The Art of Manliness - #228： What It Takes to Become a Navy SEAL

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so i've had several

00:00:18.520 navy seals on the podcast because seals are one of the world's last bastions of unabashed manliness

00:00:23.080 they have a lot of to teach modern men my previous seal guests have talked about how the lessons

00:00:27.860 they learn for being a special operator can apply to gaining greater resilience navigating the

00:00:31.880 business world and even parenting in these interviews we talked a little bit about their

00:00:34.960 seal training but in today's episode we really get into the nitty-gritty of the training then the

00:00:39.380 specifics of what it takes to make a navy seal my guest today is rorick denver he's a navy seal

00:00:43.580 commander and the author of two books damn few making the modern seal warrior and worth dying

00:00:48.080 for navy seals call to action today on the show rorick and i discuss the intense training that

00:00:52.460 goes to becoming a seal as well as what lessons civilians can take from the seals on leadership

00:00:56.840 sacrifice and duty if you're a young guy and you've been thinking about becoming a seal a lot

00:01:01.600 of great insights here if you're not interested in becoming a seal it's just fascinating what goes

00:01:05.880 on to becoming a seal and also we get into some nice life lessons as well after you're done listening

00:01:09.760 to the show you can check out the show notes at aom.is slash denver for links to resources so you can

00:01:14.680 delve deeper into this topic rorick denver welcome to the show thanks for having me well glad to have

00:01:22.680 you on the book on the show today we're going to talk about your book uh damn few the making of the

00:01:27.200 modern navy seal uh you're a navy seal yourself um before we talk about your book let's talk about a

00:01:34.560 bit about your career what was your career as a seal like you know why did you become one and what did

00:01:40.040 you do while you were a seal yeah you know when i was in my senior year of college i was trying to

00:01:45.240 figure out what i want to do you know with my life and a bunch of my buddies were going to go into the

00:01:49.360 you know going to finance and going into the workforce and kind of go uh you know seek their

00:01:54.340 fortunes which i have no problem with whatsoever i i just like getting adventures i like playing rough

00:01:59.440 and and competing and it felt like there was something more to do and i was actually reading

00:02:03.900 winston churchill's my early life an autobiography he wrote uh much later in his life but it kind of

00:02:09.620 captures the first 30 years of his adventure and it was it just was nothing but adventure you know

00:02:16.020 service to country and military academies and the four wars in africa where he's a prisoner war and

00:02:20.780 escaped and um he just has a tremendous as we all know a tremendous way with words and and leadership

00:02:26.580 and there was just something about that book that struck me like a lightning bolt so i knew i wanted

00:02:30.540 to serve and then once i knew i wanted to be an officer in the in the military i kind of researched

00:02:35.300 what programs uh would be the right fit and i heard there's this group of naval commandos down in

00:02:40.640 southern california where about 80 of the people didn't make it through and that sounded like the right 0.98

00:02:44.780 odds to me so uh so the seal teams were just um you know felt like the right place to kind of pursue

00:02:50.540 my leadership path and to really push uh the warrior you know in me to the to the furthest extreme and

00:02:57.720 that proved true i came in pre 9-11 and had a couple years in deployments before uh those events

00:03:04.120 unfolded and then you know decade and a half of chasing bad guys so pretty much the entire uh the entire

00:03:09.940 time we've been at war i've been in a great position to go uh get in that fight and participate in those

00:03:15.540 engagements and i feel very lucky uh that that was the case and then i got a chance to learn those

00:03:20.640 things i learned from that time uh on the battlefield and then i finished my career on the active side of

00:03:26.520 my my seal time uh running training back in coronado so running the basic course through hell week and

00:03:31.880 then all the advanced courses uh to kind of round up my active time so i've had a pretty complete

00:03:36.380 uh block of time in the navy and it's uh it's just been a gift that's awesome yeah a lot of people

00:03:41.320 don't know about winston churchill that he actually served in the military oh yeah no i mean he had

00:03:46.400 tremendous military service both as uh a young cavalry officer and then as uh actually as a war

00:03:52.200 correspondent a writer he spent you know more time in harm's way but uh you know fascinating run

00:03:58.360 uh all over uh the east and asia and into africa uh with tremendous uh you know building blocks

00:04:05.300 they learn there to later lead that island through uh its most tumultuous times all our

00:04:10.120 most tumultuous time maybe although we might be eclipsing it now right um so what do you do now

00:04:15.160 so uh i'm still a commander of the reserves which keeps me connected to the seal teams i still get my

00:04:20.780 reserve time in to kind of build towards retirement and i i want uh um i've got kiddos i want them to see

00:04:27.200 me in uniform and that service is very important and and something that our family does i do a lot of

00:04:33.280 speaking to kind of corporate america on on leadership and high performance teams uh you

00:04:38.640 know i wrote the book that we'll talk about today a little bit damn few and then my newest book that

00:04:42.120 just came out worth dying for uh so i'll continue in the writing world which i enjoy and then just

00:04:47.440 this spring i was uh one of the leaders and kind of on-air um participants of this show on fox called

