Deep Sea Soldiers: Army's engineer dive school poses rare challenge for Soldiers

PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES

02.15.2019

Story by Joe Lacdan          

Defense Media Activity - Army Productions   

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. -- In the thick heat of a Missouri summer, the number of Army Engineer Dive School dropouts rises faster than the steamy temperature.

"Does anyone want to DOR (drop out on request)?" said Staff Sgt. Andrew Holdner, as Soldiers in soaked combat uniforms push through the pool's waters in the early hours of a muggy July morning.

Holdner, a diving cadre instructor, looks over at the Soldiers struggling in the pool. Two raise their hands. Four leave the class before noon.

By the time the physical training session finished in the late afternoon, another five followed.

One day into the first week of Engineer Diver Phase I course, a class of 12 has dwindled to two: the first, a Soldier who had already passed the course two years ago. He left the Army and worked his way back. The other: a Soldier who struggled swimming the endurance laps necessary to be a deep-sea diver but passed other aspects of the course, including the classroom lessons and physical training exercises.

The cuts come swiftly. Some quit out of their own accord. Others simply did not meet the rigid standards of the course. The Army designed it this way; to weed out the weak-minded, weak-willed and those unable to remain calm during extended hours underwater. In maritime conditions, Army divers must be prepared to act in seconds; they must react to sudden changes in currents, waves and the elements.

More than 90 percent of students won't advance past the school's first phase at Fort Leonard Wood. Among those who didn't make the first week: recruits who had years of competitive swimming experience and former high school athletes.

The instructors know oceans, rivers and lakes can be a brutally cold, unforgiving places.

They attempt to make the course as unforgiving. At Davidson Fitness Center's 25-meter pool, divers face two crucial initiation tests. Holdner said the majority of students don't make it past these two exercises.

The first, students must swim the width of the pool in a single breath -- underwater. Then the new recruits jump off a high dive board, surface, and swim to the far side of the pool and back and tread water for 40 minutes.

During the first half, students keep their heads out of water while using their hands and feet. During the second 20 minutes, they perform the "dead man's float" -- a survival technique where Soldiers bend at the waist facing the water with arms out while holding their breath, simulating a floating corpse. When they need to breathe, they collapse arms and legs at the same time to raise their head above the water before dipping their faces back in the water.

In the second test, Soldiers must swim 500 yards in 12 minutes and 30 seconds using breast stroke or side stroke, then do 50 pushups, 50 curl ups and six pullups. Finally, they must run a mile and a half in 12:30 or less.

As students attempt each exercise, they face the possibility of being dropped from the course and being reclassified into another career field.

"Every single time I've got to drop somebody," said Sgt. 1st Class Eric Bailey, the lead instructor. "I feel bad because I know that they got into something that they knew nothing about. Because we're a small field, very few people know that we exist."

Students spend up to three and a half hours per day in the water, but also spend time in the classroom, learning about diving physics and how to maintain their equipment.

Dive instructors put students through a series of rites of passage, and ultimately test whether students can remain calm in situations that often cause heightened panic. The first such test came on the third day of training.

TEST OF WILLS

A Soldier's exasperating screams echoed in the swimming complex as he struggled to retrieve his equipment at the bottom of the pool. Instructors removed the diver's mask, fins and air regulator and tossed them into the deep end of the pool. When the course began earlier that week, he lagged behind classmates during endurance laps.

Now at 1:30 p.m., the weather conditions in central Missouri hovered at around 95 degrees.

Inside the swimming complex the heat and humidity make the poolside area feel like a pressure cooker, not making the training any easier. During the test, instructors rip off pieces of the students' scuba gear. Soldiers must descend 14 feet and retrieve the gear in a single breath.

Holdner and Bailey bobbed at the surface, shouting instructions. They slapped water into the faces of the two remaining students in an attempt to simulate the unpredictable sway of an ocean current.

Here both instructors attempted to escalate the stress level to a fever pitch. Their screams, combined with the splashing water, simulate what instructors call a "rough sea state." On missions, a diver's rig might fail and they would no longer be able to breathe. Or divers may get bumped by an obstruction, falling debris, marine life or land they didn't see. The current can also knock their air regulator off their suit.

