by Naomi Niles
Now in the murky half-light, he stood over them as they bent low to the ground, doing push-ups in unison. “Keep your eyes to the ground,” he warned when one of the men seemed to raise his head for a moment at my approach, his eyes lit with a cold hunger. “Remember: the more you sweat in peacetime, the less you sweat in war.”
At his command, the men lowered themselves into push-up positions and began doing belly lift walks. Perhaps it was the light or perhaps I was just tired, but there was something both ominous and thrilling at the sight of these men in formation. Ominous because their exercises represented everything that scared me about the military: the unflinching obedience to authority, the emphasis on brawns over brain, the reversion to animal instincts.
I was filled with a sense of quiet foreboding at the thought that any one of these men could overpower me within seconds, at which point I would be powerless to stop them. They could easily kill me and leave my body to be eaten by predators and devoured by worms. In a sense, I was placing my life in their hands anytime I flew out here, trusting that their sense of decency would overrule their animal longings. They were men, too, I kept having to remind myself: men with families and social obligations; men who played baseball and ran marathons and went to church or synagogue or mosque.
I spent the morning watching them train together: running laps; doing jingle jangles; swimming in the large pool at the back of the warehouse; climbing a large obelisk-like structure with steel bars on the side. By the time we broke for lunch, I was exhausted just from watching them train. I couldn’t imagine how tired they must be, how it must feel to get up and do this every day before dawn, day after day, how it must have worn them down.
Although I didn’t get the chance to interview any of the SEALs, I did spend a good portion of the day talking to Sergeant Armstrong, who proved to be as genial and effervescent as Evan had said he would be.
“This seems like a lot to have to go through,” I said to him as the men did prisoner squats in the steadily mounting heat. “Do you ever have recruits who quit because they just can’t make it?”
Armstrong laughed. “We do, actually,” he said. “Luckily none of our recruits have died yet, at least not in this platoon, but it could very well happen.”
I froze with my pen in hand. “There are recruits who have died?”
He nodded grimly with an eye on my notepad, perhaps wishing he hadn’t brought it up. “There’s been a death every year for three out of the last four years of SEAL training. But I mean, what do you expect when they’re basically thrown into a lake with weights tied to their feet, forced to dismantle them and swim to the surface? It’s amazing there have only been three deaths.”
He smiled at the stunned look on my face. Probably he was thinking I lived a sheltered existence in my Manhattan apartment, immured from the dangers of the world. I could have easily disabused him of that notion, but I held my tongue.
No, what really unsettled me was that the government and military could place such a low value on life, that they would let this happen again and again.
“You must have scores of people who never make it past recruitment,” I said.
“Way more than that,” said Armstrong. “Every year, thousands of men sign up for this program under the mistaken impression that they’ve got what it takes. Most of them drop out when the real training begins. We have what’s called ‘Hell Week,’ which is easily the most grueling training regimen in the entire United States military. The entire week, the boys are out running, and climbing, and carrying boats, in extreme cold and heat.”
“How many of them make it?”
“Not very many,” said Armstrong with a grim smile, “and that’s by design. However many recruits we start out with, by the end of the week we’ll have lost about three-quarters. The whole time they’re training, we’re standing over them with bullhorns urging them to quit, to just give up and stop suffering needlessly. Which they can do at any time—all they have to do is ring the bell, and they’re done.”
“There’s a bell?”
“There is a bell. At any moment they can ring that bell, come in out of the water or wherever and enjoy coffee and doughnuts. But they’ll never be a SEAL, and they’ll never have the satisfaction of being able to say they made it through the toughest training regimen on earth.”
Relief swept over me at noon when Armstrong announced that the morning’s training had ended and that we could file into the mess hall for lunch. Remembering that we had never discussed my eating arrangements, I asked him, “Would you care if I ate with you?”
“You’re welcome to eat whenever we eat,” he replied. “Though I can’t promise the food will be as good as what you’re used to.”
“As long as you don’t force me to eat kale—”
But the words were ripped from my throat by an explosion to the east. The trees on the edge of the clearing exploded in a blistering ball of yellow flame. With a loud cry, each of the SEALs dropped to the ground as though by instinct. I followed, feeling a familiar knot of dread and apprehension in the pit of my stomach. Something told me this wasn’t a routine drill.
“What the hell is that?” asked a man I recognized as Carson. “Some kind of animal?”
Chuck shook his head. “That’s no animal. If it is what I think it is, then we need to get her out of here, quick.”
There was no need to specify whom he meant by “her.” Carson’s eyes drifted automatically toward me. “But are the roads safe?” came the voice of a third SEAL—Zack, I think.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Chuck, and there was a look of low, calculating cunning in his dark eyes. “She doesn’t need to be here. Now which one of us is going to escort her back to the city?”
Reluctantly, Carson and Zack raised their hands. Within a few minutes, I was unceremoniously ushered into the back of a Jeep. I didn’t even have time to tell Sergeant Armstrong I was leaving. When I looked for him, he was nowhere to be found.