00:04:54.980 uh american grit which was a bunch of civilians coming in to kind of um test themselves against military

00:05:00.920 challenges and compete with uh uh with peers to see who could kind of make it to the end and win

00:05:05.620 a prize john cena was the host and had a lot of fun and uh that was a great thing to be a part of

00:05:10.680 that's great so uh let's talk about your book damn few um because it gets into detail about what goes

00:05:17.080 into creating or developing a seal and there is like definitely there's like this mythos around it

00:05:23.940 right everyone's probably seen shows about the making of seals and buds and everything but let's let's

00:05:30.180 start from the very beginning how do you even apply to try out for the seals like what's the

00:05:36.280 process of getting started and getting accepted into buds yeah there's two there's basically two

00:05:41.600 tracks that you're going to experience you know in the entire military but then for seal training

00:05:45.320 you're either going to go in as an enlisted man you're going to enlist in the navy and go to boot

00:05:49.120 camp to become a sailor and then you're going to go to seal training or buds as an officer you're

00:05:53.700 going to either graduate from the naval academy an rotc program in a college or like i did

00:05:58.580 do a regular experience through college get your degree and then apply to officer candid school

00:06:03.380 hopefully to then get selected to go seals there's a very disciplined path now it used to be a little

00:06:08.700 bit tougher tougher in the sense that there wasn't as programmatic a system to get you into the seal

00:06:14.700 pipeline you usually had to be in the navy for a while kind of apply get your commanding officer's

00:06:19.380 recommendation your master chief's recommendation to go to seal training now you could walk in a young

00:06:24.220 lion could you know graduate from high school walk into a navy recruiter's office say i want to be a

00:06:28.560 seal and they could drop all the paperwork to then compete for that spot so there's a physical test 1.00

00:06:33.300 push-ups pull-ups sit-ups a run a swim to just find uh you know make sure you've got the basic

00:06:39.100 uh physical capacity to do the training and then there's some academic tests and some uh you know

00:06:43.900 some personality and kind of psychological tests that we we ask of a young young lion to see if they're

00:06:49.280 right uh for our brotherhood and then uh and then you're on your way okay and then so once you're

00:06:54.300 accepted you go through buds and uh what does bud stand for again yeah buds is basic underwater

00:07:01.000 demolition slash seal training okay and uh how long is that training and what makes it unique from other

00:07:07.240 special forces training the best way to describe buds now i mean buds in its kind of you know insular

00:07:15.080 self is about six months but then we've kind of bulked it all now into one big training program there's

00:07:20.360 different names to keep it easy for you know the listener about the day from when you start training

00:07:25.840 you know in the navy until the day you're gonna you know should you see the finish line and become a

00:07:30.340 seal it's about a year it's about 52 weeks to kind of see it all the way through buds is kind of the

00:07:35.200 first crucible that you've got to face uh the early parts of buds you know uh encompassing hell week

00:07:40.780 and those things that make most of the young lions that don't make it uh go home um i think the

00:07:46.260 unique parts of the of the seal training program actually are many um probably none so challenging

00:07:53.980 as in this surprise people because the training programs in san diego but dealing with the cold

00:07:58.580 that pacific current runs through san diego and so the water temp there hangs in the in the 50s to

00:08:04.480 mid 50s sometimes lower than that very rarely warmer than that and it's very easy for us to get you wet

00:08:10.320 cold and miserable out in that type of water temp and get you jackhammer shivering and and just falling

00:08:16.640 apart and see if you've got quit and that that's really what the program is designed to do it's to

00:08:21.960 offer up a lot of opportunities for people to see um how tough it's going to be what we require of a

00:08:28.680 young lion if they join the brotherhood and what we'll expect of them and what we expect on a on an

00:08:33.900 elemental level is is that you will never give up and so we offer up a whole lot of opportunity for you

00:08:39.020 to quit most people do for those that don't they have some quality within them that won't allow

00:08:45.040 them to throw in the towel when things get tough and that's a piece of clay we can mold into a very

00:08:50.360 very special operator on the battlefield if we know for a fact you're never going to throw in the towel

00:08:54.560 you're never going to give up on a teammate or the job uh the rest we can teach you yeah one of the

00:08:59.660 interesting aspects of it that was kind of funny in a sadistic sort of way was how you and the

00:09:04.580 instructors would often make things like unfair uh for the guys going through buds and they would

00:09:10.700 kind of gripe about it but there was a reason to your madness and so can you give any examples of

00:09:14.580 how you guys made things unfair for the guys and why you did that yeah it's very very pointed and

00:09:21.320 and we don't do anything by happens chance and frankly not only in the seals in military training

00:09:26.320 there's a lot of things that that people will see from the outside or even experience they don't

00:09:30.380 understand why we're doing it and there is a why to everything we do from folding your underwear a

00:09:36.240 certain way to cutting your hair and and wearing uniforms all that stuff is building blocks to

00:09:40.800 prepare you for the ultimate possibility of going into combat and doing that well one of the things

