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April 5, 2021 - Epoch Times
34:21
Inside the Mental and Physical Training of a U.S. Navy SEAL | Chad Williams
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You know, they say that SEAL training is 85% mental and 15% physical.
I think the reality is that 100% of the time it's physical and then you hit a certain point where it's like mind over matter.
And it has the reputation of being the most difficult military training in the world, hands down.
And it's quite the paradox because Coronado, San Diego is one of the most beautiful places in Southern California.
So what is the purpose of this torture?
It's to get men ready to go to war.
You want guys on the battlefield that are willing to die before they quit.
And this is a California thing that we have.
We've become somewhat very materialistic here, right?
California sort of attracts the dreamers.
I mean, you see success all around you.
You know, having all that the world has to offer here isn't really all that it's cracked up to be.
I wonder how you started having a spiritual journey.
What happened?
The reality is, underneath it all, I felt like I was deteriorating.
The desire to get some revenge overseas That really dissipated.
And when I finally had an opportunity to get some revenge, here everything's coming full circle.
We're operating within the same province.
For all I know, this guy that we're going after that's trying to kill us, I was actually given the responsibility to carry this man.
San Diego is home to the extensive 24-week training of the United States Navy SEALs.
My guest today is Chad Williams.
He's a Navy SEAL veteran and author of Seal of God.
Today he discusses what it takes to be a Navy SEAL and how it transformed his outlook on life.
Welcome to California Insider.
Chad, welcome to the show.
Great to have you on.
Thank you for having me.
We want to talk to you about, you're a Navy SEAL. We want to talk to you about the training that you went through.
We have this training center in San Diego, which is the most difficult part of it, right?
Yeah, Naval Special Warfare Center.
It's where you go through a program called BUDS, and it stands for Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training.
So that's where the rubber really meets the road, and it has the reputation of being the most difficult military training in the world, hands down.
So this is when you're about to, this is the advanced part, right?
The advanced part of the training, right?
This is really just sort of getting your foot in the door.
This is the initiation.
Yeah, so in a sense, it's basic SEAL training.
And so once you think that, man, I've made it, I've arrived, I made it through buds, you realize I'm just a tadpole amongst a bunch of frogs.
There's some growing up to do.
But definitely, by far, the most difficult gate to get through is that first one.
So how does it work?
When you got in, how was it like?
What was it like?
Yeah, so the way they used to do it when I was going through is initially you have to go to Great Lakes, Illinois to go through boot camp.
And when you get there, a lot of people start calling that place great mistakes.
Like, how did I get here?
What am I doing here at boot camp?
And then you would go through what's called A-School.
And so A-School is basically learning a trade in the military, in the Navy particularly, Just in case you don't make it through SEAL training, you have something to fall back on.
And the reality is the majority of the guys are not going to make it through SEAL training.
So it's good to train them up in something before they go through.
But if you make it through A school and then you go on to BUDS, like I said, that's where the rubber really meets the road.
By far the most difficult military training, hands down.
I start with a class of 173 guys.
And by graduation day, that original class number that was still standing there was 13 out of the 173.
After BUDS, then you go off to Fort Benning, Georgia for jump school.
They don't do it that way anymore, but you get trained by the Army to jump static line out of airplanes, and then you come back home and you go through what's called SQT. That's where you start getting into some of the more advanced.
That's advanced SEAL qualification training.
And it's at that stage during SQT that you get your trident, which is the insignia that says you've done it, you've made it.
Welcome to the Brotherhood.
This is your identity.
You now are a SEAL. And really the road just kind of begins there.
You get put into a platoon and you go through various workups and preparation to go deploy.
And then it's time to finally put all that training that you put all your blood, sweat, tears, and hard work into action on the battlefield.
And so Buds is in San Diego, right?
Buds is in San Diego, correct.
So how was that experience like?
Because it's in Coronado and you have to do a lot of things with water.
What was it like?
Thankfully for me, growing up in Huntington Beach, California, it wasn't a foreign land.
I was very comfortable with the water.
I remember one of the first times we got told to go hit the surf, which is you got to go get wet in the water and then come back and get all sandy.
The instructors tell the class, go hit the surf and this is exciting because This is the first time we're doing it as a class, and it's sort of a rite of passage.
It's like it's finally here.
SEAL training is beginning.
