 The only easy day was yesterday. Head off the door! Get your head off and get your eyes open. Stop trying to hide from the pain. Head off, eyes open. Welcome to The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday, the official Navy Seal podcast. When looking to take on a new challenge in life, mentors can make the difference between success and failure. I'm Daniel Fletcher. Today, we get some wisdom from an NSW mentor. Check it out. Joe, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. I appreciate it. It's not too often we get to sit down with someone with your experience and learn a little bit about what you do. Hopefully, we can dig in deep and find out all the things that most people would be asking at home. For starters, what is a mentor in the SEAL school or the SEAL SWIC or NSW environment? A mentor is someone that they can go to and find out what they need to do to get through their proper pipeline of training. It's good to have one, especially these days, because there's so much stuff out on the Internet. You kind of want to keep it simple, but at the same time, give them the information they need and show them kind of in a way, if they come to training, what's going to be expected of them. So, at what point in the recruiting process do you normally kind of interject or become involved in the recruits kind of actions? That's a good question. What happens normally is if they don't know they need to go to the recruiter, they'll call us or they'll call a friend of ours or someone that's in the teams or in one of the spec ops programs and then they'll be directed to myself, which happens quite often. And, of course, I have to turn around and direct them to their naval recruiting station. So, they go to their naval recruiting station in their area and they have to have a physical before they can work with us. Once they have the physical, they are more than welcome to come down and work out with what we call boat crews. And we run boat crews in different areas, depending on the size and location of the specific naval recruiting district that they're working with. So, it's really kind of step one into naval special warfare. Exactly. Step one is to make sure that they are physically capable and don't have some sort of anomaly where it's going to hold them back or get them hurt when they're trading with us. So, what types of... I guess you kind of touched on it. People thinking that they can kind of fast-track into the naval special warfare program by knowing somebody or, you know, what's the fast way to do this? It seems like that's first thing. You got to kind of bring them down to ground zero and say, hey, we start from the beginning here. What other types of maybe anticipations do you think people have that aren't accurate to the program? We don't have a brother or an uncle or a father in the teams and they don't know the proper method. You know, they get on the internet, they see what they want to do, and they go from point A to point C without going through point B. And point B is going to that naval recruiter because regardless of how they want to handle it, they're going to go in the Navy first and they're going to go through boot camp first. And then they're going to get in their pipeline if they keep their scores and they keep doing the PST and they get stronger. Is it fair to say your responsibility is kind of to guide recruits through the process? Right. And what I have to tell them, I end up saying this quite a bit, is go get a recruiter and get a physical through the United States Navy. They'll go to their local meps. And once they do that and they get approved by the doctor, then they can come and work out with their boat crew. Can you describe a little bit about what you mean by when you say boat crew? Different to the different NRDs, but basically the way that we do it here and we find it works pretty well is I'll have a boat crew leader and I'll have a boat crew assistant. So just like you would have a platoon or in the military, you're going to have a guy in charge, person in charge, guy in girl, whatever. And then you're going to have his assistant and between those two guys, they kind of have the responsibility to line the guys up and run the boat crew. And that way we have control to be there. And we know that the person there has already been checked out by the boat crew leader. He knows that, okay, is this guy, is he working with a recruiter? Does he have a, you know, does he have a physical and then he can get to meet and greet and then we try to get him in, you know, incorporated into that boat crew and from there, and they got to get teamwork right off the deck. So there's boat crews all over the United States? Yeah, there is. The main thing with the boat crew that I find is it puts people, it makes those guys, gals responsible within that boat crew to take care of that boat crew and to get the word out, hey, we're going to train zero, whatever time it is, you know, be there and be square, whatever and get the job done and it makes them responsible. So is the goal of the boat crews to prep these people for boot camp? Yeah, basically the boat crew, they do workouts on a daily basis, depending on where you are and how many people show up. The bottom line is that what it does is it makes them responsible. There will be some place at the right time and then of course the workout, the workouts that mean to the thing, the running and swimming and in this area, fortunately, we have quite a few pools to work with. But a boat crew adds the military side to it. It makes people responsible and here they usually know who's going to be there. They can tell me a day at a time. For instance, they'll send me a quick text in the morning and say we got five guys or three guys. Today we had five standing by to get on the base and of course they can't get on the base because they're civilians. So we make arrangements to pick them up usually myself and then the first thing we do is a swim and then we do a run. What it does is it organizes these guys, gals so that they have a way to get in better shape. Okay. Once the gate is open, the gate is getting a military physical and being approved by their recruiter at a recruiting station in the district. Can you take a little bit of time and explain to potential candidates to become SEAL or SWIC operators who are these boat crew managers? I don't know if the right word is manager, but the