Brutal Rite of Passage : Why Do They Endure ‘Sucking Up Pain’ and Mind Games? The Lure of Being in the Military’s Most Elite Commando Force

Rich Cleveland first tried to get through Hell Week to become a Navy SEAL in January. He got hypothermia and passed out from the cold. The second time, in March, he broke his leg.

Cleveland’s third try, two weeks ago, didn’t begin badly. For 24 hours, he and the rest of Class 172 tossed 250-pound logs and then kicked them up sand berms, rowed and then shoulder-pressed inflated rubber rafts over their heads. They lay in the surf while waves pounded them, swam relay races, climbed walls and ropes and raced in the deep sand of Coronado’s beaches. And they did not sleep.

On the second night, Cleveland and the others were ordered into the bay. Cleveland, 22, remembered the hypothermia and panicked.

For almost 20 minutes, the fully clothed men swam. As instructed, they removed their boots and socks in the water and tied them around their necks.

They were ordered back to the steel pier, where they lay on the cold metal. An instructor hosed the men down with bay water as they did push-ups.

“Keeps them from overheating,” the instructor said sarcastically.

Kenneth Graham, a petty officer 2nd class, confessed that he had lost one of his boots in the bay. The group returned to the water, diving until they found it. Cleveland’s face was pinched in fear.

“It was the cold,” the Oklahoma native said later. “And the night. . . . The dark has a way of taking things away. . . . I was petrified.”

For the chance to belong to the military’s most elite special operation force, Cleveland and 57 others were going through what is widely regarded as the toughest military training in the United States. The program is so strenuous that only half of those who enroll will graduate and become SEALs, sea-air-land commandos. The most intense part of the 25-week training is Hell Week, a name that evolved over 47 years from its original name, “Motivation Week.”

During Hell Week, the recruits are almost constantly wet and cold. They lose their toenails and rub raw huge patches of skin. Their joints swell up like melons. Afraid they will be unable to put their boots back on, they rarely take them off. In the course of the week, the men faint, vomit and hallucinate.

“I just had to suck up pain,” said William (B.J.) Whitted, 28, a Virginia Beach resident who went through Hell Week with a stress fracture in each leg. “If you go through Hell Week, you feel a sense of superiority; you have done something few people could tolerate.”

As Class 172 went through Hell Week, Navy officials allowed The Times unprecedented access to the exercises and the men involved. Their only request was that instructors eligible to go on clandestine missions remain anonymous.

Officials say Hell Week, which occurs during the sixth week of the 25-week training, is a hazing ritual that separates the determined from the doubtful. It is the ultimate “rite of passage to be a warrior” in the armed forces, said Cmdr. Larry Simmons, executive officer of the Naval Special Warfare Center.

For those who succeed, it is not only a physical feat. They also suffer through mind games and mockery. Through the six days of Hell Week, the men get no more than three hours of sleep total. Several men in Class 172 fell asleep during the 15-mile paddles, waking up only after tumbling into the water.

“Hell Week is to see how a young man operates under extreme stress. You try to simulate combat within super-tolerant margins of safety. They look like they got out of Auschwitz when it’s over,” said Rear Adm. George R. Worthington, commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command. “Nobody really dies during Hell Week.”

But they do get injured. Class 172 started with 79 enrolled. By Hell Week, the class had dropped to 58. About equal numbers quit, became physically incapacitated or were dismissed for being unable to hack it. Six men dropped out after Hell Week, an unusually low number, officials said.

Before this Hell Week kicked off Sept. 16, 15 instructors gathered with SEAL officers in the conference room at the Special Warfare Command in Coronado for a “breakout brief.” With the attentiveness of caterers planning a party, they discussed the trials the enrollees would endure, figuring in the nighttime water and air temperatures--70 and 60 degrees, respectively.

Instructors, all of them SEALs themselves, work eight-hour shifts in teams of six throughout the week. Because they need to stay alert, they do not keep the same hours as their charges, said Capt. Douglas P. Huth, commanding officer of the Naval Special Warfare Center.

At 7 p.m. Sunday, the 58 young men gathered and were assigned to black rubber boats. They would carry these boats everywhere they went--including the mess hall--during the next week.

There were eight teams, grouped by height. Boat Crew 8, whose members were the shortest in the class, had already earned the dubious title that was to dog them throughout the week: the Smurfs.

As the boat crews assembled, the shouting began.

“You are late! That is no way to start Hell Week!” screamed one instructor.

Another chimed in: “Class 172 is starting Hell Week on the wrong foot! I can’t believe this! I can’t believe you people are no more motivated than that!”

In a desperate, unsuccessful effort to impress their instructors, the class gave the trademark shout: “HOO YAH!” It is a war cry uttered only by SEAL trainees. Nobody seems to know what it means, but it is a long-maintained tradition nevertheless. The air rang with the yells of hopeful trainees wearing green uniforms, dry for the first and only time during Hell Week.

The instructors, however, seemed further irritated.

