1. Fear is used to teach. In only twelve weeks, a significant amount of material must be learned; the use of fear facilitates this.
2. Fear strengthens, both physically and mentally. Since fear comes from the unknown, after a few weeks at OCS, fear is replaced by routine. In most cases OCS will be the most strenuous part of the candidate’s naval career. However, this will not be the case for Michael.
3. Individuals must be broken down before they can be built into a team. Everyone must be at the same level.
4. All candidates get their head shaved and wear the same clothes, and everyone is punished when one of them makes a mistake.
The first week of training is known as Indoctrination and has several objectives:
1. To prepare candidates for the next twelve weeks of training. Basic marching, facing movements, military bearing, and gouging are taught.
2. To prepare candidates for the first meeting with the class drill instructor. Candidate officers, known as Candi-Os, lead class members from check-in until the class in which drill instructor and chief petty officer are introduced.
3. To complete all preliminary administrative work, including the Naval Operational Medicine Institute (NOMI), Personnel Support Detachment (PSD), book bag issue, and Navy Exchange.
4. To introduce the candidates to their class officer.
Michael received his military haircut on Tuesday. The OCS barbers were extremely proficient in hairstyling—as long as the style was a shaved head. On Wednesday his class met its drill instructor, class chief petty officer, and class officer. Also on Wednesday and again on Thursday, class members were occupied with medical examinations, uniform issue, and their Indoctrination Physical Readiness Test. On Saturday the class began physical training (PT). Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of Indoctrination are the most brutal for those at OCS.
From the minute he arrived, Michael stood or sat at attention with the familiar “thousand-yard stare.” When standing or sitting, his feet were always at a precise forty-five-degree angle with his head and eyes straight ahead. At the position of attention, his hands were clasped into tight fists with thumbs along the trouser seam. While walking in buildings, his right shoulder remained four inches from the wall, known as the “bulkhead,” at all times. As he approached a candidate officer or class drill instructor he had to “brace the bulkhead,” positioning himself with his back and heels four inches from the wall, and give the greeting of the day. His communications had to be precise and given “ballistically,” which meant that he shouted them with authority and conviction. There were only five appropriate statements or responses. To speak, he first had to request and receive permission. To answer a question, he had to say either “Yes, sir” or “No, sir.” To respond to a command or order, he had to say “Aye, sir.” If asked a question to which he did not know the answer, he had to respond, “Sir, this Indoctrination candidate does not know but will find out.” His every action was scrutinized and any shortcoming was immediately and rigorously corrected. He understood and respected the strict Code of Honor. OCS is more a mental rather than a physical environment. His biggest enemy was time, as there never seemed to be enough to accomplish all that was demanded.
During Indoctrination it was critical that Michael and his classmates remained focused and not allow the drill instructors to get to them—which clearly was their intent. Each day was another day closer to graduation. The most stressful time for Indoctrination officer candidates was during meals. There is a strict procedure for entering, sitting, eating, and departing. To prepare the candidates for drill and to learn strict attention to detail, Michael and his class were taught chow hall procedures.
After chow hall procedures, the biggest stressor was standing watch. Here the candidates had be attentive to everything that was occurring at their station and salute all officers.
Week Two
On Monday of week two the class experienced its first PT session, followed by a two-mile run. Academic classes followed, with courses in personnel administration and naval history. All classes were given extremely fast and required a significant amount of memorization and word recognition. Tests were multiple-choice, with the first one given on Wednesday, two days after classes had begun, and final exams on Friday.
During this period, the candidates also began to receive basic military instruction, with an emphasis on military customs and courtesies, uniform assembly and requirements, inspection procedures, and training requirements. Rifle drills, conducted every afternoon from the second through the seventh week, taught the class discipline and how to obey orders, and also bonded the class and the drill instructor.
As the class settled into a routine, Michael and the other candidates endured long runs in the early morning, followed by classes until afternoon rifle drill. Breakfast and lunch were at predetermined times. After the evening meal the class was given thirty minutes of free time before the mandatory two-hour study period, which was followed by job assignments. “Taps” was played exactly at 10:00 PM, after which the drill instructors inspected the barracks for thirty minutes.
On Tuesday of the second week, Michael was given his initial swim test, which consisted of swimming twenty-five yards across the pool while performing the backstroke, the sidestroke, the breaststroke, and the American crawl.
Week Three
At this point, the pace of the program increased. They were given an average of two examinations and there was a personnel inspection (PI) every Monday. The candidates also prepared for the military training tests (MTTs), which consisted of room and locker and personnel inspections that were coming up the following week. The candidates’ academic workload included training in navigational techniques. They studied dead reckoning, coastal piloting, rules of the road, and electronic navigation, and were required to plot simulated movements and positions of a ship at sea.
