To Hell and Back - Becoming a Navy SEAL

An in-depth personal account of Navy SEAL BUD/S training, detailing its physical and mental challenges, including Hell Week and surf torture.

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Key Takeaways

Navy SEAL training is designed to break down candidates physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Even elite athletes and experienced military personnel often fail due to the extreme demands.
Hell Week is the ultimate test, simulating real combat stress and requiring continuous endurance.
The option to quit is always present, symbolized by the bell, but few endure to graduation.
Preparation for BUD/S requires more than physical fitness; mental resilience is crucial.

What the video covers

The video narrates Hoback Coulter’s journey and motivation to become a Navy SEAL starting from age 13.
It explains the Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training (BUD/S) as a grueling six-month selection process.
The training is described as physically, mentally, and emotionally overwhelming, designed to push candidates beyond their limits.
The presence of a brass bell symbolizes the option to quit at any time during training.
Hoback highlights the intense physical activities such as grinder PT, timed runs, swims, and carrying inflatable boats.
Hell Week is emphasized as the most brutal phase, simulating combat conditions with continuous physical and mental stress.
The video recounts specific challenges like surf torture, cold water exposure, and the Circle of Death log run.
It discusses the high attrition rate, with many highly accomplished athletes and veterans quitting early.
The narrative includes descriptions of instructors’ tough methods and the chaotic environment during training.
The video also touches on the historical origins of Hell Week and the physical toll on trainees.

Chapters

What is BUD/S training and how long does it last?

BUD/S, or Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training, is a six-month selection process designed to test candidates physically, mentally, and emotionally to become Navy SEALs.

What is Hell Week in Navy SEAL training?

Hell Week is a five-day continuous training phase during BUD/S that simulates combat conditions with no sleep, extreme physical exertion, and constant stress to test endurance and mental toughness.

Why do many candidates quit during SEAL training?

The training is intentionally overwhelming and punishing, breaking down candidates physically and mentally. Many quit early because they are unprepared for the shock and intensity of the challenges.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

[music] I wanted to be in the military since I was 13. That is the time I can definitively say because I was watching the Discovery Channel documentary of the Navy SEALs. [music] And I remember being like, that's what I'm going to do. Seemed like the baddest dudes on the planet, and that's what I want to do. Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training, or BUD/S for short, [music] is the selection process for Navy SEALs.

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And it is literally just six months of getting your ass kicked, being kept cold, wet, and sandy, and never really having an opportunity to [music] rest. Did you think you were prepared when you showed up?

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I did. Were you prepared [music] when you showed up? I thought I was. And I remember all of the people that we had, like 240-something people at the beginning, and I just, I remember seeing just [music]

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gargantuan men quitting, guys that had come from Marine Special Operations, and [music] and I'm just like watching them quit, and I'm like, holy [expletive]. Or there's like professional swimmers and professional rugby players and like really incredibly

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accomplished people, but they wash out really, really quickly. Pro athletes, Golden Glove boxers, Division One water polo players, football players, people that have even, other people that have already been to war and come back to become [music] a SEAL.

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And I remember looking around at these guys. One of them looked like a bodybuilder. They all, you had professional athletes, you had collegiate swimmers, [music] and just everybody across the real smart people. You know, you know how you see some of them guys

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and you walk in and be like, he looks put together. He looks like he's really put together.

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I think for a lot of guys that [music] go out to training, for whatever reason, they're not prepared for the level of shock that training does [music] to you. I mean, it is designed to be mentally, physically, and emotionally

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overwhelming. It was crazy. I mean, the instructors, our first day, they pulled up the list of here are the fastest runners and the fastest swimmers, and they go, "Who's number one? Okay,

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don't take this personally. You're going to quit." In 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 to quit, all you

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have to do to quit is ring the bell. [bell] And I thought that like I couldn't wait to hit the surf. I thought that was going to be the, I was like, "Yes." And I ran out there and hit the Pacific Ocean

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for the first time. I never felt the Pacific Ocean. I know it's cold. Never gets warm. That's why everyone in California's got a great tan 'cause their ass never gets in the water.

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BUD/S is designed to be hard. It doesn't matter if you are Captain America, they will still make it hard for you. It's designed to do that to you, you know, 'cause first phase is the gauntlet, you know. Um, that's that's

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where they call them the gatekeepers, the instructors. So when you show up to training, man, they are, they're on you and they are hammering you. They beat the hell out of us.

