BUILDING A TEAM

My class was already a few weeks into BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) when Instructor Samuels directed us into the First Phase classroom for a special brief. We shuffled in quickly but quietly, looking more like prisoners of war than SEAL trainees — heads down, our wet and sandy boots sliding rhythmically across the tiled floor.

As I made my way to one of the chairs — the kind they have in high school, with the desk attached to the side — a high-ranking SEAL officer was standing off in the corner of the room. My heart cramped a bit. I was certain his presence meant that we had fucked something up so bad that the level of hammering we were about to experience was to be so intense that it would require congressional oversight. People do die in SEAL training. Not very often, but it does happen. As we waited, our collective body heat evaporated the saltwater that had become a permanent part of our uniforms, since, in this early phase of training, it was routine for us to hit the surf so often that we never actually got to dry off. The room smelled like a harbor on a hot sunny day.

"You guys are steaming up my class," Instructor Samuels said quietly. "Go hit the surf and get back. You've got sixty-five seconds." He said it as if we should have already thought of it ourselves. He glanced down at his black G-Shock watch. Ding. His timer started.

Instantly, a hundred dudes cycled out of the classroom, across the SEAL compound, through the parking lot, over the sand berm, and into the salty ocean. We made it back in what had to be close to sixty-five seconds, but judging by Instructor Samuels's face, we had just stacked yet another failure that we'd no doubt pay for later.

Instructor Samuels, all 5' 11" and about 180 pounds of him, stood at the front of the room. He was like a young and extremely fit Richard Gere, but with a light southern accent. "To be honest, you guys aren't even worth talking to right now, because most of you will quit by the end of the week," he said in a straightforward yet friendly tone, "but Mr. Smith is heading off to Africa, so we had to push up his brief." He stepped aside, and Captain Smith crossed to the front of the room. He was shorter and leaner than Samuels, with a mustache, and looked more like a presidential candidate than a SEAL.

"How are you fellas doing?" Captain Smith asked, even though he knew the answer.

"Hooyah," we responded collectively.

"So have you figured out what this is all about yet?" he asked.

This time, just a couple of guys answered, "Hooyah," which meant I don't know what you're talking about, but I felt like I just had to respond.

Captain Smith and Instructor Samuels exchanged a what a bunch of dumbasses look, and then Captain Smith surprised me with what he said next.

"I'm here to explain why we are doing what we are doing to you."

This caught me off guard, considering the first part of our SEAL training was all balls to the wall, pedal to the metal, a not for me to ask why but for me to do or die type of thing. If the instructors said to dive into the cold ocean, you dove in and stayed there until you were hypothermic. If they said to carry your buddy on your shoulders, you carried him until you dropped, and then you kept crawling with him strung across your back. For them to stop and dial us in to what was going on was meaningful. I realized that they wanted us to be thinkers as well as doers — a paradigm shift from typical military training that would later change my life forever.

SEAL SPEAK

Hooyah: a form of release; an expression of mind over matter, of attitude and mental self-regulation. It has many meanings, but these three are among the most common: Yes, I can do it; Right on; and You're a fucking cocksucker.

BUD/S training consists of approximately six months of field training divided into three phases:

* Basic Conditioning Phase: SEALs are taught to rely on themselves and the presence of others. Threat: You can inconvenience others and hurt yourself.

* Combat Diving Phase: SEALs are taught to rely on themselves and their dive buddy. Threat: You can get your buddy kicked out of training or killed.

* Land Warfare: SEALs are taught to rely on their team to produce nearly impossible results. Threat: You can kill the entire class.

READY TO LEAD. READY TO FOLLOW. NEVER QUIT.

Do SEAL candidates ever quit? Yes, of course they do, upwards of 70 percent of them. First Phase weeds out a lot of guys for a lot of reasons, but at the core of the matter, it's because of their inability to see past, or override, their personal preferences and desire for immediate comfort.

Do fathers ever quit? Yes, and I don't just mean that they walk away. I've heard the expression Once a father, always a father, but I've come across many dads who have thrown in the towel — it just doesn't look like quitting. My definition of a father is someone who is there for his children, someone who spends a certain amount of time doing homework, having fun, and offering advice. By that definition, a father who chooses to work too much or to spend the majority of his time hanging out with his friends or at the bar instead of spending time with his children is not really acting like a father. Has he quit? No, not officially. However, at his core, he quits every time he allows his personal preference and desire for immediate comfort to take him out of the game. Any father reading this knows what I'm talking about.

What about the father who is home all the time but would rather binge-watch television shows than play a game or go for a hike or a surf? Has he quit? No one's probably going to call him out on it, but he has. Instead of being there, he's just there. This is important because in SEAL training when a candidate quits, he is removed from training so that he can no longer do any damage to himself or the class. However, when a father quits, he'll likely still be present in his children's lives and can inflict harm, particularly if he ignores his kids or damages their self-esteem and confidence by being emotionally removed from them.

The good news? If you've stepped out — of SEAL training or of fatherhood — you can just turn back around and step up. Both offer second chances.

There's an award given in SEAL training that's called First Time, Every Time. It's given to guys who went all the way through training without failing anything. (There's also an award called Fire in the Gut that usually goes to the guy who had the toughest time but made it through...