people that are kind of running these teams or these exercise kind of outfits, so to speak. Yeah, the mentors and the coordinators run the boat crews. What we like to do is have the boat crews basically run themselves. It's going to be a little bit different in the different districts, dependent again on geographical and the size. Last time I knew we had 12 million people in this district. But you may have districts that have several states and they'll still only have one coordinator and one mentor. The bottom line on that is that now the mentor and the coordinator control the boat crews and they're the only ones that can guide the trainees and instruct them in swimming technique and so on. Based on geographics, again it's going to be different and one of the things about this whole job is that every district is cut into several different states or through different states and so the bottom line is they've all got to go and things to do. For instance in Las Vegas, we have a boat crew in Las Vegas and we have fortunate to have a person up there in charge of the boat crew that was an air crewman try to get through BUDS and now he's a reservist and he runs the boat crew up there and he has a real good idea what needs to be done and so he's a plus and he runs a good boat crew. But it's always going to be different and once in one particular area you might just have one or two guys and they kind of have to run their own boat crew. So what's important is they fill out a log every time they work out and they ship that log to us, usually scanned or whatever. That way we know that they're doing the work out. After this step of meeting a recruiter getting involved with the boat crew how long are they kind of in this stage before they're then off to boot camp or the next step of the process? That's a good point. Good question. What happens is they work with the boat crew until they get good enough to be a good enough swimmer and do enough push ups and pick up a contract. And the contracts aren't that easy to get because the contracts will put our guys in with the other 25 districts and they all go back to headquarters and headquarters puts them up on the wall and starts looking at the scores. So they'll work with us until their scores get good enough and they pick up a contract. A month or they may be with us six months. We've got guys that have been around nine months a year. So you talked a little bit about testing these people these applicants or potential recruits. Walk us through a little bit about what that testing is like. Well yeah, they got to do what's called a PST, physical screening test and a physical screening test consists of a swim with a 10 minute rest and then after the 10 minute rest they do push ups and they have a two minute rest and then they do sit ups and they have a two minute rest and then they do pull ups and they get a 10 minute rest and they do a run. And we try to hold the line on that and keep the times as exact as we can because when they go to boot camp and we explain this to them every time when they go to boot camp they have that amount of time between each one of those because there may be 35, 40 guys on deck I've had that many before right now 30 and there's myself and the coordinator and maybe a couple of other scouts helping but it's hard for us to hold that line because we have to travel between the pool and you know where we do the push ups sit ups pull ups and then to the track. And so what I try to impress on the trainees the prospective spec ops folks is that we're going to try and hold them to the time as exact as we can because when they get to boot camp there's enough manpower there to make them do it in that amount of time and they will do it in that amount of time and so time is of the essence in this PST and usually they do pretty well we you know you guys got seven minutes to get from here to there and then you're going to get a three minute demo and boom that's 10 minutes we're doing the next evolution it's important that they stay the timeline. The PST is that something that's been around for a while is this kind of a newer development well I took it in 73 1973 so it's I understand it's always been the same with maybe a little bit of deviation as far as which evolution comes first but the same basic same basic yeah same basic test where can folks find out more about those specific requirements that are in this test on the SEAL SWIC website okay yeah and that's the one that I would use I advise to use that because there's a lot of stuff out there and I say stuff a lot of it's good don't get me wrong but the SEAL SWIC website will give you the information you need to pass that test okay to know what the parameters are to pass that test they'll have to pass the test okay okay can you describe a little bit of your training kind of philosophy in getting these boat crews kind of up and running maybe how that might differ than some of the other philosophies out there for training well we start right from the beginning and the beginning is usually I want to see them groomed well if they're not groomed well they'll do push ups amazingly I ran into that this morning and I'll run into it tomorrow I think hygiene is a big deal with us with our boat crews and they understand that on time on target don't be late I do it almost every morning and the only times I don't do it is when I say I'm not going to do it and I'm at that gate at 6.15 when here in San Diego and if they're not there then they don't get to swim on time on target is a big deal it's just the basics philosophy here is crawl, walk, run and you're going to crawl a long time just to put that in perspective they're going to go to boot camp then they're going to go to their pipeline they're still crawling maybe it's one of these phases they crawl then they walk a little bit and then they run you know they get out of buds they go through hell week then they start walking a little bit and then they go to advanced training they start all over again they crawl they learn weapons and all that stuff and then they get through there and guess what they go to the teams and they're all excited and they're junior man again they're crawling again and they're going to crawl walk and run until they get in that platoon and they become the leading petty officer the chief or you know a lieutenant in charge so we're talking three four years here this is nothing that's going to happen for