed there as a young marine but never bothered to cross the base into “SEAL country.” I was focused on marine training but had no reason to bother the SEALs, and the SEALs certainly didn’t want me there. Back in those days, I never imagined I would one day train on their sacred ground with the ambition of making that ground mine.
SEALs are a particular breed. From a distance they seem like a cross between an easygoing soldier with relaxed uniform standards and an intense prizefighter looking for his next opponent. Constantly training and never satisfied with their performance, they carry themselves with an attitude that can be interpreted as an inflated ego. Spend a few moments speaking to a team guy, though, and you’ll find him humble, especially when it comes to warfare, well read, and fiercely dedicated to the community to which he belongs. Outsiders often buy into the team mystique, mesmerized by our stories and commitment to one another—but don’t ask too many questions or overstay your welcome, or you risk alienating yourself from the group. It’s not that we purposely try to push folks away; far from it. SEALs enjoy diversity in conversation and opinion but are intensely private when it comes to team business. It’s simply in their DNA. SEALs are warriors in every sense of the word: men who actually go into combat on missions that bring them eye to eye with their enemy, up close and personal. Even their methods of insertion are extremely dangerous; parachute jumps, submarine launches, and ocean swims in treacherous seas are very serious business. I guess that’s why I find it hard to accept how our society tosses around the word “warrior” when describing an athlete, businessman, or even a politician. To me the term “warrior” is a sacred one characterizing a lifestyle of personal sacrifice. A warrior’s training is continuous in order to maintain a constant state of readiness, often taking him away from the ones he loves and those he’s sworn to protect. A warrior does this not for reward but for a chance to join his brothers on a high-risk mission. It doesn’t sound like any civilian occupation I know of.
Battle Ready: Memoir of a SEAL Warrior Medic Page 5