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You know, you're going to be cold. You know, you're going to get hypothermia. But at the end of the day, going to BUD/S is basically like getting kicked in the nuts.

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Anybody that says [music] they'll, they know they'd pass. It's full of [expletive]. When day one hits, it's like they hit you with a sledgehammer, and man, there's a mass exodus of people that quit within the first couple of days just right out

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the gates. And I think those are the people that haven't been able to wrap their heads around like this is going to be really hard. And then day one, one of BUD/S rolls around and it is real. You

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know, you're up at 3:30 in the morning. Grinder PT at 4:00 a.m. You know, it's zero dark 30 to, you know, it's real. You know, you're getting [music] sprayed with fire hoses, you're hitting the surf, you're coming back wet

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and sandy, you're getting, you know, hammered on a grinder. It's like a two-hour PT of just, you know, push-ups to failure, jumping jacks to failure, flutter kicks, getting sprayed in the face with the hose. And what'd you do

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the night before? The night before that morning, 4:00 in the morning, four-mile time run, you did, you know, 1,000-pound bodybuilders, or you did buddy carries up and down the BM. So everything is harder than you think it's going to be

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[music] in BUD/S. It's not what's on paper. You run at least [music] six miles a day just to eat chow. But everywhere you run, you have something called an IBS, inflatable boat, small. Uh, and you run with that boat on your head. That boat,

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I ran so many miles with that boat on my head. It wore a hole in the top of the hat that I was wearing and rubbed the hair off the top of my head.

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This is what most of you are in this class right now. And then basically weeding out guys.

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You're doing timed mile runs, um, test, um, course courses, swims, and then the fourth week is Hell Week.

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Hell Week is, uh, as close to combat as you're going to get. I mean, it was designed by Draper Kaufman and his staff at Fort Pierce back in World War II, you know, for the naval combat

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demolition units that were hitting the beaches at Normandy. [music] And, uh, you know, and blowing up all the op, these were the first waves at Omaha and Utah. And they were trying to create as much mayhem as possible for

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them. Uh, and so they tried to combine all this training down, you know, weeks of training into just [music] five continuous 24-hour days. These guys, you know, up all night, no sleep, explosions going off everywhere, chaos and mayhem.

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And just like combat, nobody knows how they're going to do until they get in that.

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I remember when Breakout started when our main instructor, dude, it's just an absolute beast of a human being. His chest is like this wide. It's like, "All right, boys." A booming deep voice. He's like, "Let's go." And he

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begins firing off his gun. And we all just stream out of the tents yelling hooyah, running into the ocean. You break out of these tents Sunday night, and it's complete chaos. Bombs going off, flashbangs, guns, complete chaos. And it

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starts, and the chaos never stops for an entire week. And it is chaos. You know, you got machine [music] guns going off, explosions, guys hitting the surf, guys quitting. You know, it's just people running amok. The instructors

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just come out of nowhere with flashbangs and, you know, fake rounds. They're firing off into the air from their machine guns, and, you know, breakout lasts about an hour or so and then right into the water. Surf torture.

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WALK FORWARD, TELL YOU TO STOP. I remember doing my first surf torture, and, you know, they're always like, head back. Head back. They want your ears to fill up with sand and water, and I was like, all right. [laughter] Head

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back. I'm going to do perfect. You know, this is going to be perfect. And I got up, dude. And I thought I was going to throw up all over the place. Like you get up and you're like stumbling, you

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know, and you're like, everybody's like, "What the [laughter] [expletive] was that?" The cold, man. I hate being cold. And I [music] went through Hell Week in January, and the Pacific Ocean is just, that's the killer.

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And the air temp was 50 degrees, and the water temp was 50 degrees. Having a hard time. Let's go.

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They have a thing called the Circle of Death, where, so you're on the beach with your log, and you run down the beach and then up and over the berm, and then back up the beach, up and over the berm,

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and then you just go in a circle, and [music] you're going up and over this berm. It's soft sand, you know, and you're holding this log, and you're just digging. [music] And I just remember my legs were just toast. You know, you're

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dehydrated, or you feel like you're dehydrated because you don't get, you really don't get water breaks.

