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74 Steven Pressfield
candidate will crack. Better that the aspiring warrior fails here—
at Coronado Island in San Diego—than someplace where a real
wartime mission and real lives are at stake.
In SEAL training, they have a bell. When a candidate can’t take
the agony any longer—the 6-mile ocean swims or the 15-mile
full-load runs or the physical and mental ordeals on no sleep and
no food ... when he’s had enough and he’s ready to quit, he walks
up and rings the bell.
That’s it. It’s over.
He has dropped out.
You and I have a bell hanging over
us, too, here in the belly of the
beast. Will we ring it?
There’s a difference between Navy SEAL training and what you
and I are facing now.
Our ordeal is harder.
Because we’re alone.
We’ve got no trainers over us, shouting in our ears or kicking our
butts to keep us going. We’ve got no friends, no fellow sufferers,
