Free A Sense of Duty: A Former Navy SEAL Falls in Love and Begins a New Journey with his Private Consulting Company: Dark Horse Guardians by Ava Armstrong

sack with her that night. He saw Sienna three more times before he left for a trip to Ireland, then back to the states for the challenge of his life: Navy SEAL training. He had no way of knowing he had impregnated Sienna.
    Becoming a Navy SEAL required extreme physical and mental agility and the sense of mind to make rapid decisions, while carrying out operations as part of a team under the most stressful conditions. If anyone asked him about SEAL training, Ben was at a loss for words to describe the horrendous, exhausting, demanding, sometimes torturous experience. He knew it would be the challenge of his life. For starters, the odds of even completing SEAL training were not high. One in four or 1,000 recruits make it to SEAL training. Of that, about 250 complete training.
    Ben could not have chosen a higher bar. The mental acuity required was mind-boggling, but he threw himself into learning foreign languages, mathematics, science, mechanics, electronics, and physics. He was an avid speed reader with the ability to retain every detail. Ben was gifted with the ability to recall images, sounds or objects in memory with great precision . The physical training tests were beyond tough and challenging: push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, competitive 500-yard swims, and runs wearing boots and trousers, often with no rest periods. All of this was prior to the most intense boot camp in the world at Great Lakes, Illinois.
    Once at boot camp, Ben had more physical endurance tests and mental challenges that pushed him to the breaking point. It was during the grueling second phase of BUD/S in Coronado California that he found out Sienna was pregnant. The news came in a phone call from her. He arranged for their marriage to take place in hospital over a weekend while he nursed a pulled muscle. The ceremony was brief and handled by a judge. He never had a honeymoon with Sienna because he was immediately dispatched back Coronado California to finish his basic underwater demolition training, BUD/S. This was a twenty-four week challenge that pushed him further into mental and physical hardness. He learned drown-proofing, swimming with his legs and hands bound. He survived surf torture, exposed to cold water for lengthy periods of time, ordered to do calisthenics and run miles in cold, wet clothing. And that was just the beginning. The physical conditioning ramped up to a seven-week course where he ran four miles in boots, swam two miles in the ocean, participated in obstacle courses and learned small boat skills.
    The frosting on the cake was the fourth week, fondly referred to as "Hell Week", where Ben trained for five and a half days with four hours of sleep for the entire period. This was the ultimate test of any human being's physical and mental stamina. Although he fought hallucinations, Ben found that he could do much more than he ever thought possible. He also learned how critical it was to depend upon and work within a team. He moved into the land warfare phase for the next seven-weeks learning land navigation, patrol techniques, rappelling, marksmanship and military explosives. Parachute Jump School was exhilarating and took place at Tactical Air Operations in San Diego. He started with the basic static line jump and accelerated to free falls. Soon he found himself jumping out of moving aircraft with sixty pounds of combat equipment from 9,500 feet. Another twenty-six weeks of (SQT) SEAL Qualification Training ensued. Although most grueling, this was Ben's favorite phase as it included survival, evasion, resistance, escape school, and tactical air operations, where he honed his physical and mental abilities. The final leg was filled with tactics, techniques, and procedures. He was put though cold-weather survival, marine operations, advanced combat swimming, close-quarter combat and land-warfare training. Sienna had the baby as Ben finished BUD/S. He was unable to visit her as he spent the next twenty-six weeks in SQT (SEAL Qualification