Wednesday had run into Thursday, but we were in the final stages of Hell Week, and before us was the fabled around-the-world paddle, the last of the major evolutions of the week. We boarded the boats at around 1930 and set off, rushing into the surf off the special warfare center and paddling right around the north end of the island and back down San Diego Bay to the amphibious base. No night in my experience has ever lasted longer.

Some of the guys really were hallucinating now, and all three of the boats had a system where one could sleep while the others paddled. I cannot explain how tired we were; every light looked like a building dead in our path, every thought turned into reality. If you thought of home, like I did, you thought you were rowing straight into the ranch. The only saving grace was, we were dry.

But one guy in our boat was so close to breakdown, he simply toppled into the water, still holding his paddle, still stroking, kicking automatically, and continuing to row the boat. We dragged him out, and he did not seem to understand he’d just spent five minutes in San Diego Bay. In the end, I think we were all paddling in our sleep.

After three hours, they summoned us to shore for medical checks and gave us hot soup. After that we just kept going, until almost 0200 on Friday, when they called us in from the beach with a bullhorn. No one will ever forget that. One of those bastards actually yelled, “Dump boat!”

It was like taking a kick at a dying man. But we kept quiet. Not like an earlier response from a student, who had earned everlasting notoriety by yelling back the most insubordinate reply anyone had ever given one of the instructors. Never mind “Hooyah, Instructor Pat-stone!” (Because Terry Patstone was normally a super guy, always harsh but fair.) That particular half-crazed paddler bellowed, “Ass-h-o-o-ole!” It echoed across the moonlit water and was greeted by a howl of laughter from the night-shift instructors. They understood, and never mentioned it.

So we crashed over the side of the boat into the freezing water, flipped the hull over and then back, climbed back in, soaking wet, of course, and kept paddling. I locked one thought into my brain and kept it there: everyone else who ever became a U.S. Navy SEAL completed this, and that’s what we’re going to do.

We finally hauled up on our home beach at around 0500 on Friday. Instructor Patstone knew we just wanted to hoist boats and get over to the chow hall. But he was not having that. He made us lift and then lower. Then he had us push ’em out, feet on the boat. He kept us on the beach for another half hour before we were loosed to make the elephant walk to breakfast.

Breakfast was rushed. Just a few minutes, and then they had us right out of there. And the morning was filled with long boat races and a series of terrible workouts in the demo pits — that’s a scum-laden seawater slime, which we had to traverse on a couple of ropes, invariably falling straight in. To make everything worse, they kept telling us it was Thursday, not Friday, and the entire exercise was conducted under battle conditions — explosions, smoke, barbed wire — while we were crawling, falling into the slime.

Finally, Mr. Burns sent us into the surf, all the time telling us how slow we were, how much more there was to accomplish this day, and how deeply he regretted there was as yet no end in sight for Class 226. The water almost froze us to death, but it cleaned us off from the slime pits, and after ten minutes, Chief Taylor ordered us back to the beach.

We now didn’t know whether it was Thursday or Friday. Guys collapsed onto the sand, others just stood there, betraying nothing but in dread of the next few hours, too many of them wondering how they could possibly go on. Including me. Knees were buckling, joints throbbing. I don’t think anyone could stand up without hurting.

Mr. Burns stepped forward and shouted, “Okay, guys, let’s get right on to the next evolution. A tough one, right? But I think you’re up for it.”

We gave out the world’s weakest hooyah. Hoarse voices, disembodied sounds. I didn’t know who was speaking for me; it sure as hell sounded like someone else.

Joe Burns nodded curtly and said, “Actually, guys, there is no other evolution. All of you. Back to the grinder.”

No one believed him. But Joe wouldn’t lie. He might fool around, but he would not lie. It slowly dawned on us that Hell Week was over. We just stood there, zonked out with pure disbelief. And Lieutenant Ismay, who was really hurting, croaked, “We made it, guys. Sonofabitch. We made it.”

I turned to Matt McGraw, and I remember saying, “How the hell did you get here, kid? You’re supposed to be in school.”

But Matt was on the verge of exhaustion. He just shook his head and said, “Thank God, thank God, Marcus.”

I know this sounds crazy if you haven’t gone through what we went through. But this was an unforgettable moment. Two guys fell to their knees and wept. Then we all began to hug one another. Someone was saying, “It’s over.”

Like the remnants of a ravaged army, we helped one another back over the sand dunes, picking up those who fell, supporting those who could barely walk. We reached the bus that would take us back to base. And there, waiting for us, was Captain Joe Maguire, the SEAL commanding officers, and the senior chiefs. Also in attendance was the ex-SEAL governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, who would perform the official ceremony when we returned to the grinder.

But right now, all we knew was the baptism of fire that had reduced Class 226 by more than half was over. It hadn’t beaten thirty-two of us. And now the torture was completed. In our wildest imaginations, no one had ever dreamed it would be this bad. God had given us justice.

We lined up on that sacred blacktop, and Governor Ventura formally pronounced the official words that proclaimed we never had to tackle another Hell Week: “Class Two-two-six, you’re secured.” We gave him a rousing “Hooyah! Governor Ventura!”

Then Instructor Burns called us to order and said, “Gentlemen, for the rest of your lives there will be setbacks. But they won’t affect you like they will affect other people. Because you have done something very few are ever called upon to achieve. This week will live with you for all of your lives. Not one of you will ever forget it. And it means one thing above all else. If you can take Hell Week and beat it, you can do any damn thing in the world.”

I can’t pretend the actual words are accurate in my memory. But the sentiment is precise. Those words signify exactly what Instructor Joe Burns meant, and how he said it.

And it affected us all, deeply. We raised our tired voices, and the shout split the noontime air above that beach in Coronado.

“Hooyah, Instructor Burns!” we bellowed. And did we ever mean it.

The SEAL commanders and chiefs stepped forward and took each one of us by the hand, saying, “Congratulations,” and offering words of encouragement about the future, telling us to be sure and contact their personal teams once we were through.

Tell the truth, it was all a bit of a blur for me. I can’t really recall who invited me to join what. But one thing remains very clear in my mind. I shook the hand of the great SEAL warrior Joe Maguire, and he had a warm word for me. And thus far in my life, there had been no greater honor than that.

We probably devoured a world-record amount of food that weekend. Appetites returned and then accelerated as our stomachs grew more used to big-sized meals. We still had three weeks to go in first phase, but nothing compared to Hell Week. We were perfecting techniques in hydrology, learning tide levels and demographics of the ocean floor. That’s real SEAL stuff, priceless to the Marines. While they’re planning a landing, we’re in there early, moving fast, checking out the place in secret, telling ’em what to expect.