Right Behind You

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do

"And listen girls when you give your heart away

You can easily be hurt
And the least little wrong he does
Always seems like dirt
So take this advice I give you just like a mother
You try to match your man just for two

Don't try to do the things the guys do
Cause girls you can't do what the guys do, no
And still be a lady
Girls you can't do what the guys do, no
And still be a lady, no."

-Betty Wright (Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do)

Kae:

Once phase one ended we were directly thrown into phase two of intensive training: combat diving. For the next few weeks we were going to be focusing on dive physics, underwater skills, and combat scuba. We were also learning basic dive medicine and medical skills although I did have the advantage in that area due to my background. We were moved from our usual facility temporarily to another unknown location with water where we could successfully train and perform the necessary skills.

At the end of this torture phase, we must be able to complete timed 2-mile swim with fins in 80 minutes or less, the four-mile run with boots in 31 minutes or less, and a 3.5-mile and 5.5-mile swim. We were also assigned dive buddies and I managed to get lucky and paired with 98. At least it was someone I was remotely familiar and could get along with. Upon getting her number called with mine, she walked over to me and nodded. "Dive buddies, huh?" She said.

I nodded and gave her a soft smile, "I suppose so." I replied. I looked over at the large Olympic-sized pool we were at and over to the diving equipment we were going to be learning how to use pretty soon. "You ever did scuba before?" I asked her.

She waved her hands in a so-so motion. "Pretty short experience didn't learn enough to actually go into open water...got too scared." She admitted.

I arched my eyebrow, "I hope you know we're not allowed to be scared here." I said to her.

She scoffed, "As if I don't." We quickly quieted down once the diving instructor came back and made us all have a seat against the wall to begin teaching. This entire seven-week experience was going to be a true hardship for us and the director did say this was where the bulk chunk of us were either going to resign or be kicked out due to incompetency. Some might think that this was just simply a swimming class on steroids but there was definitely more to it, you had to know all the information given and remember it because there were also written tests and of course the practical itself that was timed. Deductions were made for every single mistake and were factored into your overall score. It was a lot of pressure and most surely going to be a physical training nightmare, if we managed to pass and get through this, we would be extreme swimmers for sure.

After the big lecture, we were giving the diving gear and shown how to put it together, how to check for mishaps, how to put it on, how to see if our partner had put things on correctly. We would be tested on this later so it was important that we remembered everything. The first day wasn't too bad, we got into the water did a ton of exercises that we did back at the desert for pre-scuba, so it was pretty normal. I just thanked God they were going easy on us today instead of being complete assholes, but it was to be expected with this underground militia I had initially signed up for.

The good part of all of this was that our evenings and weekends were free and if you were smart you used that time to sleep and eat as much as you can so you could have all the energy needed to perform and complete the tasks during the weekdays efficiently. I was going to take full advantage of all that sleeping, lord knows I need it. I don't even care where I slept at this point; I just wanted to lay my head and rest for a good solid eight hours.