men each. I was in the boat with the tall guys, but the best boat crew we
had was made up the little guys, the munchkin crew, we called them.
No one was over five foot five. The munchkin boat crew had one
American Indian, one African American, one Polish American, one
Greek American, one Italian American, and two tough kids from the
Midwest. They out paddled outran and out swam. All the other boat
crews, the big men and the other boat crews would always make good
natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on there.
Tiny little feet prior to every swim, but somehow these little guys from
every corner of the nation in the world always had the last laugh
showing faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest
of us. Seal training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will
to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your
education, not your social status.
If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their
heart, not by the size of their. Flippers. The ninth week of training is
referred to as hell week. It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and
mental harassment, and one special day at the mud flats. The mud flats
are an area between San Diego and Tijuana where the rough water runs
off and creates the Tijuana slews, a swampy patch of terrain where the
mud will engulf you.
It is on Wednesday of Halloween, but your paddle down in the mud flats
and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive this freezing cold. The
howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors as
the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having
committed some egregious infraction of the rules was ordered into the
mud.