00:09:45.340 we do at seal training that i kind of coined a frame phrase called random acts of instructor violence

00:09:50.940 and the simplest way to to do this what i mean by that violence is not actual violence on the student but

00:09:55.520 the the type of punishment or remediation we give to a class when they're making a mistake

00:09:59.780 they're going to do push-ups and and runs to the surf and get wet and sandy and carry their buddy

00:10:04.580 down the beach and their buddy will carry them back and just just just kind of destroy them physically

00:10:08.020 is if i were to tell you let's say you were running a class and i said hey i need you to be at the pool

00:10:13.020 deck tomorrow morning at 6 a.m have your mask and fins everything ready and be ready to go if you showed

00:10:18.660 up at 604 you you can pretty much imagine what your seal training day is going to be we are going to

00:10:24.100 destroy you because you failed to meet the standard that we gave you right so that's just going to turn

00:10:28.840 into a horrific day but sometimes we'll give you that same that same direction and let's say the

00:10:33.980 instructor staff shows up early maybe it's 5 50 we're 10 minutes early but you guys were 15 minutes

00:10:39.240 early you're in perfect ranks you did everything we asked you to do we can even see a little gleam in

00:10:43.960 your eye or a smile on the on the student's face to being like yep we did it right we're here this is

00:10:48.920 great and we'll beat you worse than the day you did it wrong and there'll be a bunch of guys that will

00:10:54.500 quit because they'll be like this is bs this is unfair i'm out of here and that is the entire

00:10:58.800 point and the reason i say it's random acts of instructor violence is on the battlefield the acts

00:11:04.860 of violence are going to be actually violent and they will be random and the lesson there is really

00:11:10.160 teaching cultural resilience that you can do everything right you can do everything perfectly

00:11:16.620 and it can go catastrophically wrong and very few people are designed to metabolize that you know

00:11:23.080 most people things go wrong and it breaks them down in our world we can't have that happen so

00:11:27.280 i've had a bunch of seal teammates killed on heli in helicopter crashes they didn't do anything wrong

00:11:32.100 best pilots on earth best operators on earth going to a fight that that we know they can go win they

00:11:37.660 got shot out of the sky or the helicopter had a mechanical failure and crash killing everybody on

00:11:41.700 that bird they didn't do anything wrong if we did if we had a cultural um you know ethos where oh that

00:11:48.360 went wrong so now i'm going to quit we we wouldn't be able to do our job so the the the lesson there

00:11:54.560 is one some people are going to quit because they think it's unfair we want to find the young man that

00:11:59.300 when it's unfair and things go wrong is still going to push ahead and win the day i'm curious uh if

00:12:05.160 you've applied random acts of instructor violence to your kids in some sort of way to kind of teach

00:12:11.280 in that same sort of resilience yeah i mean i think dipping the toe in the water it is important and

00:12:16.260 probably not at the same level obviously of intensity but yeah i think my bride and i talk

00:12:21.840 and think about that a lot i mean we make our kids struggle with things you know you you see a kid

00:12:26.240 right now on a playground uh let's say you know anywhere from eight years old and under i mean any

00:12:31.620 playground usa and you see a kid trying to zip up their jacket and they can't get the zipper to work

00:12:36.540 you will see like seven parents swoop in descend on them to help them zip their their jacket and it is an

00:12:43.620 absolute tragedy because they need to learn to struggle they need to learn to fix things and

00:12:48.420 solve things on their own that's what's going to create their ability to be resilient and and function

00:12:52.940 in the world i think we're we're making things so easy for everybody and just culturally our society

00:12:58.420 has has has you know all but eliminated pain from our lives and suffering and to be honest i think it's

00:13:04.720 a tremendous mistake i really do i think pain is where the growth comes suffering is where you

00:13:09.620 find how tough you are and then you're inoculated to future suffering i mean i think that's that's

00:13:14.240 one of the things that seals have is is is i i can teach anyone to shoot effectively accurately jump

00:13:20.140 out of planes do all the things we ask seals to do what makes seals special and unique is just this

00:13:25.280 intense desire to perform to see the job through and to never give up and that that that's potent

00:13:30.940 beyond belief and so so the answer is yes not not the same level of uh seal training yet but uh

00:13:36.720 the kids aren't gonna have it easy and that's why they'll be ready for life that's great uh so buds

00:13:42.840 ends with what's called hell week what goes on in hell week that makes it so hellish yeah and actually

00:13:50.400 bud starts with hell week so is that right i didn't i thought it ended okay no it's very early in the

00:13:54.960 training program so uh you know that six month cycle of of buds itself uh it's in the first phase

00:14:01.800 so we we want to find out very early who's going to quit and who's not hell week has become our mythic

00:14:07.040 week of training and i think every special operations force and most most military units

00:14:11.680 even your kind of regular units have some type of crucible that's a line in the sand to kind of test

00:14:16.140 uh your ultimate toughness and and hell week has become legendary and deservedly so it starts on

00:14:22.000 sunday night we get the class out of bed with uh some bombs and explosions and machine guns going off

