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don’t suppose you’ll understand that if you’re not from Texas. There seems to be a special bond between people from the state. I don’t know if it’s shared experiences, or maybe it’s something in the water—or maybe the beer. Texans tend to get on pretty well with each other, and in this case we formed an instant friendship. Maybe it’s not that much of a mystery; after all, we had a lot of experiences in common, from growing up with a love of hunting to joining the Navy to toughing out BUD/S.
    Marcus had graduated from BUD/S prior to me, then went off to do special advanced training before returning to SQT. Trained as a corpsman, he happened to check me over when I got my first O 2 hit while diving. (In layman’s terms, an “O 2 hit” occurs when too much oxygen enters your bloodstream during a dive. It can be caused by a number of different factors and can be extremely serious. My case was very minor.)
    Diving again. I always say I’m an “ . . . L,” not a SEAL. I’m a land guy; you can keep air and sea for someone else.
    The day my incident occurred, I was swimming with a lieutenant, and we were determined to get the day’s golden fin—an award for the best shit-hot dive of the day. The exercise involved swimming under a ship and planting limpet mines. (A limpet mine is a special charge that is placed against the hull of a ship. Generally, it will have a timed charge.)
    We were doing extremely well when suddenly, while I was underneath the hull of the ship, I experienced vertigo and my brain turned into a vegetable. I managed to grab hold of a pylon and hug it. The lieutenant tried handing me a mine, then tried signaling to me when I wouldn’t take it. I stared blankly into the ocean. Finally, my head cleared, and I was able to get out and continue.
    No golden fin for us that day. By the time I got back to the surface, I was all right, and both Marcus and the instructors cleared me.
    Though we ended up in different Teams, Marcus and I kept in touch as the years went by. It seemed like every time I was coming back from a combat deployment, he was coming in to relieve me. We’d have lunch together and trade informal intel back and forth.
    T oward the end of SQT, we got orders telling us which SEAL Team we were about to join. Even though we had graduated BUD/S, we didn’t consider ourselves real SEALs yet; it was only when we joined a Team that we would get our Tridents—and even then we’d have to prove ourselves first. (The SEAL Tridents—also known as a Budweiser—is a metal “device” or badge worn by SEALs. Besides Neptune’s trident, the symbol includes an eagle and an anchor.) At the time, there were six Teams, meaning three choices on each coast, East and West; my top pick was Seal Team 3, which was based out of Coronado, California. I chose it because that team had seen action in the Middle East and was likely to return. I wanted to get into the heat if I could. I think all of us did.
    My next two choices were for Teams based on the East Coast, because I’d been in Virginia, where they are headquartered. I’m not a big fan of Virginia, but I liked it a lot better than California. San Diego—the city near Coronado—has beautiful weather, but Southern California is the land of nuts. I wanted to live somewhere with a little more sanity.
    I’d been told by the detailer I worked for that he would make sure I got my top choice. I wasn’t 100 percent sure that was going to happen, but at that point I would have accepted whatever assignment I got—obviously, since I had no real say in the matter.
    Getting the actual assignment was the opposite of dramatic. They brought us into a big classroom and handed out paper with our orders. I got my top choice: Team 3.
    L OVE
    S omething else happened to me that spring that had an enormous impact not just on my military career, but on my life.
    I fell in love.
    I don’t know if you believe in love at first sight; I don’t think I did before