We just got told by the instructors what we saw on Discovery Channel, what we read about.
Like, this is the moment.
And I'm running out there so happy.
Like, we're finally doing this.
I'm looking at this guy next to me.
He goes, I'm so excited, too.
And then he says, this is my first time ever going in the ocean.
Like, what?!
And so I think you could see the writing on the wall with that one.
That guy didn't end up making it, right?
Very uncomfortable situation for him.
But my class, we went through in February, which is the coldest month out of the year.
And I kind of wanted that.
There's bragging rights and going through a wintertime hell week, which is the most difficult part of SEAL training.
But having that familiarity with the Southern California and the ocean, I think that was a huge benefit.
So how was it like?
So you had your teammates, they're all in this program, and what kind of obstacles did you guys have to get through?
And what was it like mentally?
So, you know, they say that SEAL training is 85% mental and 15% physical.
I think the reality is that 100% of the time, It's physical, and then you hit a certain point where it's like mind over matter.
You've heard that before.
You come to a point where the physical material, your body says, I don't want to go on anymore.
That's where mind over matter clicks in, and your mind says, no, we're going to keep pushing.
And so everyone that shows up, they say they're willing to die before they quit.
That's the mantra of the class.
I remember the first day of training, an instructor comes walking in, and he asks us, he challenges us, How many of you are willing to die before you quit?
So we're all pounding our chest saying, Hoo-yah!
That's our yes.
He goes, Great!
Well, this is what I want you to do.
Take a mental picture of the person on your left and on your right.
So I'm kind of looking around, left and right.
He goes, in fact, if you have someone in front of you and behind, you do the same thing with them.
So I'm looking at these four different guys, and he goes, chances are, if you're still standing here for graduation day, that means that those guys you just looked at, odds-wise, they didn't make it.
Do you really think you're the one in that group?
And that was a real eye-opener for me, because I'm looking around this room, and I'm looking at guys that say the same thing I say.
I'll die before I quit, and they say it the same way I say it.
So I'm thinking, where are these guys that are going to quit going to come from?
Like, it's not going to be me.
But then the question in my head was, like, how far down this rabbit hole do we have to go before guys start to start falling off?
Because we already went through some pre-SEAL training together where the instructors put us through, you know, some beat downs.
And we've suffered together.
And I don't see any quit in any of these guys.
So looking around the room, realizing...
The majority of the room has got to go.
I gotta find some low-hanging fruit.
Like, who are these guys that are going to quit?
And as I'm scanning the room, my eyes...
Follow on this one guy named Barth.
And Barth was not one of the guys that's going to quit.
But he got my attention because I thought of him as someone that's definitely going to make it.
Because he was in a league of his own.
When we're in a competition of strength or speed and in SEAL training, the runs, the swims, Barth was always so far ahead of everybody else.
There's never a question over who's going to get first place.
We all know who's getting first place.
It's Barth.
The question is who's grabbing second place.
So as I'm looking at him, I go, alright, there's one of the guys that's going to make it.
And then I'm kind of hitting myself on the head.
Like, what am I doing?
I'm not supposed to find other guys that I think will make it.
I'm trying to find the guys that will quit.
And as I'm scanning the room a little bit more, it's like, how can I forget about Alex Gagne?
Like, Alex Gagne is the exact antithesis of Barth.
If Barth is the guy that was born and bred to be a Navy SEAL just cut from another piece of cloth...
Alex Gagne is the ugly duckling of the class.
Like, he's the runt of the litter.
Not only is he going to quit, this guy's the locker room talk.
Everyone's saying, that guy's the first guy that's going to quit.
Well, the irony of it all is that by the time we get to the most difficult part of SEAL training, which is Hell Week, who's amongst the first to quit at that time?
Well, it's not this guy, Alex Gagne.
Amongst the first to quit was this guy, Barth.
The guy that everybody pinned as, there's someone that's definitely going to make it.
And then who ultimately made it through that pipeline to graduation day?
This guy, Alex Gagne, the runt of the litter.
And so I think what that demonstrates right there is the truth of our seal creed.
Our seal creed says it's the common man with uncommon desire to succeed.
And so that's the real key right there is your desire.
I think a lot of people in life, they kind of just...
Sometimes throw in the towel and have their own little pity party because they feel like they weren't dealt the right deck of cards in life.
They don't have the same privileges that maybe somebody else had.
