Shea was standing next to Mad Max, and Hemingway broke his rule about not looking at her. She made eye contact with him. In those dark depths were encouragement and a softness that made him want to get as close to her as he could. But training had to be his focus, and he couldn’t lose that. He had a long way to go. Damn this timing.
“So far I don’t see anything too impressive. Some of you have the stamina and are pushing out the push-ups, but this isn’t about single guys. This is about why you’re all here. You’re here for one purpose. Get to the teams. Be a ‘team guy.’ We don’t want any candy asses serving at our backs. We’ll weed those out,” Walker said. He was leading the PT.
“He’s not even breaking a sweat,” Professor said, his form good next to Hemingway.
“Yeah, he’s no candy ass,” Hemingway said, and Professor chuckled.
Suddenly a stream of water hit them both and a couple of guys next to them, a stinging frigid blast that wasn’t strong enough to knock them over but made Hemingway and Professor gasp simultaneously at the cold stinging spray.
“Having fun now fellas?” one of the instructors said, keeping the water on them. He thought it was Hal Cheezer, a mean looking SOB, stocky, built with white straight teeth. Hemingway was sure this wasn’t the last he’d see of a Cheezer beat down. Cheezer crouched down and said, “You think this is a joking matter?”
“No, instructor.”
“Wipe those smirks off your faces, and all of you, surf and sand time, courtesy of Sinclair and Prescott. Get out there and make me proud. I wanna see some sugar cookies. Move!”
Hemingway popped up from his push-up form to his feet and dashed toward the beach, making his way across the instructor parking lot and over the sand berm, a barrier manually erected for protection in the case of storms.
The salty scent of the ocean mingled with the smell of rotting kelp and sand in a mixture he’d always associated with the beach on a leisurely day. He wondered when this was over would he ever be able to forget this experience. An experience that was getting him closer to his goal. I can make it until breakfast, he thought, thinking of the hot food, the full feeling in his now empty stomach, the images urging him on.
He threw himself into the water, getting deep enough to saturate his clothes, then pushed out of the breakers to the fine, soft sand of the strand. He rolled, threw sand over his head and made sure every part of him was covered. It got in his mouth, nose, eyes and ears, but he endured it. Then he was up and moving back to the grinder.
The next forty-five minutes were more of the same. All told, they had been at this for almost an hour and fifteen minutes. The instructor shouted at the weaker guys, but luckily Hemingway avoided any more individual attention, especially from Cheezer. By the time he was ready for breakfast, he’d estimated they had done over five hundred push-ups, sixty pull-ups, untold flutter kicks and many sit-ups.
The sand from the beach was grinding against his skin, causing chafing, which was only aided by the water and his cold skin. The salt from the ocean stung every abrasion.
He knew the first three weeks of BUD/S were designed to weed out the men who didn’t have the emotional commitment needed to be SEALs.
“We’re looking for warriors, not men just getting by. If you can’t even do this much PT, there’s the bell. Do yourself and all the dedicated guys here a favor and ring out.” This was a fire-in-the-gut check. First Phase was also about each man here looking deep into himself to really understand and know why they were here at BUD/S.
“My sister has better form than you do, Hitchcock. Get that weak ass out of the air and do your push-ups like a man.” Matt Hitchcock was one of Hemingway’s boat crew, with boy-next-door looks, dark hair, and piercing pale blue eyes. He was from a small town in Kansas. In the fleet he was on a destroyer and worked as a radar fire control guy. Hemingway liked him. He was solid, but this PT was kicking his ass, and Hemingway had to wonder if he was going to make it. His chest got tight, and he thought about his own reasons for doing BUD/S. He knew Matt was just as dedicated and had a lot riding on finishing BUD/S.
“You’ve got this, Matt,” Hemingway said. “Dig deep man.”
“The only easy day was yesterday,” Professor chimed in.
Matt’s eyes flared, and he shot Hemingway an appreciative look. “Hoo-yah,” he grunted.
Hemingway noticed a few guys from the class ahead of them. They were in Second Phase and it was easy to see that all of them were remembering their first day, their eyes roving over the trainees with a strong sense of a shared experience.
Hemingway understood immediately why they were all being put through this. It’s how they built team spirit and tight-knit special operators.
He was determined to be one of those guys looking at them with that shared memory.
“Surf, you have two minutes.”
Hemingway was up again and then back as fast as he could run. Some guys seemed confused on whether they should get sandy again, but there was no order to get sandy, so he skipped it. Behind him, instructors were yelling at the guys who were getting sandy again, and it looked like they were going to be held up for breakfast.
Back at the grinder, Walker shouted, “Form for breakfast, you are released.”
Hemingway grabbed his fatigue top, canteen, belt and helmet, the muscles of his chest, shoulders and arms burning, and got in line for the mile jog over to the base chow hall.
Suddenly everyone froze as the bell clanged. Three rings, six, nine, twelve, and finally fifteen. “Five,” someone murmured in a small voice as if he had been thinking about quitting.
The class had just dropped to one hundred and forty men.
The jog to the chow hall wasn’t pleasant, especially in wet, sandy uniforms, but once inside, the smell of food hit Hemingway so strongly, he forgot about anything else. During this training, he could easily eat upwards of five thousand calories and still lose weight. Grabbing a tray, he filled up his plate with eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes and all the fixings.
He found a table with Lane, Professor, Hitchcock and Brown. Just as he was digging in, Shea settled down next to him. “Is it okay that I sit with you guys?” she asked.
Brown’s eyes were round, and he nodded as he shoveled food into his mouth. None of them could speak because their mouths were too full.
Shea’s plate held a smaller portion compared to all of them who had heaped on food. Hemingway smiled at her, and she smiled back. “Do you mind if I ask questions when you’re done eating and if I film it?”
They nodded their heads. They were instructed to talk to her in their down time. This was as down as they were going to get.
“Something to think about while you’re fueling up for the rest of the day.”
“Timed run,” Lane said after swallowing what he’d been chewing, washing it down with more water. They had to drink a lot to keep up with dehydration, especially after being immersed in water.
Shea nodded. “Although I train hard as a triathlete, I don’t have somebody making me run into the ocean, get sandy, and do exercises on asphalt. Quite a different training regimen.”
“That’s cool,” Lane said. “Do you compete?”
“Yes, but in the past when I was younger. I keep up with my fitness and still cycle, run and swim a lot.”