Recruited for Navy SEALs, Many Sailors Wind Up Scraping Paint

[harddriver]

https://dnyuz.com/2022/12/09/recruited- ... ing-paint/

NAVAL BASE KITSAP, Wash. — A sailor fresh out the elite Navy SEAL selection course slung his gear over his broad shoulder and clomped down a steel ladder into the guts of a Navy ship to execute a difficult, dayslong mission specifically assigned to him: scrubbing the stinking scum out of the ship’s cavernous bilge tank.

Hardly the stuff of action movies, but it’s how many would-be SEALs end up.

The Navy attracts recruits for the SEALs using flashy images of warriors jumping from planes or rising menacingly from the dark surf. But very few make it through the harrowing selection course, and those who don’t still owe the Navy the rest of their four-year enlistments. So they end up doing whatever Navy jobs are available — often, menial work that few others want.

The recruits are almost all hyper-motivated overachievers, often with college degrees, who have passed a battery of strength and intelligence tests. But many find themselves washing dishes in cramped galleys, cleaning toilets on submarines or scraping paint on aircraft carriers.

Unlike civilian workers, they cannot quit. To walk away would be a crime. Until the enlistment is done, they are stuck.

“I’m just thrown away here — a nobody,” the sailor who was assigned to clean the bilge said in an interview. “My supervisor doesn’t even know my name.”

Like other sailors who were interviewed for this article, he requested that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly and feared retribution.

“Almost everyone I know who tried out ended up the way I did,” the sailor said. “Basically, we’re all scraping paint.”

Relegating promising candidates who don’t quite clear the bar to years of drudgery would be a harsh arrangement even if the SEAL selection course were running as designed. But, lately, it hasn’t been. Classes that were always hard became dangerous. A number of sailors were hospitalized. Others were forced to quit if they wanted medical care. And, in February, one sailor died.