these trainees overnight and they need to realize that they need to realize that they're going to put some real time and real effort into what they're going to get right so that being said what other kind of advice or words of wisdom would you roll out to these guys and gals that want to enter the program patients, patients know what you want do look into what you want we have we still today we have trainees that come and they go down and they get their examination and they go through maps and they take their they're going to take an ASVAB and they do all that and they get up on deck and why are you here well I'm afraid of the water I want to face my fears well we can do that for you but you know let's make sure that what you want to do is get out the other side and you want to operate you want to be a navy diver or you want to be a seal or you want to be you know you want to rescue people out of a helicopter you think that there's a lot of kind of difference there and expectations people what maybe joining for the wrong reasons or thinking things are a certain way but they're not is that something you face a lot I have a good example of that I had a I just came back from Las Vegas I have a boat crew up there too and a good boat crew and there was a fellow up there and he was 23 years old and he was in the back of the group what's your name you know my introduction the whole thing a little harsh maybe but what do you want to do I want to be a diver I want to be a navy diver what do you want to be a diver I want to face my fear I'm afraid of the water I want to face your fear by getting a face mask staying in the shower I said you want to be a diver you're going to learn how to run gear and everything else well he stayed there during the you know during the PT session and he didn't come back the next day but that doesn't mean we're going to ride him off you know he I just want to give him a being a divers you know you know you don't go to be a navy diver to face your fear you can that can be part of it but remember you got to learn how to be a diver and save your own life and save other people a lot more to it so it's a good motivation it's up to him right right yeah is a large part of your job finding better talented people or more talented people and getting them through the pipeline successfully you know it's an interesting question because I don't really I really don't put a stamp on someone it doesn't matter who they are I like to see them in action a little while and there's a lot that come and they stay a day they come stay a week but once they get with the boat crew it's pretty easy to tell that hey they like what they're doing here maybe there's you know you can see it you can see it registering maybe there's something I want to do here maybe I can really put up with this and then we got guys that come in and well I don't have to worry about this guy I know what he wants to do well they make it that's up to him but this guy's in for the he's in for the long run you know what are the types of things that you see people that are unique there's a little bit more maturity you know and it's contrast that with the fellow that want to be a diver he's 23 years old and the maturity there he's married and he wants to face his fears but he wants to be a diver I had a person that came here we shipped him off the boot camp a couple of months ago and he wanted to be a seal and he couldn't swim could not swim and so we taught him how to swim and I mean he took he learned how to swim in a week and a half and that's tough side stroke side stroke is tough stroke you don't know how to do it it's tough and he learned how to do it in a week and a half and he became a very good swimmer he got it down down the nines which is good and how long are they swimming what's the distance 500 yards so 500 yards in 9 under 9 minutes is it under 9 is real good yeah under 10 is good kind of a put a bookmark on them they're just a little bit higher you know it's a little bit higher scores so let's say I'm showing up at a boat crew and I maybe I know about the PST already maybe I've administered a test myself and I'm ready to go you know I'm confident and you maybe even like me how long and will I be in this boat crew before I'm able to kind of move on to the next step what's the minimum there well it's going to depend on your scores okay so scores obviously a little bit tougher than the other scores but we're looking at is you need to have your swim needs to be 11 or less right and your push ups need to be 50 or more and those are minimum scores and your sit ups need to be 50 or more and your pull ups need to be 10 or more so 6 or more for EOD it varies and of course your run needs to be runs going to be 10 30 or less for so is it really just really just that simple hit the numbers move to the next step is that yeah you got to hit the numbers but then you got your as Vab in there you know your test that you take when you come in the navy and you've also got got your as Vab we still have what's called a sea sort of personality score and it's you know one two three or four I haven't seen any force I've seen a couple threes twos are a little more prevalent usually most people get ones there's several things that you are weighted on so you know you may get just passing scores for your PST but if you got a good sea sort let's say you got two or three this is all taken into consideration as any board is in the United States Navy when you're put up there with a bunch of other folks so it depends but you're better off to do the best you can in all of these because that's going to make a lot of difference maybe we could paint a little bit closer of an accurate picture in terms of time is this something that people can expect to be doing for a month six months a year depends on your scores and how far you're going to go it's just a scoring process like anything else and you get a hard look take a hard look at them put them in the draft your draft picks them up and they have no idea because they're going in the draft with 25 other districts so it's best for them to do the best they can is there anything that someone can do to prepare themselves other than the PST and the physical aspects to do better in that draft process but yeah, make sure that what they want to get into is what they want to do the more that they can find out about the program the better off they are you may take a guy say