Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL’s Way of Life

by Thom Shea

  After a week, re-double each effort, and for one week, pay attention to your Internal Dialogue. Observe how the task is going. Are you starting to cooperate with yourself?

  On the third week, triple the original number. Note seriously what your Internal Dialogue is saying. I assume one of two things is happening: you are allowing real life to alter your plan, or you are getting stronger and encouraging yourself. Since the first is actually what you are listening to, like a sorrowful trumpet playing taps, don’t be distraught. It is normal, and is actually what I hope you are listening to. While listening to your Internal Dialogue gives you valid reasons not to do the task, you need to be telling yourself the exact opposite and completing the task anyway. If your Internal Dialogue is saying, “I don’t have time.” Then simply switch the words, because they are your words to begin with, and say, “I do have time.” And do the task …

  Having seen so many SEAL students undergo this initial transformation, I want to share with you what is going on and warn you. After training so many SEALs, I know the human body, the human paradigm, resists change at the genetic level. It wants to keep the past alive at all costs. It does this by using Internal Dialogue to subtly make you avoid pain; unfortunately, it also prevents your goals and dreams from happening.

  Seventy percent of all students who start SEAL training, who dream of becoming a SEAL, get caught up in their own Internal Dialogue in the form of quitting, getting injured, or failing. As you go through this first test, you may start thinking, I don’t have time. This is stupid. I am tired. I don’t want to anymore. Ouch, I am injured. Those thoughts invariably lead to the most deceptive one of all: I am hurt. Other forms of Internal Dialogue will speak at you, but I am sure these are the ones talking to you now.

  So, each time your Internal Dialogue steers you away from the test, acknowledge it, say to yourself the exact opposite, and do the task. Continue this until you have made it through the first three weeks without skipping a day. How long it takes you to complete the task is not important. I took three months. Though my numbers were higher than I am asking of you, it is the same task. Don’t let your Internal Dialogue stop you, even on the simplest task.

  ADAMANTINE LESSON TWO

  Facing your fear

  The second task is to overcome your fear of heights by rappelling off a 100-foot cliff, then climbing back up using a rope. Here, I am hoping you feel the fear. I pray your body shakes and your palms sweat. Obviously, someone must teach you and provide appropriate safety precautions. I want you to feel your body’s response; more importantly, I want you to notice what you are saying to yourself. This voice is loud, and it screams frequently.

  Once down, you will also physically feel the effects of overcoming fear. Remember to breathe. At this point, notice what you are saying to yourself about overcoming fear.

  Next, climb back up. Make it a somewhat doable climb. I would say a 5.4 to 5.6 climb. If you don’t know what that means, find someone who does and enlist that person’s help. Here, I want you to feel the physical exertion needed to overcome fear when the feeling you may fall overtakes you. Feel it. Touch the void surrounding you, physically overcoming the fear of falling. Notice the words have shifted once this is complete—as has your life.

  ADAMANTINE LESSON THREE

  Pushing beyond comfort zones

  Finally, the last task is simple in concept, yet seriously demanding. I want you to walk for twenty-four hours without stopping for more than ten minutes at a time. This test is designed for one thing only. Now that you are gaining control over your Internal Dialogue and what it says in times of fear and discomfort, and how it tries to use real life to stop you from attaining your goals, I want you to use it to get to the end, no matter what. When your Internal Dialogue tells you something other than to keep going, replace those subversive words with your own words telling you to continue. This task took me three attempts.

  On my first attempt, I got terrible blisters, ran out of water, and quit. I didn’t try again for two months. The second time, it rained for twelve hours, and I felt like I was getting sick, so I quit. On the third try snow fell, and I got leg chafing so badly I walked like a man who had pooped in his pants, but I did it. My own Internal Dialogue was screaming at me the whole way: Thom, you are stupid. No one cares about this but you. You are not proving anything to anyone, especially yourself, and you are hurting yourself so badly you will never walk normally again. My own, revised Internal Dialogue, which I had learned to tell myself was, Make it to the next tree, then to the next hill. Finally, all went quiet, and I thought only of the trail ahead of me.