00:14:27.680 it stops sometime on friday mid-morning mid-afternoon uh in that period from sunday night till friday

00:14:34.940 afternoon they get uh no more than four hours sleep for the entire time and you know maybe two two-hour

00:14:40.600 blocks or of of a nap somewhere within that week so you're just wet sandy miserable moving and uh and

00:14:49.300 kind of grinding away uh for that entire period of time by the by you know thursday people are starting

00:14:54.860 to hallucinate you know fall apart but uh what what it's based to show you is that your body and

00:15:00.780 spirit and mind can go much farther than you think it can so when you think you're hitting the wall

00:15:06.000 you're probably pretty far from it and if you can dig deep inside yourself and see it through then then

00:15:12.780 you've kind of got the stuff we're looking for and if you you ring the bell which is kind of the way

00:15:16.980 people exit the program they go up and ring this famous bell three times then they're out of the

00:15:21.540 program uh then that program isn't for you and we don't we don't make that a negative it's just that

00:15:26.380 program's not for you at this time and and it's time to go do other things so i'm curious for the

00:15:31.460 guys who are listening to this you know as you call them young lions who like i want to do this is

00:15:35.580 there anything they can do to train or prepare for buds uh both you know physically and mentally or

00:15:41.540 is it something like you don't know if you're going to pass it until you actually do it uh it's so

00:15:46.220 it's an interesting question and and i hope my answer makes sense when i ran trainings when i got to the

00:15:51.260 other side of the fence and was running training i used to give a speech to some of the the young

00:15:55.220 young lions and they showed up and i'd say hey you know every one of you has come here through some

00:15:59.840 different path some different avenue and has these experiences bankrolled into their you know psyche

00:16:05.220 and character and who you are uh and there's no doubt every one of you ask somebody you know how do

00:16:10.600 you get through buds what's the secret there is no secret to that training program that the program

00:16:15.520 is actually nowhere near as um uh technical as you might think i mean buds i think people think

00:16:21.080 they'd show up at a seal compound like that and there'd be you know retina scans to get in and 0.89

00:16:25.480 laser guns and all this high-tech equipment buds the basic course is basically sand concrete and cold

00:16:31.200 water that's what we use to find out if you're tough but i used to tell them when they came in i'm

00:16:35.780 like look if you if you didn't bring it here you ain't gonna find it here that there's nothing we're

00:16:40.180 gonna give you to get through it and there's nothing your buddy next to you is gonna do for you

00:16:44.240 your mentors coaches pastors parents uh whoever that was have ever have either helped you to be

00:16:50.680 the type of person that can that can find something inside themselves that's better than a lot of others

00:16:55.780 as it pertains to that training program and so there are no secrets it's uh it's just finding

00:17:02.540 within yourself the ability not to throw in the towel that that's what it takes that's what it takes

00:17:06.900 all right another common theme throughout your book was the the diversity that's in the seal community

00:17:12.660 i think there's like this misconception that there's like one type of guy who becomes a seal

00:17:17.380 uh but you actually in your book highlight there's like there's seals from all walks of life like you

00:17:22.860 yourself i think you uh you majored in art yep right and now you're the the seal so i mean what are some

00:17:28.800 of the what are some of the types of people that you worked with or types of men you worked with that

00:17:33.480 sort of broke the mold of what people think is a typical seal yeah i mean i think that that's the gift

00:17:38.620 of being in the military and this is not this is not you know specific to seals i mean the beauty

00:17:43.280 about being in the military is you've got a kid from you know the the the north side of houston or

00:17:49.220 the south side of chicago or some tough neighborhood and then you got a kid that grew up with a silver 1.00

00:17:52.900 spoon in his mouth and came from all the advantage you can have and you got a kid that you know broke

00:17:58.020 horses in texas and a logger from oregon and a you know uh a coal miner from pennsylvania so we all come

00:18:04.980 into this place from these different backgrounds disparate locations and kind of experiences and

00:18:09.500 then when you show up in military any military training there's a reason we shave your head

00:18:14.100 and put you in a white t-shirt and some ugly fatigues and the same pair of boots because

00:18:18.080 we need to get rid of the eye the personality now that will come back later it's not meant to

00:18:22.840 extinguish that but it's meant to put everybody on the exact same page and realize there's nothing

00:18:27.380 there's nothing nothing special or something you're bringing to the table to get through this program but

00:18:32.100 when we get past that and get you in the teams then what makes you unique becomes what you bring

00:18:36.980 to that team but never at the expense of the team you've got i think one of the words we use in the

00:18:41.460 military that's usually a bad word that i think is a good word is the idea of subjugation subjugating

00:18:46.880 yourself to a greater good i think most people think of that in terms of bondage or or or some

00:18:52.880 negative we think of it as a good thing getting rid of the the what you need and think of what the

00:18:59.440 whole team and the we needs and if you can do that then you're going to be a great great team player

00:19:03.900 uh and that that that's what's unique about seals the fact of the matter is we have guys that are

00:19:08.540 shredded six foot two look like they were chiseled out of you know marble by michelangelo and probably

