"Narrator:" "The U.S. Military's elite schools turn soldiers into razor-sharp weapons." "[Machine-gun fire]" "To become the best of the best, these men go to hell and back." "Get lower!" "[Groans]" "I can't see!" "Aah!" "We're trying to push them to the breaking point." "Instructor:" "This is your life now." "You're hard-core!" "Let's go!" "Narrator:" "The Special Forces Combat Diver course takes only the Army's best soldiers." "They're already Special Ops..." "Army Rangers and Green Berets." "Some of you are not gonna know what hit you." "Narrator:" "Now they will fight to become the most highly trained combat divers on the planet." "[Tucker retching]" " 1, 2, 3." "All: 1!" "Instructor:" "You better learn to like it." "Everything is done to make him a better diver." "Narrator:" "To earn the coveted divers badge, these men will push the limits of the human body underwater." "The worst feeling ever." "Reed:" "If you get tired out in the ocean, the ocean will drag you back out." "The ocean will kill you." "Narrator:" "One in three won't make it." "The rest survive the cut." "The ocean will chew you up and spit you out!" "Narrator:" "When Special Forces need to sneak in from the water, they send in their combat-dive teams." "Because water is an extremely dangerous environment, highly specialized training is required to master the equipment and techniques." "Csrnko:" "The stress that the water provides is incredible." "The ocean is a very, very dynamic operating environment, and it's life-or-death skills that you have to master." "Our capability is not only to enter the water, but to move a certain distance to reach a point where you're gonna conduct a military operation." "Instructor:" "State your rank." "Narrator: 53 of America's most highly trained" "Special Operations soldiers assemble for the six-week combat-diving course at Trumbo Point, Key West, Florida." "Most of Class 310 came straight from the battlefield." "Few have had time to train up for this extremely tough course." "Hettich:" "It's been a course that I've been looking to get into for a while." "It just kind of worked out in my career where I was at a good point, and I had the support of my chain of command." "I was able to go for it, and here I am." "Kennedy:" "Basically, all the guys that I've always looked up to in the military, they've all been combat divers, and that's why I want to be a combat diver." "Narrator:" "Testing starts immediately." "Minnick:" "Get back out here in gear." "Narrator:" "First up on the pool deck is Alpha squad." "10 men get ready for their first test... swim underwater for half the length of a football field on a single breath." "We have to bring in a guy who is ready to train." "We don't have time to teach a guy to be comfortable in the water." "You send me the combat swimmer, and I'll make the combat diver." "Minnick:" "I will give you the command, "go subsurface."" "Once you go subsurface, you will not push off the bottom of the pool." "At no time will any part of your body break the surface of the water." "Narrator:" "It's a demanding test." "Break the surface and you're out of the course." "Go subsurface." "Narrator:" "Safety swimmers shadow each soldier." "Once they go subsurface, you're gonna move to their far side." "They're gonna turn around, push off the wall, come back to the red line..." "the start/finish line." "Once they cross that, they come back up on the surface." "We'll bring them to the side of the pool, get them ready for the next event." "Soldier:" "This way?" "Narrator:" "All 10 men in Alpha squad make it to the finish line." "Go ahead." "Slide out." "Narrator:" "But this course is just ramping up." "Holding your breath is one thing." "Controlling fear is another." "This is drown-proofing." "First up are Kennedy and Hettich." "They're each bound with Velcro straps... wrists and ankles." "They are positioned facing 10 feet of water." "Sfc. Smith:" "This is a confidence event, so if you can remain confident in the water, you'll probably be successful." "Narrator:" "To pass drown-proofing, each man will bob up and down in the deep end for five minutes, float on the surface for two minutes, then swim 100 yards around the pool." "After the swim, they must do a front- and backflip in the deep end, grab a mask off the bottom with their teeth, then perform five more bobs." "Drop the mask, break the restraints, or