This is Post One of a New old Series (and one I promise to be faithful to)
I will regale y’all with all my Navy SEAL BUD/s training reckless, feckless experiences. Reliving it for me, is better than it actually was. (Trust me on this one)
However, before we dive in, you may want to watch the below. For if you do, you will get so much more ‘value’ out of my words (also found below)
I was in Class One Forty and Class One Fifty Eight, but some things (in SEALs) are always constantly constant)
So, here we go….
***
Zero Four. Alarm going off! I knock it off the nightstand. It whimpers for an instant and then grows silent. “Now Run Tell That!” as Peanut would say.
Four o’clock!? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Where am I? Who am I? Do I need to ‘be’ someplace at four-oh-fucking-clock? Of course I do. I start to remember, shaking some dust from my addled mind. I need to be in Coronado. At BUD/s. And I need to be there by zero-five. Fuck! Fuck!
Karen stirs beside me.
“What’s up?” she asks with morning breath and sleepy eyes.
“Go back to sleep,” I say. “I’ll see you later.” (Much later)
Dragging my hung over self out of our bed in La Mesa California, I get dressed and stumble down the stairs, trying ever so careful to not awake the house in my doing so at such an un-Godly-hour. Four o’clock!
Fuck!
Seated in my Toronado, I crank her up, back out of the drive and head west. To BUD/s. God help me.
Of course I had been through this before: back in ’86. I was what some could call a ‘Two-Time Loser.’ Yeah, this weren’t my first attempt at SEAL training. And certainly not my first rodeo. I continued west.
Presently I arrived at the BUD/s compound (For the uninitiated: Basic Underwater/Demolition slash SEAL Training—Yeah—My Navy is fond of acronyms)
Went into my ‘hooch’ and threw on the lights.
“Goddamn it! Marcom!” was the chorus I was greeted with. “I hate you!”
“Drop yer cocks and grab yer socks!” I yelled. (I have lived my life every day, waiting for an opportunity to say this)
“Huh?”
“It’s time to daince gen’telmens. Let’s git to it!”
“Ah fuck!”
“Yep! Fuck!”
I took a dip of snuff as I watched my roommates get dressed. We were due to meet up with the rest of our class, One Fifty-Eight, in about ten mikes.
“Hurry the fuck up!” I yelled at my sleepy ‘roommates’.
“And you… you shut the fuck up, Petty Officer Mar—cone.”
“I’m doin’ ya’ll a favor, getting you up early so you can get all yer constitutionals done in time,” I said.
“What-ever!”
“Let’s go,” I said.
We proceeded down to our class muster point, mustered up with about seventy other disgruntled ‘grunts’—poly-wogs—and ran into the ‘grinder.’
We sang in unison as we did so:
“TO MY LEFT!
“TO MY LEFT!
“HOOYAH
“HOOYAH
“HOO–YAH!!!”
Class One Five Eight had arrived at BUD/s. God save and send us.
On the grinder (asphalt parking lot) there were little paintings of fin-feet, designating where the pollywogs were to assemble for PT (Physical… Uh… training. Read: torture)
Thusly assembled, we waited for the SEAL Instructor to show. During our wait, we knew we were supposed to sing. You see? The singing arouses the instructor and God knows we wanted him aroused:
So we sang:
“Drank Drank Drank
“Drunk Drunk Drunk
“Drunk last night
“Drunk the night before
“Gonna get drunk like I never got before
“’Cause when I’m drunk I’m happy as can be
“’Cause I’m a member of the Frog Fam’ily…
“Oh the Frog Fam’ily is the best family
“That ever sailed a’cross the sea….”
And on an’ on. You get the idea.
The instructor arrived in full regalia: UDT shorts, T-Shirt, and attitude. There was a platform of sorts in front of us (Just for His Holiness, the PT SEAL instructor to ‘preach’ from)
We stood erect at attention… waiting to hear his first pronouncement. We did not have to wait long.
“What a fucking sorry lot! This is the worst class I have ever seen! Get wet! AND SANDY!!!”
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
“Gonna be a long day,” I thought as we all ran to the Pacific to get wet and then sandy on the beach…
And the day had not even yet begun…
****
Russia won our war (Well, everybody’s war actually)
Or, If you desire:
“I’m the reason God Made Oklahoma.” (See? I can say that. Why? Because my second was an Okie and, by parley, that makes me ‘bonafide’—so there!)
