| Fifties Frogs Magazine |
Vol 10 |
| Pg 3 |
UDT-SEAL Stories of the 1960's Richard G. "Nick" Nickelson (click on thumbnail photo to enlarge) |
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Hey Frogs…Nick Nicholson has brought out a new second edition of Frogs and SEALs in the 1960’s. He as kind enough to allow me to give you an excerpt from the book. Read it. As you know, and if you don’t know too, Nick is chairman of the Kenny Nickelson Memorial Foundation for Homeless Veterans, and Children, Inc. The proceeds from go to a great cause, his foundation. His book is $24.95 and its worth every penny of it. Go to www.HeritageBooks.com. If you would like to help Ken with wonderful work, send a check to KNMF. PO Box 3098, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266. His book is a great read with humor. Hooyah, Ken. There Was Something Cooking in the Cauldron in the Sixties! When team members have completed a swim, training exercise, or even surfing off of the Strand, each would remove his wet suit, at the gate, and rinse it in a large oversized cauldron filled with fresh water. At one time this cauldron had been used in the base mess hall for cooking soup, boiling potatoes, or any number of cooking chores related to feeding large numbers of military personnel. The point I want to emphasize here is that the cauldron was very large, large enough to easily hold a man. The cauldron also served another purpose, one related to this story. On his last day, or the day a man was scheduled to leave the teams, this cauldron would be filled with water and ice. I don’t mean a bag or two of but rather blocks and bags of ice. This would assure that the water was not just cold, but freezing while providing a nice ice surface. Then, the man that was scheduled to leave the teams would be taken by force, to the cauldron and dumped into that freezing water. I am sure you can understand shy I say he was taken by force, for who would willingly submit to a dunking in freezing water? [ top ] |
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This is only the beginning however, at this point he
would be given a bottle of beer that he must consume while underwater.
Not just a part of that bottle, but the entire contents must be consumed
underwater or the man is not allowed to leave the cauldron. Also, if he
lets any part of the beer escape into the water, then he is given
another beer and this continues until he drinks a beer, while submerged. Now, for those of you who have never tried this, but think it doesn’t sound that difficult, I
challenge you to accomplish this feat in your backyard swimming pool,
without the ice. Make sure a friend you can count on is there to pull
you out if something goes wrong. I am really challenging you to try
this; I am simple trying to make a point that while it is difficult to
accomplish, this is in warm water, it is extremely difficult, if not
impossible, to accomplish this in freezing water. For those of you who think that this is a strange way
to show that you care for someone, I can assure you that it isn’t
strange at all. At least not for the men who comprise the ranks of the
teams, it isn’t. The way of the teams is hard and to say goodbye in any other way
would not seem fitting, or at least fitting in the teams vernacular.
And, besides, I did say that you were taken by force to the cauldron so that means
you didn’t necessarily have to be immersed in the freezing water. If you
applied all that you had learned in the teams, you just might be able to
fight your way out of this predicament. In fact, I can recall the time a
teammate, Gary Lanphier, spared being immersed in the cauldron. As I look back on my life in the teams, I know that I
wouldn’t trade those times, any of those times for gold. And though many
of the things seem surreal, they truly happened then as they surely
happening now . Those were the best of times!
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