When faced with the possibility of drowning, the diving instructors said water fills a swimmer's nostrils, invoking feelings of nausea and sometimes vomiting. It can cause extreme panic, breaking down even the best of athletes and the most confident swimmers.

"We say water is the great equalizer," Bailey said. "We have plenty of people that come here that are great physical specimens … They can do everything on land … But then, you put them in the water and guess what? They fall apart. They become two different people."

Water can create extreme panic causing Soldiers to lose their bearing, forcibly shoving fellow swimmers out of the way in order to reach for the shore. The violence of the water currents can push some Soldiers to the edge.

"If you're not comfortable," Bailey said. "Water will bring out the worst in people."

Bailey, a Soldier with a neatly-combed crew cut and a stocky, fit build, teaches the class with a cool demeanor. He barks instruction with stern authority, but minutes later will crack a joke to put the students at ease.

An experienced veteran diver of 13 years, he tested his mettle at sea on a diverse array of maritime missions across the globe. He faced one of his most difficult challenges during a deployment to Iraq along a river. A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device had damaged a bridge and infantry units needed engineer divers to perform reconnaissance underwater.

At the river's center in the shadow of the bridge, Bailey, then a young Soldier, entered the water. He and another diver descended nearly 40 feet into the river's depths. Almost immediately after he entered the river's pitch black waters, disaster struck.

"As soon as I hit that water, I lost my grip," Bailey said. "The current took me and immediately just threw me back."

As he felt the pull to the bottom, the river broke his helmet's seal. Cold water rushed into his head gear. His suit remained attached to an umbilical air supply cord, restricting his movement. He waited for a teammate to pull him back to shore while calming his nerves in the face of extreme conditions.

"I couldn't swim to the shore," he said. "I wasn't moving. The only way I was getting out of there is if I was getting pulled out. And now my helmet was flooded. So what would have happened if I had panicked or I was not able to remain calm?"

Soldiers must face the fear of drowning and their own mortality on each mission. And each time, Divers must tame their emotions or lives will be at stake. In the worst conditions, Soldiers will operate with limited visibility while carrying up to 80 pounds of underwater gear.

"I've been in situations where I'm using my hands as my eyes," Holdner said. "One little mistake can be an injury for you. It's not an environment that's going to go easy on you."

Holdner, a youthful-looking staff sergeant with slicked back dark hair who sports a cascade of tattoos on his right arm, graduated from the course in 2010. He entered with a larger class -- 96. Only six made the cut and advanced to Phase II. Holdner said the mental hurdles the course poses can be the most difficult to overcome.

Even the second-time student looked visibly rattled as the two jockeyed for position before descending below. Athletically built with a wide upper body, the student easily passed the physical fitness tests and he seemed likely to survive to the next phase in Panama City, Florida.

Then the unexpected happened.

Inexplicably, he swam to the poolside and signaled to the instructors he wanted to drop out. He decided he had enough.

One student remained.

The private's panicked expression reflected his extreme duress. Of the 12 students who attempted the course, he was the only remaining Soldier. The shortest student in the class, this Soldier struggled to finish the swimming endurance drills earlier in the week. But he persevered to make it to the third day.

But his chances have dimmed.

As the private spent more time bobbing his head above the surface, he lost valuable time that could have been spent underwater searching for equipment.

An instructor then blew his whistle. The Soldier didn't make the cut.

Slowly, the Soldier swam toward the pool's edge. Still breathing heavily, he gingerly exited the pool and walked toward his gear. He must now wait for the Army to reclassify him into a new career field.

About 12 to 20 students begin each class. Only 1 to 3 normally graduate. Sometimes, as with the July 2018 students, none make it.

Although instructors must cut the majority of the students, they don't take each decision lightly. Often before they pull recruits from the course, they have counseling sessions. They sit down with each student and explain why they cannot advance to the next phase.

Often, emotions spill.

"They're in tears," Bailey said. "This is something that they've wanted to do for a long time or this is something that they've told their family about and everyone is rooting for them and they don't want to disappoint their family."

Bailey said recruiters and drill sergeants often don't have accurate accounts of engineer diver training. Soldiers then arrive at Fort Leonard Wood with misconceptions about the realities of training.

PROMISING PAIR

Two Phase I diving school graduates joined the class of students who trained here in the July heat. Instead of sporting the black Army shirts with gold letters, they donned white shirts and brown swimming trunks to distinguish themselves from the current class. They continued to train with incoming classes to keep their skills fresh as they waited for Phase II in Panama City.

Pvts. 1st Class Stephen Olinger and Nolan Hurrish are only months into their Army careers.

Olinger, a bright-eyed recruit who was raised partially overseas, carries a swagger and self-confidence as he approaches each exercise. He graduated in March. Hurrish, a soft-spoken but diligent recruit from Wisconsin, has quietly passed each test. They don't know if they will survive the next six months at Panama City. But they remain optimistic that in less than 16 weeks they will join the fewer than 150 Army divers worldwide.

"I have an attitude like 'this is it," Olinger said. "This is what I came here to do. If I fail out, I fail out. But I'm going to give it everything."

The world's five oceans, where many of the 12 dozen or so Army divers throughout the world must perform, can be ruthless.

The sea is an unpredictable, faceless adversary unlike any other Soldiers face in the battlefield, and no less deadly.

Students will get their first taste of that adversary off the shores of the Florida Panhandle in Phase II of the diving school.

(Editor's note: This is part one of a two-part series on the Army's engineer diver training. For part two, visit www.army.mil/article/217523 or see link in the related links below.)

PART TWO

PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- One morning Pfc. Stephen Olinger stepped out into Alligator Bayou on the Panama City coast during an Army Engineer Diver Course Phase II exercise. As he sank farther into the murky waters, he saw a shadow pass above him.

He froze for a moment, petrified by the image. But then instinct kicked in and he resumed the exercise, knowing his crew would watch out for him from the surface.

Months later, Olinger still does not know what type of creature made that silhouette -- a stingray, or perhaps an alligator?

"I just clenched down on my mouthpiece," Olinger said. "And hoped it wasn't anything coming my way."

That type of trust does not happen easily. Students build it from weeks in the classroom and strenuous early morning workouts at the U.S. Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City.

"That buddy could be the difference between life and death," Olinger said. "So I trust everyone in my class to perform their best."

Although in the deepest depths, Army engineer divers often must operate alone in the darkness with little to no guidance from the crew on the surface.

The world's five oceans, where many of the roughly 150 Army divers throughout the world perform, can be ruthless. The sea is an unpredictable, faceless adversary unlike any other Soldiers face on the battlefield. But no less deadly.

Its grip at the ocean's bottom can swallow divers like a black hole. Its currents can pull Soldiers sideways and in one mighty swoop, divers cannot tell down from up. Floating sediment and mud can limit divers' vision, further fogging their already limited sight lines.

"It's Mother Nature, you know. She's brutal," said Navy diving instructor Petty Officer 1st Class Nathan Emmett. "Everything in the water swims better than you and breathes better. We're just there. It's Mother Nature and we are 100 percent at her mercy."

As the underwater visibility dims, divers have no frame of reference to gauge distance, and no method to measure how fast they descend. A shadow or rays of sunlight occasionally penetrate the depths.

Divers often only have their hands and the bubbles from their breathing tube to guide them.

"It's almost like working on another planet," Olinger said. "You have to learn how to operate on that planet first before you learn to do anything else."

When a diver descends into an ocean or river, the greatest enemy may come from within. Divers face whipping waves and currents. Unknown marine life such as alligators or sharks could be lurking nearby.

The urge to panic can become so overpowering -- so encompassing, that it can break the minds of even the strongest athletes. Rushing water can affect the human psyche so severely, that it has been used during interrogations by Chinese and U.S. forces.

A Soldier must not only overcome their fears; they must harness and tame them. Few possess the rare ability to keep calm with water rushing into their nasal cavities.

Divers withstand not only the physical demands of continuous swimming, but they have to develop the level-headedness to think clearly under relentless pressure of tidal waves.

Can they hold their own lives and their fellow divers in their hands?

"If you're not comfortable," