I'M WITH TONY DOKOUPIL writing today @ The Daily Beast: Navy SEALS are the coolest military men in the world. Very, very few make it to the elitest SEAL Team Six because it involves taking such major physical and mental abuse over and over again. To wit:SEAL TRAINING is two years—the same as astronaut training—and it includes an agonizing combination of brain and brawn work, topped with five days of simulated battle stress. The men call it "Hell Week," a regime of bullets, bombs, and extreme endurance tests. Men can ring a bell to quit at any time, and two out of three do so. Right now there are only about 2,500 SEALs on active duty in a range of missions worldwide, virtually all of them secret. The best of those are invited to join SEAL Team Six, as it's popularly known—the team that picked off three Somali pirates from 100 yards on rough seas. And the team that finally got bin Laden.
The SEALs originated as "frogmen" clearing beaches during World War II, moved on to bridge demolition during Korea, and gained fame (along with the SEAL name) during Vietnam. But the modern SEALs were born in the aftermath of the Iran hostage crisis as a specialized counterterrorism force. The initial results were underwhelming....
Read the rest of the piece and give thanks that this tough-guy cadre of fighting men exists to serve our country. Who among us doesn't have a new appreciation? I certainly do.
Below, many are called, very few chosen....no one who wants it easy need apply.
Couple of interesting things about Seal training:
ReplyDeleteBoth in Seal training, and in Air Force training of its elite medics who parachute in provide care for injured military men: trainees are held down underwater, and intentionally drowned, then revived.
The purpose, ostensibly, is to demonstrate, to trainees, exactly how close they can come to drowning before they actually drown. Both Seals and Air Force medics must be calm underwater; must know when they are and are not in peril. I suspect another part of the purpose is to guarantee that trainees are willing to entrust their lives to their compatriots.
Second, I have heard a Seal trainer describe the purpose of hell week this way: we want potential Seals to be clear, in their own minds, that they prefer to be out there, in the cold and in pain, over being warm and comfortable.
What interests me, about this, is its application to philosophy and to Christianity. Satan is always offering the promise of warmth, comfort, pleasure et al ... which warmth/comfort/pleasure turns out to be, in the end, actual agony. It reminds me of Satan's First Temptation of Jesus:
And after He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."
And Jesus answered, in effect, that He preferred the cold and the pain (of life lived in relationship with God) over accepting Satan's invitation to be warm and comfortable:
"But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
Wow, Greg, what a wonderful analogy... suffering along the long way rather than the ease of shortcuts off by Satan.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Great things to contemplate.