They didn't get brought up in the same home or get to go to the same school or have the same opportunities.
And the reality is, yeah, some people, I guess you could say, they have a better deck of cards that they start off with.
But the beautiful thing about America is this is a place where you could literally start at the bottom and climb all the way up to the top.
Or you could start at the top and find yourself down at the bottom.
Because the key isn't so much what household you were brought up in or what type of privileges you're given.
Your DNA really doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what your pedigree is.
What matters the most is not your DNA, but your determination, your mindset.
And so, while Barth might have seemed like the guy that had the DNA that produced the muscle that would become a Navy SEAL, he ultimately didn't make it.
Alex Gagne didn't have that.
He was not cut from that piece of cloth, but what he did have is not the DNA, but he had that desire in the heart, that desire in the mindset.
So that's where you get, it's not the uncommon man with uncommon desire, it's just the common man with uncommon desire to succeed.
So SEAL training in San Diego, it's a real melting pot.
You get guys from all different backgrounds, but at the end of the day, it is that mental toughness that ultimately carries you through.
So why do you guys call it Hell Week?
I think it's the original Hell Week.
I think that there's, you know, football and wrestling programs that sort of emulate themselves after Hell Week.
But I think maybe after I describe it to you, you'll understand why it's Hell Week.
It's five and a half days long.
You get four hours of sleep.
And that's not four hours per night.
That's it.
Four hours for the next five and a half days.
The way that it kicks off is by surprise in the middle of the night.
Machine guns are going off and these grenade simulators.
And in the beginning, it's kind of exciting because this is it.
You're finally here.
This is your rite of passage.
You welcome this.
And you have this adrenaline rush.
And because of the adrenaline, you don't really feel so much pain in the beginning.
So this is just breakout session.
But eventually, all the bright lights and loud noises go away, and then it's off to that cold Pacific Ocean into the dark of the night, and you're not wearing a wetsuit.
And like I said, we went through in February, and that is when the ocean is at its absolute coldest.
So you get in that water, and it takes your breath away.
And then you begin to perform what we call surf torture.
And surf torture is kind of like it sounds.
It's basically the ocean's version of its own waterboarding along with cold exposure.
So you're linked arms with your buddies and you just have to lay back into that water as waves are covering you so you only breathe when the ocean decides it's going to let you breathe.
You've got sand filling just the pockets of your eyes and your ears so when you blink You're just full of sand in the eyes.
And then the cold really begins to set in.
You're so cold.
We call it jackhammering cold because you look like you're hanging on to a jackhammer.
And then the mental part really begins.
You're suffering physically and you feel like you're going to die in this water.
And then the instructors say, we're going to keep doing this until...
And they'll just come up with some arbitrary number.
Three of you.
Give up.
Quit.
And now you're looking at these guys on your left and on your right and you realize like, wow, this is going to be difficult.
And all I can really say is I learned in Hell Week that you can push the body 20 times beyond like what you thought was the limit.
And if you're not performing surf torture, you wind up running 200 miles during these five and a half days.
And that's not just running around with your own body weight.
You're running around.
So after you do, do you get some rest?
Do you have some time?
There's no rest in Hell Week, no.
So for these five and a half days, you are constantly moving.
If you're not moving, you're sitting in the water, shivering, right?
And so 200 miles with a boat on top of your head, wherever you go, literally rubs through the hair, through the skin, in the top of your head.
Everyone that goes through Hell Week, you can pick them out in Coronado, San Diego, because these guys got these circular bald spots on top of their heads.
And if you're not running around the boat on top of your head, you're carrying a telephone log.
And imagine that sand and the salt water, like what it does to your skin.
You've probably been in a pool for a couple hours or a jacuzzi.
You start looking at your fingers like, wow, my fingers are getting rather pruney.
Time to get out of the water.
Imagine what five and a half days of salt water and beach sand does to your skin.
Just you feel every nerve exposed.
And then on top of all this physical exertion and sleep deprivation, it leads into kind of a funny thing to look back on.
Not so fun when you're going through it, but hallucinations.
I grew up watching Ninja Turtles and I remember paddling around looking down in the water and I mean, I see Leonardo coming up out of the water and like winking at me.
He's like whacking him in the head.
But, you know, after all of that, Five and a half days, that physical exertion, sleep deprivation and hallucinations, you finally do get to a finished point.
