Class-29: The Making of U.S. Navy SEALs

"Throughout training I kept having the thought,
WELL, ALL THEY CAN DO IS KILL ME.
It seemed to help."        

SEALs are the world's toughest soldiers. Working in squads and platoons that make up SEAL teams, they are trained in everything from underwater demolition to high-altitude parachute drops. Now John Carl Roat, graduate of Class-29, one of the earliest SEAL training classes, has written the only book devoted to the training of that exclusive warrior force. With unflinching honesty, Roat describes the brutal six-month program that took young men well beyond the endurance limits even of gifted athletes and created warriors who could proudly take their places in the teams. It was a program so demanding that by the end of Hell Week, the third week of the course, the original class of one hundred and thirty-four physically fit young men had been sliced to sixty-two.

After retelling his own class's experience, Roat visits today's SEAL program and reveals how the program has changed over the last thirty-five years to include more classroom training and better and more sophisticated equipment-- without at all lowering the physical demands. SEAL training is still the best, and the toughest, training in the world.

John Carl Roat was born in 1942 in Flint, Michigan. In January 1963, he started Underwater Demolition Team replacement training with Class-29. After completing training, John served with UDT-21, UDT-11, and SEAL Team-1. In 1965, John married the former Judith Jo Younger. They have two sons, four grandchildren, and thirty-five years of marriage. Since leaving the navy in 1969, John has made his living as a commercial diver, diving supervisor, and diving consultant. CLASS-29 is his first book, and he is writing a sequel.