comes in he wants BOD and all of a sudden he gets into training and then he suddenly realizes EOD is 50 plus weeks of working in a classroom figuring out gases and all kinds of bombs and everything yeah, I want to think about that well hopefully this podcast can serve the goals of additional information to help people because it seems that is reoccurring more information is key, know where you're at self-reflection, knowing what you want having goals, such and such I'm always impressed with someone that comes in and they know about what the program they've talked to their dads whatever and they know things about that program right, so after this this boat crew process whenever people ship off to boot camp how are you connected to them at all through that process I have to tell you the truth what I find out about the people that are going through boot camp and onto their pipeline I hear it through the guys and what that tells me is that boat crew is watching each other and they're telling each other how they're doing so it's word of mouth I don't specifically watch for my people to get through I like to see them get through but if they prepared themselves correctly that attitude and mindset don't get through it's hands off at that point so with that being said what types of tips or tricks do you think you could interject into this process that from the insider's perspective you think would be really beneficial to hear I think proper preparation you know if a prospective spec ops trainee interested in a program I would highly recommend that they take a hard look at the program they can find a lot of information going there and take a look at it and for them to realize that they're going to have a job if they've got a wife, a girlfriend, this and that if they really want to get through training all five of those programs are going to take a lot of concentration so they're going to need to dedicate themselves to it it's total dedication and what do you mean by that? once they go through boot camp they'll be slotted out into one of the five programs that we have so they'll either go COED, SWCC, Navy Diver, Aircrew and they need to take a hard look at that because that's the crux of what they're going to be doing and they're going to be doing it for a long time they're going to give up their home and they're going to go away from their family they need to take a hard look and say I really want to do this I know I did I really wanted to do that but I had to leave things behind so they need to realize that that's what they're going to have to do it's total dedication especially SO and especially SWCC in EOD is that because of the workload involved in that training or the criteria that needs to be met that's correct it's total concentration you don't want it up without total concentration you know you're lost and these these trainees will be put in position where they need total concentration they need to be dedicated to what they want to do they want to be totally dedicated you know they want to be in this game so I guess you're kind of more so looking for people that maybe already have that it's not so much that you can turn anybody into a naval special warfare operator you kind of can develop some aspects of it but a lot of this seems to be kind of born with focus or born with intent or drive yeah it's interesting because I listen to the stories I always ask them why they want to do it that's the first thing you had why they want to do it and so you've got a guy well you know I've walked down the street and I've seen a poster and done it and then you've got the other guy well I've been looking at being a seal since I was in 8th grade you know so taking a look at that why seems to be pretty important right there but if you watch what happens as this thing unfolds if you watch what happens with the person that trainee has been thinking about this you know since grade school where he had an uncle or his dad I mean it doesn't always work well for the son but a lot of time 75% of the time he knows what he's doing he knows what he's getting into and he wants to have the pride of getting through there but he knows what he's getting into too and his friend's going to tell him so is that a big part of your job is kind of informing people this is what it's going to be like this is the type of responsibility you need this is how you're going to have to act it's not getting easier from here I take a little bit different I tell them that for sure but I show them pay attention to detail crawl walk run it's one team one fight everybody that's the basic premise you know got to learn to work as a team got to be a team member that seems a huge part of it especially since it's coming into the process so early it's interesting to watch them get that they finally get that I know they got that when I show up and there's 20 guys standing there they just want to do this thing and they know when I step out of the car most of the time somebody's messed up they drop down they want discipline you can tell when a guy or a gal wants discipline they stay they get it done we've got a female up in Las Vegas and she has brought her run from 16 minutes down to 12 will she get there I don't know but I'll tell you what she's in the game that's important she's in the game and anybody like that's going to get a lot of help we're going to assist them we're going to help them out recruiter myself when recruits show up to a boat team what can they expect to see and do well what usually happens and I'll take it let's take a day without the pool without the swimming pool guys will start out we're really fortunate here because we have the beach so our guys start out with a 45 minute soft sand run now they can run down the beach in the soft sand and come back to hard pack or they can run down the beach in the hard pack out by the water pack up soft sand but they're going to do that way they're going to do half in the soft sand and half on the beach number one it's good running and it takes some effort number two it's a lot better on your joints and I just expect that the guys will do that if they come in for the swim in the morning these are just examples it's different where you don't have ocean everywhere we don't have pool everywhere if they come in early in the morning to do the pool work they still will be standing tall and once they get that going they feel better they know they feel better they know