Page 73 of Down and Dirty

“Enough of that, Uxley,” the commander said, motioning for the chieftain to leave the room. But to Terri, the commander said, “Did I hear someone complain? Was that you, Evans? Did you dare to complain? Drop and give me twenty and make it quick.”

Terri dropped to the floor and began doing pushing-ups.

Master Chieftain Simms, the black-skinned instructor, shoved his way into the little room, too, passing F.U. on the way out. While he shouted, he was firing his weapon at the ceiling. They could barely hear him say, “Are you giving me a look, Ms. Leone? Are you giving me a look? I think a little cargo net, carrying a fifty-pound backpack, might be just the thing.”

Donita glared at him, and Master Chieftain Simms grinned at her, flashing white teeth against his dark skin.

“I’ll give you ladies three minutes to dress and get yourselves down on the beach for some surf appreciation,” Commander MacLean said, glancing at the timing bracelet at his wrist.

They were already rustling into their exercising clothes when the box on the wall started to crackle.

“Attention, attention!” she heard a familiar voice announce. It was Zachary. “Welcome to week two of WEALS. It will be my pleasure to show you a little torture, Navy SEAL style.”

Zachary had warned her that he would be one of her tormentors in the next weeks. She just hadn’t realized it would happen so quickly.

This is the way the big boys play, honey…

The grinder had been made to resemble a war zone, designed to scare the spit out of the newbies and force some of the weaker ones to quit.

The predawn darkness was illuminated in an eerie fashion by flames blasting out of M60 machine gun muzzles. Red and green smoke created by M18 grenades. Noise of bombs bursting blared out of the speakers. While at first glance, it might all seem like a cruel Halloween fright-night tableau, it was in fact a replica of what they might face in battle. If they couldn’t handle the shock here, they sure as hell couldn’t survive on a live op.

Not all the trainees were shocked or amused. He heard one of them remark, “Men and their silly war games!” That one would be spouting a different tune come nightfall, if she hadn’t already rung out, Zach guessed.

Another one said, “It’s gonna take more than firecrackers and a Freddy Krueger SEAL to scare me off.”

He mouthed to Cage, “Me, Freddy Krueger?”

Cage laughed. “Nah, you too pretty. Mus’ be F.U. she’s talkin ’bout.”

First thing up for the women was a quick tour of the O-course… also known as the Oh-My-God obstacle course. Quick being a relative term. There were more than a dozen different obstacles here that had to be climbed, crawled, lifted, or shoved, all to use every muscle in the body. The cargo net, the Tower, a tire sequence, the Weaver, and lots of other good stuff. Everything was timed, though those times were reduced for the WEALS. Some SEAL trainees not-so-lovingly dubbed this the “Kiddie Playground from Hell.”

And it wasn’t just trainees who used this course. Well-seasoned SEALs were required to run the evolution before any live op. An oft-quoted saying around the compound was: “The more SEALs sweat in peacetime, the less they bleed in war.”

An hour later, and the women were being marched down to the beach by the commander and by F.U., and a half dozen other instructors, for a quick, cold dunking, a roll in the sand, and a five-mile run along the shore. Just for a wake-up call. The instructor-to-trainee ratio would be high during the next week or two to ensure safety during exercises that could be unsafe.

Most of them didn’t like inflicting pain on the trainees but knew there was a reason for the torment to come. F.U. yelling into a bullhorn, on the other hand, just enjoyed it.

Even the cold water, irritating sand, and energy-draining runs might seem like wasted exercises, but they also replicated battle scenarios where comfort was the last thing a warrior might have. Just how long could an operator stand in water or remain immobile when being driven crazy by the itch of a sand rash? And the constant running, well, everyone knew it developed stamina and leg muscles.

Zach walked at the tail end, talking to Cage, Sly, JAM, Geek, and Max, who had agreed to help him with WEALS till they got called up to a live op. Which might be any minute.

“Way to go, dude!” Cage said to him.

“Huh?”

Glancing around in the dawn light, he saw that all the guys were grinning at him.

“What?”

“Cher, you look lak ya been pulled through the sex keyhole, backward,” Cage said, giving him a good-buddy jab in the upper arm. “In the bayou, we calls it the sex flush.”

He tried to pretend ignorance but felt his face heat.

“The boy can still blush!” JAM hooted with laughter.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tried to say.

“Man, have you looked in the mirror today?” Max asked. “Your lips are swollen, like you got a freakin’ collagen injection.”