Murph: The Protector Page #4

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Newark Airport, you know, closed down.

Dan and I had to take a car.

So Maureen, John and I,

we drive there

and they held us up

because they were...

the graduating class

was marching down the road.

There was about 400 of them

in, you know, uniform.

And Danny looks over at me.

And we're seeing them

coming at us.

And Dan goes,

"You're never gonna see him in this.

Everybody's all dressed alike.

It's like a sea of blue."

I go and I turn to Maureen

and I say,

"Maureen," I said, "there is no way

we're gonna be...

I mean, how are we supposed

to find Michael?"

And as I turned, I said,

"There he is right there."

And I spotted him.

And Maureen goes, she said,

"There he is."

And Danny goes,

"How did you do that?"

I said,

"I know that walk anywhere."

And I said,

"How can you tell?"

And she said,

"I'd know that walk anywhere.

It looks...

he walks just like you."

Actually, when I heard him

barking all these orders out,

I was like, "That's Mike?"

He sounded like...

this really deep voice and everything.

I couldn't believe it was him.

He was very authoritative.

But she spotted him right away,

which was amazing.

They get a certain amount

of coins.

And they give it to the first person

that salutes them.

And you're supposed to give it to

the people that influenced you the most.

And he gave one to his dad,

one to me and his brother.

I have that coin.

I will never let that go.

And I thought that...

it was a beautiful thing.

Crawl.

Crawl.

Crawl. Crawl.

- Hold up boat.

- Up boat.

- Down boat.

- Down boat.

- Up boat.

- Up boat.

- Down boat.

- Down boat.

- Hold up boat.

- Up boat.

- Down boat.

- Down...

When he goes to BUD/S,

I was concerned

because I knew how demanding

the program was.

I also knew how people fail.

You know, you read about

less than 15%, 20% graduate.

And I know Michael had a class

of about 200.

And he was relaying to me

how one of the first initiations was,

"Look to the guy to the left

of you

and look to the guy

to the right of you.

They won't make it

through the program."

That's how difficult it is.

Oftentimes the best athlete

in the class doesn't make it.

I know in my class,

the best athlete in our class quit.

It's very difficult

to look at somebody and say

that he is a SEAL

or he's going to be a SEAL.

I mean, today

they're 6'6", 260 pounds,

down to 5' 5", 130 pounds.

Because it's all in your heart

and it's all in your head.

It's really not about

your physical abilities.

They'll give you

the physical abilities.

One thing about training

in the SEALs

is they'll ensure that you have

the physical abilities.

What they can't give people,

and sometimes have difficulty

recognizing it and defining it

prior to the beginning,

is the mental and the heart.

Meanwhile,

the division's 3rd Brigade

had begun arriving from Hawaii

by airlift.

Their destination was Pleiku

in the central highlands

of Vietnam.

This was to be the 25th

Infantry Division's forward base.

When I was injured in Vietnam,

I was in a hospital.

And I had... an RPG landed

at my left ankle.

And I was wrapped around a rock.

And so I was peppered

from the waist down.

So I survived.

I wouldn't have survived

if I hadn't.

But because I was wrapped

around a large rock

and I was shooting uphill,

it landed at my left ankle,

fractured my left ankle

and peppered me from the waist down.

Because we were in the middle

of a major fight,

I was laying on that mountain

for about seven hours

till I finally got dusted off.

As I was being dusted off,

I got shot in a leg by a sniper.

And I looked and I said,

"I just got shot."

And I said, "What a day."

What happened in the hospital... I was

in the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon

and the general came in

and was pinning this Purple Heart on me.

And he took a picture.

I wasn't aware of it at the time,

that they take that picture

and they send it to my parents.

It was St. Patrick's Day.

Michael liked St. Patrick's Day.

And I was in Manhattan.

And I was watching the parade.

And I went to give him a call.

And the phone...

there was no answer.

So I called later on during the day

and later on,

and I said, "Something's up,"

because he would have called me back.

So he doesn't call.

Maureen realizes that there's

something wrong right away.

So she calls me and she says,

"Dan, you know, I didn't hear

from Michael on St. Patrick's Day.

I think there's some...

there's a problem."

I wanted to wish him

a happy St. Patrick's Day.

So I didn't hear from him.

And about 10 days later,

I get a phone call

and I pick up and it's Mike.

And the first thing I say is,

"What happened to you?

You were in the hospital."

As usual, Michael is so focused

and determined,

he ignores the initial signs

of there being a problem,

because he's so focused on

completing BUD/S and getting through

that it gets worse

until eventually he can't walk

and they have to cut him

out of his boots and his clothing.

Michael's thought wasn't about

worrying about losing a leg.

It was, "Oh, I'm gonna be rolled

to the next BUD/S class."

Yeah, Murphy during training...

it happens quite frequently...

ended up getting a pretty severe

case of cellulitis,

which, you know, I've had it.

I've had it before.

And it's extraordinarily painful.

It's a pretty serious bacteria...

staph infection.

Apparently he got...

I think it's called cellulitis.

And he almost lost his legs

because of it.

And Michael got it

so severe in his legs

that he ended up having to

roll back in training.

He goes, "Mama, I was rolled."

And "rolled" means that

he couldn't go back

to his original SEAL class.

When you get rolled out

of your BUD/S class,

you... a lot of guys

just lose heart.

We have a saying

in the teams, you know,

"Everyone wants to be a frogman

on a sunny day."

But, you know, most of your days

are gonna be cold, wet and sandy,

especially in BUD/S.

And sometimes one more injury

on top of that

like cellulitis,

and you get rolled back,

it can be that one thing

that pushes you over the edge to say,

"You know what?

I don't want it that much."

He never spoke about

how difficult it was

or the different things

he had to endure

to get through what he did.

He calls me up, I guess, about

the week before he starts Hell Week,

and he says to me,

"Dad," he said,

"do you remember that picture

that Grandma had of you,

you know, from Vietnam

when you were in the hospital bed?"

And I said, "Yes."

And he said, "Could you do me a favor?"

He said, "Do you have any extras?"

And I said, "Yeah."

And he said,

"Could you send me one?"

And I said to him, I said,

"Michael,

why do you want that picture?"

And he says to me,

he says, "Dad..."

He said, "If you could get

through that,"

he said, "then I can

get through Hell Week."

And I just thought to myself...

if a son could give a father

a compliment,

You... you prob...

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