touch the side of the pool at any time and you fail." "Fail twice and you recycle to the next class." "Reed:" "The purpose of this is just to find out in the most uncomfortable situation you can imagine... your hands and feet being tied and being in 10 feet of water... can you find a way to fight through a perfectly normal mammalian reflex," "panic?" "Narrator:" "Kennedy and Hettich start their five bobs." "It requires the right balance of taking air in from the surface and letting it out slowly to sink." "Too much air, and descending is a struggle." "Hurd:" "What he's doing is, he's bouncing off the bottom of the pool, coming up, getting a breath of air, exhaling his air to go back down to the bottom of the pool, and he's bouncing back up so he doesn't drown." "Narrator:" "They've completed their bobs." "Now they will float on the surface for two minutes, then swim more than the length of a football field with their wrists and ankles restrained." "Instructor:" "Travel." "Narrator:" "Hettich starts the 100-yard swim in front of Kennedy, but in this event, speed kills." "See how fast he's going?" "That's gonna be challenging." "When he comes back, it's gonna be difficult for him to do the bobs, 'cause see how hard he's working?" "His heart rate's easily over 100 now." "Narrator:" "Both Kennedy and Hettich complete the swim." "They start the final phase..." "one front flip, one backflip." "Now they must grab a mask with their teeth and complete five more bobs." "But Hettich is in trouble." "The mask in his mouth blocks his airway." "He lets go." "If he can't secure the mask and complete his bobs, he fails." "Hettich is o xygen-depleted." "His teammates step in." "[Hettich coughing]" "Instructor:" "Slide out of the water." "Get that mask in your mouth." "Grab it and maintain it." "Suck it up." "It's five bobs." "Yep." "Get your T-shirt on." "I dropped the mask." "Second bob." "Yeah, I dropped it." "I couldn't recover it 'cause I sucked a lot of water, you know?" "Kennedy passes the test." "How do you feel?" " I feel fine, dive sup." " All right." "Slide out." "Narrator:" "Hettich will be given one last chance to complete the entire test." "So, yeah, I'll go again, do it this time." "Narrator:" "As Hettich stands by, one of his teammates is struggling." "Bob." "Face me." "Tucker is running short of air and overcompensates by pushing too hard off the bottom." "[Bleep]" "He's broken the restraints on his feet, ending the test." "The observation that I had is, you're pushing off way too hard off the bottom, and you're kicking on the way up, all right?" "Once you go up, you come up, get a breath... [inhales deeply]" "Relax, and then exhale." "When you break your restraints like that, all right, that's signs of panic." " Roger?" " Roger, dive sup." " You understand?" " Roger, dive sup." "All right." "Narrator:" "The other eight members of Alpha squad struggle through the drown-proofing test and pass." "Cpt." "Smith, M. D:" "Good job." "Good honor." "Outstanding." "[Soldier retching]" "Instructor:" "Breathe in!" "[Tucker retching]" "Nice work." "Donofrio:" "Came here with the expectation to go through a challenging course." "When I first joined the Army, it was one of the hardest courses in the Army." "Adapting to water is extremely hard." "There's nothing easy about it." "Narrator:" "Hettich and Tucker are given a short break to regain focus." "Sfc. Smith:" "We're gonna get them back in the stack." "We always like to give the student the benefit of the doubt." "Things do go wrong." "We understand." "Reed:" "Everybody has a bad day." "You have that one moment." "The water goes down the wrong pipe." "Try it again." "Is it an anomaly?" "Did it just happen?" "Or is it just fact... the guy cannot achieve the event?" "Narrator:" "They have one final chance to pass drown-proofing." "Fail and they're out of the course." "[Air horn blows]" "Sfc. Smith:" "Until they crack the code, until they get over that hurdle... water confidence... that primal instinct to panic hits, and it's like you're on fire." "[Air horn blows]" "The instinct to break out of your restraints, it's a powerful instinct, so that's your worst enemy." "As long as a guy displays water confidence, then we know that he's ready to go on with the rest of the training." "Narrator:" "This time, Tucker finds his rhythm." "Reed:" "At this point, what you see with him is, he's