it's been almost 37 years to the day that I graduated from UT I remember a
lot of things about that day I remember I had a throbbing headache from a party
the night before I remember I had a serious girlfriend who I later married
that's important to remember by the way and I remember I was getting
commissioned in the Navy that day but of all the things I remember I don't have a
clue who the commencement speaker was and I certainly don't remember anything
they said so acknowledging that fact if I can't make this commencement speech
memorable I won't least try to make it short so
the university slogan is what starts here changes the world well I've got to
admit I kind of like it what starts here changes the world tonight there are
almost 8,000 students or there more than 8,000 students graduated from UT
so that great paragon of analytical rigor ask.com says that the average
American will meet 10,000 people in their lifetime 10,000 people that's a
lot of folks but if every one of you changed the lives of just ten people and
each one of those people change the lives of another 10 people and another
10 then in five generations 125 years the class of 2014 will have changed the
lives of 800 million people 800 million people think about it
over twice the population of the United States go one more generation and you
can change the entire population of the world eight billion people if you think
it's hard to change the lives of ten people change their lives forever you're
wrong I saw it happen every day in Iraq and
Afghanistan a young army officer makes a decision to go left instead of right
down a road in Baghdad and the ten soldiers with him are saved from a
close-in ambush in kandahar province Afghanistan a noncommissioned officer
from the Female Engagement Team senses that something isn't right
and directs the infantry platoon away from a 500-pound I Edie saving the lives
of a dozen soldiers but if you think about it not only were those soldiers
say by the decisions of one person but their children were saved and their
children's children generations were saved by one decision one person but
changing the world can happen anywhere and anyone can do it so what starts here
can indeed change the world but the question is what will the world look
like after you change it well I'm confident that it will look much much
better but if you'll humor this old sailor for just a moment I have a few
suggestions that may help you on your way to a better world and while these
lessons were learned during my time in the military I can assure you that it
matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform it matters not your
gender your ethnic or religious background your orientation or your
social status our struggles in this world are similar and the lessons to
overcome those struggles and to move forward changing ourselves and changing
the world around us will apply equally to all I've been a Navy SEAL for 36
years but it all began when I left UT for basic SEAL training in Coronado
California basic SEAL training is six months a long torturous runs in the soft
sand midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego obstacle courses unending
calisthenics days without sleep and always being cold wet and miserable it
is six months of being constantly harassed by professionally trained
warriors who seek to find the weak of mind and
body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL but the training
also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant
stress chaos failure and hardships to me basic SEAL training was a lifetime of
challenges crammed into six months so here the 10 lessons I learned from basic
SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life
every morning in SEAL training my instructors who at the time were all
Vietnam veterans which show up in my barracks room and the first thing they
do is inspect my bed if you did it right the corners would be square the covers
would be pulled tight the pillows centered just under the headboard and
the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack it was a simple task
mundane at best but every morning we were required to make our bed to
perfection it seemed a little ridiculous at the time particularly in light of the
fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors tough battle-hardened seals but
the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over if you made
your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day
it will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another
task and another and another and by the end of the day that one task
completed will have turned into mini task completed making your bed will also
reinforce the fact but the little things in life matter if you can't do the
little things right you'll never be able to do the big things right and if by
chance you have a miserable day you will come home to a bed that is made that you
made and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be
better so if you want to change the world start off by making your bed
during seal training the students during training the students are all broken
down into boat crews each crew is seven students three on each side of a small
rubber boat and one Coxon to help guide the dinghy
every day your boat crew forms up on the beach and is instructed to get through
the surf zone and paddle several miles down the coast in the winter the surf
off San Diego can get to be eight to ten feet high and it is exceedingly
difficult to paddle route through the plunging surf unless everyone digs in
