You Think Your Week Is Hard?

Courtesy of Dave:

Here's a letter from a mother whose son is training to be an Air Force rescue soldier:

Ryan is going through a 21 hour “event” this week – so I will elaborate on that. Just pray for the whole week because this is HELL WEEK for him. They have worn the team down to around 50 guys from the 140 who started Jan. 2nd. Each week has gotten worse and harder – on their bodies and minds and spirits. This week is the notorious hardest week of the 12 week SEAL–like training that he has to go through and it is what you read about or see on specials about this career field - Pararescue. It starts with being woken up at 2 am with sirens and screamed at to get your gear and get going. He will be going through tremendous physical, mental, and emotional “stuff” for the rest of the day until midnight. We have seen brief snapshots of them hiking in the dark carrying heavy loads, covered with mud, carrying tremendous loads on their backs, and having to do push ups against walls (throwing up), fainting, practically delirious, etc. That is how Ry’s week starts, then they let them go to bed for a few hours and once again (like they have been all along) they get them up at 4 am, spray them with hoses of cold water, make them run, do tons of calisthetics, jump in muddy creeks, do punishing “water sessions” with lots of underwater swims, buddy breathing, weighted belts, tie their snorkels in knots or tie their hands & feet and have to survive in the water, and train, train, train all day long – like they have been for the last 5 weeks, and this goes on for the whole rest of the week. They barely have enough time to eat, their bodies are injured and sore, they are simulating missions that they might have to go through if they were really in a live rescue situation, and they have to make it through all this without quitting or getting hurt enough to be “pulled” from training, in order to pass this INDOC (which ends in March). Ryan claims if they make it through this week, then the training ‘changes’ and they have now finally weeded out the ones who weren’t meant for this and they have the team down to a workable size and not too many quit after Hell Week, unless they’re injured. He knows that this is “building character and heart” (his words) & sounds strong when we talk to him on the weekends.