starting to relax." "He's getting that breathing pattern down." "There's a whole purpose to this... it's relaxation, stress inoculation, finding inner peace in a very nonpeaceful situation." "Instructor:" "Travel." "Travel." "Narrator:" "For Tucker, cracking the code of this event is extremely difficult." "He wasn't afforded the chance to train up prior to coming down here." "It's virtually impossible to just show up cold and pass these events." "To execute it completely flawlessly with his hands and feet tied, in the water," "I got maybe one in 10,000." "Narrator:" "Tucker finishes the 100-yard swim and enters the final phase of the test." "But it's too much." "Once again, he breaks the restraints on his feet." "Tucker:" "I feel fine, dive sup." " Stand up." "Cpt." "Smith, M. D:" "Can't break your restraints in any way, either the feet or the hands." "If you break them, it's considered panic." "If you fail it twice, that's it." "He's done." "Instructor:" "One." "Narrator:" "Hettich completes the 100-yard swim." "This is his last chance with the mask." "Two." "Again the mask slips from his grip." "But it's not over." "Three." "Four." "Narrator:" "Five bobs." "Hettich passes." "[Hettich retching]" "He'll continue with his training." "Tucker recycles to the next class." "Reed:" "He's quite capable." "I mean, physically, mentally, the guy is strong." "I see no reason why that soldier should not just completely kick this course in its proverbial butt." "Thank you, dive sup." "Narrator:" "For the remaining nine soldiers of Alpha squad, there's no time to rest." "It's right back to the pool for what will prove to be a very long night." "Sfc. Smith:" "Quickly, men." "Quickly." "Move to your gear." "Narrator:" "This is jock-up." "We are gonna teach you how to do this correctly." "Do you understand?" "All:" "Yes, dive sup." "Do it." "Narrator:" "The squad has 10 minutes to assemble and put on their gear perfectly, following a precise protocol." "Remove the regulator from the kit bag." "Close the kit bag." "Lift the tanks to a standing position and straddle the tanks." "Do it." "Narrator:" "Before the test starts, they drill the proper procedure." "Everyone must get it right or the entire squad will do it again, no matter how many attempts it takes." "Talmadge:" "Jock-up... basically it's, pay attention to detail." "In the dive world, people die on a daily basis, and that is why it's one of the safety factors we put in." "Attention to detail, right equipment, right place, right time." "Reed:" "There's no way to be forgiving of not achieving these standards..." "Because the ocean won't be." "Sfc. Smith:" "Slowly turn on your air." "Reed:" "If you tire out and need a break while you're driving your truck, pull off to the side of the road." "If you get tired out in the ocean, you can't take a break." "The ocean will drag you back out." "The ocean will kill you." "Sfc. Smith:" "I cannot convey to you how important this is and how much more important it will become as this training gets riskier." "Does everybody understand the jock-up procedure?" "Yes, dive sup!" "Narrator:" "The squad feels they're ready to go." "They will now be on a 10-minute clock." "Can you do it?" "Yeah, we can do it, dive sup." "On your mark..." "Get set..." "Go." "All right." "Let's do this right." "Narrator:" "They break into two-man teams and race to gear up." "Every hose, buckle, and valve must be in a precise position." "Should you accurately and successfully perform these tasks, we'll move on." "Narrator:" "Time is up." "Gentlemen, some of you are demonstrating a very low level of understanding." "This is not good." "Narrator:" "Two men have failed, and they're not even close to time." "Drop your masks." "This is it." "Two of you have a major safety violation." "It's something that can result in catastrophic failure of your equipment." "You will not make it in this community." "You will not survive." "You will die doing this if you cannot pay attention to detail." "Narrator:" "The squad succeeds or fails together, and failure has consequences." "We will ramp it up." "We do this with stress inoculation." "Hands and feet in the air, straight above you." "Hands and feet in the air, straight above you!" "You have to understand the task for certain." "Go." "Instructor:" "In, trainees!" "[Trainees shout]" "Exercise!" " 1, 2, 3." " 1!" "Narrator:" "The ability