  SECTION TWO

  GROWTH

  JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET, Meditations on Hunting, Spanish philosopher & politician (1883–1955)

  “One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted … If one were to present the sportsman with the death of the animal as a gift he would refuse it. What he is after is having to win it, to conquer the surly brute through his own effort and skill with all the extras that this carries with it: the immersion in the countryside, the healthfulness of the exercise, the distraction from his job.”

  In the process of writing the first chapter and taking the time to fully convey my points on how important Internal Dialogue is for overcoming YOU physically, Task Unit Trident has had eight days of delays. Our temporary delay in Dover extended the pain of waiting into another four-day delay in Germany. Nowhere in SEAL training does anyone overtly teach patience, yet you have to become patient as a matter of fact due to mechanical breakdowns and organizational failures. Hell, even sometimes personal “oopses.” The universal team guy point of view is simply this: better be ready when it happens because it will happen. My own perspective is even baser: I love to hunt, and sitting doing nothing is part of it.

  This is our last “safe” leg of the journey to hell. When we land in hell, our advance party already has a mission planned for us. Oddly, it is no big deal, at least mentally. When back in the States, our limited time to train is a form of practice for real life, or for hell in this case. When I look at my platoon, I truly cannot tell we are hours away from landing in hell. We seem like we are going to Las Vegas, with all the smiles and quiet determination, like a group of men going to Zumanity … you just know you are going to see something, whether you want to or not.

  HELL

  We have been on the ground for two and a half days; I have only slept nine hours. Much of my time has been spent unloading our gear boxes, making up my “combat bedroom,” sighting in my rifles, and planning every single detail of the first handshake with the devil.

  As I share what I am doing over here with you, please realize most of the details, names, and places must remain vague. Actually, they matter little within the scope of what I really want you to know. I want you to know me. I want to share a part of my life you may never have been able to know, and I want to show you how I personally deal with the issues of life.

  Within hours of hitting the deck here in hell, my lieutenant and I were pulled into the combat center and given a briefing on the combat operation planned prior to our arrival. As you go through life and become an expert in whatever field or skills you choose, you will find that anytime someone else plans something for you or your group, they always miss the mark because they lack awareness of the details which make you and your group good. It’s not their fault. The task is especially hard for SEAL platoons and Army Special Forces (Operational Detachment Alphas: ODAs). We all breathe air, but aside from that, nothing is the same.

  For this mission, we were to fully integrate within the ODA effort, sharing the breaching, shooting, and intelligence collection efforts. I mean to say that even in the order of march, they lined us up one ODA, then one SEAL, and so on. I could just feel the bones breaking and grating. None of it made tactical sense to me. One of my pet peeves is never to separate forces inside the target area at the beginning of the operation. We practiced this method many times in traini
ng. Every single time, one enemy running around in the middle of the separated “friendlies” caused us to either shoot each other, or delay shooting the enemy, which in turn allows the enemy to shoot one of us. Well that was in training … right? But as professional courtesy, I said nothing and hoped my point of view was just skewed from lack of sleep and tension.

  After the briefing, I spent the rest of the afternoon altering my combat bedroom into a place locked away from the stimuli of hell, and instead, reminding me of Stacy, home, and my kids. Albeit, I had six guns mounted on the wall, two grenades, hundreds of rounds in my ready box, and my body armor and helmet set and ready to go. However, I did have white Christmas lights to remind me of God, and that, somewhere, presents were waiting for me. On top of my three-inch Tempur-Pedic mattress topper lay Chance’s (our youngest) camouflage rain-parka liner embroidered with his name, birth date, birth weight, and height. I want to marry the woman who made that mattress topper.

  Once finished with the room makeover, we all grabbed the various weapons we would need for the mission and drove off base to find someplace to sight them in and get our minds ready for the eventualities of war. Sighting in my weapons is an interesting thing for me … always has been. It isn’t a time to joke or play. Maybe all my years as a boy hunting deer, elk, and squirrels, or, missing so many animals, caused me to take the time to ensure my guns were ready. Today was no joke. When I walked off that range, everything about my guns worked.