“On my shift, I will not repeat myself! Do everything 120% and right the first time--we won’t have any problem!” one shouted. “It pays to be a winner!”

Lt. Cmdr. Tom Campbell, the SEAL training officer, explained: “If you don’t win, you are going to be miserable. And if you lose in combat, you are dead.”

The men quickly learned that every training exercise was a race in which the winning crew was rewarded, usually by being able to rest. The losing teams repeated the exercises again and again.

Balancing their cumbersome boats atop their heads, the eight groups ran and stumbled to the ocean, where they paddled one mile to the rock jetty near the Hotel del Coronado. The ocean waves hurled the boats into the rocks as each crew jockeyed to beat the others ashore. Concerned about disturbing hotel guests, instructors ordered the trainees to keep quiet in the darkness.

Even so, a small cluster of civilians gathered at the jetty to watch the wet men grapple with the boulders and boats. “They’re nuts,” one bystander remarked.

After a series of races in the deep sand, Class 172 was ordered into the water to paddle a mile back to the base. They hauled out the boats and ran back to the main square in the unlit compound.

The second the men reached the square, explosions rocked the compound, setting off alarms in the cars parked outside. The noise was deafening, the flares blinding. Men wearing earplugs crept out of the shadows, firing machine guns loaded with blanks. Thick smoke spewed from machines made it almost impossible to see.

This was “breakout,” another longtime SEAL tradition. Instructors shouted orders to the young men, who had to do a series of push-ups, stomach-crunchers and other exercises amid the smoke and noise as they were hosed down with water. For one hour, the chaos was complete. At the end, no man had a dry item of clothing.

At 10 p.m., the men were ordered to crawl on their bellies. They writhed forward in the sand, following an instructor who was blowing a whistle. For the next 90 minutes, they alternated between crawling and lining up, arm-in-arm, to immerse themselves in water.

“When you are wet, sand sticks to your clothes, it goes through the buttonholes. It rubs your elbows and knees raw,” said Brad Long, a 19-year-old from Peoria, Ill. “It’s like dragging yourself over sandpaper.”

They switched off between lying in the ocean and kneeling so the waves hit them at waist level. The trainees call it “surf torture.”

Instructors carefully timed it so the young men were immersed in the water for no more than 16 minutes at a stretch. Then they were taken out for two minutes before being ordered back in again. That time they stayed for 14 minutes and left for three before being returned. The wet uniforms clung to the men as they shivered and sang songs.

“You never get used to the cold--all this does is show it’s not going to break you,” said one 30-year-old instructor from Nebraska. “But just about everything I went through in Hell Week was about 10 times worse in missions.”

Class 172 continued through the night. At 5 a.m. Monday, they ran. The pace of exercises was relentless. At 7 a.m., each crew hoisted its boat overhead and marched to mess hall. Even this early in the week, the men had come to loathe the boats, which tended to pull the hair off their scalps. Asked later to sketch a picture of his boat, one man drew a hammer pounding down on a nail. The hammer was labeled “boat.” The nail: “student.” The hand holding the hammer: “instructor.”

“The boat bounces on your head. You are completely disoriented, it hits you so hard,” said Whitted, the leading petty officer of the class. “The boat just beats the hell out of you all the way. I hated that boat. Your arms hurt so bad that they burn. By the end of the week, you are bleeding.”

After a one-hour breakfast, the men were ordered to do push-ups, an exercise so common that instructors don’t bother scheduling it. Then the men crawled on their bellies during whistle drills in the paved parking lot.

“In the chow hall, you sit down and have food. Your body starts to slow down. You go back outside and it’s a shock to your body,” said Lt. Anthony McKinney of Newport, R.I., the senior officer in the class. “It just felt the worst. You are carrying the boats to and from meals. You are going at a fast pace.”

Except for four one-hour meals a day, Class 172 was constantly on the move. The first two days were packed with strenuous workouts. When they weren’t toting boats, they were hoisting 250-pound logs over their heads, tossing the logs, doing sit-ups with the logs, running races with the logs.

Among the boat crews, the Smurfs were taking a beating. Ordered to race down the beach with their logs, they were the only crew to pick up the log with half the members pointed in one direction and the other half pointed in the opposite direction.

By Monday lunch, Class 172 was exhausted. Covered with sand and still wet, members lined up for their meal. Beginning with this meal, staying awake was a battle.

“You blink your eyes once and they won’t open again,” said Will Tumulty, 21, of Annapolis, Md.

Instead of using the bathroom during the 10-minute head break, some men changed their socks.

“You get your dogs screwed up and Hell Week is over,” Whitted said.

After lunch, the men hoisted their boats over their heads and marched to the obstacle course. There, they competed as teams--leaping from one stump to another, scrambling up walls, climbing up ropes and walking across logs the instructors were rocking. Whitted tumbled as one instructor shoved the log on which he was balanced.