For the next hour as the Jeep rumbled over uneven terrain, I watched their tense, sweaty faces. I didn’t dare speak; I had a horrible feeling that if I had tried they would have immediately shut me down. It was clear that I had become an inconvenience, that neither of them wanted me here, and that if I hadn’t come, they would be back on base at this moment, perhaps eating lunch, but more likely doing something else that they hadn’t wanted me to see.
The Jeep drove around to the front of the hotel. The back doors were locked from the inside; Carson got out and unlocked them, and I tumbled out. He stepped back into the car and drove off without a second glance.
I took the stairs up to the second floor with a disoriented feeling. My first full day of reporting hadn’t at all gone the way I had expected it to, and I couldn’t forget the look on Chuck’s face as he ordered me to be driven away. I would have thought he had been trying to protect me if they hadn’t known the road to be even more dangerous. No, I wasn’t the one being protected, I realized with a sickening clarity as I unlocked the door to my room. I was the danger; and they had been protecting themselves from me.
Chapter Seven
Zack
The explosions continued through the rest of the evening. Sergeant Armstrong received word over the wireless that bands of guerilla fighters were roaming the woods armed with assault rifles and explosive devices. There was no reason to doubt that they were planning an attack on the base, during which they hoped to kill us and add our weapons to their growing stockpile.
“What we need to do,” Armstrong said as we gathered around a map of the area laid out on a large table in the strategy room, “is to kill them before they can kill us. I’m sending a team out into the jungle to meet them on their home turf. They’ll never get within a mile of this base camp.”
Right as he said this, there was another explosion like a loud peal of thunder, rattling the building and breaking one of the windows.
“We’d better do this quick,” said the sergeant after the commotion had died down. “
In and out. Don’t worry about bringing them in. I want to see the forest floor littered with their bodies. I want to see the bonobos bathing in their blood!”
Jake and the rest of the platoon suited up and grabbed their weapons while Carson and I scaled the communications tower at the northern edge of the camp ground. We spent most of the night there struggling to keep each other awake while we listened for the ominous sound of gunfire in the woods and waited for the platoon to return.
I was relieved to hear the rumble of Jeeps and to see them come pulling in at around 3:00am. Jake and Bernie leapt out and rushed to assist Chuck, who appeared to be limping and whose left foot was heavily bandaged. Carson and I scrambled down the ladder and ran toward them.
“Are you alright, man?” I asked. “What happened?”
“I’m fine,” said Chuck, though he winced with pain as he said it. “I just need to lie down. We all need to get some sleep; we have to be up in two hours.”
“How’re you expecting to do training with your leg like that?” asked Carson.
“I’ll manage,” Chuck said, and he limped off toward our room. Carson and I exchanged unbelieving glances.
“Did you take care of the problem?” he asked Jake as the rest of the men brushed past us, looking tired and irritable.
“All taken care of,” said Jake, tersely and without pride. “Let’s just say the bonobos will have plenty of baths tonight.”
It felt like I had only just shut my eyes when the overhead lights flickered on and I heard the sergeant’s familiar yell. Probably the only thing that got me out of bed that morning was the promise of seeing the reporter, whose name I still did not know and who was already on her way, flying low over the Congolese rainforest in a two-seater Cessna.
We were all standing in formation in the hazy half-light when the plane bearing her and her guide pulled up onto the runway. When she stepped out, I was viscerally reminded of early mornings back in high school when I got to see one of my girlfriends again after a weekend apart. That swoony, swooping feeling in the stomach like you’re about to soar out of your skin with ecstasy and terror.
As she followed Sergeant Armstrong onto the asphalt, I felt a sharp nudge in my ribs. Carson was glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, grinning shrewdly, but I kept my face stony. No need for him to think I was thinking of anything but my duties. However, I was placed in charge of the runs that morning and couldn’t resist showing off a little as we jogged in place. “On your knees, boys!” I shouted with theatrical flair, like a drill sergeant in a movie. Every now and again, I ventured a glance over at the reporter; she stood motionless at the edge of the Grinder, quietly jotting notes into her little book. She barely seemed to have noticed me.
As we were getting ready for lunch, Chuck summoned the platoon into a back room for a quick meeting. I thought for sure she would follow us in there, but she stood near the soda fountain talking to Sergeant Armstrong.
“Listen up,” said Chuck. “I don’t want any of you breathing a word about what you saw last night. There are people here with us presently who have the potential to misconstrue anything you say. Whatever you do, don’t give them that chance. Is that understood?”
Everyone nodded except Bernie, who raised his hand and said, “But what if she asks us about it?”
“Then you know nothing,” Chuck replied, with emphasis on the last word. “You got that? Nothing, Jon Snow.”
It made for one hell of an awkward lunch. The first thing she did after she sat down was to introduce herself—“My name is Kelli Pope, and I’m a reporter for the New York Bugle”—and to tell us she had a few questions about last night.
We all sat there looking stone-faced and solemn. None of us wanted to be the one to reveal what had happened during her absence, or to risk the wrath of Curtis and Sergeant Armstrong. Luckily, we were saved from having to answer any questions by the canny intervention of Bernie.