to operate under stress saves lives on the battlefield." "The Rangers and Green Berets going through this high-level course know the drill." " 1, 2, 3." " 6!" " 1, 2, 3." " 7!" "Sfc. Smith:" "Nothing out here is done with the intention of smoking the student unnecessarily." "Everything is done to make him a better diver." "Narrator:" "After cranking out flutter kicks with heavy fins..." "Mount the gunnel." "The candidates hit the water for subsurface laps." "Enter the water." "It's a combination that's hell on the body." "If we introduce stress inoculation, it's done to make them a better diver and so they understand that everything has to be done accurately the first time to ensure their safety." "This is risky business that we're getting into, and we have to mitigate risk, and this is how we do it." "This is the first level." "This is the foundation." "You need to maintain your own motivation." "Can you do that?" "All:" "Yes, dive sup!" "Narrator:" "The squad has endured 30 minutes of stress inoculation in the pool, and now it's their second try at jock-up." "They have half a minute to finish." "Instructor: 30 seconds." "Your mask is up and looking straight when you're at attention." "Close your bags." "Sfc. Smith:" "All right, gentlemen, you've blown the time standard." "Instructor ♪2:" "Get your hands on the steel!" "Narrator:" "Failure number 2 means another 30 minutes of hell in the pool." "This is unacceptable!" "You will not continue with this training if you cannot do it right on time!" " 1, 2, 3." " 1!" " 1, 2, 3." " 2!" "Ruhnke:" "Their job is to train us, and our job is to get trained." "Sound off!" "The ocean will chew you up and spit you out!" "Do you understand?" "!" "Whenever they're being aggressive, it helps you function better under stress if you're used to living or operating in a stressful environment." "You better learn to like it." "Crotte:" "When it's all said and done, you're still gonna be one of the guys on the team, the same guy that went through the same course they did when they were younger." "No matter what, there's always that brotherhood." "Instructor: 1, 2, 3." " 19!" " 1, 2, 3." " 20!" "Sfc. Smith:" "The reason we are doing this tonight is 'cause we have no time for it starting tomorrow." "We are gonna hit the ground running tomorrow... sprinting." "Some of you are not gonna know what hit you." "You have got to get this sorted." "If you can't do it, you will not be a combat diver." " Do you understand?" " Yes, dive sup!" "Narrator:" "It's 3:30 a.m." "Instructor:" "What do you want to be?" "Combat diver!" "Hustle, men, hustle!" "Narrator:" "Alpha squad has been at this for almost nine hours." "They're on their eighth attempt." "Sfc. Smith:" "We monitor everything." "This is how we mitigate risk." "We're doing this for you." "Let's go." "1, 2, 3, 1, 2." "Atten-hut!" "8:47, man." "Get motivated, men!" "[All cheer]" "Holy smokes!" "Narrator:" "It's taken an agonizing nine hours, but the squad finally succeeds." "From now on, we are never gonna take a step back." "This is the foundation." "We have to constantly move forward." " Do you understand?" " Yes, dive sup!" "Narrator:" "By the end of day one, the men of Alpha squad have jocked up their scuba equipment so many times, they can probably do it blindfolded." "And that's exactly what they have to do next, under extremely stressful conditions." "Day two of Army Special Forces dive school." "The nine remaining members of Alpha squad are about to face their toughest test yet." "Quickly, men." "Quickly." "This one-man event is designed to simulate what happens to a soldier when he's underwater, in rough seas, in total darkness." "It will test his ability to stay calm and fight off panic." "Reed:" "The one-man confidence exercise... it consists of several phases." "The student enters the water, he's given a blacked-out mask, and then the first phase that they go through..." "Alpha One." "They encounter surge and surf-passage type issues." "They might get upside down or spun around." "Their air source might be swept out of their mouth." "Narrator:" "The instructors simulate strong surf conditions." "The violent motion not only disorients the diver, but it can damage his gear and cut off airflow." "Each man must be able to fix his equipment and find his lifesaving air source despite blindness and extreme chaos." "He just got surged, and now