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Hell is five days of pretty much continuous on the go. They break you down physically, which then inevitably breaks you down mentally, and

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Hoe is 5 days of pretty much continuous on the go. They break you down physically, which then inevitably breaks you down mentally and emotionally.

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Good morning, Matt. Well, one thing you learn very quickly at SEAL training, it's not always the biggest or baddest looking guys who make it through.

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Sunday night, like 2:00 in the morning, we're doing a evolution called Steel Pier where you're in in the bay and you're next to this steel pier and [clears throat] you are just treading water and I remember I could see my

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breath as I'm treading water and it's [music] like freezing cold. while you're in the water and you're, you know, shivering, you're just alone with your thoughts [music] for an hour, you just have to continually choose not to quit.

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And what they'll say over the bullhorn is, [music] "Hey, if you'll get out, we've got hot chocolate up here and coffee. We'll put a jacket on you like and and [music] a lot of times for uh especially during hell week, they'll

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start fires on the beach and they're like, "When you get out, we'll we'll let you come over here right by the fire like instant. We'll make it better immediately." Then you get out and you strip strip off some clothing. Enter the

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water, tread water for a few minutes, get out, take off your shirt, take off your your [music] pants, and now you're in your skiibbies. And it's like, and then they make you lay down on this freezing cold steel pier, and they're spraying you

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with hoses. They'd uh have like those big old carneada, California burritos. Guys like starving and they're like just all you got to do is ring the bell. You get one of these nice warm blankets and a burrito and you can go lay in the bed

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and go lay in the barracks. Take a nice little nap. All this will be over.

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For SEALs, mental toughness is the number one indicator of success and they build it through constant training challenges. It could be instructors trying to break a young recruit.

Speaker A

What are you smirking at, you little punk? Happy to be here, instructor. Shut up.

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I was like 18 at the time and yeah, it was the it was the next night and I I I was I was like, "Man, that bell's looking pretty good. I [laughter] think I'm going to ring it. A hot meal sounds

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amazing." It's it's a it's a gauntlet you go through, you know? This is this is trial by fire. Like, this is it, you know?

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This is where [music] the rubber meets the road. I just remember seeing this the surf when we were doing our our IBS or boats, you know, going out, you know, as a team. You you [music] pair up, you know,

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you do everything in boats and and we're [music] we're going through the surf and it was like monster waves and you're fighting that like there's no breaks are like, "Oh, we'll continue this later." No, like the surf's big. Like the

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instructor's like game on like nothing stops, right? you know, you're soaking wet now. You got sand everywhere. It's grinding in between your collar and your and your neck. Uh it's, you know, in between your, you know, your your waist and your pants,

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you know, it's in your boot. It's everywhere. And [music] so you're grinding and you're sweating and you're cold and you're trying to perform. And I just remember like being like gassed.

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I'm like, man, this is okay. This is it. And those guys that were high-fiving and laughing and coing and joking the weekend before, [music] they're nowhere to be found. you know, they quit a long time ago.

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You're you're shivering all the time. So, what starts to happen? Your muscles are locking up from shivering. Um, so now you're like locking up in pain.

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By Monday afternoon, I thought my legs were broken. Not even 24 hours. Not even 24 hours. I thought like I literally thought I believed in my head that my legs were broken. Like right in the middle of my shins. Not shin

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splints, not anything. I'm like, they're broken. I'm going to take a step one of these times and it's just going to go.

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[bell] It takes you to the very limit of your capabilities. Um, when I say the word limit, I I literally mean your limit.

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Like if you went much further, you would die. Because of everything that's going on, you're constantly like beat down. So, you almost always have a cough. you kind of have a cold.

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If you are wet all the time, uh, it can create this pink frothy sputum in your lungs.

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Achilles tendon just was like so swollen. I end up getting pneumonia. I had a bunch of stress fractures, bunch of injuries going through buds. So, I was vomiting and [ __ ] at the same [music] time.

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I was like spitting up blood and coughing and I spit up this neon green sputum. Um, but basically your body starts pushing fluid from your capillaries back into your lungs and you're essentially slowly drowning as your lungs fill up more and more.

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Like it it started sucking after the first night and a half and I was like, "Oh man, I I I just got to make it to the next meal." And I got hurt like the log hit my head funny and like did

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something with my nerve and my whole arm went numb and I couldn't use it. [music] It is savage.

