- Image via Wikipedia
US Navy SEALS, the US Navy’s principle Special Operations group recruits 18-28 year old male candidates holding US citizenship. Should be a high school graduate or equivalent and should be proficient in reading writing, understanding and speaking English with a minimum ASVAB scores of 165 or 220 (depending upon the sub tests taken into consideration) and the candidate should pass the SEAL Physical Screening Test (PST) . Upon satisfying all these requirements, the candidate will be eligible to undergo BUD/S.
The SEAL training is very rigorous with a drop out rate of around 70- 90 percent. The candidate goes through a at least a year of formal training environments before getting enlisted
Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL training (BUD/S), a 6 month course at Naval Special Warfare Training Center, Coronado. It starts as a Indoctrination and pre training classes for the first 5 weeks which then paves way for the 3 phases of BUD/S. Out of which the first phase , 8 week Basic Conditioning which includes the ‘Hell Week’ encountered midway of the 1st phase and considered the toughest where the candidate will be tested to his limits. Hell week tests the candidates of the physical endurance, their mental tenacity and team work. More than 65 percent of the candidates quit at this time. The remaining will move to the 2nd phase which includes 8 weeks of diving lessons and then the 3rd phase where the candidates are trained in land warfare for 9 weeks. Then they undergo basic parachute training for 3 weeks. In the end the candidates go through 8 weeks of SEAL qualification training which includes aspects like mission planning, operations, tactics, techniques and procedures. Once upon successful completion of all these programs, they are considered as SEALs authorizing them to wear the SEAL insignia over their uniform.