Week 4
On Wednesday the first MTT was given, with a required score of 85. The MTT was a unique experience, one best explained in the following excerpt from an article that appeared in the May 30, 1994, issue of the Navy Times and was written by Patrick Pexton.
The 34 Candidates dressed in well-pressed summer whites—seven others have already dropped out—are a diverse lot. They are black, brown, yellow, white, male and female, nuke and aviation, surface and unrestricted line. But they share one thing in common today.
They are all hating life.
Young men and women graduates from Harvard, Penn and state universities around the country, who weeks earlier were living carefree lives of students, stayed up until 3:00 AM last night polishing brass belt buckles until they reflected like mirrors.
They slept on the hard linoleum floor so their bunks would be pristine and wrinkle-free for the morning inspection. Like alchemists, they experimented with novel ways to prevent ancient, rusting waste cans from flaking onto the floor when the Drill Instructors pound on them during inspection. They did the same with what looked to be about 40-year-old brown leather book bags, which are cracked and worn with age.
The DIs enter the four-bunk rooms to smooth beds, clean weapons, and orderly lockers. When they end the inspection for each room precisely eight minutes later, slamming the door behind them, they leave behind a tornado-like path of destruction.
Candidates are left standing at attention, but looking disheveled and demoralized. Their pants pockets are pulled inside out, their belts unceremoniously ripped from their waists and lying on the floor, their voices hoarse from shouting rapidfire responses to the demanding DIs.
Towels that were folded with precision and freshly shined shoes that were placed in straight, ordered rows are strewn about the room. Carefully ironed uniforms are pulled off their hangers in piles. The bunks, so perfectly made, with the pillow an exact 12 inches from the foldover of the sheet, are a wreck.
And the gunnery sergeants are just warming up.
The only defense to such a strategy was confidence, a loud voice, and the clock.
Weeks 5-6
Rifle drill was the main focus during this period. On the Thursday of week five, the final swim test, known as the third class swim, was held. This consisted of jumping from the ten-meter platform, swimming the length of the pool and back, treading water for one minute, and survival floating for five minutes.
Academic classes and tests were given in naval warfare, military law, engineering, and damage control. The good study skills Michael learned at Penn State proved essential here. He understood that academics were designed for stress as well as knowledge. Individuality was not tolerated at OCS; teamwork was the essential key to success.
The military training at Officer Candidate School comprised four broad categories.
Physical training. There were three Physical Fitness Assessments (PFA) at OCS: the Indoctrination PFA, the Mid-PFA, and the Out-PFA. Passing requirements were Satisfactory-Medium for the IN-PFA, Satisfactory-High for the Mid-PFA, and Good-Low for the Out-PFA.
Room and locker inspection (RLI). A candidate’s room was subject to inspection at any time. To ensure cleanliness and to maintain standards, room inspections occurred at regular intervals in lieu of zone inspections. Rooms were to be maintained in accordance with the daily room standards. Racks were to be made between 5:00 AM and 10:00 PM.
Personnel inspection (PI). Each candidate was inspected for proper uniform, haircut, shave, hygiene, and general military appearance.
Drill.Approximately forty hours were spent learning and practicing drill. The candidates also marched to and from every evolution.
Graduation
On December 13, 2000, with his parents and brother in attendance, Ensign Michael P. Murphy graduated with Honor Class 07-01 and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy. After OCS, he returned to Patchogue, where he remained until mid-January. He then departed for San Diego and his next duty assignment—BUD/S.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BUD/S: The Price of Admission
The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday!
—BUD/S motto, Naval Special Warfare, www.sealchallenge.navy.mil/seal/default/aspx (accessed December 9, 2009)
To begin to appreciate the level of skills and training possessed by Michael Murphy and his teammates, we’ll need to take a look at his SEAL training. 2 The newly commissioned Ensign Michael Murphy reported to Naval Special Warfare Command, located at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California, and began thirty months of the most brutal training of any military unit in the world. Having arrived safely, he called his mother. He knew that 75 to 80 percent of those beginning BUD/S training do not finish. He also knew that the training was not designed to build a superior physically trained individual, but rather a member of a warrior culture with relentless drive to fight and win as a team—someone who would rather die than quit.
Despite the brutal training, Michael soon realized that almost anyone could meet the physical requirements of the SEALs, but the unending challenge from day one would be the mental toughness, that never-ending inner drive that pushes you forward when every nerve and muscle fiber in your body tells you to stop—to quit. That warrior mind-set—the mental toughness—is what separates a Navy SEAL from any other airman, seaman, soldier, or Marine, regardless of their level of training.
