American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Read Online Free PDF Page A

prepare them for what might lie ahead. They didn’t know that much about SEALs; probably a good thing.
    Someone had mentioned that my identity might be erased from official records. When I told them, I could see them grimace a little.
    I asked if they were okay with it. Not that they would really have a choice, I suppose.
    “It’s okay,” insisted my dad. My mom took it silently. They were both more than a little concerned, but they tried to hide it and never said anything to discourage me from going ahead.
    Finally, after six months or so of waiting, working out, and waiting some more, my orders came through: Report to BUD/S.
    G ETTING M Y A SS K ICKED
    I unfolded myself from the backseat of the cab and straightened my dress uniform. Hoisting my bag out of the taxi, I took a deep breath and started up the path to the quarterdeck, the building where I was supposed to report. I was twenty-four years old, about to live my dream.
    And get my ass kicked in the process.
    It was dark, but not particularly late—somewhere past five or six in the evening. I half-expected I’d be jumped as soon as I walked in the door. You hear all these rumors about BUD/S and how tough it is, but you never get the full story. Anticipation makes things worse.
    I spotted a guy sitting behind a desk. I walked over and introduced myself. He checked me in and got me squared away with a room and the other administrative BS that needed to be handled.
    All the time, I was thinking: “This isn’t too hard.”
    And: “I’m going to get attacked any second.”
    Naturally, I had trouble getting to sleep. I kept thinking the instructors were going to burst in and start whipping my ass. I was excited, and a little worried at the same time.
    Morning came without the slightest disturbance. It was only then that I found out I wasn’t really in BUD/S; not yet, not officially. I was in what is known as Indoc—or Indoctrination. Indoc is meant to prepare you for BUD/S. It’s kind of like BUD/S with training wheels. If SEALs did training wheels.
    Indoc lasted a month. They did yell at us some, but it was nothing like BUD/S. We spent a bit of time learning the basics of what would be expected of us, like how to run the obstacle course. The idea was that by the time things got serious, we’d have our safety down. We also spent a lot of time helping out in small ways as other classes went through the actual training.
    Indoc was fun. I loved the physical aspect, pushing my body and honing my physical skills. At the same time, I saw how the candidates were being treated in BUD/S, and I thought, Oh shit, I better get serious and work out more.
    And then, before I knew it, First Phase started. Now the training was for real, and my butt was being kicked. Regularly and with a great deal of feeling.
    Which brings us up to the point where we started this chapter, with me getting hosed in the face while working out. I had been doing PT for months, and yet this was far harder. The funny thing is, even though I knew more or less what was going to happen, I didn’t completely understand how difficult it was going to be. Until you actually experience something, you just don’t know.
    At some point that morning, I thought, Holy shit, these guys are going to kill me. My arms are going to fall off and I’m going to disintegrate right into the pavement.
    Somehow I kept going.
    The first time the water hit me, I turned my face away. That earned me a lot of attention—bad attention.
    “Don’t turn away!” shouted the instructor, adding a few choice words relating to my lack of character and ability. “Turn back and take it.”
    So I did. I don’t know how many hundreds of push-ups or other exercises we did. I do know that I felt I was going to fail. That drove me—I did not want to fail.
    I kept facing that fear, and coming to the same conclusion, every day, sometimes several times.
    P eople ask about how tough the exercises were, how many push-ups we had to do, how