Chris Kyle: American Sniper

It’s definitely an effective way of weeding out guys. I didn’t see it at the time, to be honest. In combat, though, I understood. You can’t just walk over and ring a bell to go home when you’re being fired at. There’s no saying, “Give me that cup of coffee and the doughnut you promised.” If you quit, you die and some of your boys die.

My instructors in BUD/S were always saying things like, “You think this is bad? It’s going to suck more once you get to the Teams. You’ll be colder and more tired once you get there.”

Lying in the surf, I thought they were full of shit. Little did I know that in a few years, I’d think Hell Week was a cakewalk.

Being cold became my nightmare.

I mean that literally. After Hell Week, I would wake up shivering all the time. I could be under all sorts of blankets and still be cold, because I was going through it all again in my mind.

So many books and videos have been done on Hell Week that I won’t waste more of your time describing it. I will say one thing: going through it is far worse than reading about it.

The week after Hell Week is a brief recovery phase called walk week. By then they’ve beaten you so bad your body feels permanently bruised and swollen. You wear tennis shoes and don’t run—you just fast-walk everywhere. It’s a concession that doesn’t last for very long; after a few days, they start beating the hell out of you again.

“Okay, suck it up,” the instructors yell. “You’re over it.”

They tell you when you’re hurt and when you’re not.

Having survived Hell Week, I thought I was home free. I traded my white shirt for brown and began part two of BUD/S, the dive phase. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I’d gotten an infection. Not long after second phase started, I was in a dive tower, a special training apparatus that simulates a dive. In this particular exercise, I had to practice with a dive bell, making what is called a buoyant ascent while keeping the pressure in my inner and outer ears equalized. There are a few methods for doing that; one common one is to close your mouth, pinch your nostrils closed, and gently blow through your nose. If you don’t or can’t clear properly, there will be trouble…

I’d been told this, but because of the infection I couldn’t seem to get it. Since I was in BUD/S and inexperienced, I decided to just suck it up and take a shot. That was the wrong thing to do: I went on down and ended up perforating my eardrum. I had blood coming out of my ears, nose, and eyes when I surfaced.

They gave me medical attention on the spot and then sent me to have my ears treated. Because of the medical problems, I was rolled back—assigned to join a later class once I healed.

When you’re rolled back, you’re in a sort of limbo. Since I had already made it through Hell Week, I didn’t have to go all the way back to the start—there’s no repeating Hell Week, thank God. I couldn’t just lie on my butt until the next class caught up, though. As soon as I was able, I helped the instructors, did daily PT, and ran with a class of white shirts (first phase) as they got their asses busted.

One thing to know about me is that I love dipping tobacco.

I have since I was a teen. My father caught me with chewing tobacco when I was in high school. He was opposed to it, and decided he’d break me of the habit once and for all. So he made me eat an entire can of wintergreen mint��flavored tobacco. To this day, I can’t even use wintergreen toothpaste.

Other kinds of chew are a different story. These days, Copenhagen is my brand of choice.

You’re not allowed to have tobacco as a candidate in BUD/S. But being a rollback, I guess I thought I could get away with it. One day I put some Copenhagen in my mouth and joined the formation for a run. I was deep enough in the pack that no one would be paying attention. Or so I thought.

Wouldn’t you know, but one of the instructors came back and started talking to me. As soon as I answered, he saw I had some dip in my mouth.

“Drop!”

I fell out of formation and assumed the push-up position.

“Where’s your can?” he demanded.

“In my sock.”

“Get it.”

I, of course, had to stay in my push-up position while I did that, so I reached back with one hand and took it out. He opened the can and put it down in front of me. “Eat it.”

Every time I came down from a push-up, I had to take a big bite of Copenhagen and swallow it. I had been dipping from the time I was fifteen, and I already regularly swallowed my tobacco when I was done, so it wasn’t as bad as you might think. It certainly wasn’t as bad as my instructor wanted. Maybe if it had been wintergreen, it would have been a different story. It pissed him off that I wasn’t throwing up. So he worked me for several hours with all these exercises and such. I did almost puke—not from the Copenhagen but exhaustion.

Finally, he let me be. After that, we got along pretty well. It turned out he was a dipper himself. He and another instructor from Texas took a liking to me toward the end of BUD/S, and I learned a ton from both men as the course went on.

Alot of people are surprised to hear that injuries don’t necessarily disqualify you from becoming a SEAL, unless they are so serious that they end your Navy career. It makes sense, though, since being a SEAL is more about mental toughness than physical prowess—if you have the psychological fortitude to come back from an injury and complete the program, you stand a decent chance of being a good SEAL. I personally know a SEAL who broke his hip so badly during training that it had to be replaced. He had to sit out for a year and a half, but he made it through BUD/S.

You hear guys talking about getting kicked out of BUD/S because they got into a fight with the instructor and beat the crap out of him. They’re lying sacks of shit. No one fights with the instructors. You just don’t. Believe me, if you did, they’d come together and whip your ass so fast you wouldn’t ever walk again.

You get close to the people in BUD/S, but you try not to get too close until after Hell Week. That’s where the heaviest attrition is. We graduated two dozen guys out of our class; less than ten percent the number that started.

I was one of them. I’d started in class 231, but the rollback meant I graduated with 233.

After BUD/S, SEALs go to advance training—officially known as SQT or SEAL Qualifying Training. While I was there, I was reunited with a friend of mine I’d met while at BUD/S—Marcus Luttrell.

Marcus and I got along right away. It was only natural: we were a couple of Texas boys.

I don’t suppose you’ll understand that if you’re not from Texas. There seems to be a special bond between people from the state. I don’t know if it’s shared experiences, or maybe it’s something in the water—or maybe the beer. Texans tend to get on pretty well with each other, and in this case we formed an instant friendship. Maybe it’s not that much of a mystery; after all, we had a lot of experiences in common, from growing up with a love of hunting to joining the Navy to toughing out BUD/S.

Marcus had graduated from BUD/S prior to me, then went off to do special advanced training before returning to SQT. Trained as a corpsman, he happened to check me over when I got my first O 2hit while diving. (In layman’s terms, an “O 2hit” occurs when too much oxygen enters your bloodstream during a dive. It can be caused by a number of different factors and can be extremely serious. My case was very minor.)

Diving again. I always say I’m an “… L,” not a SEAL. I’m a land guy; you can keep air and sea for someone else.