FEATURE/ Welcome to Hell Week At `The Toughest School On Earth'; Trainees Must Survive Brutal Test to Join Elite Navy Seals

Business Wire, July 30, 1999

PLEASANTVILLE, NY--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--July 30, 1999--

There's nothing more relaxing than a week at the beach, right? Unless it happens to be Hell Week, and you're a Navy SEAL trainee.

Seaman Jeff Wright doesn't know what lies ahead as he sprints across the cold, dark sands to the sounds of gunfire and explosions. But he does know that over the next five days he will be tested to the limits of his endurance, by pitiless instructors determined to separate the true warriors from the mere mortals.

Welcome to "The Toughest School on Earth," in the August 1999 issue of Reader's Digest magazine. It's a unique inside look at a brutal but necessary rite of passage.

Only a precious few make the grade to become Navy SEALs, the elite Sea, Air, Land commandos who conduct dangerous secret reconnaissance behind enemy lines. To learn what makes this fighting force so special, Reader's Digest contributing editor Malcolm McConnell journeyed to BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) school, and watched Wright and his fellow trainees face the ultimate test.

Hell Week: 120 straight hours spent cold and wet, sleep-deprived and exhausted, pounded by the chilling winter surf during an endless array of boating and swimming exercises -- with punishing calisthenics and boatlifts piled on for good measure. Ironically enough, it all takes place just down the beach from a posh resort on California's Coronado Island.

After battling the crashing waves for hours in flimsy rubber boats, the exhausted men can barely drag themselves, vomiting, onto the beach. The instructors offer no sympathy, giving the students 10 minutes to muster for the next grueling seamanship exercise. They do check the men for symptoms of hypothermia -- in 1988 a trainee died on an ocean swim.

Of some 650 top soldiers who enter BUD/S training each year, only a quarter prove tough enough for the SEALs. And those who reach Hell Week have already faced some daunting tests, McConnell points out. In one exercise called "drownproofing," Seaman Wright's ankles were bound and his hands tied behind his back for a 30-minute survival swim in a combat training tank (hint: when you sink to the bottom, you'd better be able to push hard enough to regain the surface and get that next gasp of air).

By morning three of Hell Week, only 31 "survivors" remain from Wright's original group of 55. The rest are "DOR," Dropped on Request -- casualties of the stress, cold and fatigue. There are three suspected cases of pneumonia.

But the more spent and tired the sailors become, the more each test hammers home the critical point: teamwork is crucial to success and survival -- just like in real warfare.

Winter-time guests at the nearby resort hotel watch some of the Hell Week proceedings in horror from afar. But Capt. Joseph McGuire, commander of the training center, knows that standards must be maintained. And the instructors, who come from current SEAL teams, know that someday their own lives may depend on these trainees' endurance and resolve.

Created in 1962, the SEALs trace their lineage back to the underwater demolition teams of World War II and Korea. In the Cold War, SEALs paddled into icy Soviet-bloc harbors for secret reconnaissance. During Desert Storm, they faked an amphibious invasion to lure away enemy divisions. Today, in the Persian Gulf, they reportedly engage in super-secret missions to pinpoint Iraqi missile positions.

Through it all, no SEAL has ever surrendered, or left behind a dead or wounded comrade. Vietnam hero Sen. Bob Kerrey (D., Neb) was a SEAL. So was Minnesota's new governor, Jesse Ventura, who bellowed the SEALs' signature "Hoo-Yah" cheer at the end of his inaugural address.

Seaman Jeff Wright is a gritty, experienced Marine -- but it takes every ounce of courage and strength he has to reach graduation day. By the time Wright and his fellow survivors become SEALs, they know they'll be ready when America needs them. And readers will know why it takes a tough warrior to conquer "The Toughest School on Earth."

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