Training versus tempering
An alarm blares at midnight, startling students out of their sleep. They stagger into formation wearing only their shorts, get doused with icy water, then slurp some bitter tea to wake themselves up. Their eight- to 12-week frogman course is now underway.
The program’s curriculum includes segments on land-based, alpine, urban and maritime warfare, in addition to teaching students skills such as reconnoitering, searching, negotiating difficult terrain, diving in light and heavy scuba gear, outdoor survival, and free climbing.
Sgt. Luo, a 20-year veteran who has trained 30 frogman classes, says that the course’s first three weeks seek to separate the wheat from the chaff.
“One of the key things, and also the hardest, is breaking through the students’ mental defenses.” Luo says that everything in the frogmen’s training focuses on the importance of obedience. Individuals who have problems with authority almost always wash out in the first round of cuts.
The curriculum’s every detail has a purpose, and every student his own Achilles heel.
Zeng Hanlin, a graduate of National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism, struggled with swimming, a crucial skill for a frogman.
Prior to enrolling in the program, he was uncomfortable in the water unless he could touch the bottom and had trouble swimming even five meters. Nowadays, he can swim for five hours without a break.
Zeng says that the whole training program is amazing in ways that those who haven’t been through it can’t really understand. Even those who’ve experienced it have a hard time describing it. “Maybe it just brings out your fundamental will to live!”
Zhang Xuhui, who started out relatively stiff, struggled with the program’s infamous guiwo tingfu, a knee-torqueing stretch similar to yoga’s “reclining hero” pose. On the other hand, years of dance training have made Gong Mingxiang quite limber and he had no trouble at all with the stretch.
Zhang had to have three people pile atop him to help him stretch, causing him such severe pain that he considered bailing out of the program. But, as Sgt. Luo likes to say, you can stretch muscles out eventually. Over time, Zhang learned to hold the pose for hour-long “naps” in the sun on Toshien (Taoziyuan) Beach with his fellow students.
Gong, meanwhile, hated marching with the frogmen’s 135-kilogram rubber dinghy. With the addition of four wooden support boards, a dinghy makes a 239-kilo package that its seven-man crew have to carry on their heads. Gong says that the problem comes from the differing heights of the crew members: the taller guys end up with all the weight on their heads because the shorter guys’ heads don’t reach the boat.
“You carry it for so long that your scalp swells and thick layers of skin begin peeling off.” Gong says he eventually learned to march and sleep simultaneously all the way to their destination, adding that people are capable of amazing things when pushed to their limits.
The Marine Corp’s amphibious search and rescue course (aka “frogman” school) is a daunting undertaking, a trial by fire for young men testing their limits.