he's trying to find his air source." "There it is." "Trace it." "Calm." "Good, good." "Slowly." "Good." "Excellent." "Narrator:" "During the one-man event, if a soldier places his feet on the bottom of the pool at any time, he fails." "It's seen as a sign he's planning to push off and surface." "The long night spent learning how to jock-up and handle their gear is paying off now, but this test is about more than gear." "It's about depriving highly stressed divers of o xygen to see how they handle it." "Cpt." "Smith, M. D:" "The point of one-man is to work them up to what we call a near-hypo xic state." "Carbon dio xide builds up as you're not breathing in and you're not breathing out carbon dio xide, so that's building up and making you what we call "air-hungry."" "The second thing you have is, you have hypo xia, so all your muscles and the tissues in your body are using o xygen, so that o xygen level goes down while your need to breathe goes up." "When you reach a certain point of hypo xia, it'll speed up heart rate, so your heart is using more o xygen." "So, it's actually a vicious circle, and the anxiety starts to build." "Reed:" "The students reach a point where they are definitely o xygen-deprived." "The instructor that's administering the exam will continue to remove their air source at increasing speeds, to the point that the student is starting to feel a tingling in his fingers." "The student is starting to feel a little bit of that normal fear... the elevated heart rate, you know, the pounding in his eardrums." ""I'm out of air." "I'm a mammal, I'm underwater, and I have no air source."" "Natural, normal reflexes." "And they're on the verge of..." "but not quite to... where they would pass out if they continued to push themselves." "Narrator:" "The nine men of Alpha squad are o xygen-starved, barely conscious, and it's about to get worse." "It starts going into more difficult layers of this exam until finally they reach a point where they have what we call an unrecoverable air source." "Narrator:" "Cameras are not allowed to film this final phase." "Showing how the air source is disabled would compromise future classes." "Sfc. Smith:" "Right now, they're in the most intensive phase of the test, just to determine whether or not they make it." "So, "black" means that that student doesn't have an air source right now, 'cause he's fighting to recover it." "Narrator:" "Captain Smith monitors Donofrio as he begins the most dangerous phase of the test." "Cpt." "Smith, M. D:" "When the body reaches a certain point of hypo xia, it won't be able to function anymore." "And at that point, you're getting ready to pass out." "Donofrio:" "Trying to be calm to keep your heart rate down, but when your heart starts racing and you're trying to get breath, you're just trying to fight the urge to breathe." "Narrator:" "After exhausting every option, Donofrio follows procedure." "He ditches his gear and uses his sense of touch to try to restore his air source." "The men being tested are highly trained Special Ops soldiers, but deprived of air, every one of them still has to fight the instinct to bolt to the surface." "Cpt." "Smith, M. D:" "You have more consciousness left than you think when you're thinking," ""Oh, my God." "I'm getting ready to pass out."" "But we do see people lose consciousness in this course." "It happens not infrequently." "We are prepared." "Our instructors are right there." "Reed:" "Why this is so important is the adversity of the waterborne environment." "If you're doing it for the military, you're probably doing it at night, you're probably doing it when it's raining, you're probably doing it when there's surf conditions." "You're doing it when nobody else wants to be out there." "Narrator:" "The test has reached its defining moment." "Stay calm, find and fix your air source, or pass out." "He might get a little weirded out, which is normal and natural." "He's a mammal." "He's supposed to be breathing air." "But he doesn't lose his mind." "He doesn't panic." "Narrator:" "Surfacing means failure." "Staying calm and restoring your air source means success." "Cpt." "Smith, M. D:" "If you panic underwater, not only are you probably going to die, but you're probably gonna kill your buddy, and you're probably gonna compromise the mission." "You have to learn to calm yourself down." ""Calm down." "Let me trace my