SEAL Training

By John L.

“To become a SEAL in the Naval Special Warfare/Naval Special Operations (NSW/NSO) community, you must first go through what is widely considered to be the most physically and mentally demanding military training in existence. Then comes the tough part…” - America’s Navy Website

There are many tests a person has to do to become a Seal. One of these is BUD (Basic Underwater Demolition) where candidates learn to do multiple tasks underwater using both teamwork and communication.  As a candidate progresses, tests get both more difficult and intense. With a dropout rate of 80%, it is clearly obvious how rigorous these drills are and how hard these men train.  Every year, 1000 start the training and only 200-250 succeed. After multiple months of training, SEALS are then assigned to a team, where they are dispatched to where they are needed.

The most stressed things in SEAL training is not how to hold a gun or disarm a bomb, although they are important, but skill sets such as teamwork, endurance, communication, understanding, and many more. These skills are more important and are emphasized more than almost anything else, because it is vital to both the survival and accomplishments of these teams. A perfect example of this was the recent mission to Abbottabad, Pakistan, where more than seventy highly trained Navy SEALS from the sixth platoon killed Osama Bin Laden.