Thursday morning after breakfast, most of us had our biggest scare of Hell Week. The SEAL instructors herded us into a warm classroom and sat us down. We stank like something out of the sewers: sweat, mildew, open sores, mud, seawater, seaweed, and piss. Our stench kept the instructors at a distance as they handed out paper and pencils.

An instructor said, "Write down your Hell Week experience up until now and do not fall asleep."

I started to write something then caught myself nodding off, but I persisted in writing. The room gradually grew darker as if someone was using a dim switch on the lights. Our class officers and others fell asleep. It became so dark that I couldn't even see what I was writing anymore. From behind me, an instructor tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and he motioned for me to quietly leave the classroom.

About five of us, including our leading enlisted man, stood outside the classroom for a few minutes waiting for further instructions.

I could hear an instructor's voice come from inside the classroom. "What are you people doing? You slept for five hours! The only way you can make up that time is to repeat Hell Week again! You all are going to fail! Get wet and sandy! Move, move, move!"

Suddenly, the sleepy-heads came bursting out of the classroom in a panic, running to the surf. The handful of us who stayed awake caught up to our frightened classmates, who were wet and covered with a layer of sand like sugar cookies.

The Ecuadoran Special Operations guy, Martinez, said, "Instructor say we go Hell Week again!"

"It's not true," I said.

Our leading enlisted guy laughed. "You guys weren't asleep more than five minutes."

The sleepy-heads looked like they wanted to believe us, but they didn't know what to believe. I don't know who was smarter: us for following orders or them for getting an extra five minutes of sleep. Either way, there was no time to dwell on it. We still had more to do...