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Yeah. the amount of chafing developed these just horrible lesions on the inside of your leg that's just chafe and then jumping in salt water. It really felt like battery acid being poured on my crotch. A lot of guys chafe

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holes on the inside of their legs and their groin area and your armpits uh on your neck, on top of your head. Um not uncommon for guys uh toenails and fingernails to fall off or pop off from just being wet.

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You're just broken down. you know, pe people's thighs are shaped up looking like ground beef.

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I mean, you're talking holes in you um just from the salt water and the sand and stuff like that. Your feet are so swollen, you can't hard, you take your shoes off, you're screwed.

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I mean, I got my ass handed to me. I was always wet, always sandy. I I just remember the inside of my thighs bleeding constantly.

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I mean, you know, lost all my toenails. The the actual training is is in incredibly difficult um physically, you know, it's like the it's famously it's famously challenging. That's the whole point. They want it to be borderline impossible to do. So that if you are

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able to complete the training, you've demonstrated that you can kind of push beyond, you know, what most people would consider an impossible limit. And they realized that keeping people up from Sunday till Friday can start to have some sort of brain damage for not

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sleeping that long. So they give you 1 hour of sleep on Wednesday. We're going to make you nice and warm. That's sadistic. [laughter] We're going to put the We're going to put the nice music on, you know, and and

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[music] and yeah, I fell asleep. I I was out, right? And and like I tell you, like after that, I mean, I could I could barely move. I was so stiff. The way that they woke us up on Wednesday after

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that hour nap was with bullhorns and machine guns. Um, so like you were violently ripped out of being asleep in the moment just waking up with the machine guns and the bull horns. Like it had such an effect on you to just get

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ripped back into like I'm back in hell. I'm back in like the worst situation that I could be in and it's only Wednesday. But then waking up to the sound of your instructors like it felt like a second later telling you to jump

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in the ocean and you're like that's what you do during hell week. You're constantly jumping in the ocean. That's buds basically.

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And yeah, 10 guys are like I'm I'm not getting back out there. Yeah. So I think it's I think it's part of it, right?

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Oh, for sure. Yeah. Right. You make them comfortable. How many of you would have chosen to avoid that tent had you given the option?

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It would have been easier, right? Yeah, for sure. Go, go, go. Hurry up. 30 seconds.

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Hell week was harder than I could have ever imagined it being. The hallucinations start about Wednesday.

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Probably 72 hours in, you're starting to hallucinate. Um, I remember multiple times I was hallucinating during hell week.

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My hallucination started on about day three of hell week. We had just got done with an evolution called Around the World. Uh that night we spent all night running with the boats on our heads.

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You're hallucinating so badly and it was so cold and I was so tired of just being cold.

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Everybody's throwing your FACE IN THE SAND. HEAD DOWN. You're checked out, man. And [music] you're you're starting to hallucinate.

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You know, you're starting to see weird things. You're all delirious and you have to paddle around like 18 miles of Coronado or whatever it is. And it takes all night and no one knows what's going on because you're like hallucinating. But

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it just kind of feels like how are they letting students who are basically insane at this point? Just go paddle out in the ocean in the middle of the night.

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Just go around Coronado. But we were like, we were paddled underneath the Coronado Bridge. And I was absolutely convinced and couldn't be told otherwise that they were cyclists biking off of the Coronado Bridge into the water.

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During around the world, I had team members in my boat think that uh they were they would scream and yell, "Stop, stop, stop." And it's because they were seeing spikes in the water and they thought we were about to pop our boat

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and um guys seeing mermaids and and just the craziest crap you could ever dream of in your life because at this point we had been awake for 5 days and when you're starting to hallucinate I would see upside down Buddhas in the sky up in

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I would be like looking up and I'd see upside down Buddha's face in the clouds man all the time. I'm like, man, dude, this is a trip.

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Our boat crew just became super uh we became a bunch of degenerates. Like we just kept at least pushing the boat forward and other guys would just just start paddling like start looking up like this is actually kind of

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concerning. And there was one dude like we're just out in the middle of San Diego just paddling and he's like stop and we're like what? He's like stop sign. And I looked back up under my right arm and I

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thought the sky was falling on me. The hallucinations started and they never stopped after that. I walked up to my medic when those hallucinations started and I said, "Hey man, I think the sky is falling on me. Uh, am I all right?" And

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he looked me back in my eyes and said, "Do you want to quit?" [bell] You know, we think we started hell week with maybe 100 guys and we were down to 26 at Thursday. [music] So that was So you went from

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pre prebuds at 200 and something 250. Yeah. 250 plus down to 25 20 25 26 guys total.