00:19:14.120 what you would expect a seal to look like a big tough you know warrior archetype but then we have guys

00:19:20.620 that are you know five one and you know 136 pounds wiry and just tough as nails those are actually

00:19:26.720 usually the most dangerous guys because nothing can keep them down and we you know we have guys

00:19:31.440 that um you know just really come from a lot of different body types a lot of different backgrounds

00:19:36.080 and in the end that's what i'm saying the program is from the neck up it's not from the neck down

00:19:39.820 gotcha um so what happens after someone passes buds and passes through all the other phases of

00:19:46.500 training um i know they're assigned to a team but how are they assigned do they have any say in

00:19:52.160 that or is it sort of like yep you're going here for the most part you're going to be directed where

00:19:56.300 you're going you might get a chance a choice on do you want to go the east coast or stay on the west

00:20:00.600 coast you know as a seal as a new guy you're going to be stationed in san diego or in virginia beach

00:20:05.540 virginia at little creek and so you you might get a chance at one of those uh choices either west

00:20:11.380 coast or east coast after that it's going to be the needs of the needs of the navy needs of the team and

00:20:15.800 where you're going to be assigned and and frankly it's not you know young guys might think they know

00:20:21.180 where they want to go it's not important what's important is that you go there and learn the skill

00:20:25.200 set and distinguish yourself and add to the strength of that organization as opposed to going where you

00:20:29.740 want to go later in your career you've got a little bit more of an ability to pick you know where you

00:20:34.260 want to be where you want to have your family but for the most part you're going to get assigned to

00:20:38.000 a team you're going to go learn um you know the advanced level what we're looking to do the you

00:20:42.800 know the high tech gear the advanced tactics and things that we're going to bring back from the

00:20:46.700 battlefield so you're effective when you go and you know you learn that skill set we find

00:20:51.160 out if you can do the job okay well speaking of family um this is you had a chapter about this i

00:20:55.980 think it's something that people don't think about when they're like hey i want to be a seal

00:20:59.640 they don't they're probably thinking that when they're single don't have any buddy you know any

00:21:04.600 dependence upon them what's family life like as a navy seal you know early in the career it's very

00:21:12.080 challenging i mean when you first start you know the whole training program demands basically full time

00:21:17.600 very little time off and then when you show up at your first team you're going into multiple rounds

00:21:22.680 of advanced training and then and then you're going to deploy and go chase the nation's enemies

00:21:26.640 right now so uh very very taxing on families uh you have to have an extremely uh strong gal that's 1.00

00:21:34.260 going to make it through that experience and and uh and that's usually what we find we find uh you know

00:21:40.140 they become some of the best parts of the story i mean the toughest person in our household

00:21:43.600 uh sure as can be isn't the seal it's my bride and and how she's run our family and and dealt with 1.00

00:21:49.860 the stress and the intensity of me being at harm's way and and doing the job overseas but it's taxing

00:21:55.420 you know i think uh for a lot of years our divorce rate was extremely high i think just because of the

00:22:00.300 time away from home and the guys being out in a wild life while somebody was back home kind of

00:22:05.540 holding down the fort i think that's actually improved i think our guys are doing better um you know

00:22:10.220 with that life and i think the entirety of special operations forces not just seals rangers green

00:22:14.960 berets all the the spec ops leadership has figured out that there is such a toll we need to do better

00:22:20.800 about balancing that life it doesn't take away the extreme time commitments but they try and do

00:22:25.600 better that when they're home we let the guys be home and get that time in when when we can

00:22:29.860 did you uh marry your wife before or after you became a seal i'd finished training and uh it wasn't

00:22:36.600 until i wrote uh you know damn few that i realized how complete her experience was i thought i met her

00:22:43.600 a little bit later in my seal life but she's been with me through the entire time so i did one one

00:22:49.260 deployment before uh we got married and then she's been with me for multiple deployments since and

00:22:53.860 you know all of post 9-11 and and that whole experience so i i for me it was it was probably a

00:22:59.380 blessing going through training single because i could just had utter focus on that and wasn't uh

00:23:04.820 was a split but there are guys that went through training that were married that i think it

00:23:08.240 actually really was a deterrent and hurt them and then ones that it really helped them so it can work

00:23:14.040 it kind of just depends on the relationship yeah another interesting thing you talked about in the

00:23:18.440 book towards the end and this is sort of um you had direct experience with this was this i didn't know

00:23:23.240 about this but um there was sort of this tension that existed in the seal community right after 9-11

00:23:28.940 because uh there was this mandate from up you know from the higher brass and from uh the civilian

00:23:34.520 executives saying they wanted more special operators and they wanted more seals um why did that call for

00:23:41.820 more seals cause tension within the seal community well it was just kind of that classic you know if if if

00:23:48.920 if this much is good more has to be better which i think a lot of people you know it sounds like it

00:23:56.560 briefs well it doesn't necessarily work in execution so i think the reason our teams are so effective

00:24:02.840 is they are small and nimble and creative and streamlined and and only so many people can get