lines." "I know it." "Oh, I just fixed it."" "That is the test, because you have to be able to reduce the deficiencies under an anxious state." "Narrator:" "One by one, most find their air source." "But one student doesn't make it." "Hettich surfaces and removes himself from the class." "Berry:" "The student just wasn't comfortable down there, and he was continuing to try to fight through it and try to drive on, and as we slowly progressed, he took his mask off and gave me the signal he wanted to come up." "It wasn't for him anymore, and so we brought him back to the surface safely." "Reed:" "You're being relieved from the course because of voluntary withdrawal." "Hettich:" "Roger, dive sup." "Reed:" "He took two weeks out of his life, trained up for, successfully passed the prerequisites, and then got in the pool." "And he started working through the stress events, up to the one-man confidence swim." "Eventually, that soldier just reached the point, though, where he's like, "You know, I'm at my limit for today."" "He's already passed the prerequisites." "We know he's got what it takes to get down here, to be in this school, to achieve this." "Just not today." "Hettich:" "Everything's been really grueling." "It's not only physical." "It's really mental." "I'm just trying to take it one day at a time right now, and I'll start working on my stuff tomorrow." "Narrator:" "Hettich recycles to the next class." "He will have eight weeks to train up." "The remaining men of Alpha squad have made it through the one-man event." "They will move on." "Instructor:" "Good job." "Hass:" "That's the worst thing we've done so far... the worst feeling ever." "[Laughs]" "Winslow:" "It does introduce a whole different level of uncomfortability, but this is just another way for me to become more of an asset to the bigger picture later on." "Soldier:" "Y'all ready to go eat?" "Narrator:" "Alpha Squad 310 is done with the pool." "All: [rhythmically] Sitting on a mountaintop, beating my drum!" "Instructor:" "Beat so hard that the M.P. S come!" "Narrator:" "At the U.S. Army Special Forces Combat Diver course, pool week is over." "36 of the original 53 men in Class 310 have survived the rigorous testing." "Alpha squad is no more." "The candidates have been split into new, six-man dive teams." "For the next five weeks, the teams train on highly specialized equipment used in covert water operations." "This cutting-edge technology allows Special Forces divers to move swiftly and remain undetected in combat water missions." "Now all their training will come together in a 24-hour mission." "This final phase of the course will decide who gets the diver badge and who recycles back to the beginning of the course." "Dive Team One is assigned an extremely complex mission." "They brief their plan to master sergeant reed." "Reed:" "Final mission approval." "It's on you." "Soldier:" "Divers, we're gonna depart Fleming Key at 1930." "We're gonna splash between 1930 and 2000 offshore of our target." "Narrator:" "Their plan..." "parachute at night, 20 miles out to sea, with an inflatable zodiac boat." "They will then move by blacked-out zodiac to a point 3 miles offshore." "There they will anchor their zodiac and swim 1.8 miles until they reach the edge of a canal system." "They will then move the last 1.2 miles underwater, through a maze of canals." "Once on land, they will locate a second zodiac boat, hidden by a second dive team." "After rigging the boat for their escape, they will move 1/2 mile over land to their final target." "Their mission... recover a case with sensitive material, and escape by zodiac back out to sea." "The objective site will be heavily defended." "Reed:" "The first half of this course, there's a lot of individual tasks." "They spend a lot of time proving themselves as individuals and their ability to go fast or to endure." "It's the second half of this course that builds them as a team." "Narrator:" "Dive Team One preps their gear for the operation." "Soldier:" "All right." "Go ahead and set it down." "Ruhnke:" "I was expecting a difficult course." "I wasn't disappointed." "It was difficult, to begin with, when the stress level was higher and they were looking for people that were uncomfortable in the water, couldn't think on their feet, and didn't pay attention to detail." "We're mature enough to understand, the cadre, they have a