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Wow. We started around 140 I believe something like that and then I end up graduating buds [music] with 31 32 I think we started with 165 people we ended with 35 something like that and that's what we did we flew out with

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400 class [music] 284 3 weeks later we had 285 3 weeks later we had 185 and then after hell week we had about 50 guys and then from that 50 15 about 15 ended up [music] finishing we start out right around 160 something

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maybe and we graduated with 20 originals. So yeah, many people decided that [music] it wasn't for them.

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We started Buds Class 278 with 300 men handpicked from [music] American Society. We graduated with about 15.

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We had a big class. Out of our 227, we graduated 33. Two classes before us, they graduated seven. There was a class that graduated zero. Like they call it the class that never was.

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You go to the barracks, you get your pizza, you get your brown shirt, and uh you're now you're a post hell week guy.

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Man, we were so haggarded. And I remember that [music] feeling. And that was a moment when I saw my pizza and like my Gatorade on my brown shirt with my name stencled [music] on it that I looked around and like everybody was

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gone. And I went back to my room and I was no one in there. They had they had all quit. So sleeping in my room by myself.

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Our tendons and stuff got tight and all that like elastic acid build up. You can't move. They're afraid that guys will climb up in the beds and not be able to move and fall off and hurt themselves. So they made everybody sleep

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on the floor. [music] You pull your mattress off your bunk bed and you put your mattress on the ground because uh you can't get up into your bunk bed. You you you [music] you can't you just your body is destroyed.

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Yeah. Like guys gain 15 20 pounds. Yeah. Of swelling weight. Yeah. And Yeah. It's it's it's brutal.

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It's legit, man. Yeah. And I couldn't move. Yeah. Like I was just so much in pain and stiff.

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And my hip flexors were so And everybody was from being so tense and freezing for so [music] long. Your hip flexors get tight, man. and they're so knotted up you can't even like stand straight up.

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Monday comes around after you rest for the weekend and there's something called hellic blues which is like your your mental chemical balance is so [ __ ] up that you're depressed. So I was like super depressed. Everyone was for quite a bit

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for most [music] of the rest of the first phase. So four more weeks. You just had three to four weeks of the hardest [ __ ] days of your life and then hell week and then you get done

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with hell week and you think, "Oh, it's over." And then the instructors crush your nuts every single day afterwards.

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I think one of the most the hardest things for me um that I didn't anticipate was drownroofing.

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Of all the stupid things to get to have trouble with, drowning. You have to swim 100 meters uh with your hands tied behind your back and your feet tied together and uh it is challenging.

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How comfortable and relaxed can you stay when you don't have oxygen? I think the evolutions that cause most problems are the water evolution. Some of these kids are from Wyoming places where they haven't even seen the water or at least the surf zone. They're not

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really too comfortable in the water and you're doing drown poop where your hands are tied behind your back, your feet are tied up. The anxiety for that moment to get in the water and start that test was overwhelming.

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It it slowly starts to ramp up. Um and then by the end of the week, you have a test called pool comp.

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If you had to pick one portion of buds, uh what was your hardest? What was it?

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Second phase pool comp. Pool competency. That was powerful. You're about 15 ft underwater and you have all your diving gear on and you're sitting there on your knees underwater.

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You crawl to the middle of the pool where there's a lane marker in the middle of the pool in the ground and you're just walking. [music] You're crawling back and forth. And while you're going back and forth, you

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don't know when the attack is coming, [music] but it's coming. The instructors are up there circling like sharks. And the first [music] thing that instructor does is tear your mouthpiece out of your mouth. Then he essentially beats you up

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underwater. [music] First he first he like beats the hell out of you and everything. Your mask is there. Your air is gone. So you're on a breathold now.

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They're throwing you underwater, hitting [music] you around, flipping you over, ripping off your weight belt, ripping your mask off, grind your head in the pool, toss you around, slap you in the head.