00:24:09.280 through the course uh donald rumsfeld at that time as secretary of defense um you know very much

00:24:15.480 wanted to grow all of the special operations forces and that's because of their tremendous capacity

00:24:20.320 and successes on the battlefield so there's there's it's totally natural and in my mind appropriate

00:24:25.140 that that would be the right decision what happened in in practice unfortunately was is everybody

00:24:29.940 started generating more people but they did it by compromising their standards and that that's

00:24:34.340 just true people will will sling lead about that and say that's not the case i saw it and i know the

00:24:39.680 people that ran those training programs and the only way to get more people through most of these

00:24:44.240 pipelines is to make it easier and we were very resistant and and and kind of um uh belligerent to

00:24:51.540 that so most of the the counterparts did increase their graduation numbers we didn't senior leadership

00:24:57.100 said you got to make it happen so we've designed a lot of systems within the program to try and just

00:25:01.740 get a better candidate to the front door instead of trying to get you know change any of the standards

00:25:06.640 or or the intensity of the program try and get a better young man to the to the entry to hopefully

00:25:12.480 get more out the back end and i think that's been achieved a little bit but not in dramatic numbers

00:25:16.700 but when i was running the training this was a absolute five round mma title fight that the

00:25:23.400 instructors and those from the battlefield were definitely fighting senior leadership to try and

00:25:28.280 guard the brotherhood to get the right people through so and what sort of changes did they make

00:25:32.500 to make sure they get the the best coming to them more of the best coming towards them uh you know

00:25:37.300 there's an entire recruiting directorate that didn't exist you know certainly when i was when i was

00:25:42.240 coming in nobody was recruited back then and now now they're just doing better i think for lack of

00:25:47.200 better to them they're doing a better job marketing it they're doing a better job explaining that path

00:25:51.320 to young um aspiring seals or aspiring folks that want to serve um i have pretty personal feelings about

00:25:58.740 how you could do it better but you know that's that's for senior leadership and that will always be

00:26:02.800 the tension between the military or corporate america or whatever it is um but you know i i think if the

00:26:08.820 standards remain the same um i have no problem with them working harder to get a better product

00:26:14.160 into that program uh the fact of the matter is it is it is so challenging and such a difficult

00:26:19.840 course of instruction there are just only so many guys that are going to get through it it's just a

00:26:24.280 fact like we've done it for years and you know over some 60 odd period the the attrition rate 75 to 80

00:26:30.940 percent has held pretty solid well uh this is interesting about you besides being a real navy seal

00:26:36.840 you played a navy seal on the big screen um i'm sure some of our listeners have seen the movie um

00:26:42.300 active valor how did that how did that happen when you and when you became a seal did you ever think

00:26:47.700 i'm gonna one day be a movie star because i'm going through hell week yeah of course not you know

00:26:54.420 in no way was that something i sought out you know the that was directed by the navy there's there's

00:27:00.320 been a lot of uh a lot of i think tension about this since but you know i you know tell you like

00:27:06.200 truthfully that was approved by the united states navy up through senior leadership in washington

00:27:10.880 and special operations command to to have active duty seals active duty pilots and boat drivers

00:27:17.260 anyone that was an act of valor that's in a uniform is on is in their actual uniform doing their actual

00:27:22.820 job and we were placed on orders to go make that movie so i have a set of navy orders documented a

00:27:28.440 number that said you know you are assigned in the next three months to go make this motion picture for

00:27:33.940 um you know for the navy i think the the impetus for that was to kind of tell our story authentically

00:27:41.040 and accurately and and maybe increase some of the young folks coming into our program and it it did

00:27:46.360 result in that i i think not just that i think you know the the the captain phillips rescue the bin

00:27:51.980 laden raid and some of the high profile missions our community has succeeded in has also created a

00:27:57.300 tremendous amount of interest in in young folks wanting to become part of that very elite brotherhood

00:28:02.720 amongst a lot of others uh but no i i would have never predicted it um it was a good experience i

00:28:09.120 mean positive in that i think the film company did a great job of letting us tell the story um

00:28:15.200 authentically and not you know fed a script that didn't make sense if we we told them if it doesn't

00:28:20.440 happen on the battlefield if we don't say it we're not going to do it and they they honored that

00:28:24.520 commitment so uh you know we didn't know what was going to happen with that movie i think a bunch of

00:28:28.500 people thought it'd go straight to dvd and be at the bottom of the basket at walmart and next thing

00:28:32.820 you know it's the number one movie in america so it was uh it was a pretty wild adventure that's fun

00:28:37.540 so you got a new book out worth dying for can you tell us a bit about what that book's about and why

00:28:42.820 you wrote it yeah this this one uh i really am excited about and and and was um was a special

00:28:50.480 experience we're you know worth dying for is kind of a reflection of 15 years of sustained combat

00:28:56.300 chasing our nation's enemies and where i think we are um kind of as a country you know where we are

00:29:01.660 in terms of what we believe in as service and who we should be as citizens what i think our leadership