  As the newness of the environment and the realness of what we were about to do sunk in, the world began to slow down for me. I spent that night going over the plan with my men. At this point in Bravo platoon’s evolutionary development, we had an easy way of briefing and listening to a plan. I would brief the plan, much like other platoons would do across the SEAL community, then I would stop and give the floor to the men who would actually have to carry out the plan.

  I don’t know if mine is a unique style, but I do know many of the leaders in my immediate team have difficulty allowing open, committed conversation about tactics. Early in my career I discovered, as I hope you will, when you ask another person to risk his life, best to let him find a way that works for him. The past eighteen months had taught me my men wanted to win, and when I let them find their own ways, winning was easy.

  We spent the next hour discussing the flow of the operation, who would be in key places and in key roles at various points of the movement, and most importantly, what would we do when the shit hit the fan and things got complicated. Two sayings in the SEAL Teams seem to hold true: plan your dive, and dive your plan. Meaning, do your best not to deviate and change the plan, and you can wipe your ass with the original plan once the bullets start flying, but take the time to plan anyway. Someone shooting at you tends to make you react in spite of what you wanted to do! An interesting contradiction to be sure, yet often a highly trained and battle-hardened team deviates from the plan just to address the immediate threat, then quickly gets back to the plan. A young team stays deviated after the bullets start flying, and clearly, the bullets were coming.

  As the first night wore down, I walked back to my room and slid the makeshift door closed. Once inside, I put my headphones on and shut out the world. Stacy and I had picked out some songs to transport me back to her, at least in my mind. Family, and connection with family, is the most powerful thing a warrior can have. Since the Spartans ruled the European world, that connection has been time honored and literally written in blood. Some in the Teams see it as a balancing act of sorts; when your family falls apart at home, you become useless in war. However, for Stacy and me, we took it to the level the Spartans did—Stacy was fully committed to me being a SEAL and eager for me to count coup. Nothing was out of bounds for us to discuss about combat, and that dynamic, committed sharing over the past three years made me eager to connect to her about the violence of it all.

  We had chosen several songs capturing our commitment to each other and our commitment to war. On this first night, as I thumbed through the songs, I stopped on our favorite song and was immediately transported to the emotion and feeling of lying next to her in bed that last night. As I listened to Peter Gabriel singing, “In Your Eyes,” I could feel Stacy’s warm skin against mine and could hear her saying, “Thom, I need you to come back to us. Do not fear dying. It makes you weak.”

  I drifted off to sleep that night lying next to Stacy, with my three children tucked safely in the protection of our home, and my brothers who remained in California.

  When I woke the next morning, I had clearly not ensured all the holes in the wall were patched up, because I was covered in dust. If this space was going to work as a safe place to get away from the realities of hell, I would have to spend more time taking care of the holes. The exact moment my feet hit the ground, I heard a missile whistle high over our compound, hit, and explode somewhere on base. Not sure I can do anything about that, but I remember saying to myself, “This is bullshit. Islam has no consideration for a man’s sleep. Let’s see how they feel when we wake them up tonight!”

  We all had to inconveniently muster at a pre-determined spot and wait for the all-clear call. I found this funny; all the SEALs were in flip-flops and shorts, and all the Army and Air Force men were in body armor and carrying guns. The men in my platoon were laughing. One of us said, “Relax guys, the thing already detonated, and the Taliban don’t stay and fight.” After that, breakfast was rushed because we had to meet the army SF unit leading the operation to conduct rehearsals.

  I do, however, admire the lengths the army goes to in rehearsals. Take note: successful people in every walk of life train and rehearse in order to continue honing their known skills and to narrow down the unknown ones. We pushed through four separate rehearsals and completed with a tactical-leader debrief. The rest of the day consisted of checking and rechecking with all the air assets and getting my mind ready for everything.

  After dinner, I called home. Calling home is often mentally risky. I think many young men struggle with the uncertainty of what they might hear and face emotionally. Maybe because many SEALs marry young, sexy women who resent the fact SEALs spend 200 or more days each year gone. That is not the case with Stacy and my kids. I thoroughly appreciate how they all embrace and encourage me being a warrior.

