Every officer in a SEAL unit had been through the same rigorous training as the lowest-ranked man in the team. The only difference in training was that the officers were expected to score ten percent higher than the enlisted men in every test.
This type of no-officer-country ethic formed a bond so close between officers and their men that they would kill for each other, and often had to on a combat mission.
Murdock shook his head. How did he tell all this to Ardith, and make her understand? How could he do that, and not wind up making her hate the Navy in general, and the SEALs in particular?
“Commander, the men are on the o-course and ready to go,” Jaybird said to Murdock, breaking into his thoughts.
“Yes, Jaybird, good. You have the two stopwatches and the clipboard with you?”
“Right here, Commander. Are you all right? You seemed to be a thousand miles away.”
“Yes, Jaybird. I’m fine. Let’s go and do the damn course, and see if we can break some personal bests.”
10
Murdock stared at the o-course at the far end of the SEALs complex built along the blue of the Pacific Ocean. He’d heard it called the toughest obstacle course in the world. He figured the description must be right.
He had Jaybird put the men in combat-formation sequence to run the course. The better each man knew where he fit into the combat formation, the better. The First Squad ran it first, then the Second Squad.
“Combat formation,” Murdock called. “You know the routine. You’ll leave at thirty-second intervals, and we record your time when you hit the finish line. Move them out, Jaybird.”
The o-course was put together to toughen and strengthen the SEAL candidates. During the first phase of training, the BUD/S candidates must complete the o-course in fifteen minutes. By the time they are finished with their training, those who make it all the way through must complete the course in ten minutes. Most SEALs finish the training doing the course in six to eight minutes. The current record for the route was 4:25. It would be broken soon.
Murdock watched the men. The eighteen-foot-long parallel bars with rungs between them weren’t hard for them anymore. Mostly a matter of technique. Then came the two stump jumps. Next the seven-foot low wall to climb, and the eleven-foot high wall with a rope to help you climb up.
Then the men worked under the barbed-wire crawl for thirty feet where the space between ground and barbed wire comes close to six inches. The cargo net climb looks easy, if you stay near the side, and make your legs do most of the work. No problem, except it’s fifty feet up, and then fifty feet down the other side.
The balance logs roll when stepped on, and then comes the log stack, a pyramid of logs cabled together four feet high that you run up and down with your hands behind your head.
The rope transfer looks easy. Climb a rope up twelve feet, reach out, grab a steel ring, swing to a rope on the other side, and slide down. The trick is catching the ring. Some men have a tough time doing it.
Murdock walked into the course watching the men. He’d do the course when the last man had started. He had a personal best of 6:14 he wanted to beat.
The double hurdle is the toughest on the lot. One log hurdle is five feet off the ground. You jump up and belly flop on it, lift yourself to your feet on top, and jump to the next hurdle, ten feet high and four feet away. You have to stand on it, then drop to the ground.
The problems increase: the sixty-foot rope bridge, another log stack, a five-story slide for life down a rope, a swinging rope, then another wall, a balance beam, a five-foot inclined wall, and a twelve-foot-high climbing wall with one-inch-wide cleats to grip and stand on as you climb up one side and down the other.
When the SEALs finished the course they got their time from Jaybird, then did twenty push-ups.
Murdock slid into place at the end of the line, and took his run through the course. He passed one man, but tried not to notice. He pushed hard, and came to the last hurdle thinking he had a great time.
“Six-eighteen,” Ed Dewitt said, reading the watch for Murdock. Ed had taken over so Jaybird could get in his turn on the o-course. All times were recorded on the clipboard after the man’s name.
Murdock did his twenty push-ups, all the time wondering how he was going to convince Ardith that he had to stay in the SEALS. Maybe Ed Dewitt’s woman could help. She seemed content with Ed doing his job.
It might be worth a try. They could set up dinner out tomorrow night.
Or maybe just an informal after-dinner at his place.
Jaybird had sent the First Squad on a two-mile run through the soft sand along the Silver Strand toward Imperial Beach to the south. The Second Squad left as soon as the last man was through the o-course.
Murdock led them out, and they met the first group coming back. Jaybird talked with Murdock a moment, and grinned.
By the time Murdock had his team back at the Grinder, the court between the SEAL buildings where many physical exercises and drills were conducted, Jaybird had checked out three IBSS. He had the men carrying two of them on their heads toward the surf.
Murdock and the Second Squad grabbed the third inflatable boat, and raced the First Squad to the water. At the edge they stopped.
“Launching in these four-foot swells should be good practice,” Murdock said. “Have a small storm moving onshore from the south, that’s why we have the four-foot seas. Great for you surfers, if you had the time. Let’s go out beyond the breakers, then make three runs in surfing the swells if we can. Just don’t dump the boat. If any team dumps the boat, you get a ten-mile run. No combat gear on, no weapons, should be a piece of cake. We’ll each do three in and out from the sand. Let’s do it.”
For this exercise there were six men in one IBS and five in each of the other two. The semi-rigid inflatable boats were much the same boats they used in combat situations, except these had no motors, just SEALs with paddles.
The three teams hit the water at the same time, using their past training to get the boats through the first breaker, and then over the next one, and into the calm of the Pacific swells.
All the men were soaking wet by the time they launched the boats, got them through the second four-foot breaker, and crawled inside. They paddled out to the swells, and on a signal from Murdock paddled for the shore, intent on surfing in on the large breakers without upsetting the boats. This could be the dangerous part.
On exercises for the BUD/S students, each man wore an orange life vest to help him stay afloat in case of a dumped IBS, and to help make finding the swimmers in the surf easier.
The first boat with Dewitt hit the breaker just right, and surfed along the top for a moment before it nosed down. The men leaned to the rear to keep the front of the boat from digging into the water and getting upended. They made it.
Murdock watched the second boat go in. Jaybird piloted it, and had it almost to the point to start down the face of the wave, when a larger-than-usual wave caught the boat and, with its tremendous power, tipped it over and sent the five men splashing into the neck-deep water.
Murdock’s men paddled their boat to the area, and counted bobbing heads.
“We’re missing one man,” Jaybird screeched at Murdock. The IBS had ridden the foaming water well into shore upside down.
“Find him!” Murdock bellowed. He dove off his boat into the water just in back of the large breaker. The other four men in his boat did as well, and all tried to search the four-foot-deep water. Sand stirred up by the breakers cut visibility to three or four feet.
“Walk it,” Murdock yelled when he surfaced. The five men who had been in his boat joined hands with the other four SEALs from the second boat, and they walked across the spot where the boat had flipped.