“You got to be stupid enough not to quit,”
- MSgt. Greg “Waldo” Waldheim, Combat Controller of the United States Air Force.
From the beginning I felt… for lack of a better word, off.
I was nervous. Not anxious as I was during the first PAST, but nervous. I still don’t know why. Looking back I think I just mentally defeated myself. I built the test up into this big thing. I made it a big deal. When in reality I had done it all before many times. I knew I could pass, but something was wrong. My confidence wasn’t there.
I had to fly up to Pittsburgh and take my final PAST since by this time I had relocated back to Florida. I flew out on the 15th of November relatively early in the morning. I had a layover in Atlanta for a couple of hours before continuing on to Pittsburgh. My mom was there waiting for me, as she wanted to be there with me when I tested and we were going to make it a point to visit family in the area after my test. My recruiter would later make the claim that my Mom was bad luck.
I arrived in Pitt late in the afternoon and immediately realized I didn’t miss it. The weather was cloudy with plenty of rain. Cold too. So we drove the hour to our hotel and checked in for the night. My test wasn’t until the 17th so the following day we had time to kill and did so. We went out to eat, went to the movies and killed time. The whole time my thoughts would drift to the upcoming PAST, my head was “in the game,” but I couldn’t shake that feeling of unease.
Before I knew it I was laying on my bed in the hotel room cloaked in the darkness more tightly than the sheet that clung to me, counting sheep or trying to at least. I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned all night and eventually did find solace in examining the back of my eyelids. But like any athlete before the “big game” I was restless. I continued to wake up every hour, mostly due to my hydration. I would wake from a nightmare then make my way to the bathroom to dehydrate only to find myself back in my bed struggling to find sleep. This repeated itself what felt like every hour.
I woke up one final time 10 minutes before my alarm (I hate it when that happens). My mother and I promptly got dressed and packed our bags as we wouldn’t be returning to Pittsburgh following my test. Two slices of peanut butter toast and three hardboiled eggs later we were at my recruiter’s office with two other PJ wannabes who would be taking the test with me as practice. Both of them would fail. One was a prior service marine, the other a kid in his final year of high school.
Eventually we caravanned it to Wheeling, West Virginia, where the actual test would be conducted at. This was the same location where I had taken the first PAST, so it was familiar to me. Unfortunately, after returning home to Florida I had become acclimated to the 80-degree weather and wasn’t used to the mid 40’s that Wheeling was experiencing at the time. I did plan ahead though as I brought my cold-weather underarmor as well as some adidas shorts and old knee high soccer socks I used to keep my legs warm.
This time around we were running late to the test, due to the fact that my recruiter was late in getting to his office. Fortunately for me the test administrator was late as well. When he did show up though he wasn’t quite what I expected. It wasn’t the PJ from last time but a pretty solidly built man who stood at about 6’0” with a grizzled appearance and deep raspy voice. He introduced himself as a Master Sergeant Greg Waldheim, Combat Controller, but told us we could refer to him as MSgt. Waldo.
By the time MSgt. Waldo arrived the entire lot of testers and myself (14 of us total) had already changed and were standing by on the pool deck. Before we knew it he had changed and was standing before us briefing us on the order and expectations of the PAST. The man was quite the hairy dude with tattoos covering portions of his chest and arms he must’ve been in his early 40’s but still looked super fit and still rocked a six- pack. The man was a beast!
“I know what you’re thinking,” said MSgt. Waldo, “You are thinking, ‘Shit! If this guy can make it than I’m going to have no problem.’ If you are not thinking that, then start! I’m not special. I was just too stupid to quit.”
As he briefed us on the PAST test he explained a bit about the different strokes and encouraging us to put out during the duration of the test. He even demonstrated the strokes we are allowed to use for the underwater swim and regular swim portions of the test. The PJ administrator for the first test never took off his BDU’s, he never explained or demonstrated strokes, as I said in a previous post he was pretty much stone faced the whole time.
“So this is the freestyle stroke,” MSgt. Waldo explained, “Now my freestyle sucks. I don’t know how to freestyle, my sidestroke is better and faster than my freestyle. I guess I’m just retarded like that.”
The demonstration continued, it was cool seeing a different approach to the test and someone actually get in the water and try to impart knowledge to us even if it was right before the test. Seeing the proper form of the sidestroke in no way means I will be able to execute it properly immediately after. But I made a mental note to practice it in the future and observed silently.
Soon enough we were told to enter the water and were divided up into 1’s, 2’s, or 3’s. On the command “1’s Go!” Every single 1 would take a breath and dive under the water swimming the full length of 25 yards in one breath without breaking the surface. I was a 3.
“2’s Go!” Waldo shouted.
“Okay, deep breath Kyle. Just look down at the big black line until you run into the wall.” I said to myself. 25 yard underwater swims are easy but when dealing with evolutions that involve holding your breath you have to remember to calm yourself and think about other things, otherwise even a short underwater can and will put you in distress.
“3’s Go!”
Immediately I swallowed a huge breath of air and dove for the bottom of the pool as I simultaneously kicked off the wall for a good push.