job to do... getting you able to function under a stressful environment." "You got it set up?" "Ready?" "Yeah." "Winslow:" "The cadre here are some of the best instructors in the Special Warfare Center." "They take their job very seriously." "Breathe out." "So that made us, the remaining few, excellent divers." "Kennedy:" "Everybody tried hard." "Everybody gave 100%." "Everybody was there." "You know, something has to be done, everybody jumps on it." "So the whole group, the whole team, was great." "Narrator:" "Every piece of gear they'll use in the operation is tested, rigged, and re-tested." "The jock-up procedures they've mastered are now critical." "Underwater, small malfunctions have catastrophic consequences." "There is no room for mistakes." "They have precisely eight hours to complete the mission." "Pass this test and they pass the course." "Fail and it's back to the start of the course." "The clock starts... now." "As team one preps at the airfield, a second team's operation is already under way." "Team Two's mission is to hide the escape boat for Dive Team One." "They perform a water jump 20 miles out to sea." "T-minus seven hours." "Dive Team One loads up." "Hass:" "Feels good to know that you're almost done." "I mean, we've been here for six weeks." "We just need to pull together and work together and get it done." "Narrator:" "After six weeks of intense training," "Dive Team One's aircraft takes off just as night is falling." "As it approaches the objective, the C-130 descends." "Instructor:" "Stand up!" "[Soldier speaking indistinctly]" "As night falls, the soldiers receive the green light." "This is the moment of truth." "Reed:" "I don't worry about them because I know they were trained right." "I know my cadre, I know the chain of command, and at the end of a month and a half, I know these students." "Let's go!" "Let's go!" "Narrator:" "Dive Team One leaps into darkness and begins one of the toughest final exams in the U.S. Armed Forces." "When they hit the water, all their training comes into play." "The dive team links up with their inflatable zodiac boat and moves 17 miles toward shore." "3 miles from land, they go to the surface-swim phase of the operation." "Soldiers wear chem lights on their heads so the instructors can monitor their progress." "In actual combat operations, they would be undetectable." "Berry:" "I count six." "The team is swimming to their rally point." "When they find the canal entrance, they turn and head towards land." "All right, they've made their dogleg, at least." "You can see, their chem lights changed angle." "Instructor:" "Romeo Delta, this is Romeo Charlie." "Instructor ♪2:" "Go ahead." "Roger." "They just made their dogleg." "They're heading past the first sub pen." "Roger that." "Copy that." "Berry:" "They're just following on azimuth right now." "They look like they're a little off, slightly staggered, but they're doing good." "They're just following that compass man, hoping he's on track." "As we're coming towards you, I think they're adjusting." "They're bouncing back off, back into the middle." "Roger." "Copy." "Narrator:" "After two hours on the surface," "Dive Team One has reached a checkpoint." "They go subsurface for the final leg into the canal." "To avoid detection, they use Drager rebreathers." "This high-tech system recycles o xygen in a closed circuit." "No bubbles, no signature on the surface." "Master Sergeant Reed is hiding near the team's cache point on shore." "He uses a FLIR thermal binocular system to monitor the mission." "Even though it's pitch black, if any soldier breaks the surface before reaching the objective, the FLIR will spot him." "Detection means mission failure." "Reed:" "All right." "They should be coming right up the center of this channel, and it's up to them to try to navigate based off of time, depth, terrain, to figure out where they are and if they're gonna come online" "to the left, to the right, send up a scout, however they decide subsurface to manipulate this environment." "Narrator:" "Dive Team One is 10 feet below the surface, in complete darkness." "Movement is painfully slow." "Reed:" "First off, there's six guys that are tied together." "They've got on probably 70 pounds worth of equipment, and every other man has about a 45-pound rucksack of gear." "So as they're moving in, it definitely doesn't seem like an Olympic-class