Most people qualified for this kind of contracting work don’t have issues with the PT test, but if there is one part that smokes people more than the others, it’s dragging that fucking dummy. I think the reason it catches people by surprise is that Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy made it look so easy in Weekend at Bernie’s. Make no mistake, though: It’s a bitch. If you forget to hydrate or stretch, you can very easily cramp up and collapse to the ground. When the dehydration is really bad, it looks a lot like an epileptic seizure. It’s scary if you’ve never seen it happen before. If you have, then it’s just hilarious.
After the PT test, they put us through the standard push-up/sit-up/pull-up challenge. Most everyone in my selection group had been in Special Operations, so this was old hat. You want me to burn out my arms and back and core for no particular reason? Fine. As long as I don’t have to sit down in a frozen swamp afterward, I’ll Lionel Richie this motherfucker and go all night long.
Once you’ve met these basic physical standards, that’s when the course officially starts. It’s a few weeks of training during which you go through a wide variety of scenarios in order to learn the organization’s tactics, techniques, and procedures. This consists of firearms training and qualification, close quarters combat training, driving school, fight training, and a long list of other fun stuff that involves being a man. If you show up on time, meet the standards, and don’t quit, at the end you get a nice little certificate. It’s like a Bachelor’s of Badassery.
One of my favorite pieces of training that we conducted during qualification was called the hooded box drill. Surprisingly, the name says it all. The drill begins in an empty room in which you are placed inside a four-foot-by-four-foot square box that has been taped off on the ground. You are given an M4 and a Glock 19 loaded with simunition and told that you cannot exit the box at any time during the drill. Next they turn on really loud music and bring a hood down over your head so you can’t see anything. While you listen to something that sounds like Edward Scissorhands fingerbanging a Vitamix turned up to 11, the instructors cook up whatever interesting scenario they can think of. When the instructors are ready, the mask comes flying off your head and you are presented with a situation that you have to react to instantaneously. Maybe someone in a safety suit immediately punches you in the face as four other combatants go for your limbs. Maybe they all open up on you with AK-47 simunitions. The details don’t matter; the important thing is that the drill induces high levels of stress in order to test your ability to react appropriately in a highly volatile situation.
The key to the whole exercise is the simunitions. These fun little guys resemble standard 5.56 and 9mm rounds, but the bullet tips are plastic and filled with paint. They are designed to bring a more realistic approach to training by delivering a healthy dose of pain. As someone who has been shot with simunitions more than his fair share of times, let me assure you that they fucking hurt. (The ass cheek and the belly button are the worst places to get hit.) Taking a few shots wasn’t a bad trade-off, though, because it meant not only would I be able to barrel check someone’s face and shoot others with my own simunitions, but also, if I did it well enough, I might actually get a job out of it. What is that thing people say: If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life? I didn’t fully understand that old chestnut until I got to put the quad rail of an M4 into the nose of some asshole dressed like a Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robot.
The drill is as chaotic and terrifying as it sounds—more so, probably. Still, some guys cleared their scenarios with relatively few bumps or bruises and sailed through this portion of the course. The ones who freaked out got pretty banged up. And if they couldn’t get back in there and pass the standard, well, they got dropped.
Although the training is taken very seriously, we always found a way to fit in some fun. In this line of work, you have to. So after completing simunitions training, we walked over to a joint facility that had just installed a brand-new Live Wall. A Live Wall is a simulated firing range that outfits you with a fake gun connected to a CO2 backpack that produces the kickback of a normal firearm and registers the hits of your “bullets” through infrared technology. Essentially, it’s a four-dimensional video game—time is a factor—with real-world mechanics. For kicks, the instructors had us do what they call in the biz an “El Presidente,” which is a speed drill to test firing accuracy. You start out with your back to a target, and the instant you hear a ding you turn and fire five shots in the center of a human silhouette as quickly as you can.
Before I go any further, let me just reiterate, once again, that this was for fun. Let me also clarify that, yes, I understand that the standard drill calls for two shots to the chest and one to the head. If all you keyboard warriors out there don’t mind, why don’t you do me a favor and holster your mice for a few minutes and get back to 4chan while I finish with my sweet training story.
When everyone had their turn at El Presidente, the instructors had us run through one of the most basic programs on the Live Wall: two silhouette targets, ten meters away. The goal was to see who could shoot the best and the fastest. By definition, the person who won would be the shooter with the best firing mechanics and the best target acquisition. Now, I wasn’t going into it trying to demoralize people, but as a former Ranger who takes pride in being a rifleman first (and in being the most competitive person on the planet), once this thing turned into a competition, I was in it to win it.
It wasn’t pretty. I ran through the entire class and smoked everyone with my dominant hand…twice.
“What the fuck, man?” said one of the instructors. It’s not like I did any Wild Bill shit, but they clearly weren’t used to seeing the kind of proficiency I could bring to bear with a gun in my hand. I think they were worried that their pretty little Live Wall might be malfunctioning.
“If you want, I can switch guns and run through it left-handed instead?” I offered.
“Be fucking serious.”
“I’m down, sir.”
“I’d love to see that happen,” he said, playing along.
The instructor must have thought I was joking or something. I wasn’t. I can shoot with equal proficiency right-handed and left-handed. Along with impeccable beard maintenance, it’s one of those life skills that I take very seriously. The gun was the primary tool of the trade for the majority of my adult life to that point. It was the difference between life and death—for me, sure, but more importantly for my team—and to not be as good as I could possibly be with it felt like it would have been a betrayal.
I ran through the course again, this time using my left hand, and beat every single person again.
“What kind of hotdog shit was that?” the instructor demanded to know as I headed back to the group.
“The kind you relish?” I asked. If you need me, I’ll be serving three to five in the punitentiary.