The stroke for an underwater is kind of tricky. In theory it is simple but timing is important, but the mechanics and form even more so. Often times most testers I’ve seen will do a modified breaststroke repeatedly as fast as they can. However, speed isn’t the key when it comes to this evolution. Efficiency is.
You must execute what is called a keystroke. As you push off the wall make sure your body is straight and your hands out in front of you. You must glide as far as possible and just as you are about to slow down you stroke with your hands bringing them out and down like the head of a key and then thrust them down by your legs to really get a good thrust. PJ “Bobby” even gave me the tip to try and slap your legs. You should shoot through the water quite nicely, be sure to glide it out and not to move or kick too soon as you will only slow yourself down. As you start to slow then you frog kick as you bring your hands up to recover. Again make sure to glide.
It’s all about moving as little as possible. The more you move the more oxygen your body uses and needs. By minimizing the amount of movement required and making each stroke as efficient as possible you severely decrease the difficulty of the underwater evolution.
I popped up as I touched the other wall signaling to SMSgt. Waldo giving him an “OK” signal and telling him that “I feel fine, Sergeant.” A big fear with underwater evolutions is what is known as shallow water blackouts and by making us speak he can ensure we are not suffering from it.
We swam back to the other side of the pool just doing a freestyle stroke slowly to recover and breath before we attempted a second underwater. The PAST dictates that two underwater swims must be completed if you fail one you fail the entire test. A few minutes later we were back at the shallow end and exiting the pool preparing for our 500-meter swim.
As I exited the pool SMSgt. Waldo came over to me and yelled at everyone telling them that if anyone lived near me to get with me and train because I had the underwater stroke down perfectly. It was an unexpected compliment. I appreciated it.
‘Thanks “Bobby,” those few workouts we did were priceless.”
Like clockwork, 10 minutes later we began our swim. You’ve read my previous posts so I’m not going to get too detailed. There isn’t too much to describe about 14 guys swimming 22 lengths of a pool. I started out too fast though. I blew up. I had to ease up by the sixth length. I nailed my flip turns for these first lengths but quickly switched to just doing touch-and-go’s, I don’t know why. I ended up losing count of my laps and just as I felt like I was about to cramp I switched to a sidestroke halfway through a lap. Little did I know that it was my last lap. It was pretty frustrating.
I would’ve asked what lap I was on but MSgt. Waldo made it clear. “If you ask me how many laps you have left, I’m going to tell you 10! So don’t ask. Keep freaking swimming until we tell you to stop.”
My swim time 8:40. I was pleasantly surprised, ecstatic really. I dropped a full minute off of my swim. It hurt, but boy did I feel good afterwards. I showered, changed and met up with everyone outside. It was fairly cold so I made sure to do a couple of laps before hand. This time around every guy who was taking his last test to ship out was told to stack up on the inside lane, so I didn’t have to worry about getting in front as quickly, but hell old habits die hard. On the command of go I bolted and got in front. I nearly stayed there the entire time again but I was passed which MSgt. Waldo noticed.
“RIP HIS SOUL OUT AS YOU PASS HIM!!! LAUGH IN HIS FACE AS YOU STOMP ON HIS SOUL!!!” he yelled.
The kid who passed me was too out of breath to do so which was fine by me because I probably would’ve laughed too. I still laugh at it now when I look back on it. I ran a 9:06. Decent considering it was cold as S!@#. Not my best but it works. As you know by now calisthenics are what follows: pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups in that order. I was on track to pass, or so I thought.
MSgt. Waldo had the three guys who were on deck to ship out go first. That included me. I was the second of the three of us. Sure enough, I’m told to mount the bar and prepare to do pull-ups, I do so. My repetitions: 13. How many actually counted: 9. My form was wrong apparently. Waldo even silently mouthed the number as he held up the same amount of fingers. I guess he thought I wasn’t paying attention. My heart sank. I needed 10. I failed. That easily I failed, the rest of the test didn’t matter at that point. I could’ve done 123,456,789 pushups it wouldn’t have mattered. I crushed my run and swim in vain.
I still did the rest of the test. But even then I failed to achieve the right number of sit-ups, my form was wrong and because of it my abdominals stayed contracted the whole time and I wasn’t utilizing the full range of motion I could’ve and because of that I came up short. At that point I had given up I guess, I mentally defeated myself and forgot to focus on the task at hand. A mistake I can’t afford to make in the future, a mistake that will never happen again.
For my push-ups I think I got something like 57. Passing… YAY! I still failed.
I can’t describe the feeling. Most everyone is familiar with it in one way, shape or form. It’s just to what degree they’ve experienced it. The feeling in my gut was painful, I really wanted this but I failed. Waldo didn’t I fail me. I failed me.
Despite it all I kept my chin up and shook his hand and picked his brain for the rest of the afternoon as we all stood around saying goodbyes before parting ways. I still remember every word he said to me.
“Don’t worry about it man. You put out. You did well. You are right there and almost got it. You will kill the test next time.”
***As I sit here writing this, those words still echo in my head. He was right. I would go on to retest a few weeks later and pass. There will be more detail on that and great quotes from MSgt. Greg “Waldo” Waldheim in my next post.
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