00:29:07.120 be thinking about our position in the world which needless to say has become a high stress environment

00:29:12.540 right now based on the choices we've managed to offer up for the the senior position um it talks a

00:29:18.520 lot about you know um the idea of everyone serving in some capacity uh and then a lot of chapters

00:29:25.140 that just kind of came out of the blue i mean i write an entire chapter uh about killing and the

00:29:30.020 reverence the intensity of that uh and what that's like to experience on the battlefield and post your

00:29:35.540 time in the military uh and so worth dying for is just a thinking warriors view on where we are

00:29:43.140 where i think we should be going and maybe maybe how better uh to be you know citizens both here at home

00:29:49.860 and abroad well let's talk about you know that that the chapter about killing i know that's like

00:29:54.840 a question i'm sure a lot you get do you get asked that a lot like did you kill anyone or do people

00:29:58.920 like not like to talk about it um i think it's a mixed bag i think i get asked it a fair amount i i think

00:30:05.740 you know maybe early on in engagements people didn't know what seals and special operators and how much

00:30:11.920 those in the fight were in the actual fight i think now people have a pretty good sense if there's a

00:30:17.780 with multiple combat deployments on the battlefield there's a good chance he was aiming his gun at a

00:30:21.980 bad guy so uh so maybe it's it's it's um lessened you know in the past eight years or something just

00:30:28.400 thinking well probably of course he has although you'd be surprised uh how much some certain teams

00:30:34.100 have done a lot of the work and how some haven't across all the all the forces but uh you know the

00:30:40.320 chapter i i wrote about that i think is a very um you know personal and and unique look at the at the

00:30:48.800 concept of killing i talk a lot about how we can train someone how to shoot effectively and how to

00:30:54.320 uh you know level your sights on on an enemy combatant and how to do the mechanical part of

00:30:59.540 the job and we can train i can train an orangutan to do that effectively but then that it takes a toll

00:31:04.980 that there's gonna be uh an emotional connection to that probably in reflection that you're gonna

00:31:10.020 have to deal with and rectify and kind of um you know balance in your life and and i just talk about

00:31:16.540 i think the reverence for that moment i'm also a hunter i've become you know big game hunter and i

00:31:21.080 like being outdoors particularly post-military it's actually a great way to transition from

00:31:25.160 our last life into you know carrying a gun being in the field doing terrain studies learning what your

00:31:30.940 quarry is and then go hunting it then you get to eat you know the best food on earth if you actually

00:31:35.600 uh if you actually achieve your goal um but i talk about how uh you know the hunters that i care about

00:31:42.280 and i respect that when they do take an animal it's a it's a reverent moment there there's there's

00:31:48.440 unfortunately some hunting tv shows that will show people high-fiving and and hooting and hollering

00:31:53.180 and taking the big grip and grin photograph with the elk or the deer that they killed and those aren't

00:31:58.500 the hunters i spend time with the guys that i spend time with are very very thankful um of the hunt

00:32:05.000 of the time of that animal giving its life for their family and then the food that they're going

00:32:09.400 to put on the table and the experience of being in wild places and that that's frankly a birthright

00:32:14.320 in this country and something we've enjoyed uh for many many years and and so i just talk a lot about

00:32:19.500 the reverence for that moment and that that it's not something that should just be blown off and be

00:32:25.240 you know hollywoodized and and uh you know i think anybody that reads that chapter will enjoy it

00:32:30.760 so going back to this idea of of service um you know for folks who are in the military i mean they're

00:32:37.960 they're serving their country right and like particularly if you're on combat you're in the

00:32:41.860 front line of defending and you have this you've developed this ethos of service i'm curious

00:32:45.560 any insights for civilians on how they can develop that ethos of service with them a hundred percent so so

00:32:54.740 one of my chapters is about universal service and worth dying for it's probably in many ways it's

00:33:01.200 probably my most important or favorite chapter and and what i what i call for in this chapter is the

00:33:06.920 idea of i i think we should just pass this like congress should talk about this and make it something

00:33:11.800 that's a requirement i don't think that will ever happen based on the way our country's going and

00:33:16.380 some people probably argue it's unconstitutional but we're allowed to manipulate that document that's the

00:33:20.780 strength of it but i i call for universal service i think every young person either when you graduate

00:33:25.640 high school if you're going to college you can defer it for for one for the four years and then

00:33:29.880 you have to do it when you graduate college needs to give this country a year of service i don't go

00:33:35.500 into a real um focused uh you know specific to military it could be military and you could do a year

00:33:43.120 of military service without having to be then tied into four years of advanced service if you want to

00:33:48.640 extend you could but just some type of service to the country so that could be military it could be

00:33:53.420 for a health organization prefer an educational program but i i think it should be humble it should

00:34:00.340 be something where you leave your hometown you got to go live on a subsistence wave for wage for a year

00:34:05.900 it's not something you're going to go do uh to get rich but it's going to be to go help uh the country

00:34:11.400 and and and there's just unlimited places that this could be affected and i think while it would be

