Make Your Bed

Make Your Bed

*William H. McRaven*

It is 4:35 in the morning on a February morning in Coronado, California. The air temperature is around forty degrees. The Pacific is colder. Twenty-five men in soaking fatigues stand knee-deep in the surf, faces turned toward the dark water, saltwater stinging their eyes. They have not slept properly in three days. Their muscles have long since passed through fatigue into something that does not have a polite name. Above them, on the wet sand, an instructor walks slowly with his hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing. He does not need to say anything. About fifteen yards to the left, bolted to a wooden post near the center of the beach, is a brass bell. Anyone can walk over and ring it. One firm pull on the rope, and everything stops. The pain ends. The cold ends. The shouting ends. There will be a hot shower, a hot meal, and a flight home. All you have to do is ring the bell.

One man walks toward it. Then another. The instructor still says nothing. By morning, roughly a third of the class is gone.

This is Navy SEAL Basic Underwater Demolition training -- BUD/S. And this week, the one they call Hell Week, is where almost half of every class decides that whatever they wanted when they signed up was not worth this. The men who walk to the bell are not weak. Many of them are exceptional athletes. Several are Ivy League graduates. What breaks them is not the cold or the exhaustion alone. It is the voice inside that says: there is no point. You will not make it anyway. Just stop.

Admiral William H. McRaven spent forty years in the United States Navy, eventually commanding all special operations forces in the world. Under his watch, Navy SEALs carried out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He led operations that will not be declassified in his lifetime. And yet, when the University of Texas asked him to speak at their 2014 commencement ceremony, he did not talk about any of that. He talked about making your bed.