So what is the purpose of this torture?
I think it's really to test guys physically and mentally, right?
And so you want guys on the battlefield that are willing to die before they quit.
And you want guys that they don't need to be cheer-led on.
You don't want guys that have to be motivated from external sources.
And so everything is really against you.
The instructors are not ever cheering you on.
They're never saying, come on, guys, you can do this.
They want to see who has that ambition, who has that resolve on their own, because there's no one out in the battlefield that's going to be cheering you on when things really get difficult.
And, you know, a real eye-opener to this was in one part of training, and this wasn't something that was on the books for the day, but this is when I really began to see, like, these guys are preparing us for combat.
We were in a race on the ropes, and so it's usually a boat crew versus other boat crews, and our saying in the SEAL teams and in SEAL training is it pays to be a winner.
Only first place is it going to pay.
Everyone else after that, second place truly is the first loser.
They're going to suffer.
And it came down to me And one other guy.
We were both the anchormen on these ropes.
And we got all of our class, you know, like all the pressures on us to win.
And this guy gets to take off ahead of me just a little bit.
And I start chasing him down on that rope, getting up 20 feet in the air.
This rope's all wet and sandy.
And he ends up losing his grip.
And I lock eyes with him, but about as far away as you and I are, but he has this look like he knows he's going down.
And so he loses his grip, goes burning into the ground, and you can hear and see his legs snap right in half.
And you would think this is the moment, maybe, where the instructors would break character.
The instructors typically are screaming in our faces, saying that we're pathetic, we're losers, they don't want us, we don't belong here, we should just ring that bell, do everyone a favor, just quit.
Maybe right here is where they will break character, And stand over the guy and start helping him and asking him, are you okay?
No, that didn't happen.
I'm still hanging on to that rope, looking down as the instructor standing over this guy, breathing in pain and the instructor screaming in his face, suffer in silence.
Suffer in silence.
And that was the real eye-opener.
Like, wow, this is for real.
And so what wasn't on the books that day?
It wasn't part of the curriculum, but the instructor saw an opportunity here to teach the class something.
This is an instructor that just came back from combat.
And the lesson now is, you know, when you get hurt, In combat, you can't be screaming.
You need to suffer in silence because you're going to be giving away your position to the enemy and you're going to be putting the rest of your teammates in danger.
And so, it's the real deal.
What is the point to all of this?
It's to get men ready to go to war.
And if people make mistakes, they're going to put their teammates in danger, right?
Exactly.
And it's quite the training curve.
You can just one bad day and you're out of training.
Not even just one bad day, one bad moment.
I saw a guy that he was almost to the very end of training, but we have a very hard rule.
You don't ever throw any demolition.
And some demolition, it's very stable.
It won't go off.
Like C4, you can shoot it, you can set it on fire, and it won't go off.
It's only under certain conditions that it'll go off.
It's a plastic explosive.
But there's a hard rule in training.
No throwing demolition.
And I remember we're at a demo table, and one of the guys across the way on the table, he just needed like a little thumb's worth of a little bit more C4. And so he just asked, hey, can one of you pass me a little bit of C4? And one of the guys, you know, he grabbed a little piece and he just tossed it to him.
And while that piece was in the air, I mean, a thousand thoughts went through my mind.
I'm not concerned it's going to go off.
It's not going to go off.
But we have a hard rule, no throwing demo.
That guy just before the end of training, he was so close to graduating.
Just that one mistake right there, he's out of the program.
Because each mistake could cause...
Life.
Yeah, it's life and death.
Yeah.
And if you're in Coronado, you could see that training.
Is it visible, this training that's going on, or is it inside you can't see it for the people?
A lot of it you can see and a lot of it you can't.
And it's quite the paradox because Coronado, San Diego is one of the most beautiful places in Southern California.
One of my favorite beaches by Hotel Del.
You've got the Hotel Del there.
And when we're going through one of the most difficult parts of training, which is called rock portage, it's one of the most dangerous portions of training where you're trying to land these rubber boats on rocks while waves are pushing you in.
You have all these people that are out there whining and dining at the Hotel Del and they can literally walk out and watch.
SEAL training happened right there.
And it's kind of a funny juxtapose because here we are just suffering and then you have some guy over there kind of, you know, armchair critic talking about how he thinks he could do something like that.
