SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden Read Online Free Page A

“physically and mentally demanding.” That might be one of the understatements of all time. After being classed up, students begin a two-week regime of “pretraining.” During long days and nights, trainees learn the ropes. If they somehow graduated boot camp without a grasp of marching and polishing shoes and brass, they are reintroduced to the practices. Their beachfront rooms are inspected, found to be filled with sand, torn apart, and inspected again. They are introduced to a program of extreme calisthenics called “BUD/S PT.” This muscle-racking set of exercises was designed by kinesiologists to stress and flex literally every muscle in the human body. For the next six months the students will perform this ninety-minute set of exercises daily.
    They will run, they will run, and they will run. The students are led on an ever-lengthening series of “conditioning hikes.” At least that’s what it says on the schedule. Prodded together into company-sized groups, the classes are led on beach runs by SEAL instructors who never seem to break a sweat. As weaker runners fall back into the pack, the fastest assume the first ranks behind the instructor. To fall back into the pack is to stumble among the pounding feet of fifty other men who are breathing the dust of fifty more in front of them.
    Nor is the SEAL at the front of the pack the only one the students have to worry about. During pretraining no run leaves the compound without a half-dozen instructors following close behind. Like wolves picking off migrating Bambis, the instructors dart in and out of those trailing behind. Slower students are encouraged to run harder by being given push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks to do while their classmates trudge ever farther toward the horizon. Soon, the instructors have achieved their aim—to cut off the slowest 20 percent of the class.
    These men are harried and circled into a separate group called the Goon Squad. The Goon Squad gets its name because the slowest people on any run tend also to be the largest. Members of the Goon Squad are frequently over six feet tall. A significant percentage of students who were football players or bodybuilders wind up as denizens of the Goon Squad.
    There, they find themselves in the tender care of instructors who earnestly entreat them to run faster. And to do it quickly. The instructor’s orders are hard to comply with, because members of the Goon Squad are frequently given numerous opportunities to rest—in push-up position, with generous helpings of California surf smashing down over their backs. For good measure, members of the Goon Squad can always enjoy a sugar cookie—which means rolling on the beach until every square inch of their skin and every orifice of their body is filled with sand. Thus fortified, they can return to their run.
    Every day, the slowest students are badgered in this manner. Instructors continually tell the class that “it pays to be a winner,” and “the only easy day was yesterday.” No matter how bad training gets, a student can always tell himself, “At least I’m not on the Goon Squad.” Almost every trainee will wind up being gooned at least once. It’s an experience no one wants to repeat. But for some students, the Goon Squad is an everyday occurrence.
    After a couple of weeks, a certain mystique begins to form around the survivors. The other students watch as the Goon Squad guys get hammered, morning, noon, and night. Often these are some of the most determined men in the class. The men of the Goon Squad have what it takes to become a SEAL in every respect—except for being able to run like a gazelle, swim like a dolphin, or negotiate the obstacle course like a chimpanzee. Some Goon Squadders will go on to become the SEAL Teams’ strongest and best operators. But mostly, cut off from the pack, alone and overwhelmed, they will just quit.
    “You have to really want it back there,” said one Goon Squad veteran. “The instructors make