Ryan Hendrickson Was Trying to Find Excuses on Why He Failed BUDs – Jocko Willink

um now during this time also you stayed in the navy reserves which means you were doing your one weekend a month or whatever and then we go back to the book then an unexpected opportunity came up as a naval reservist i could attend basic underwater demolition school at naval special warfare training complex in coronado california buds is a six month long training class was part was the first part of navy seal training so if i ever wanted to become a seal and member of the naval special operations community basic underwater demolition school is where i had to start my wife sarah knew that being part of special operations had always appealed to me now this opportunity was sitting right in front of me i had undergone training as a rescue swimmer in the navy so i had assumed i had the swimming part down when i was approved to attend the six month buds course visions of becoming a seal danced in my head i quickly found out how tough it was during the first phase of training a pre-buds training course that lasted around three weeks from there i went on to phase one which consisted of eight weeks of grueling exercise and conditioning topped off by hell week typically more than half the recruits wash out sheer fatigue and sleep deprivation cause every candidate to wonder what his limits are the non-stop beating that our bodies took from some of the hardest training the military has followed by long stretches of being cold wet and miserable with no time to recover took its toll when my boat body broke down from a leg injury and severe pneumonia i was dropped after three months of training i could have tried again after i recovered but i couldn’t bring myself to go through all that [ __ ] again yeah so what was uh what was that like going through buds or attending buds yeah buds was um i mean i was class 242 uh i i have to say we were a beatdown class that’s that’s just my opinion um you know how they have the classes where some of them are oh man that’s you guys got secured early from hell week or what not then next class is man you guys are a beat down class or whatnot well we we had a beatdown class and it was uh it was intense everything that they talk about it um yeah the only thing i can tell any listener who wants to contemplate that route is do it because it’s an experience that you’ll never forget they will make sure you will never forget it 100 so it was the worst part you think for you because you know different guys they dislike different things what do you think was the worst part for you for me the worst part actually once i got pneumonia um i couldn’t breathe and so under when so when we were doing um drown proofing and whatnot like that i just my nose would just start you know opening up but i would i would have to say anything like on on the water fine under the water i i don’t i don’t really like that i’m not i’m not a very big fan of that so when uh well we’ll go back to the book here for the first time in my life i experienced a major setback becoming part of an elite unit was something i wanted with every inch of my being but i couldn’t make the cut which prompted a series of questions why did i fail why wasn’t i good enough how come my body broke down was i that weak i had no answers and i came up with every every poor me excuse in the book you’d think that for a guy who was raised the way i was excuses would be the last thing on my mind but they were my crutch i slowly but steadily turned myself into a victim if only i didn’t grow up in a broken family if only the world and everyone in it weren’t against me that just wasn’t about buds but me not making it through brought my buried demons to the surface so even at this point you know you don’t make it through buds and you kind of blame all these you know hey it’s all cause i was raised this way i had these you know my dad my mom wasn’t around and you kind of make those excuses for yourself yeah i i buried i buried myself in excuses and it it became very easy to do that it’s very easy to to make somebody else the issue instead of looking deep inside and and saying hey man just you know if if everyone can make it then it wouldn’t be buds and so um instead of understanding that you know i i did i took the it was it was more it was almost more entitlement than it was victim is like well this isn’t fair why why didn’t i make the cut and the thing is i could have rolled back but i don’t know how how far did you make it um all the way up to the end of the first phase so it was yeah it is basically they wanted me to go um back to day one of phase one and i was just like and you know i just i didn’t have it in me so but yeah it’s you know it’s it’s one of those things i look back on you know and i i do i don’t ever regret anything but it is one of those things where i’m like yeah you kind of you kind of [ __ ] that one up you know so yeah well uh you know when you say you had a beatdown class more than other people it’s like i’m gonna tell you the classes are beat down classes they are beat down classes you’re gonna get beat down you know i was over there a few months ago with one of my friends that still works over there and you know he was like there’s there’s whatever there’s like a hundred helmets by the bell and um and he goes every single one of those guys is a stud that wandered he didn’t say ever see he’s like almost every single one of those guys is a total stud that showed up here thinking they were going to be a seal and they rang that bell man and they go i go it’s crazy he is he’s like it’s it’s crazy that’s the way it is it’s a crazy process it’s a crazy machine yep um