A ball of nervousness was me when J left our apartment in North Hollywood on Sunday morning.  I knew he had to head back to Coronado to prep for break out of Hell Week which started at 9pm that night.  We had an amazing weekend, and not one fight which made me the happiest girl alive.  I think J is starting to realize how important I am to him in his life.  His grandpa just died a few nights prior to him coming to visit his last weekend before Hell Week and I had taken care of the flowers for the funeral and cards for his grandma and his mom.  His grandpa’s death was sadly the last thing he wanted to think about because he needed to focus on Hell Week and surviving it, which I think upset his mom a little and the fact that he would be missing the funeral.  J’s family is really close, which I love, but since they are so close, they expect him to leave in the middle of Hell Week to come back for his grandpa’s funeral.  Any other time, J would have gone home, but there is no way he could leave in the middle of Hell Week.  I had a feeling that would happen. 

Hell Week, in case you did not know, is super intense.  It is for men training to be Navy Seals and it is just the first phase of training. Hell Week weeds out the men who can’t hang when times get tough, whether that be sleep deprivation, strenuous and constant exercise/movement, no food, heat stroke, hypothermia, broken limbs, etc. They go for five straight days starting Sunday night through Friday morning with no sleep (well, two hours of sleep on Wednesday and two hours of sleep on Thursday, if they can actually get some sleep).  During Hell Week each boat crew (between 4-7 men) has to carry these 200 pound boats literally on top of their heads everywhere they go while running.  They have this exercise called the “O” course which is a pretty intense obstacle course and once during Hell Week they have to carry their boats through it, which makes it even more difficult. By the end of Tuesday night the men start turning into zombies from exhaustion and sleep deprivation.  By Wednesday morning they no longer are required to do crazy exercises that involve some thought, such as Rock Portage, or the “O” course.  Instead, they just have to run with the boats on their head, or log exercises (300 pound log that each boat crew has to lift and do lunges with, etc), pushups and try to function enough to follow easy orders such as stopping for meals, etc.

On Monday, my best friend and I went out to Coronado to see if we could see J and his class during Hell Week (trust me, I haven’t slept much or eaten much just because I am so nervous for J.  Not because I do not think he’ll make it, because I know he will, it is just the nurturer in me).  We spotted them on the strip running in the sand in the marked off Navy area with the boats on their heads and then later on we went to see if we could catch them near the Hotel Del for Rock Portage (I knew it had to have been either Sunday night or Monday night since they have a hard time functioning after that and Rock Portage is extremely dangerous). I have to give my best friend a lot of credit, her husband is gone in Afghanistan and it is hard for her to be around any military people while her husband is gone – thank you BFF for sticking it out with me.   We got to the Hotel Del just in time to see the guys in the water doing Rock Portage (yay, that alone made me feel much better).  J told me which boat crew he would most likely be in and as they passed us I cheered and J called out “bebe” which is our nickname for each other, I shouted back, so happy that he knew I was there.  Later on when they were finishing up with Rock Portage, I walked closer to J’s boat crew. He saw me, and did a small wave, small enough so that none of his instructors would catch him.

As they headed out, my BFF and I left back to Miramar. I am so proud of my man!