Free SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper by Howard E. Wasdin, Stephen Templin Page B

look sleepy. All of you drop and push ’em out!”
    After push-ups and more instruction, we went outside, where the sunshine had dimmed. Soon we stood by our boats facing the ocean. Bulky orange kapok life jackets covered our battle dress uniforms (BDUs). We tied our hats to the top buttonholes on our shirts with orange cord. Each of us held our paddle like a rifle at the order-arms position, waiting for our boat leaders to come back from where the instructors were briefing them.
    Before long they returned and gave us orders. With boat handle in one hand and paddle in the other, all the crews raced into the water. Losers would pay with their flesh— it pays to be a winner .
    “Ones in!” our boat leader, Mike H., called.
    Our two front men jumped into the boat and started paddling.
    I ran in water almost up to my knees.
    “Twos in!”
    Two more jumped in and started paddling.
    “Threes in!”
    I jumped in with the man across from me, and we paddled. Mike jumped in last, using his oar at the stern to steer. “Stroke, stroke!” he called.
    In front of us, a seven-foot wave formed. I dug my paddle in deep and pulled back as hard as I could.
    “Dig, dig, dig!” Mike called.
    Our boat climbed up the face of the wave. I saw one of the other boats clear the tip. We weren’t so lucky. The wave picked us up and slammed us down, sandwiching us between our boat and the water. As the ocean swallowed us, I swallowed boots, paddles, and cold seawater. I realized, This could kill me .
    Eventually, the ocean spit us out onto the beach along with most of the other boat crews. The instructors greeted us by dropping us. With our boots on the boats, hands in the sand, and gravity against us, we did push-ups.
    Then we gathered ourselves together and went at it again—with more motivation and better teamwork. This time, we cleared the breakers.
    Back on shore, a boyish-faced trainee from another boat crew picked his paddle up off the beach. As he turned around to face the ocean, a passengerless boat filled with seawater raced at him sideways.
    Instructor Blah shouted into the megaphone, “Get out of there!”
    Boy-Face ran away from the boat, just like the instructors told us not to. Fear has a way of turning Einsteins into amoebas.
    “Run parallel to the beach! Run parallel to the beach!”
    Boy-Face continued to try to outrun the speeding boat. The boat came out of the water and slid sideways like a hovercraft over the hard wet sand. When it ran out of hard wet sand, its momentum carried it over the soft dry sand until it hacked Boy-Face down. Instructor Blah, other instructors, and the ambulance rushed to the wounded man.
    Doc, one of the SEAL instructors, started first aid. No one heard Boy-Face call out in pain. The boat broke his leg at the thigh bone.
    As training progressed, dangers increased. Later in training, instead of landing our boats on the sand under the sun, we would land our boats on boulders at night in front of the Hotel del Coronado while ocean currents cut at us from two directions. Legend has it that those boulders used to be one rock before BUD/S trainees cracked it with their heads.
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    The sun lay buried in the horizon as we marched double-time through the Naval Amphibious Base across the street. Wearing the same green uniforms, we sang out in cadence, looking confident, but the tension in the air was thick. If anybody is going to die, this is going to be the time.
    We arrived at the pool located at Building 164 and stripped down to our UDT swim shorts. An instructor said, “You are going to love this. Drown-proofing is one of my favorites. Sink or swim, sweet peas.”
    I tied my feet together, and my swim partner tied my hands behind my back.
    “When I give the command, the bound men will hop into the deep end of the pool,” Instructor Stoneclam said. “You must bob up and down twenty times, float for five minutes, swim to the shallow end of the pool, turn around without touching the