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It's basically like a drowning simulation. You have 20 minutes that you're going to be underwater where probably about half of that you're going to be without air. And anytime you get attacked by your instructor, you can't do anything. You fail the test if you

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react to your instructor. And then now you have to start [music] solving your problems in a orderly fashion cuz if you get out of order, you fail. Then you have procedures to get air back, right? Um and you have to go through these

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procedures exactly [music] or you fail. And I crawled out the combat training tank just outside and I just puked my guts up. And then I just and I crawl back in there and it was like the next one, the next one, the next one.

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And they do it to you over and over and over again to see if you're going to quit to see if you'll boat bolt to the surface because if you take off to the surface, [music] that's considered quitting.

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And I could feel myself convulsing and then it [music] all went away. So if you black out and you die and they revive you, it's like pass. You're good.

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I kissed the pool deck, came up, exhale, exhale, and you're supposed to say, "I feel fine." And when I camped the surface, I was so [ __ ] up. I was like, he's like, "Sam." I couldn't speak. Woke

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up on the side of the pool and I drowned. You know, they slapped me uh getting me back awake. Started vomiting everywhere. I had [ __ ] my pants while I drowned. looked to my left and my teammate

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James [music] Derek Loveace had drowned right next to me and uh they're giving CPR and he wasn't be able to resuscitate so he he died next to me on the pool.

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James Derek Love Lace drowned in a swimming drill at the SEAL training center in Coronado, California. The medical examiner's report finds quote the manner of death is best classified as homicide.

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[music] During pool comp, we went from about 50 down to about 30. We lost a lot of dudes the second phase.

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I think we lost like [music] 30% of our class. Monday was the hardest day of my life. I wake up at 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday [music] and I know today's going to be harder and it's only [ __ ] Tuesday.

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You wake [music] up every morning not knowing what that day has in store. And sometimes that can get the best of you and that's where people end up just quitting. For us, it's almost like a deselection program. You deselect

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yourself from our program. You can quit anytime. There's the bell. Monday, you've got a run. Tuesday, you've got to swim. Wednesday, you've got an O course. And they're all timed evolutions that you have to pass. If you missed any of the standards on your run,

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your swim or your O course, you would get dropped from training. Just kept on like it's okay. It's okay.

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Like you can you can push your body further than there was just this inside voice that you can do way more than you think you can. You can do your mind is incredible [music] if you said it something.

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Send yourself FREAKING SANDBAG. OKAY, IT'S ALL going to be here. I promise you that.

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The students, the last four weeks of training, you go out to San Clementi Island. It's called third phase. and you get a very basic indoctrination into small unit tactics, rifle weaponry, explosives, you [music] throw some grenades, um you do some underwater

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demo, but you're out there for like the last tight four weeks of training. Any education you get is [music] just so that gives them a different way to torture you and drop the hammer and see [music] if you've got what it takes.

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Now we're in third phase, which is um land of warfare, learning how to shoot.

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You go [music] to Sink Community Island. I had the expectation that once we made it to third phase that training [music] was going to get a little easier that it was going to be kind of more technical and um less of a beatd down and that

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wasn't the case. I knew there was things that I wasn't ready for. I mean it was going to be a surprise.

Speaker A

Yeah. Things you just can't train for. So, we walk and we get to like not deep water, like maybe up to our ankles and they're like, "Sit down." So, I'm like, "This is awesome. Is this like rest day

Speaker A

or something?" So, we sit down and they're like, "Okay, lay back now." So, we like lay back just enough to where you can breathe. There's some little water cuz you got your buddies next to you kind of splashing around or trying

Speaker A

to get comfortable. And then you started feeling these bites like it was like these little a different kind of sand fle I believe or or something. They would bite your neck.

Speaker A

They were getting down your shirt and they started biting you everywhere and and like it was so unexpected. At least for me it was so unexpected. I'm like do they know that there's things in here?

Speaker A

And like you can start hearing the chatter going around that everyone's getting bit by these things these whatever they were. And um that was unexpected and I did not like that. It wasn't like it was going to rip your

Speaker A

flesh, but it was enough like it was like a little pinch like a little just under like a like a bee sting.

