Thinking about joining Navy SEALS.

I seriously doubt you will be able to just do 4 years. Plan on 6-8.

I can not comment on being a Seal, but there are a few important considerations that one needs to consider before joining. Having served in a Special Forces Group, I know that is is quite satisfying serving with elite highly motivated indviduals. Participating in a war has a large cost to individuals that has not been mentioned. Psychiatrist and PTSD authority Dr. Shay writes "The painful paradox is that fighting for one's country render one unfit to be its citizen." If you look at any objective measurement-incarceration rate, suicide rate, divorce rate, drug abuse rate-you will find that vets are many times more likely to end up never being truly happy again. I have mamy fellow vets who have chosen suicide to end their suffering. I came back with a blackened heart and was lucky to be able to remove myself from society for a few years so I escaped being incarcerated. (The largest Veitnam Veterans of America chapter in Ill is at Hill Correctional center) After 25 years I even progressed to a point that I could shed tears. At this early stage it is reported that 20-25% of returning Iraq vets seek mental help. That figure will only go up. I bummed around with a bunch of Iraq vets this summer and bonded with them. They had it much tougher than we did in Vietnam in my estimation. Their tales about their experiences in Iraq tore my heart out and were similiar to ones that I told. Most all do not want to hear these stories as they disrupt all the myths about the glory or war and the glory to the US. As Chris Hedges writes "war is always the betrayl of the young by the old."

Don't take my word for what you may experience in war, read the following books that accurately portray what some of us anyway went through. Homer's "The Iliad" Chris Hedges "War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" Edward Tick's "War and the Soul" Lee Burkins(who served in the same SF group that I did) "Soldier's Heart" Ambrose Bierce(the only major writer who actually fought in the Civil War. Read Lt. Col Grossman's "On Killing" before you join.

Read the war poem written by Wilfred Owen before he was killed in WW1 "Dulce et Decorum Est" in which he writes

"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desparate glory,

The old Lie; Dulce it decorum est

Pro patria mori."

(latin for It is sweet and right to die for your country)

If you hate war but want to serve your country, apply to law school and become a JAG. That way you get to bring some of your own concerns to the military without being a little bitch.

Paridise Island?

You think you got what it takes to be a SEAL? last month we were taken to the coast of japan and dropped off 3 miles from shore. We received our instructions to retrieve a briefcase containing classified documents. Our location for retrieval was on the 9th floor of a resort... no room number. We received instructions 10 minutes before we deployed for our operation. now the swimming to shore wasn't the hard part, as we drew closer, around 800 meters from shore, one of my op members noticed suspicious activity on the shore, we had been swimming for 3 straight hours with about 40 pounds of gear on. Our team consisted of 3. We entered water at 330 am jap time...upon noticing the activity of personal on shore, we fell back a kilometer and proceeded to tread water until nightfall...that's approx. 12 hours of treading water after a 3 mile swim with 40 pounds of gear on!!! After nightfall we made it back to shore... our team scaled the side of the resort and entered through an unlocked window on the 12th floor... we split up once we got to the destination and scowered the rooms on the floor, within 3 minutes one of the members had found the briefcase and we exited the building and disappeared back into the ocean... we were picked up 3miles off shore at 2am the next night....

didn't even recieve a pat on the back ....

can you handle that?

and that's just the R and R

mew wrote:

I just finished reading an excellent book called Lone Survivor, it is about a Navy Seal team in Afghanistan, true story, written by the lone survivor of a 4 man Seal Team. The book gives some good insight on the Navy Seal Training. I would recommend to anyone thinking about the Navy Seals to read this book.

I snagged this book at the library and read it this past weekend - pretty darned good read. Gives quite a bit of background on the training and then also describes in detail a mission that went bad...

Call BS on this training exercise. Scaled to the 12th floor? And I'm sure you rappeled back down from the 12th floor and carried all your gear back to the boat, so not to leave any signs you were there?

After retiring with 24 years in Army SF and working with Navy Seals on numerous ocasions. This is my personal assessment. Great swimmers. Terrible at any type of field craft outside of the water. And the final assessment: SEAL stands for Sleep, Eat And Lift. Because that is all they ever really wanted to do when I/we worked with them in the past. Sleep, Eat And Lift.

