During training, a fellow recruit was looked down upon for his small stature: “The student, a seaman recruit and brand-new to the Navy, was about five foot four in height. The SEAL instructor, a highly decorated Vietnam vet, was well above six foot two and towered over the smaller man” (23). While the instructor browbeat the trainee about an upcoming exercise—a daunting open-ocean swim—the smaller man gave back as good as he gets, demanding to be taken seriously and assuring the instructor that he will not fail. Sure enough, the trainee finished ahead of most of the other recruits. McRaven points out that the training they were forced to undergo “was always about proving something” (23). Most of the time, they needed to overcome what would typically be considered obstacles or barriers to entry by the size of their hearts, and their determination.

When McRaven first attempted to join SEAL training, he was already a member of the Naval ROTC program. While waiting to meet with the recruiter in the downtown San Diego recruitment office, McRaven spotted another man wandering the halls—a man McRaven decided was an inferior specimen in comparison to himself: “I felt a pang of sorrow that someone had misled this fellow, maybe encouraged him to leave his comfortable life as a civilian and try SEAL training” (25).