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miserable for five and a half days. For my class, the winter weather at Little Creek made this easy.
    Our Hell Week started at midnight on a Sunday. I had a fever and all the symptoms of the flu, but I kept quiet about it because I didn’t want to risk being pulled out of training. I decided I’d just gut it out. The weather cooperated with the instructors. It was in the low thirties and raining—great for the flu, I guess, because by 0900 the first morning I felt fine, even though I was soaked from head to foot and cold. The rest of the week we had the entire gamut of wintertime weather—rain, cold, snow, you name it.
    The first thing the instructors did, after rousing us from our racks and screwing around with us a little, was divide the class into boat crews, with an officer in charge of each. Each crew would stay together for the duration of Hell Week, so anyone who quit would draw down on the number of people in his crew, thus making it harder for those who stayed.
    Everywhere we went that week we had to carry our Inflatable Boats Large (IBLs), eleven-man rubber rafts that weighed at least a ton. We never had more than six men carrying them. The best way to carry them was on our heads, and we all got shorter, thicker necks that week. One of Instructor Chuck Newell’s favorite tricks was to get a running start and jump up into one of the boats as we were running down the road. Chuck stood about six feet, two inches and weighed about 195, all of it muscle. He’d stand up in the boat like Ben-Hur in the chariot, yelling at us to hurry up. Then if the crew didn’t pick up the pace (or even if they did), he’d start running around in the boat and jumping up and down. He was a lot of fun.
    By the first night of Hell Week, we’d been cold and wet all day long. Around six P.M. we stood at attention in front of the instructor’s hut, IBLs on our heads. Out of the hut strode Chief Petty Officer Tom Blais. At five feet, ten inches tall and about 190 pounds, Tom was a sight to behold. We’d already heard how he’d fallen from the top of the fifty-foot “cargo net” on our obstacle course. As he hit the ground back first, he had the presence of mind to take a judo “beat” with his arms to help break his fall. Still, he broke his back. Most men would have been medically discharged from the Navy. Not Tom. He worked hard, rehabilitated himself, and here he was standing in front of us, a raging bull ready to make our lives miserable.
    â€œGood evening, class!” he roared.
    â€œGood evening, Instructor Blais.”
    â€œI can’t hear yoooou.”
    â€œGoooood eeeeevening, Instructor Blais!”
    â€œHow’s your spirit?”
    â€œ AAAARH! ” we roared. (The instructors were always interested in how we felt—it was so comforting!)
    â€œTonight,” he said, “you’re going on a trip around the world.”
    This dream vacation consisted of a trip around the base and its surrounding waters. We’d travel in and under our trusty IBLs. Because the instructors were so concerned for our comfort, the route offered us many opportunities to get in and out of the water and cross beaches, sand dunes, and roads. That way we wouldn’t always be in or on the cold water. They didn’t want anyone to get sick!
    This being a winter class, we could always count on unpredictable but usually nasty weather, and that night met our expectations. The temperature was in the midthirties, and the wind was blowing about thirty knots out of the northeast. As usual, it paid to be a winner. When your boat crew finished, you could “rest” until the next evolution started—usually right after the last boat crew finished the previous evolution. Any rest was welcome in Hell Week.
    As Blais finished explaining the course, Waddell stormed out of the instructor’s hut and yelled, “Class, ten-hut.”
    We snapped to