Once more, my imagination got me nervous. I knew at some point an instructor was going to bust through that door with an M-60 machine gun shooting blanks, and I was going to have to run outside and form up on the grinder (asphalt workout area). But when?

Every minute that passed added to the churning in my stomach. I was sitting there saying to myself, “God.” Over and over. Very eloquent and deep.

I tried to take a nap but I couldn’t sleep. Finally, someone burst in and started shooting.

Thank God!

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be abused in my life. I ran outside. The instructors were throwing flash-crashes and had the hoses going full-blast. (Flash-crashes and flash-bang grenades give off an intense flash and make a very loud noise when they explode, but won’t injure you. Technically, the terms are applied to different grenades used by the Army and Navy, but we generally use the names interchangeably.

I was excited, ready for what some people think is the ultimate test for SEAL trainees. But at the same time, I was thinking, What the hell is going on? Because even though I knew all about Hell Week—or thought I did—never having experienced it, I really didn’t understand it in my bones.

We were split up. They sent us to different stations and we began doing push-ups, flutter kicks, star jumpers…

After that, everything ran together. My foot? That was the least of the pain. We swam, we did PT, we took the boats out. Mostly, we just kept moving. One of the guys was so exhausted at one point, he thought a kayak coming to check on us in the boats was a shark and started yelling a warning. (It was actually our commander. I’m not sure if he took that as a compliment or not.)

Before BUD/S began, someone told me the best way to deal with it is to go meal-to-meal. Go as hard as you can until you get fed. They feed you every six hours, like clockwork. So I focused on that. Salvation was always no further than five hours and fifty-nine minutes away.