The elite, super-secret team of Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden on May 1 are still largely shrouded in mystery. But in The Wall Street Journal, Eric Greitens, a SEAL in the U.S. Navy reserve and the author of The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL, offers an insider's insight on what it takes to become a SEAL, and what their lives are like. "Most of the men on that mission had dedicated the past decade of their lives to this fight," he says. "They — and their families — had made great personal sacrifices." Here, an excerpt:
The rigors that SEALs go through begin on the day they walk into Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training in Coronado, Calif., universally recognized as the hardest military training in the world. BUD/S lasts a grueling six months. The classes include large contingents of high-school and college track and football stars, national-champion swimmers, and top-ranked wrestlers and boxers, but only 10% to 20% of the men who begin BUD/S usually manage to finish. About 250 graduate from training every year. ...
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