Blogging once more

I read and finished the book The Warrior Elite and I have to say it's not only a great book but a true testament to the men willing to become navy SEALs.  The class 228 began hell week and wow it really did sound like hell.  All the things they were put through were of course done under "safe" conditions but still I was reading it and was just thinking "holy crap I'd be done in the first hour."  An example of this is that they have to do a thing called surf training or surf torture as some call it, it's where they go out into the ocean and do exercises for a set amount of time come on land warm up with conditioning and then go back in and start the whole thing over again.  What was really interesting is that of the 48 who would start hell week only 20 would survive it.  As one SEAL put it "the only easy day was yesterday."  The SEAL culture is that of an elite warrior who quite literally trains everyday to become better at his art. (If it sound)  What was really interesting about the book was that near the end after following class 228 through second and third phase (all three phases plus the two weeks of INDOC before add up to about 30 weeks if i remember correctly) the book seemed to take a more philosophical approach.  The author began to wonder what it is that drives one man to succeed while another of equal ability quits.  What makes one man give in and another push his body beyond all reasonable limits?  The only answer the author could offer is that each man must have a strong desire to win, not a will to just get through or not to lose but to succeed, and believe it when I say there is a difference between fighting to win and fighting not to lose.  The man that fights not to lose will fight only until he believes that he hasn't lost a certain way, in the end he loses.  The man that fights to win will either win or die trying because to him failure is not an option, the possibility of it doesn't exist.  All in all, this was a great book on all accounts.  This book really just exemplifies what it means to be willing to risk life and limb for a belief in freedom. There was a poem a SEAL wrote that seemed to say it all:

Out of the night that covers me,
black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
for my unconquerable soul

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place or wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafriad

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Once again I'd highly recommend this book and until next time, ill see you at the beginning............