I don't want you to come here and survive. I want you to come here to
compete. You're looking at 730 days of training in front of you. And it's no
joke, every one of those days... it's quite honestly... we're gonna crush you.
The training is physically challenging. The mental training, mixed in with the
academics, you have to have your mind right.
And you definitely can't quit. You definitely can't quit.
We're preparing men and women. We're preparing them to eventually go out into combat.
It might seem very intense, but it doesn't compare to what they're
gonna be going through when they're downrange.
From six in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon you're doing
nothing but working out. Your push-ups, your sit-ups, your swims and your runs-- you
should be able to do that all day long. You're going to hit physical walls. Being
able to complete an exercise when you feel like you are about to die is huge.
Pushing past those boundaries where you didn't believe that you could go is part
of your mental training. I'll be honest, most of our individuals have that mental
and physical block in the pool. Lots of people think that they're out of breath
when they still have about 60 seconds left. It's getting
yourself to flip the switch of being underwater and being uncomfortable. Every
training objective we do has a real-world application. The first time I
went to Afghanistan, I didn't realize I was gonna be walking up thousands of feet of
mountainous terrain with hundred pound packs on our back. One of the craziest
scenarios I've been in, getting a Canadian force out of Afghanistan... we had
the fast rope into the objective. There was IEDs throughout the field. He had
bilateral amputations about the knee level, but you have to learn what's in front
of you, attack it, and go on to the next. When you're in an actual firefight and
bullets are flying and people are dying, it's a reality check. These courses are
meant to break you down.
All week I've been in pain. It hurts. Everything you do hurts, but nothing hurt as
much as ringing that bell. This is painful. This hurts. I don't want to be
here anymore. I felt the push-ups. The run kind of hit me
harder than usually does. I had two shallow water blackouts, to just where
you don't have enough air under water. I was running and I just kept vomiting the
whole time. I called it quits. I kept failing my team. I just couldn't
fail them anymore. Whatever your motivation is, it has to be able to carry
you beyond your physical limits, beyond your mental fatigue. You
can't want it just because you want to be a badass. You gotta have your mind
set on a bigger picture. My family is my motivation. I have a lot of people relying
on me. All the people who have given their lives... Everyone has the will to win.
It's not the little win we're looking for-- it's the will to prepare to win.
Train five out of seven days of the week. Running, calisthenics, high intensity workouts,
spending a lot of time in the pool... Lifting weights isn't gonna do a whole
lot for you. We have a saying: "Exceeding the standard is the standard." They need
to be so far above the standards that there's no questions they're gonna make it
through. We are put into the most dangerous places in the world. We're surrounded
constantly by people that want to kill us. Everything that we do here applies
the battlefield. "Enduring the suck," as we say, is part of
your life, and it becomes your new normal. And if you think that that is as hard as
it's going to get, you're wrong. And it's strenuous, it's long, but you
just push through it. You have to tell yourself that it's worth it, I'm doing
this no matter what, but I will never quit.