  Hearing the love and connection in their voices always makes me realize why I continually risk my life for them and for my Team … staying connected is what matters. After the “hello’s,” and “How are you doing’s?” I said, “Stacy, we are going fishing tonight.” Her silence was telling. After what seemed like an hour, Stacy simply said, “Do not fear dying, Thom. It makes you weak. Leave your wedding ring on the picture of your family.” Then she said, “I love you,” and hung up.

  When I placed my ring on the picture, I also left any fear of not returning in that safe place. Don’t confuse my action of letting my family go with a lack of love for them. Whatever your job is, you will, at times, have to let go physically and mentally of certain things in order to excel in others. In combat, I have always found it difficult to focus on anything not connected to the specific mission. I knew, and know, my family would be waiting for me to return home.

  Thus began my six-month ritual of taking off my ring and donning my combat gear. To this day, I find the disparity between a SEAL’s appearance and reality extremely amusing. A SEAL’s appearance makes such a misguided impression to anyone who doesn’t know what’s going on under all that gear. SEALs in combat appear lightweight, aggressive, and armed to the teeth with the latest guns and bombs—from the inside, I can tell you, the experience is totally different. Prior to putting on all my gear, I weighed 225 pounds. After loading up, I weighed 310 pounds. I don’t know what equations the planners used to arrive at this solution of lightweight, but MIT must mean Maybe It Translates or Math Is Tits. Thank God I was an adventure racer and a SEAL!

  With the load-up complete, we all headed out to the helo pad and met up with the SF ODA Team leading the mis
sion. I wish I could clearly communicate the atmosphere of the group just prior to loading the helicopters (helos) taking us to hell. This atmosphere is nothing like the pregame locker room energy of a football game or wrestling match, or even a track meet. This atmosphere is more a deafening silence, intermittently filled with radio communications in my headset—not necessarily music you listen to at a dance.

  Slowly, the helos made their way toward us, and once in place, the ramp lowered, and we all shoved in like sardines. Thank God these helos were armed to the teeth, because we surely weren’t able to do shit from inside them. The flight time was only thirty-five minutes; I didn’t last ten minutes before falling asleep. I still do not know if it was because I was stressed out too much or just used to it. Next thing I knew, my point man was grabbing my arm saying, “One minute out.”

  Once on the ground, I exited into a thick dust cloud and followed the man in front of me until he took a knee, then we all waited until the helos took off, and the way to the target area was cleared. Looking around, I immediately found the shape and posture of the men in Bravo platoon. We wore different uniforms and gear and walked differently from the others. The familiarity of my men eased the confusion, and as we came close to the first target, I saw the men assume combat posture with lasers on and weapons off safe.

  According to the plan, a group of SEALS and ODAs was supposed to be off to my left about 100 yards; I couldn’t see them. Another group separated (yes, I know: separation of forces is not good for Bravo), and was making its way along with the main effort, paralleling our movement. However, the group was having trouble with something and dropped back thirty yards. No one was communicating this over the comms, and as I looked at my men, I could tell they were uneasy about the disorganization.

  Somehow, the ODA main breacher did not show up to the main side of the street, so my young Texan looked at me, and I said, “Fuck them. Let’s do it ourselves.” Over the next 100 yards, he, I, and two ODA, breached and cleared twenty-eight doors and rooms. I recall watching my breacher open up the first lock with his shotgun. After the first round didn’t break the lock, he laughed and loaded another one–again, to no avail. After four rounds didn’t break it, he changed his approach and shot the latch’s attachment to the wall. Bingo, we were in. However, we had never practiced on garage-style doors that push up from the ground. As the ODA lifted the door, my breacher and I squatted down, attempting to see in. The ODA sergeant said with a laugh, “Dude, unless they locked themselves in, I wouldn’t worry about clearing it.” To him, that made sense, but I didn’t allow Texas and myself to drop to a lower tactical standard.