Why We Should Suffer In Silence
A lesson from the Frogmen of D-Day
Hell Week was invented for a reason.
We had slept three hours in the past five days. My belt was encrusted with sand and ground its way through my skin until my waist was a bloody pulp. The rubber raft we carried on our heads wore away a bald spot on my skull. My boots were wet for so long that the skin on the bottom of my toes was falling off. We were cold, wet, chaffed, hungry, smeared in our own urine and feces, and falling into bouts of micro-sleep while our bodies still performed the physical movements of running and swimming.
At last, we found ourselves standing still, jack-hammering from cold water exposure with our boats still on our heads. Moans and panting exhales filled the air. An instructor wearing a blue and gold shirt and camouflage pants stood before us. He calmly lifted his bullhorn and said, “You have one choice.” He paused, savoring our groans as they rose and fell in suspense. “You can either suffer in silence, or you can quit. Staying and complaining is not an option.”
Suddenly, the only sounds were the waves on the beach.
Suddenly, complaining no longer felt necessary.
What, then, is the point of this brutal philosophy, delivered with such a heavy hammer? To plant that choice so deeply in the mammalian brain that it would never be forgotten.
The Naval Combat Demolition Units, precursors to modern Navy SEALs, invented Hell Week to prepare for the largest amphibious invasion in human history.
On D-Day, June 4 1944, 190 Frogmen emerged from the surf on Omaha Beach. Each carried 40# of explosives and their helmets were wrapped with half a dozen fuse assemblies water-proofed in condoms. Many did not even carry a rifle. Split into six-man crews, the Frogmen also dragged rubber boats filled with hundreds of pounds of explosives through fifty-four degree water. Their mission was clear: open fifty-foot wide corridors for ships to offload the men and equipment for the assault on the European mainland.1
The Frogmen had to destroy four lines of defense, one obstacle at a time, beneath a fifteen-story escarpment rising above the beach that bristled with steel barrels, trenches, pillboxes, and Nazis who were probably blitzed out of their minds on crystal meth.
There were Belgian Gates, metal obstacles standing seven feet tall and ten feet wide. There were wooden stakes, “each twice as wide as a man and almost twice as tall.” There were metal beams joined together that would “act as a ramp that could flip a landing craft.” And there were “knuckle-bone” blocks of metal and cement, meant not for ships, but for tanks. As a bonus, the obstacles were thoughtfully topped with Teller mines.
What then? Each Frogman faced three choices: “I can quit and die, complain and drag down those around me, or suffer in silence and destroy these obstacles. I neither want to die nor be a hindrance, so I will choose the path of silence.”
The tide turned traitor and took the side of the Nazis. “At its lowest point, the tide revealed a no-man’s-land where not even a seagull could hide.” When obstacles were ready to blow, however, the Frogmen realized that the infantry were using the obstacles draped with both Nazi and American explosives to hide from enemy fire.
Each Merman faced the same three choices: “I can quit and die, complain and say to my buddy, ‘Brother, this is terrible, it is too cold and dangerous – let these fools get blown to bits,’ or I can dominate this beach, run out into the fire, and kick those frozen soldiers in their asses before the charges detonate. I neither want to die nor be a hindrance, so I will choose the path of silence.”
Of the 190 Frogmen, 32 were killed and 65 were wounded. A bar had been set.
So much for war.
And now we arrive at our paradox: our Frogmen could calmly plant two-hundred pounds of explosives on a slab of steel while being shot at and blown up by crackhead Nazis, while we do not need to go far to hear muttered curses when the WiFi is too slow, or frenzied screams in standstill traffic, or apocalyptic and never-ending rants about the sub-humans who had the nerve to vote for their candidate of choice.
But what does complaining accomplish? Does it blow steel and cement blocks out of the path of the tanks? No. Does it drag a bleeding soldier to a bit of cover? No. Does it harden the mind for a grenade fight on the cliffs? No. Does it fix the WiFi, or part the sea of vehicles, or change anyone’s politics? No.
This raises some crucial questions: If a complaint about an obstacle instead of turning the obstacle to our advantage makes it more likely that we will be miserable or die, why put words to it? If a complaint is neither a bullet nor a rocket nor a cold death by drowning at the bottom of the Atlantic, why give our attention to it? If a complaint poisons not only our own mind but the minds of the poor bastards unlucky enough to find themselves near us, why speak it? And if a complaint is merely an electrical pulse in a sponge sitting within a bit of bone, why, then, obey it?
I believe the answer is that our lives have been all but stripped of merciless repercussions for complaining, and in this void can be found a breath-taking level of navel gazing and ingratitude. The complainer wants to enjoy the fruits of life while criticizing them; to hold a ripe fig and curse it for not being sweet enough, or velvety enough, or large enough.
I think we can now offer a new definition of complaining. Complaining is the condition of neither wanting to live while suffering in silence nor to die and be free from the burden of suffering.
What then? Is life not Omaha Beach? Is life not war? Let us re-popularize an ancient axiom before complaining gets anymore out of hand: suffer in silence or quit. If the Wi-Fi is too slow, why complain when the annoyance can be endured in silence or ended forever? If the traffic is not moving, why complain when the burden of anger can be borne in silence or thrown off entirely? Yes, and if everyone is really too wretched, and if they are not worth suffering in silence for, then why complain about them when they never need to be put up with again?
The significant point is that every problem in life has an existential rip cord attached to it.
Suddenly, when that rip cord is in our grip, complaining no longer feels necessary.
Suddenly, the waves on the beach sound a bit more beautiful.
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Milligan, Benjamin H. By Water Beneath the Walls: The Rise of the Navy SEALs First edition., Bantam Books, 2021.
After letting Thanksgiving traffic unlevel me, this is the stark reminder I needed. Thanks, Sam — great stuff as always.
The gap between how we train our war fighters and how we raise our young men and women may have grown a bit too wide for our own good.