every paddle must be synchronized to the stroke count of the coxswain everyone
must exert equal effort or the boat will turn against the wave and be
unceremoniously dumped back on the beach for the boat to make it to its
destination everyone must paddle you can't change
the world alone you will need some help and to truly get from your starting
point to your destination takes friends colleagues the good will of strangers
and a strong Coxon to guide you if you want to change the world find someone to
help you paddle over a few weeks of difficult training my seal class which
started with 150 men was down to just 42 there were now six boat crews of seven
men each I was in the boat with the tall guys but the best boat crew we had was
made up of little guys the Munchkin crew we called him
no one was over five foot five the Munchkin boat crew had one American
Indian one African American one Polish American one Greek American one Italian
American and two tough kids from the Midwest
they out paddled out ran and out swam all the other boat crews the big men and
the other boat crews will always make good-natured fun of the tiny little
flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim but
somehow these little guys from every corner of the nation in the world always
had the last laugh sewing faster than everyone and reaching
the shore long before the rest of us SEAL training was a great equalizer
nothing mattered but your will to succeed not your color not your ethnic
background not your education not your social status if you want to change the
world measure a person by the size of their heart not by the size of their
flippers several times a week the instructors would line up the class and
do a uniform inspection it was exceptionally thorough your hat had to
be perfectly starched your uniform immaculately pressed your belt buckle
shiny and void of any smudges but it seemed that no matter how much effort
you put into starting your hat or freshen your uniform or polishing your
belt buckle it just wasn't good enough the instructors would find something
wrong for failing uniform inspection the student had to run fully clothed into
the surf zone then wet from head to toe roll around on the beach until every
part of your body was covered with sand the effect was known as sugar cookie
you stayed in the uniform the rest of the day cold wet and Sandy
there were many a student who just couldn't accept the fact that all their
efforts were in vain that no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right
it went unappreciated those students didn't make it through training those
students didn't understand the purpose of the drill you were never going to
succeed you were never gonna have a perfect uniform the instructors weren't
going to allow it sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you
perform you still end up as a sugar cookie it's just the way life is
sometimes if you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and
keep moving forward every day during training you were
challenged with multiple physical events long runs long swims obstacle courses
hours of calisthenics something designed to test your mettle every event had
standards times you had to meet if you failed to meet those times those
standards your name was posted on a list and at the end of the day those on the
list were invited to a circus a circus was two hours of additional calisthenics
designed to wear you down to break your spirit to force you to quit no one
wanted a circus a circus myth that for that day you didn't measure up
a circus meant more fatigue and more fatigue meant that the following day
would be more difficult and more circuses were likely but at some time
during seal training everyone everyone made the circus list but an interesting
and interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list over
time those students who did two hours of extra calisthenics got stronger and
stronger the pain of the circuses built inner
strength and physical resiliency life is filled with circuses you will fail you
will likely fail often it will be painful it will be discouraging at times
it will test you to your very core but if you don't if you want to change the
world don't be afraid of the circuses at least twice a week the trainees were
required to run the obstacle course the obstacle course contain 25 obstacles
including the 10-foot wall a 30-foot cargo net a barbed wire crawl to name a
few but the most challenging obstacle was the slide for life
it had a three level 30-foot tower at one end and a one level Tower at the
other in between was a 200-foot long rope you had to climb the three tiered
Tower and once at the top you grabbed the rope
swung underneath the rope and pulled yourself hand over hand until you got to
the other end the record for the obstacle course had stood for years when
my class began in 1977 the record seemed unbeatable until one day a student
decided to go down the slide for life headfirst instead of swinging his body
underneath the rope and inching his way down he bravely mounted the top of the
rope and thrust himself forward it was a dangerous move seemingly foolish and
fraught with risk failure could be an injury and being dropped from the course
without hesitation the students slid down the Rope perilously fast instead of
several minutes it only took him half that time and by the end of the course
he had broken the record if you want to change the world sometimes you have to
slide down the obstacles headfirst during the land warfare phase of
training the students are flown out to San Clemente Island which lies off the