He's inebriated, you know, sipping on his cocktail.
And so, yeah, you can see a lot of the training that happens.
I think that, you know, a lot of the tactics and things that we learn that we're going to use overseas in combat, those are things you'll never see.
But just sort of this initial grinding process to figure out who has it physically and mentally, I guess the observer, they can go watch and see.
So when you graduate from this program, what's next after that?
What was your experience like?
So after BUDS, you go on to, you know, jump school and then SQT. And that's the moment where, you know, after advanced SEAL qualification training, that's when you finally are becoming a SEAL. And I'll never forget that moment of finally achieving this thing that I thought was going to deliver the ultimate.
Because just to backtrack a little bit, before the military, I didn't know what I was going to do with my life.
And there's that saying, if you aim at nothing, you will hit it.
And unfortunately, I really felt like that was my aim at that time in Huntington Beach as I'm just attending a local community college.
And I just felt this desperate need to get out of this position that I'm in.
It's sort of that whole pursuit of happiness.
You know, I want happiness.
I want fulfillment.
And so that greater the need, the greater the result.
This great need to get out of this position that I'm in resulted in capturing that idea of becoming a SEAL. I thought, man, if I could just become a SEAL, that'll turn my life around.
If I could become a SEAL, I'll be set.
And then here's that moment where it's actually finally happening.
And I can remember reflecting back, sitting in a school parking lot in the junior college, feeling like a loser, because in a sense I was.
And then here I am, finally achieving, climbing to the top of the mountain, the last rung of the ladder and becoming a SEAL. Well, not only was this one of the happiest, most fulfilling moments of my life, The strange experience that I had was, following that, I began to feel like I was going through some of the lowest times in my life.
Like the wind was taken out of the sail, life was circling a drain from that point forward, and I couldn't really wrap my mind around why at the time.
I mean, I just achieved what I thought would be the ultimate.
And it was later I heard over the radio, a philosopher say these words.
And I thought, that nails it.
That's exactly what I experienced on graduation day.
And so this is what he says.
He says, one of the loneliest moments a man will ever experience is when he's achieved that which he thought would deliver the ultimate.
And in the end, it lets him down.
And so what he's referring to right there is something I believe that everyone listening right now is familiar with, at least to some degree.
It's that human condition.
It's that whole idea that the grass is always greener on the other side.
And this is a California thing that we have.
We've become somewhat very materialistic here, right?
I think California sort of attracts the dreamers, right?
It's California dreaming.
And so it attracts the people that think, this is where I can find true happiness and fulfillment.
This is sort of a place of opportunity, right?
You got Hollywood over here and it's a big influencer, right?
The coast, especially California.
Everyone kind of buys into what we have in the Constitution, the pursuit of happiness.
The problem is that happiness nowadays doesn't mean what it meant when it was originally penned.
And you can see this, so happiness back then, philosopher J.P. Moreland points out that happiness all the way up until that point was pursuing a life of wisdom and virtue.
You think of the greatest generation before us, World War II, what were they doing?
They were spending their lives towards something bigger and greater, something outside of themselves.
John Adams, he says, you know, your generation will never know how much it costs my generation to preserve your freedom.
And he's looking ahead saying, I hope you will make good use of it.
So the happy life to the ancients and the early Americans was spending yourself towards something bigger and greater than yourself.
That's what happiness is.
Happiness today is not that.
So people still have their sights set on happiness, but they pour into that word, happiness, a different meaning than what it originally meant.
The pursuit of happiness now for people today, it's all based around feelings and emotions.
And instead of spending yourself towards something bigger and greater than yourself, it's more of like, what can I get out of this?
It's not asking, what can I do for my country?
It's what can this country, what can this land do for me?
And the way that you know that is if you're trying to figure out if somebody's happy, what do you ask them?
You ask them, how do you feel?
It's all about feelings.
And so this is just what people buy into now.
It's all about feelings and the feelings will never really satisfy.
And is this more extreme in California, right?
I think it is because it's an epicenter for people pursuing that type of happiness.
This is where they come.
And so this is sort of that ground.
So what car you drive, what you look like.
Yeah.
And you see in the lives of professional athletes, rock stars, the movie stars, They have everything this world has to offer.
I mean, you see success all around you, right?
You see those cars.
How do those people feel?
What's going on in their lives?
