Three Simple Things. Thom Shea

had exited, and we were down to 36 students from 72. I personally felt strong, so I went up the obstacle first to help get the boat over. My arm was stabilizing the boat as the rest of the boat crew climbed up. One of my buddies lost his grip and fell into the boat. The sudden jarring of the boat caused my shoulder to separate and the pain was rather interesting. I gritted my teeth as my swim buddies looked at me. We all knew what had happened, but if an instructor noticed it, I would be out again. We all stayed quiet and continued on.

      I knew if I made it to Wednesday night at midnight, I would be rolled forward and not back to first day. At least that was how I was processing the shoulder being out of its socket and the purple color of my hand. I kept it hidden until after dinner on Tuesday night. The after-dinner festivities of Hell Week are without a doubt the most painful. Lifting the boat up over our heads and keeping it up there is hard even if you are strong. I was not strong at this point.

      Mahrer, in his ever-calm demeanor, noticed the color in my hand and the fact my arm was no longer up over my head pushing up on the boat. “Shea, get your hand up on that boat and help your team,” he actually whispered. “You have five seconds, or you are kicked out of training for refusal to train.”

      The sudden feeling of falling apart once again gripped me. “Chief, I can do this with one arm. I can hold my weight,” I said.

      “5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” he counted. “Okay, step out, you are done.”

      The rest of the night was again a blur, and I went to the hospital. The doctors used traction and some muscle relaxants to pop my shoulder back into place, admittedly more painful than the separation. And I sat in the bed again, not knowing my fate. I had tried so hard. I had done all that I possibly could do. The longer I sat, the lower I felt. My thoughts were centered around “is this all worth it?” Had I just set myself up to fail at something impossible so that the failing would be believable?

      I always think it’s funny how we question ourselves when things go south. How we look at our struggles and try to find a way out of them instead of a way through them. There are always 1,000 ways to exit every problem: a thousand ways to quit.

      The way forward was gray and unclear and profoundly disturbing. No one ever gets a third try, ever. I didn’t even want to try it again. My shoulder would not recover in three weeks, which was when the next class would be starting. I sat there.

      After two days, Mahrer showed up at the hospital in uniform this time. He didn’t have a bell, which was the first point I noticed. He didn’t have any paperwork, which was striking. Mahrer came in directly without knocking. “How is the shoulder?” he asked, and I could tell he didn’t really care.

      “They put it back in” is all I could muster to say.

      “Shea, you get two weeks’ vacation. When you return you go directly to the rehab clinic! You will miss class 197 and go directly to class 198. Do you have any questions?” He dropped the grenade in my lap knowing I would not have any.

      “When you leave the hospital, check in to first phase. They have your leave paperwork. Go somewhere and get your mind right and come back,” he said in his matter-of-fact nature. Then he said something again that rings as true today as it did then. “Don’t go home to your parents or girlfriend or old friends. They will talk you out of coming back.” With that, he turned and walked away.

      My job in the Navy up to this point was as a corpsman. With the little training I had received, I knew the recovery for a dislocated shoulder was supposed to be more than six weeks. As a matter of fact, you weren’t supposed to even start working out hard for six weeks. The cards were stacked against me. As I looked down at my stupid arm and reached over and touched my shoulder, which immediately produced a sharp pain, I again felt the feeling of falling. This time I was falling and could not see the bottom. That sensation is brutal to feel, even though, lately, that was the feeling I seemed to be having the most. Failing and falling, getting back up, being enthused, and repeating the cycle seemed to be my life. However, this episode of falling didn’t produce the enthusiasm. I dreaded having to start over again. My body and my mind were toast. I had no respect for myself anymore. I sat there falling and spinning.

      I even recall thinking, “Man I am tough, but I wonder if this is what caused people to commit suicide.” Not knowing what my future would be. Clearly seeing no way to recover my shoulder. The feeling made me angry and actually angry with other people.

      Six weeks later I passed the entrance test with 105 pushups and 18 pull-ups. Off to the races, once again! Off to the last chance I would have to become a SEAL. Hell Week came without incident. Surf torture was a nonevent. The boat crew obstacle course appeared and disappeared in my mind. The freezing cold of the mud flats became the new sensation of how cold and miserable one could become. Two students left with flesh eating bacteria during that trial. Everything seemed normal, except I couldn’t stop coughing. By Wednesday night I was coughing up blood with each cough. As we processed through the medical screen, I was again pulled out. Pulled out to face Mahrer once again.

      My walk to the first phase office in the dark was different. I cried because I realized sometimes not quitting wasn’t enough. I cried because I had let Mahrer down once again. Rounding the corner, I saw the bell in front of the office. If I rang it this would all end, and the strain would be over. I could go home and not face this pain and feeling of falling. I could just hit bottom and be done with it. With each step it seemed like the best choice. The closer I got to the bell, the stronger the pull to ring became. Still, when I stood there in front of it, seeing all those helmets, all those people who had tried and quit, I couldn’t do it.

      Mahrer appeared in the door to the office, not seeming so intimidating as before. “Quit if you want. We aren’t going to kick you out. None of us would have gone through three first phases. Now, we don’t know anyone to do four. I personally think you get sick or injured as a way out. You have to defeat that demon before it kills you. I don’t care if you have pneumonia or flesh-eating bacteria in your lungs. Class 199 starts Monday. You don’t have to do the class up test. So show up or quit. The choice is yours,” he said, actually smiling this time.

      By the way, no one recovers from pneumonia in five days. And, truth be told, I certainly didn’t recover. I showed up Monday with a fever and barely passed the timed run. For the next several weeks, I just barely passed everything. I was beaten like everyone else who failed or didn’t improve upon previous times. Each night I stopped caring about it all. I made it into Hell Week once again . . . not caring, not sure why I was doing it, and not willing to quit.

      On Wednesday night they took me to the hospital with all five lobes 50 percent infiltrated with fluid. They didn’t need to tell me, I knew. I knew it was over. After a week in the hospital, and with no instructor coming to check on me, I knew it all was over. When I reported to the first phase office, they had orders for me to a new command and no one even mentioned training or anything. They had all moved on and I was insignificant to their day-to-day lives.

      Completing Hell Week solidified my firm stance on the principle of “honor your word.” I realized in that exact moment of walking away, as you must also realize, that this is the point in life where you either keep on honoring your word or you just quit. Once again, the world did not give me what I wanted in the timeline I had wanted it. Once again, things did not work out the way my brain had perceived events should have. Being cast out again, having to literally lie there in the puddle of mud I had created again, trying to figure out who I was and where I was going, will always be the roughest time in my life. The moment of clarity came when I realized I could actually honor my word and start over.

      No one should avoid feeling the gravity of failing or the weight of loss. Both my experience then, and in training leaders now, makes me realize the importance of this transition point. At this transition point, we all have three choices.

      The first choice is made by a small group of people for various, truly believable reasons. They decide to simply quit on themselves, go home (and hope and pray), and leave a goal-driven life behind. The gravity felt is too heavy to experience and quitting seems to be the only way out. An observable truth is when this path is chosen as a coping mechanism to deal with failure, it