Firestorm

5

After five hours of work laying out preliminary plans for attacking the four phases of the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the men of Third Platoon turned in for some long-overdue sack time. Murdock had made a quick rundown on the plans with Stroh, who made a couple of suggestions and said he hadn't heard from the Commander in Chief yet.

Murdock decided a few hours' sleep would be beneficial to him as well, and he hit the bunk in his closet-sized room. He had made sure that his men had proper quarters before he turned on the snooze alarm.

David "Jaybird" Sterling, platoon chief of Third Platoon, lay on his bunk with his eyes wide open. He hadn't slept for well over twenty-four hours, but he still couldn't get to sleep. His mind charged from one of the four actions they had outlined to the next. Evaluating, working up possible improvements, different tactics. Then it all came crashing down. This speculation was worthless until they got the word. They couldn't do a damn thing until the President decided if they would try to stop the invasion.

He laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the bunk above him. A year ago he would never have thought he'd be where he was now. He had thirteen men to watch, to bitch at, to coddle, to persuade, to order if he had to into whatever project or job they had at hand. He had thirteen men depending on him. He was responsible for their lives.

When in hell was the brass in D.C. going to decide what they would do?

He pushed the thought aside and concentrated on Coronado. Coronado, California, and that long spit of land that connects the Jewel City to the mainland at Imperial Beach. On that strip of sand and earth perches the Naval Amphibious Base. Part of that facility is the headquarters of Naval Special Warfare. It's on the San Diego Bay side of the strand just off State Highway 75.

On the Pacific Ocean side is the BUD/S training center with the headquarters built around a courtyard. There are many slogans carved in wood and printed in that area. One says, "The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war." Another one says, "The only easy day was yesterday."

SEAL training. Damn. Jaybird would never forget it. He had arrived nervous and scared. He'd heard all sorts of harsh and devastating stories about the rigorous training the SEALS underwent, but he knew it couldn't be as tough as they all portrayed. He was wrong. It was harder.

The stories didn't come halfway to the truth of the pain, the sweat, the pressure, the agony of SEAL training. Nor of the ecstasy when he completed it and knew he had won the biggest fight of his life, the fight with himself.

One of the purposes of the SEAL training is to stretch each man's capability to his limit, to let him relax a moment and then stretch him again beyond where he had been before, and eventually far, far beyond anything he had thought he was capable of.

A lot of SEAL candidates quit. The dropout rate reaches 90 in some classes. One class closed because every man in the group quit. The usual dropout rate is about 50 for each group.

At one corner of the courtyard at the headquarters is a large brass "quitting bell." It used to be a man could ring the bell three times, put down the helmet, and quit the training. Now they had stopped using the bell. The Navy decided that using it created a serious psychological problem for those leaving training. Bullshit!

Even now, Jaybird found it hard to believe that the training lasted for twenty-six weeks. That's six months of Hell for the men who try it. Jaybird had heard that SEAL training was 90 mental and only 10 physical. He had never believed that. But the mental strain was tremendous.

Those with a weak commitment or a flagging will almost certainly don't make it through the training. Those who survive the twenty-six weeks of fatigue, pain, and grueling exercises beyond anything they had ever known are the strong ones. They can be counted on in combat when the lives of the SEALS are on the line and they must perform their jobs flawlessly, quickly, and with decisiveness. Then you are a SEAL.

Jaybird remembered the obstacle course at Coronado. Damn, it was the toughest in the world. He'd learned to hate the diving tower, a fifty-foot-deep tank filled with water. He'd almost drowned there once. One phase of their training was "waterproofing." The trainees were tied hand and foot and dropped into the tank. They sank to the bottom, then paddled slowly to the surface, took big breaths, and then sank to the bottom again. They don't use that tank anymore. Now they have a new twelve-foot-deep pool instead.

The idea is to train the men not to fear the water, and not to panic. Most people drown because they panic in the water.

The long strand of clean sand beach and the Pacific Ocean just outside the fence from headquarters were also part of the exclusive SEAL training areas. He quickly became acquainted with the IBSS, the Inflatable Boat, Small. Jaybird became devilishly familiar with them while learning teamwork. One of the exercises was for the seven men to lug an IBS around on their heads.

Climbing ropes tore up arms and shoulders regularly, but also served in the long run to build those muscles for top upper body strength. Then there were the telephone poles that teams of SEALS lifted and held and carried until their bodies ached beyond belief.

It had taken Jaybird only a week to learn that while individual training was important, the emphasis in BUD/S was on teamwork. That teamwork became so ingrained in the candidates that they would later function as a team without thinking, reacting to a situation as they had been trained.

The SEAL trainee starts with a Fourth Phase program, a four-to-seven-week time slot in which he gets his equipment, learns how to use it, and is given an outline of the training requirements. Jaybird had looked in awe at the posted tests

Swim a half mile in the pool without fins in thirty minutes.

Swim a mile in the pool without fins in sixty minutes.

Take a one-mile swim in the San Diego Bay with fins in fifty minutes.

Run a two-mile course in sixteen minutes.

Swim a mile and a half in the Pacific Ocean with fins in seventy-five minutes.

Run a four-mile course in thirty-two minutes.

Officers who take the BUD/S training have no rank during training. They are treated the same way the lowest seaman is — with vigor and toughness and with an eye toward washing out anyone who can't measure up. The officers are treated differently in one aspect. In certain written tests the officers must score ten points higher than the enlisted candidates to pass.

Jaybird remembered the log.

Not just any log. His boat team's log. The boat team is a training unit that helps teach team effort. Jaybird would never forget the first day they met their log.

Seven men made up a boat team, and they would be together for the rest of the training. They marched out to a stack of telephone poles, each twenty feet long and weighing three hundred pounds. The seven of them picked up one pole and carried it where instructed.

Then they were told to lie down and bring the log onto their chests. The next order puzzled them at first. They were commanded to do sit-ups with the pole held to their chests. The whole point was that all seven men working together and at the same time could do the sit-ups lifting the telephone pole at the same time. But if one of the seven didn't lift his weight, the other six bodies couldn't do it by themselves.

They were starting to learn the teamwork that is the hallmark of every SEAL who ever graduated from BUD/S training.

For weeks their pole was never far from their sweating bodies. They did push-ups with their toes resting on top of the log. They raised it over their heads while lying flat on their backs, held it all the way up, halfway up, then did push-ups with it.

Once they ran a race along the beach for fourteen miles with the seven of them carrying the log. Sometimes they ran over sand dunes to the surf. There they had to drop the log, flop into the surf, then pick up their very own log again, and run back to the starting point.

Platoon Chief Jaybird Sterling turned over on the bunk trying to find a comfortable position. When the hell were the brass in D.C. going to make up their minds? It was a simple answer, yes or no. He checked his watch. It'd been an hour since the SEALS had finished their preliminary planning. What in hell was going on?

The next thing Jaybird knew the L-T was shaking his shoulder.

"Up time. Let's move. We catch a chopper in fifteen minutes. We're taking a damn quick ride to the big floating football field on the ocean. Move."

"What's the word, go or no go?" Jaybird asked.

"Wish I knew. Let's get out of here. We'll find out for sure on the carrier."