What we see with these professional athletes, rock stars, and movie stars is it's like a constant drama playing out.
I mean, there's a new headline.
There's new breaking news like every day.
Look at so-and-so.
They're destroying their life with drugs and alcohol.
Anthony Bourdain.
Look at the life that guy had.
What a dream!
Who wouldn't trade their shoes to be in his shoes?
He's so miserable, he's taking his life.
And we can't wrap our mind around why.
Doesn't he understand that he has something that people would trade everything for?
But maybe that's just it.
You know, having all that the world has to offer here isn't really all that it's cracked up to be.
And so people don't want to think that and they don't want to believe that, but it's a reality for those that get to that place where they achieve everything.
And so for me, in a sense, I gained all that my world had to offer.
All that the world had to offer to me, achieving that was becoming a Navy SEAL. But, one of the loneliest moments a person will ever experience when they've achieved that which they thought would deliver the ultimate, in the end, it lets them down.
Or just to put it more bluntly, I think the wisest one that ever walked the face of this earth, Jesus of Nazareth, he put it this way, what's it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but in the end, loses his soul?
And so I think that's the real crux of the issue right there.
It's not so much an earthly possession thing, but it's a soul thing.
I think that there's a deeper meaning to life than just what you can gain here on Earth.
And for you, that moment, then what happened next after?
So I didn't go on any sort of spiritual saga, you know, moving forward from there.
I just kind of thought, man, that's it.
And I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder because, you know, at that time I had a mentor by the name of Scott Halvinston.
Who is an extraordinary Navy SEAL. And I say that because he holds all kinds of records.
He's a world champion panathlete.
He was the fastest man to ever make it through the SEAL training obstacle course.
He was the only man to beat the beast on a TV program called Man vs.
Beast where he raced a chimpanzee through an obstacle course and on national television pulled out of this monkey on monkey bars.
And he also was the youngest man to make it through training.
He completed SEAL training at 17 years old.
So he mentored me and he really became like a second father to me.
I idolized this guy's everything that I want to be.
He got me ready.
I got signed up.
And just as I'm going in, he took an opportunity as he put it to go overseas one last time.
And so he calls me, you know, Junior.
He's on the phone with me.
He's telling me, all right, Junior, I'm about to go do this thing.
He's referring to going off to Iraq.
And he says, I just want you to know something I've never told anybody I've ever trained before.
He says, I know you're going to make it through SEAL training.
Basically, those were the last words I heard from him.
The next time I saw him was on television in a vehicle that was engulfed in flames as this angry Iraqi mob videotaping these insurgents, ripping him out of a vehicle along with three others and mutilating their bodies and wrapping rope around their legs and dragging them through the streets of Fallujah, Iraq and hanging them upside down from Frady's River Bridge, setting their bodies on fire and then yelling into a camera over and over.
In Arabic, Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans.
Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans.
And so that left a lasting impression on me.
And so I think some of the fuel, not all of it, but some of the fuel to make it through SEAL training was to do it in honor and memory of my mentor, but there also was...
Some feelings of hatred and anger and revenge.
And so I kind of felt like that's all I was left with at the end of training.
As I've walked in his footsteps, I've kind of filled those shoes.
I've become a SEAL now.
I thought on graduation day, I looked up, I thought, Scott, we did this.
Here I am now, though, just feeling empty inside.
So I kind of put on a front in front of everybody, like a lot of us do.
You know, our family members, our friends, you know, our co-workers, for the most part, they don't really know what's going on.
In our lives, we're a certain person on the outside and underneath it all.
There's a different thing going on.
That's kind of where I was at.
I was just left with just thoughts and feelings of, well, if anything to look forward to, as I'm on a SEAL team now, is maybe going overseas and just getting a little get back, getting some revenge for Scott.
And I'm just trying to be transparent.
You know, that's not the best fuel to live off of, but revenge is a fuel.
And that's just kind of where I was at, at that stage of life.
So what happened next?
So I'm kind of full of just these feelings of just, in a sense, numbness and anger at the same time, thinking if anything I look forward to, maybe getting a little revenge for Scott overseas.
The real problem all of this time is kind of like what we were talking about, what Jesus says.
What's it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but in the end loses his soul?
I believe there is more to you and I than just this body.
This body is really just a vehicle.
We have a soul.