“Wait,” he said slowly, lifting his head from his chin. “Isn’t your website the one that broke that story last year about the problem of revenge porn in the U. S. Armed Forces?”
Several of the boys, who had been in danger of dozing off just a moment before, snapped to attention. Carson visibly bristled; he hated whistle-blowers, and in the wake of the Bugle’s investigation he had spewed some unprintable words directed at the two Marine commandants who had helped break the story.
“The Bugle was instrumental in that investigation,” said Kelli with remarkable poise, pulling a long strand of blonde hair out of her face. “But it wouldn’t have been possible without the cooperation of men and women at the highest levels of the Armed Forces.”
“I understand that over thirty servicemen got court-martialed as a result of that hit piece,” said Bernie, a dangerous edge in his voice. Chuck shot him a warning look and mouthed a few words that Kelli couldn’t hear.
“Our team wasn’t responsible for any punitive actions the SEALS may have experienced as a result of the investigation,” said Kelli, repeating an answer I was sure she had given before. She tugged at the collar of her shirt, looking sweaty and uncomfortable. She had sat down expecting to interview us, and now she was the one under scrutiny.
“That’s B. S.,” said Bernie, beginning to rise out of his seat. Kelli flinched and shielded her face with her hands as though preparing for an attack. I got the sense that she had been expecting one almost from the moment she sat down.
Carson and Chuck, however, grabbed Bernie by the shoulders and lowered him down into his chair. “Don’t move from that spot until lunch is over,” said Chuck in a voice not to be trifled with.
“I would also like to suggest that you keep your mouth shut,” said Jake.
“I just don’t get why we’re all being so deferential to this woman,” Bernie moaned. “She’s no friend of ours.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Kelli, interrupting—which I thought was brave under the circumstances. “Are you saying you actually think it was wrong of the media to report on the massive revenge porn scandal?”
“I don’t have a problem saying it,” said Bernie. “You absolutely destroyed the reputation of the Armed Forces. The House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning us, for crying out loud.”
“As I understand, the resolution only served to make the sharing of revenge porn within the armed services a crime,” said Kelli, her voice rising. “We were protecting the Armed Forces by protecting the women who serve here.”
“I don’t fuckin’ care!” Bernie shouted, overturning his tray and sending rice and yogurt flying across the table.
“Okay, you’re done,” said Chuck. Getting up and throwing one arm around him, he pulled him out of his seat. “You’re done.” Carson and Jake stood up and grabbed his other shoulder.
“Really sorry about this, ma’am,” Chuck said to Kelli as they led him away. “If anyone’s besmirching the good name of the SEALS right now—” He let the thought hang there as his voice trailed off.
Kelli sat there for a moment in silence, too visibly shaken to finish her meal. I reached for something reassuring to tell her, but words seemed to have failed me. In the distance, we could hear the scuffle of boots on concrete as Bernie latched onto a post and had to be dragged to his room.
“I swear to God, the kid is like five years old sometimes,” said Jake, shaking his head in disgust as he finished his pudding.
“Thank God he’s the only one like that,” I said, with one eye on Kelli.
As lunch was ending, Sergeant Armstrong summoned me and Kelli into his office. I followed along behind them, wondering why he wanted me and already regretting that I hadn’t eaten more.
“First of all,” said the sergeant as he shut the door behind us, “I wanted to apologize to you for the way one of our men behaved today. I hope you know his words are not representative of this platoon or the SEALS generally and that we hold you in the highest respect.”
“Thank you,” said Kelli, though her brow was still creased
with worry.
“Second,” said the sergeant, “you were supposed to go on a tour of the base yesterday before we got interrupted. Zack, I want you to take her around and show her everything—the pools, the break room, the tower… hell, take a whole hour if you need it. I’m giving you the rest of the afternoon off. Y’all go have fun.”
Sergeant Armstrong tossed me the keys to the golf cart and flung open the door so we could leave. Kelli smiled weakly at me as I motioned for her to go ahead of me. My face was a perfect mask concealing my secret glee at the thought of an afternoon without training—an afternoon spent with her.
Chapter Eight
Kelli
For a moment just after Bernie’s tantrum in the mess hall, I had been sorely tempted to call Evan and tell him I wanted to come home a couple weeks early. His outburst was everything I had been afraid of when I signed up for this trip: an overly emotional male, weighing at least twice as much as me, hopped up on rage and testosterone and only restrained by the decency and strength of his fellow SEALs.
I kept going back to a line in one of the interviews the Bugle had done with the female service members whose naked pictures had been posted online without their permission. She said, “Ever since I joined the Armed Forces, I fear for my safety: not because I’m afraid of the enemy, but because I’m afraid of my own male colleagues.”
After what I had just witnessed, I couldn’t say I blamed her.
Still, I felt grateful for the intervention of Chuck and Jake and Carson and the other guys. Slowly I was beginning to trust that I could do my job without having to worry that they would attack me, or hit on me, or worse. It was with a sense of relief that I followed Zack through the back door of the compound to a shady pavilion where a golf cart sat waiting for us.