At the fifth obstacle, called “Dirty Name,” three telephone poles were elevated in the air like huge steps. Machinist Mate Jose Fernandez was hoisted up to the top log by his team. He suddenly lost his balance and fell 10 feet to the ground. Face down in the dirt, he didn’t move. The ambulance truck that shadowed each of Class 172’s exercises drove up. Fernandez began to cry and his legs twitched in the dirt. As he hobbled into the ambulance, his boat crew yelled, “Hoo Yah, Fernandez!”

The group left the obstacle course for more log races before dinner. As they held the logs overhead, the men’s faces were red and dripped sweat. Some men cried.

“I cannot take this,” one trainee muttered.

“You have to decide if you want to be here or not!” an instructor barked.

For Rich Cleveland, the day’s events were familiar. Because this was his third try, the men called him “Grand Poobah.” He knew he wanted to be here. But he didn’t know if he could handle it.

“I think I am more stupid than anything--just too stupid to know when to quit,” said Cleveland, an airman apprentice who made it through Hell Week on this try.

Spirits were flagging when Class 172 scored an important victory. As they held their logs well above their heads, an instructor yelled at them to race down the beach. “He didn’t say we had to take our logs,” one man hissed. One by one, the boat crews dropped their logs and ran empty-handed. The instructors laughed at their own goof.

Monday bled into Tuesday. The men had not slept yet. They ran, crawled, paddled, dug a huge pit and sat in the surf. They spent the next 24 hours outside on the beach. Boxed meals were brought to them on the Strand, potato and macaroni salad ladled directly into the box atop the packaged food.

At dinner Tuesday night, each boat crew had to perform for its meal. One group imitated Roseanne Barr singing, another pretended to be helicopters.

“What’s 43 plus 56?” one instructor asked a group. When the fatigued men hesitated, he ordered them to do push-ups.

The men, their faces drawn and covered with sand, sat in a circle in a huge pit known as Camp Surf. They ate silently, too exhausted to speak. They had not slept for 48 hours.

One instructor pulled out a brown paper bag and announced: “I’ve got a real sandwich--turkey, avocado, cheese and croissant. And potato chips.”

Although his meal was clearly better than theirs, the members of Class 172 were too tired to care. No one responded. Their eyes were glazed. They ate, shivering and wet, as the sun went down. One instructor offered a piece of chicken to a trainee. He repeated his offer three times before the student realized someone was talking to him.

“I know you are feeling very sleepy,” another instructor said, his voice soothing, then abruptly abrasive. “But the next person I catch with their eyes shut, they will be awakened by the ocean.”

The sea, however, was inevitable. After dinner, the men formed a line and walked into the surf. They lay on their backs, arm-in-arm, with only their heads out of the water. Pelicans swooped into the waves as the men shouted, “Hoo Yah!” For the next hour, Class 172 plunged in and out of the sea.

The men began walking the bow-legged Hell Week walk. Though they wore special underpants that resemble bicycle shorts, the sand had worked its way under the fabric, rubbing areas of skin raw. The chafing is worsened by the constant dowsings in salt water. Armpits, as well, become severely chafed, and the men try to hold their arms away from their sides.

At 7:45 p.m. Tuesday, Class 172 was ordered back to the sand pit, where a fire had been lit. They jammed their wet, clothed bodies up against one another for warmth. An instructor ordered them to sleep.

“This is a sleep period--don’t screw with it,” he said. “This is not a game. This is a sleep period and that doesn’t happen very often during Hell Week.”

Within seconds, most men were snoring. Three, however, tried to stay awake--watching their instructors with mistrust. Twenty-five minutes later, the instructors screamed and blew whistles. Class 172 marched back into the water.

“During Hell Week, even sleep is painful--they get just enough to want more,” explained one instructor. “In Hell Week, it’s a matter of understanding your capabilities and limitations. Each man will know there is a point when he wanted to quit. You cry, you puke. . . . you have nothing to hide. After Hell Week, you don’t feel invincible--you know there are times you wanted out. You have no false impression about how great you are.”

At 8:50 p.m., Class 172 alternated between lying in the surf and crawling in the sand. One man--Brad Long--broke away from his group. After speaking with two instructors who tried to dissuade him, he stumbled up to the leading officer.

“I quit,” said Long, whose stepfather had been a SEAL for 22 years.

He spoke alone with the officer. Unable to talk him into joining the group, the officer told him to drink water and sit by the fire in the pit.

“I lost all motivation. I didn’t expect to be in the water so much, being so cold and wet. I kept thinking about a nice warm shower and going to sleep. I regret doing it--I know I could have made it through,” Long said later. “The worst thing is trying to figure out what to tell my family. God, I am depressed.”

Those who suffer medical ailments are allowed to try Hell Week again. But for men like Long, there is no second chance.

The members of Class 172 crawled on their bellies in the sand. Only Long’s boat crew realized he was missing. He sat, shaking, cross-legged in front of the flames. His chin fell to his chest and he wept.

MONDAY: An almost diabolical mental assault is part of the “hell” of Hell Week for the young men who want to become Navy SEALs.