“Well, you’ll have to get through me first. Drop!”
Moore and the rest of class 198, some 123 candidates in all, hit the beach and began their push-ups. Since they were still only candidates, they were not yet permitted to exercise on the hallowed blacktop square of the BUD/S “grinder,” where only those who’d made it through INDOC could perform their calisthenics and other assorted forms of physical torture that were part of BUD/S training First Phase — seven weeks designed to test a man’s physical conditioning, water competency, commitment to teamwork, and mental tenacity. No man would begin First Phase without passing the two-week-long INDOC course. The initial endurance test included the following:
• A five-hundred-yard swim using breaststroke and/or sidestroke in less than twelve minutes and thirty seconds
• A minimum of forty-two push-ups in two minutes
• A minimum of fifty sit-ups in two minutes
• A minimum of six dead-hang pull-ups (no time limit)
• A run for 1.5 miles wearing long pants and boots in less than eleven minutes
While Moore’s upper-body strength still needed work, he excelled in both the swim and the run, routinely beating his classmates by wide margins. It was during this time that Moore was introduced to the concept of a “swim buddy” and the tenet that you never leave your swim buddy alone and that no man, alive or dead, is ever left behind. “You will never be alone. Ever,” Killian had told them. “If you ever leave your swim buddy, the punishment will be severe. Severe!”
Moore’s swim buddy was Frank Carmichael, a sandy-haired, blue-eyed kid easily mistaken for a surfer dude. He had an easy grin and spoke in a laid-back cadence that had Moore doubting this guy could ever become a SEAL. Carmichael had grown up in San Diego and had traveled a similar path to INDOC as Moore had, going to boot camp, then being recommended for the SEAL program. He said he wished he’d gone to Annapolis and become a member of the Canoe Club, the nickname given to the Naval Academy, but he’d goofed off too much at Morse High School and his grades weren’t competitive enough for admission. He hadn’t even bothered getting into JROTC. There were a number of other candidates who were officers — Annapolis graduates, guys who’d come out of Officer Candidate School as O-1 ensigns, and even those who’d served in the fleet for a while. BUD/S, however, leveled the playing field — every candidate had to pass the same tests, no special treatment for officers.
Moore and Carmichael hit it off immediately, middle-class guys who were trying to do something extraordinary with their lives. They suffered together through the four-mile beach runs they had to complete in less than thirty-two minutes. Killian seemed to punctuate every command with the phrase “Get wet and sandy.” The entire class would rush down into the freezing surf, come out, roll around in the sand, then, standing there like mummies, like the undead, they’d be sent into their next evolution. They learned immediately that you ran everywhere, including a mile each way to the chow hall.
This was 1994, the year Time magazine described the Internet as a “strange new world.” Moore griped that today’s candidates could get on the Web and learn ten times as much about their upcoming training than Moore could back in those days. Today’s crop could review websites dedicated to BUD/S, watch streaming videos and slickly produced Discovery Channel specials. All Moore and his buddies had had were the tall tales passed on from previous classes, the rumors and warnings about the unspeakable horrors to come posted on a few newsgroups. Hyperbole? In some cases, yes, but Moore and Carmichael had faced their challenges with hardly as much preparation as the current group did.
Of all the training evolutions they went through during INDOC, Moore enjoyed the swimming work the most. They taught him how to kick, stroke, and glide, and to, above all, make the water his home. This was where the SEALs excelled over other branches of the service. The intel they gathered by being stealthy in the water assisted Marines and many other combatants. He learned to tie complex naval knots while submerged and did not panic when his hands were bound behind his back during the drown-proofing test. He relaxed, swam up to the surface, took his breath, came back down, and repeated the process, while several members of the Canoe Club near him freaked out and DORed right there. Moore’s reaction to that was to demonstrate just the opposite to his instructors, who were floating around him in their scuba gear, waiting for him to panic. He lowered himself to the bottom of the pool and held his breath—
For nearly five minutes.
One instructor came up to him with bug eyes enlarged by his mask and motioned for Moore to get back to the surface. He smiled, waited a few seconds more, then swam up and took his breath. He’d learned to increase his anaerobic tolerance by doing running and swim sprints, and he’d felt certain he could hold his breath even longer than that.
Killian learned of the “stunt,” and warned Moore not to try that again. But he’d winked when he’d said it.
The underwater fifty-meter swim proved interesting for many guys. Killian concluded his description of the test with the following: “And don’t worry — when you pass out, we will revive you.” But Moore did the fifty meters and then some, gliding through the water as though he’d always belonged there, a Frogman through and through. Carmichael told him that even a few of the instructors had cursed in awe.
Moore’s natural gifts had been discovered by Mr. Loengard when Moore was just sixteen. Loengard was not only a high school gym teacher but also an avid cyclist. He asked Moore to take a test on a cycle ergometer and found that Moore had a VO2 max of 88.0, which was comparable to many world-class athletes. Moore’s resting heart rate was barely 40 bpm. His body could transport and use oxygen much more efficiently than the average person’s, and this, said Loengard, was a genetic gift that made him a very lucky individual. And that’s when Loengard began to talk to Moore about the military, specifically the SEALs. Ironically, the man had never been in the Navy himself, nor had any of his relatives. He simply admired and respected military personnel and their commitment to the country.
When Moore and his INDOC classmates weren’t in the pool, they were back to the beach, the surf, the grit in every orifice of his body. Even the high-pressure, ice-cold showers back at the barracks could not wash out all the sand. The Navy wanted him and the others to literally become one with the beach and the Pacific.
With Carmichael always at his side, they would lie on their backs, legs out, toes pointed, and perform dozens of flutter kicks without allowing their feet to touch the beach. The goal was to move their legs up and down about eight to twelve inches. Everything they did as SEALs would require strong abdominal muscles, and Killian, along with his fellow instructors, had an obsessive-compulsive fascination with exercises like the flutter kick that turned Moore’s abs into rails of steel. He continued to work on his upper body as well, because Killian kept warning him about week number two, but he wouldn’t say what they’d face.
By the end of the first week, sixteen guys had already dropped from the class. They seemed to have just packed their bags in the middle of the night and left. Moore and Carmichael had not seen them and barely discussed the DORs in an effort to remain strong and positive.
It was 0500 on the first day of the second week that class 198 bade a resigned hello to the O-course, or obstacle course, a gauntlet through hell designed by evil-minded men to welcome others into their most private and elite club.
Twenty obstacles labeled with signs had been erected on the beach, and as Moore’s gaze panned over them, each contraption appeared more complicated and challenging than the last. Killian approached Moore and Carmichael. “You gentlemen have twelve minutes to get through my O-course.”