coast of San Diego the waters off San Clemente are a breeding ground for the
great white sharks to pass SEAL training they're a series of long swims it must
be completed one is the night swim before the swim the instructors joyfully
brief the students on all the species of sharks that inhabit the waters off San
Clemente they assure you however that no student
has ever been eaten by a shark at least not that they can remember but you were
also taught that if a shark begins to circle your position stand your ground
do not swim away do not act afraid and if the shark
hungry for a midnight snack darts towards you then summons up all your
strength and punch him in the snout and you will turn and swim away there are a
lot of sharks in the world if you hope to complete the swim you will have to
deal with them so if you want to change the world don't back down from the
Sharks as Navy SEAL is one of our jobs is to conduct underwater attacks against
enemy shipping we practice this technique extensively during training
the ship attack mission is where a pair of sealed divers is dropped off outside
an enemy harbor and then swims well over two miles underwater using nothing but a
depth gauge and a compass to get to the target during the entire swim even well
below the surface there is some light that comes through it is comforting to
know that there is open water above you but as you approach the ship which is
tied to appear the light begins to fade the steel structure of the ship blocks
the moonlight it blocks the surrounding street lamps it blocks all ambient light
to be successful in your mission you have to swim under the ship and find the
keel the centerline and the deepest part of the ship this is your objective but
the keel is also the darkest part of the ship where you cannot see your hand in
front of your face where the noise from the ship's machinery is deafening and
where it gets to be easily disoriented and you can fail every SEAL knows that
under the keel at that darkest moment of the mission is a time when you need to
be calm when you must be called when you must be
composed when all your tactical skills your physical power and your inner
strength must be brought to bear if you want to change the world you must be
your very best in the darkest moments the ninth week of training is referred
to as hell week it is six days of no sleep constant physical and mental
harassment and one special day at the mud flats the mud flats are an area
between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana
sloughs a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you it is on
Wednesday of hell week that you paddle down in the mud flats and spend the next
15 hours trying to survive this freezing cold the howling wind and the incessant
pressure to quit from the instructors as the Sun began to set that Wednesday
evening my training class having committed some egregious infraction of
the rules was ordered into the mud the mud consumed each man till there was
nothing visible but our heads the instructors told us we could leave
the mud if only five men would quit only five men just five men and we could get
out of the oppressive cold looking around the mud flat it was apparent that
some students were about to give up it was still over eight hours till the Sun
came up eight more hours of bone-chilling cold a chattering teeth
and the shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear
anything and then one voice began to echo through the night
one voice raised in song the song was terribly out of tune but sung with great
enthusiasm one voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in
the class was singing the instructors threatened us with more time in the mud
if we kept up the singing but the singing persisted and somehow the mud
seemed a little warmer and the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far
away if I have learned anything in my time traveling the world it is the power
of hope the power of one person the Washington a Lincoln King Mandela and
even a young girl from Pakistan Malala one person can change the world by
giving people hope so if you want to change the world start singing when
you're up to your neck and mud finally a seal training there's a bell a brass
bell that hangs in the center of the compound for all the students to see all
you have to do quit all you have to do to quit is ring the bell ring the bell
and you no longer have to wake up at five o'clock
ring the bell and you no longer have to be in the freezing cold swims ring the
bell and you no longer have to do the runs the obstacle course the PT and you
no longer have to endure the hardships of training all you have to do is ring
the bell to get out if you want to change the world don't ever ever ring
the bell to the class of 2014 you are moments away from graduating moments
away from beginning your journey through life moments away from starting to
change the world for the better it will not be easy but you are the
class of 2014 the class that can affect the lives of 800 million people in the
next century start each day with a task completed find someone to help you
through life respect everyone know that life is not fair and that you will fail
often but if you take some risks step up on the time through the toughest faced
down the bullies lift up the downtrodden and never ever give up if you do these
things the next generation and the generations
that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today and
what started here will indeed have changed the world for the better thank
you very much fucking horns