swim, but they're putting out some effort." "Narrator:" "In two hours, the team has traveled more than a mile through the canals." "Now they have just five minutes remaining to reach the cache point, but there's no sign of them." "Once they make a decision, it should happen in relatively short order." "You should see all of them coming out, assembling on the beach, accounting for their men, weapons, and equipment, and then moving off to conduct their mission." "Hopefully we'll see their heads popping up here shortly." "We don't know what decision they're making." "That's the purpose of this exercise, is to put them out there and get them making decisions, thinking for themselves." "There you go." "Is that their heads starting to pop up?" "Narrator:" "With only minutes to spare, a thermal signature appears on the FLIR." "But they're off-target." "They knew they were out of time, so they did what they were supposed to." "They surfaced." "They made the best of a bad situation." "But because of coming up in the wrong place, it set them off a little bit as to where the cache was supposed to be." "Obviously they need to move back to their cache." "They're completely under the gun." "It's crunch time in so many different ways for them." "Narrator:" "Now Dive Team One has 45 minutes to find their escape craft, prep their gear, and hit the target." "Enemy are in the area." "Move too quickly and they'll blow their cover, too slow and they'll blow the mission." "Everything hangs on the next few minutes." "[Whispering indistinctly]" "Quickly and quietly, they rig their equipment and prepare for a fast escape." "Reed:" "They hit the beach." "They reconsolidated, figured out where they were, they recovered their cache, they put their zodiac into operation." "[Air hissing]" "These guys, as combat divers, have to work so hard just to get to work." "Then they go to work." "Narrator:" "The team exchanges their weapons for military-grade paintball systems." "They move out stealthily toward their target, half a mile away." "Hitting the objective at precisely the right time is critical to passing this course." "They know they're under a time crunch." "They know the sun's gonna come up." "It's up to them to keep popping and kicking." "Narrator:" "Instructors defend the compound." "It's pitch black." "With seconds to spare," "Dive Team One reaches the compound, and the attack is on." "[Paintballs firing]" "The team moves building to building, under fire." "Soldier:" "Go right!" "Go right!" "Across." "[Paintballs firing]" "They locate the case." "Target acquired." "But now they have to get it out." "Soldier ♪2:" "Coming out." "Get out, get out, get out, get out." "Kennedy:" "Who's the last man?" "Last man." "All right?" "All right." "Move it across, move it across." "You two guys, body bunkering." "Keep maintaining fire, all right?" "Narrator:" "Crotte and Kennedy stall the enemy while the rest of the team races to the escape craft." "[Firing continues]" "Master Sergeant Reed moves with the team to watch them execute their escape." "Soldier:" "Go, go, go, go, go!" "Hold on, guys." "Go left." "Go left." "[Paintballs firing]" "Whoo!" "[Boat engine turns over]" "Soldier:" "Motor's up!" "Motor's up!" "Come on!" "Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go!" "Reed:" "They're doing great." "I mean, they're working together as a team." "They're banding, they're overwatching, they're covering each other." "[Boat engine revs]" "This should have been the slowest point of the whole movement, and they were off that beach so quick." "There they go." "Take it home, boys." "Ahh!" "Narrator:" "Dive Team One heads back out to sea with minutes to spare." "Mission accomplished." "Oh, that was beautiful." "That was beautiful." "That was everything that they're supposed to do... work together as a team, don't forget where you came from..." "And go home." "No, that was beautiful." "To see guys that have everything stacked against them and they perform and they fall right back on their training, you couldn't ask..." "I mean, what a graduation ceremony for these kids." "Narrator:" "The six members of Dive Team One earn the Special Forces Combat Divers badge." "The ceremony is without fanfare, but every man here knows exactly what they have earned." "They've entered a much smaller community within a small community at this point... the combat divers."