00:34:16.860 expensive we spend money on insane programs that don't uh you know reap much reward and i think

00:34:23.040 this would be a game changer i think if people thought about others before themselves for a block

00:34:28.240 of time in their lives we would just be phenomenally better for it and my recommendation would be that

00:34:33.440 kids from different backgrounds show up in different places so they have to work together so

00:34:37.160 exactly like we do in the military you come for all these diverse backgrounds the same thing would

00:34:41.860 be offered in this we would we would systematically send people from you know high-end community in

00:34:47.820 in connecticut to work with a a tough kid from you know some other part you know south central and that

00:34:53.740 those two would then have a shared experience and realize how much we all um think very much the

00:35:00.200 same about what we're looking for in this world right so i mean it helps develop that national unity

00:35:04.840 100 it would be a game changer there's just no doubt in my mind this would have a deep positive

00:35:11.360 impact on our country i i fear that we would never pass something like this or even think of doing it

00:35:15.940 but boy i think it would be potent right i mean other countries i guess in israel they have mandatory

00:35:20.060 uh military service oh there's there's compulsory military service in a lot of countries scandinavian

00:35:26.100 countries and and certainly israel and and i think you know anyone i've met for those parts of the

00:35:31.040 world and i've met a lot of them thought of that service one as a national debt and something that

00:35:36.740 they believed in doing and two took tremendous value out of it i mean i you know the the other thing

00:35:42.460 i write about and worth dying for is just how small uh the number of people are that are serving

00:35:48.960 compared to the the greater society i mean it's less than one percent of the united states is serving

00:35:54.480 in uniform carrying that tremendous burden and responsibility to fight our nation's enemies and to

00:35:59.900 to sacrifice themselves to that cause uh that we just don't own it the way we did um you know

00:36:07.340 in years past i mean you know even our government the the um reflection of service is just dropped off

00:36:13.200 precipitously in the 70s you know congress both the house and the senate were you know in the high 70s

00:36:19.440 78 percent former military and now it's down to like 18 so now you have all the decision makers

00:36:25.760 that are going to put people in harm's way that have almost no service and connection to the united

00:36:30.400 states military and they're sure not sending their kids some of them are of course somebody's going to

00:36:34.720 flame off when they hear this and say well my you know i'm a senator my son serves it is a very very

00:36:39.880 small number of people and even our presidents had a tremendous history of military service in the

00:36:44.680 background and now that's disappearing so i think when you talk about you know what do i want for my

00:36:49.820 government to be honest i don't want that much but i definitely want them to be focused on on the

00:36:55.840 military and security and our international position abroad and to have a to have a commander in chief

00:37:01.560 as military service i sure think has a lot to recommend yeah i'm curious how things will change

00:37:06.560 in the next 10 years you have veterans of the afghanistan and iraq wars get more involved i've been

00:37:12.680 seeing it it's like they're slowly slowly starting to run for uh political office no doubt you're dead

00:37:18.640 on and you're going to see a lot more of it i think a lot of us feel the weight of that responsibility

00:37:23.660 that our lessons um you know talk about somebody that has a worldly experience and could talk about

00:37:28.840 foreign policy and the fact of the matter is you you know we hear this premium on foreign policy and

00:37:34.000 and what they would know well i could take a i could take a 21 year old marine and have them advise

00:37:38.820 this current stable leadership and they know more about foreign policy than any anyone working in dc it's

00:37:44.860 kind of crazy well rorg this has been a great conversation where can people find out more

00:37:49.700 about your work in your books yeah so so you know damn few is is still on shelves in in bookstores

00:37:56.040 everywhere and you can certainly get it on amazon worth dying for which just came out this spring

00:38:00.420 uh it's called worth dying for a nation's a seal's call to a nation uh that that's the same amazon

00:38:06.760 barnes noble any place books are sold you can find that book um i do a lot of speaking on on

00:38:12.160 leadership and high performance teams and and you can kind of find me in the social media world

00:38:16.780 twitter uh you know instagram facebook all that good stuff and and um and i'm i'm here to serve

00:38:23.460 so i hope this next life uh still connects to making this country a better place our our our citizens

00:38:29.440 stronger and more focused on on what we enjoy in the world i i am very wary of where we are with what

00:38:35.880 we're voting and and the way we're treating one another so i hope we can uh i hope we can get it right

00:38:39.880 and if i can help i'm gonna do it awesome rorke denver thank you so much for your time it's been

00:38:43.480 a pleasure thank you brother my guest today is rorke denver he's the author of two books

00:38:47.680 damn few as well as worth dying for they're available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere

00:38:52.660 after the show check out the show notes at aom.is slash denver for links to resources as well as

00:38:59.280 a transcript on the show so you can delve deeper into this topic

00:39:02.000 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:39:16.700 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the

00:39:20.180 show i appreciate it if you give us a review really helps us out a lot thank you for your

00:39:23.220 support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:39:27.020 moment

00:39:35.600 you

00:39:36.240 you

The Art of Manliness - August 22, 2016

#228： What It Takes to Become a Navy SEAL

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