What are you doing all that for you stupid shit. get a job at Starbucks and make Lattes. They have girls as customers. Something you U.S. Navy boys don't know what to do with.

You don't just "join" the SEALS dipshit...first of all, I hope you have a college degree, because you first have to be an officer - then good luck, very few are selected to even try out.

23 is too old for the Marine Corps, 17-19 year olds do best, many 20 and overs fail, get physically beaten for a week, then sent to the Army, least that\'s how it was in \'68. The Corpsman have the riskiest job in the Navy, aka The Suicide Rating. Every Marine has the highest respect and regard for Navy Corpsmen.

better to live than to die wrote:

It's better to live than to die. SF guys in the Navy get a chance to live. The HMC[FMF] guys voluneteer to walk into bullets to pull out Marines. Be an SF guy, and live til you are old and gray.

oh most definately. i have this quote posted above my bedroom door. anyways, what is HMC[FMF]?

my wife is a navy seal... unless she has been telling me otherwise.

>You don't just "join" the SEALS dipshit...first of all, I hope you have a college degree, because you first have to be an officer - then good luck, very few are selected to even try out.

If you can't be bothered to even read a web page about entrance requirements, you shouldn't be posting all that incorrect garbage.

how many navy officers get a shot at seals?

>I am pretty sure that trying to become a SeAL is at least 100 times worse and probably more like 1,000 times worse. Don't believe those TV shows that try to show you what it's like to go through "Hell Week." Based on my Army experience, I am going to bet that they are verbally abused about 20,000 times more than is shown on TV. Like others have said, you will be stressed every way you can possibly think of, so you'd better be prepared to put up with more shit than you can imagine and stay motivated.

I went through in the late 80's. I find one of the most amusing things is that every book or tv show that is aired showed them with the telephone poles. The first thing everyone says is 'Holy Crap! Telephone poles!?!' We never touched the damn telephone poles unless there was a dog and pony when someone came by or was taking pictures. They're not even that damn heavy. Sure a telephone pole is heavy, but with 8 guys on it? Dog and Pony.

And you're right about hell week. Nothing I have ever read or watched has even come close to describing it. (nor is all of it public knowledge)

>This is another thing to think about that most people forget, SEALS have an extremely high divorce rate, along with other special ops groups. If you have a family or are thinking about asking a girl to marry you, it will be as hard on her as it is on you.

True. And if you want kids, you might want to think about the consequences again.

>A few things that stick out from my fathers training was the exposure in water...get used to cold water, cold showers, shivering etc. He said towards the end they were required to assemble car parts 10-15 underwater blindfolded.

Yeah, getting a 'winter class' is an added bonus. There is nothing like stepping in sub 50 degree water for a couple mile swim thinking to yourself "Who the hell thought this was a good idea?!?" It just burns. Suddenly your assesement of mid 60 degree water shifts to 'bath water'. We didn't have to do the car parts, but they have (or had when I was there) a 50 foot dive tower that you breath hold down, tie your 5 knots, and then surface. Always tying those knots...

>You need to realize that you can't just inlist in the Navy and immediately go to Navy Seals training.

This is a little wrong. You have to go to 'A' School first, but you don't have to be in the military for a few years. The recommendation from your superiors is only for fleet guys trying to get in. I had talked to a recruiter and was cleared to get in as long as I passed the physical test (and psyc eval) in boot camp. From there to 'A' School and then on to BUD/S. Anyone in boot camp (with high enough asvab) has the chance to pass the physical test (and the psyc eval of course) to go straight in after 'A' school, if every is still the way it was when I was in.

>I suggest you do a lot more research before inlisting otherwise you may find yourself cleaning toilets on some destroyer or stuck in a submarine for 4 years.

Plenty of guys go in thinking they're going to do it and miss the mark in the boot camp test and end up as regular military guys for their tour. I think we had 10 or so guys go for it in boot camp, 5 went, 1 dropped for psyc after getting there and only 2 of us ended up making it just past hell week. Rest go back to the fleet. Are you ok with being a sailor if you fail? Odds are not in your favor. Something to think about.