Michael Murphy had prepared for two years to get there. As a commissioned Navy officer, he completed his training alongside his fellow officers and enlisted men, although as an officer he was held to a higher standard. The men trained and suffered together in a ritual that built both a warrior and a warrior bond that united enlisted, junior, senior, and flag officers into a close, very tight-knit community that most people never realize exists or understand. The complete mental rewiring that takes place makes you understand that your teammates are more important than you.
Michael Murphy, and all of his classmates, were volunteers and could quit at any time. If a trainee quit, he had to return to the fleet for a minimum of eighteen months before he could return to BUD/S—but only if he had demonstrated potential and had been recommended for a second attempt.
Indoctrination Course (Indoc)
On day one, at 4:30 AM, Ensign Murphy joined the rest of his BUD/S teammates in Class 235 at the swimming pool, known officially as the Combat Training Tank (CTT), located along Guadalcanal Road. The class arrived to roll and put away the pool covers and string the lane markers. At 5:00 AM, he stood on the cool concrete that surrounded the CTT in nothing but his canvas Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) swim trunks. Soaking wet from a cold shower, he and his classmates sat in rows in bobsled fashion, chests to backs, to conserve body heat. Their military duffel bags, containing the few items they were permitted to bring, were beside them and separated each row of students.
As the instructor arrived, the class leader yelled, “Feet!” and all immediately sprang to attention, shivering in the cold. Each row of students made up a boat crew of seven trainees.
“Drop!” commanded the instructor, and all scrambled for a piece of the concrete in a fully extended push-up position. “Push ’em out!” The class counted out twenty push-ups and returned to the fully extended position.
“Push ’em out!” The class again counted out twenty push-ups before hearing the same command for yet another twenty push-ups. After sixty push-ups the class instructor left them in the fully extended position as they all tried to shift their position to relieve the intense burning in their arms.
“Seats!” All sat on the cool concrete.
BUD/S training is separated into three phases, each phase designed to build on the skills of the previous one. First Phase is the conditioning phase. It is followed by Second Phase, diving, and Third Phase, weapons and tactics. However, before Ensign Murphy and his classmates reached First Phase, they had to complete the five-week Indoctrination Course, during which they learned the rules and protocols of BUD/S training—how to conduct themselves at the pool, how to perform at the obstacle course, and how to handle their small inflatable boats in the rough Pacific surf. They learned SEAL culture and began to internalize the ethos of the warrior. Every training evolution, whether PT or academic, was evaluated in some manner and every student’s performance closely monitored by the Academic/ Performance Review Board, a committee of three BUD/S instructors. Failure to live up to the standards resulted in the student being held back, called a rollback, to the next class, or even a quick trip back to the fleet or his previous assignment.
Although every man present successfully completed the BUD/S Physical Screening Test (PST) prior to his arrival, each had to pass it again. The PST consisted of:
1. A five-hundred-yard swim using the breaststroke or sidestroke in 12:30
2. A minimum of forty-two push-ups in two minutes
3. A minimum of fifty sit-ups in two minutes
4. A minimum of six dead-hang pull-ups
5. A mile-and-a-half run in 11:30 wearing combat boots and long pants
After successfully completing the PST, only two things could remove a student from Indoctrination, or Indoc: a request to quit, known as drop on request (DOR); or failing the comprehensive psychological examination. After completing the PST, all successful students ran two miles to the chow hall. After breakfast, they ran two miles back and continued their training.
During Indoc, students underwent a physical training regimen designed to build solid, well-trained bodies, especially the upper body. The upper-body exercises of choice were pull-ups and push-ups with varying degrees of difficulty. Special emphasis was placed on the abdominal muscles. Here, the exercises of choice were sit-ups, crunches, log sit-ups, and flutter kicks. The students learned early that it paid to be a winner. Those who were not winners were losers and gained the unwanted attention of the instructors in the form of more cold water (ocean), sand, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and obstacle course (O-course) runs.
While in Indoc, the trainees lived in small, often-cramped barracks. Just as each BUD/S training phase was built on the previous one, each day in Indoc was more intense than the previo
us one. Each day began at 5:00 AM at the CTT. After a two-hour pool evolution, the trainees were ordered into their fatigue pants and shoes. Fully dressed, they were ordered back into the pool. Though they were cold and wet, they ran the two miles to chow and then back again to continue their day’s training.
The Indoc trainees ran twelve miles a day just to eat and return. They lived on the run and were always cold and wet. At the training center they were ordered into the cold Pacific surf several times a day, then ordered to roll in the sand. Cold, wet, and sandy—that was everyday life for a BUD/S trainee. While the instructors may have seemed cruel and insensitive and at times even brutal, they knew that building spirit and character, both individually and as a class, was essential to the success of the SEAL trainees.
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