And so the reason I wasn't experiencing any peace here on earth was pointed out to me is because I had no peace with the Creator.
And so as Jesus says, what's a profit of man if he gains the whole world but in the end loses his soul?
I realize I need peace with that creator.
And C.S. Lewis, this philosopher, he makes this point.
He says, you know, if I find within myself desires in which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I'm meant for I wonder how
you started having a spiritual journey.
What happened?
So I had this identity on the outside as if I really had it going on.
I got family and friends looking at me saying, Chad, you did it.
You were a SEAL. You must be on top of the world.
And I would play into it.
I would just be, yeah, living a dream, rock star.
What's the reality?
The reality is underneath it all, I felt like I was deteriorating.
I felt like I was falling apart.
I really felt like I was this dead man walking.
And I end up hearing about this soldier by the name of Naaman, who was a man that really had it going on, on the outside.
But the reality was, underneath his armor, underneath his clothing, he had a terminal illness, a disease, leprosy.
And at his time, nobody had ever been healed of leprosy.
And so it seemed really hopeless for him.
And I'm relating with this story because I really felt like I was in a hopeless situation.
But he ultimately learned that if he just humbled himself before his creator, And dipped himself in this Jordan River, as he's told to do, seven times, that the Creator would do the heavy lifting, that he would cleanse him of his leprosy, but the hard part was, humble yourself.
And so he did that.
In a sense, he sort of went to his own funeral.
He realized in order for me to live, I must die to self.
And I think that, in a sense, the whole world can agree, you know, that the father of all sins is pride.
It's ego.
We all have this ego.
And I learned that I needed to humble myself before the Creator.
Now, when you humbled yourself, then what was it like?
Did you become a different person?
Did people around you look at you and say, okay, you're being different?
Yeah, big time.
So I went back and I told my teammates, you know, the next day, I told them, guys, I need to tell you something.
I told them I became a Christian.
And their attitude at first was, good for you, you know, Williams.
I realized that actions speak louder than words.
But my experience was, is that I felt a peace that I didn't have before.
That was what I was missing.
You'll have no peace here on earth if you don't have peace with your creator.
Now I have peace with my creator.
The anger and the rage that I felt before, the desire to get some revenge overseas, that really dissipated.
And when I finally had an opportunity to get some revenge, you know, my team was set up in an ambush on the last operation I was involved in, very similar to what happened with my mentor.
Here everything's coming full circle.
We're operating within the same province.
For all I know, this guy that we're going after that's trying to kill us, you know, who knows?
Maybe he had a part in what happened to my mentor.
At the very least, he celebrated in it.
And now we've got him wounded but alive.
Here's an opportunity to get some get back.
That's not how we operate.
We saved his life.
I was actually given the responsibility to carry this man into our own hospital.
And I remember carrying him and looking down at him and just thinking, God, You know, for the peace that I had.
Because I almost fantasized about an opportunity like this in the past, before.
But now I'm able to carry him into our own hospital and save his life.
And that is one of the big differences, I think, you could say between us and them over there.
We do preserve life wherever possible.
We don't have this attitude of just killing them all.
So you had your experience with the SEAL training and you went from community college in Huntington Beach.
What do you tell people that kids that are growing up and going to college now?
I think that they should do their best to remember, you know, that they're mortal.
They should remember death, you know, remember that they're mortal and that they will die one day.
And if they're lucky enough to maybe be, you know, on a bed surrounded by family, what are the things that they are going to regret?
And I've been there.
In ministry, I've done the home visits.
And I've been there at the door of very successful people that have achieved money and status.
And they want to pass something on.
And the things that they pass on, it's more often than not, not so much the things that they wish they would have done differently.
They're not regretting so much the things that they did as they are regretting what they wish they would have invested into more.
And that's faith, family, and friends.
They all wish that they would have worked on their faith because they're about to go, you know, meet their creator.
Another big one is their family.
They wish they would have invested into their family more and then, you know, next to that would be friends because those are the things that really do matter the most.
Those are the things that go beyond the grave and all these other things They just are destroyed, you know, in the end.
You know, it's a truth.
You know, Jesus says, And then he goes on to say, And so I would challenge young people, you know, where is your treasure?
What is the thing that you treasure the most?
Because that's where your heart is.
And I would say invest into eternal things, because life here on Earth, it's a vapor.
Okay, well thank you.
It's great to have you on.
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