they're on their way and that makes a lot of difference and then after that they'll bust the gate usually about 10 minutes to 11 and they'll meet up with me again and then we'll either do some more swimming or we'll do some calisthenics and when we do calisthenics we do just the basic top to bottom work out of the body I introduced the boat crew up in Las Vegas to turn over a boat crew so the person in charge knows what's going on I introduced them to a Bud's type PT and the same PT I've been doing for 45 years and I can do this PT in 30 to 35 minutes I did it this morning before they got here and I introduced it to the guys in Las Vegas that boat grew up there it took me an hour and a half to get halfway through it one day and then the next day they came back at 0400 in the morning we started at 430 it took me another 45 minutes to get through the rest of it and I still wasn't totally done so what I try to introduce is I would rather see you do one push up right than to do 100 the wrong way and so it's important to pay attention to detail and the best the only thing you really have to go to war with until we give you all your equipment is this you just have your body that's it so you have to be in good shape in all five of those programs you've got to be in good shape people's lives depend on you being in good shape and knowing how to use your gear and who's going to give somebody a million dollars worth of gear if they don't know what the heck they're doing and they can't handle it Gordon know how to take care of themselves exactly, exactly so is being a part of this boat crew a requirement to go through the pipeline everybody wants to be part of something maybe the same thing maybe four months prior or maybe six months prior or maybe a month prior just depends on where we're at I'll take the senior guy the guy's been doing it the guy's doing good and then all of a sudden he ends up not doing good maybe he's got some sort of promise well he'll be fired and I'll move the assistant up just like the military it's got to be handled like the military and I would say a big advantage to being a part of one of these crews as a mentor what other aspects are you really largely involved in well I've got the paperwork end of it today I'll go back and put the guys in what's called the tracker they do the PST tomorrow and all those scores go in their official scores and they'll go into the tracker and the people back to east the headquarters can read the tracker so we can follow these trainees from day one all the way through looking at these guys when their name's on the wall and they get drafted and they go back there they can look in the tracker and see what this guy's been doing so it's very important that what they do and how they react and what their scores and just if they've got an anomaly or something you know they're really good or all this guy here is a little we can in a couple of words put that in the tracker and we can follow these guys something very very good to have I would imagine it's a it'll be comforting to know and also good advice for the days you show up and what you do your performance, your attitude it's tracked it's not just one guy looking or nobody looking when you're taking a break this is something that's from the step one measured they show up, they sign in they sign their name everybody that worked out today has signed their name their evolution the location, the evolution, what they did some guys swam so they got an extra hour and a half six hours some guys just did the run and the workout they got four hours today they got three and a half but they'll make up for it but just knowing that what you're doing there is going to affect the draft sure it sure will yeah and we you know we're looking for the guys that are going to get it done and it's competitive needs to be competitive but you know they're all they show up and they work out and they keep coming back every day and hitting the wall they're good people they're good people but we're looking for the best the best that's what we're trying to do I think you know it's followed through can you set that up a little bit what do you mean by that well it's from day one learning your general orders okay this is the Navy you got to know your general orders you got to know your sailors creed right guy shows up and he knows them it's the first time I've ever seen him I'm impressed I'm impressed, crawl walk run spec ops is part of the Navy you know without the Navy we have no spec ops so yeah don't put the carriage before the horse exactly keep your priorities right go through the boot camp do a really good job know your general orders and then go to your pipeline and get it done make sure that what you want to do is what you really want to do look ahead and look into the background of the program you want whether it whether it be air crew or SO do a little bit of research don't just walk up and say I want to face my fears the bottom line is do some research and of course the younger you are the less research they tend to do and they come here 17 19 I get someone at 23 usually you've got a pretty solid idea of what they want to do it's all about maturity but we get guys gals that are 18 you know the girl up and I think she's 19 and she's I've asked her a couple of times are you sure you want to do this she's working so hard she said yeah so I have a lot of belief that she just might get it done you know aside from the physical attributes or I guess physical capabilities of these people that are trying to become naval special warfare operators what other aspects other than physical fitness are you looking for in special operations candidates teamwork teamwork teamwork you got to work as a team and of course character character is everything you know item we don't want to run into someone that well I was late today because my dog ate my home you know what I'm talking about we want people with character to start with and basically most of the kids that show up on deck have good character we find out right away if they if they realize if they didn't realize what they were trying to get into we find that out right away and if they come back and they keep hitting the wall and that's the kind of person we're looking for kind of works itself out I think it's great words of wisdom there thank you for taking the time to sit with us and give some knowledge to the recruits appreciate it that's my pleasure