Speaker A

Well, the Navy Seals training program is under increased scrutiny after the death of a former college football star earlier this year. And now CBS News has learned of a new investigation after we showed the Navy the video that you are

Speaker A

about to see. Exposure to tear gas is a standard part of SEAL training. They put you in this square where you're all like in formation and you take a niece. You're all all tied up against each other and

Speaker A

there's like 30 of us or 50 of us and the instructors have these pool sticks that you use to clean the the pool with, but they remove the head and they they tape on like multiple CS grenades and

Speaker A

they got their they got their their gas mask on and they're all laughing. They think this is so funny. They got their cameras out and they're like, "All right, take a knee." And so everyone takes a knee in the field and they're

Speaker A

like, "There's only one rule. [music] Don't run." SEAL recruits blanketed with a cloud of tear gas while being ordered to sing happy birthday so they can't hold their breath.

Speaker A

They're being made to sing happy birthday again so you can't hold your [music] breath. And it looks horrible because it is horrible. And the point of that training is is it's supposed to suck.

Speaker A

When the admiral in charge of Navy Seals saw this video, he ordered an investigation, telling CBS News, "It raises questions about the lawfulness of the behavior." It's supposed to be difficult. You're supposed to be exposed to that in a controlled training

Speaker A

environment. People like, "Well, this one person looked like they were passing out and there's mucus coming out of their face." Yeah, it's it's CS gas. It sucks. But the first time you experience that shouldn't be in a combat zone. But

Speaker A

the investigation is examining whether the gas was administered at too close a range and for too long.

Speaker A

[screaming] The video was shot last year on San Clemeni Island off California and obtained by investigative reporter Matthew Cole.

Speaker A

[screaming] To join the elite corps of Navy Seals, you have to agree to be pushed to the limit. I know I told you guys to keep your hands off your knees and thighs and maybe beyond it.

Speaker A

Hell Week is just part of the grueling 6-month program in Coronado, California. So physically and emotionally demanding that 80% of those who start don't finish.

Speaker A

The 80% that don't make it, 75% of those that don't make it, of the 80% are studs. [music] They're freaking studs. They're varsity athletes, multiple sports. They're collegiate athletes. They're professional athletes. They're Olympic athletes.

Speaker A

They're Ivy League educated. And countless of those type of people, which are, as you put it, like intelligent hardworking strong-minded patriotic, and athletically superb means nothing. Those guys quit by the bushel.

Speaker A

by the bushel they quit. So, no one thinks that it's going to be them. No one thinks it's gonna be them, but it is them.

Speaker A

Just [music] hours after finishing a grueling training, two Navy Seal candidates were rushed to the hospital.

Speaker A

One of them died. It is something that I do [music] not encourage people to do.

Speaker A

I don't encourage people to do it. Routine military training that unfortunately turned deadly. A member of the famed Navy Seals was killed, another injured when they collided during freef fall training in Arizona.

Speaker A

I think everybody wants to know like their calibration point on their level of toughness. You know, I think when people talk about buds and all that, I think a lot of people wonder, would I make it through?

Speaker A

The Navy confirms Mary Hugh's death Sunday following a training accident in a swimming pool at a military base in Virginia. If you explain it to the American public, more than half [music] still won't understand. They will still view it as brutal, as as as unnecessary.

Speaker A

Now to a training tragedy involving [music] two Navy Seals, we're learning one of them is from Leavonia.

Speaker A

So, one of the things I I hear is this narrative that it's too difficult.

Speaker A

So, in the unlikely event that he makes it through the most arduous, selective, random, brutal, and ridiculous [music] training pipeline, it's the best job ever.

Speaker A

What do you do to get ready for it? You know what you got to do to get ready for it? You, you know, army, guess what?

Speaker A

You're going to be humping a rock. You're going to be doing force marches. You got to be able to run. You got to be able to nav. You got to be able to do push-ups and pull-ups and and dips and

Speaker A

rope climbs and obstacles. That's what you got to do. You got to train hard.

Speaker A

You got to train as hard as you possibly can. And then you have to tell yourself that you're not going to quit no matter what happens.

Speaker A

No matter what happens, you're not [music] going to quit. No matter what happens, you're not going to quit. You're not going to quit.

Speaker A

You're not going to quit. You're not going to quit.

Topics:Navy SEALBUD/S trainingHell Weekmilitary trainingspecial forcesphysical endurancemental toughnesssurf torturemilitary documentaryHoback Coulter

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