W hile we were training up for our next deployment, the platoon got a group of new guys. A few of them stood out—Dauber and Tommy, for example, who were both snipers and corpsmen. But I think the new guy who made the biggest impression was Ryan Job. And the reason was that he did not look like a SEAL; on the contrary, Ryan looked like a big lump.
I was floored that they let this guy come to the Team. Here we all were, buff, in great shape. And here was a round, soft-looking guy.
I went up to Ryan and got in his face. “What’s your problem, fat fuck? You think you’re a SEAL?”
We all gave him shit. One of my officers—we’ll call him LT—knew him from BUD/S and stuck up for him, but LT was a new guy himself, so that didn’t carry too much weight. Being a new guy, we would have beat Ryan’s ass anyway, but his weight made things a lot worse for him. We actively tried to make him quit.
But Ryan (whose last name was pronounced “jobe,” rhyming with “ear lobe”) wasn’t a quitter. You couldn’t compare his determination with anyone else’s. That kid started working out like a maniac. He lost weight and got into better shape.
More importantly, anything we told him to do, he did. He was such a hard worker, so sincere, and so damn funny, that at some point we just went, I love you. You are the man. Because no matter how he looked, he truly was a SEAL. And a damn good one.
We tested him, believe me. We’d find the biggest man in the platoon and make him carry him. He did it. We’d have him take the hardest jobs in training; he did them without complaint. And he’d crack us up in the process. He had these great facial expressions. He could point his upper lip, screw his eyes around and then twist in a certain way, and you’d lose it.
Naturally, this ability led to a certain amount of fun. For us, at least.
One time we told him to go do the face to our chief.
“B-but…” he stammered.
“Do it,” I told him. “Go get in his face. You’re the new guy. Do it.”
He did. Thinking Ryan was trying to be a jerk, the chief grabbed him by the throat and tossed him to the ground.
That only encouraged us. Ryan had to show the face a lot. Every time, he’d go and get his ass beat. Finally, we had him do it to one of our officers—a huge guy, definitely not someone to be messed with, even by another SEAL.
“Go do it to him,” one of us said.
“Oh God, no,” he protested.
“If you don’t do it right now, we’re going to choke you out,” I warned.
“Can you please just choke me out right now?”
“Go do it,” we all said.
He went and did it to the officer. He reacted about how you would expect. After a little while, Ryan tried to tap out.
“There’s no tapping out,” he snarled, continuing his pounding.
Ryan survived, but that was the last time we made him do the face.
E verybody got hazed when they joined the platoon. We were equal-opportunity ballbusters—officers got it just as bad as enlisted men.
At the time, new guys didn’t receive their Tridents—and thus weren’t really SEALs—until after they had passed a series of tests with the team. We had our own little ritual that involved a mock boxing match against their whole platoon. Each new guy had to get through three rounds—once you’re knocked down, that’s a round—before being formally pinned and welcomed to the brotherhood.
I was Ryan’s safety officer, making sure he didn’t get too busted up. He had a head guard and everyone wore boxing gloves, but the hazing can get kind of enthusiastic, and the safety officer is there to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.
Ryan wasn’t satisfied with three rounds. He wanted more. I think he thought if he fought long enough, he’d beat them all.
Not that he lasted too much longer. I had warned him that I was his safety and whatever he did, he was not to hit me. In the confusion of his head being bounced off the platoon’s gloves, he swung and hit me.
I did what I had to do.
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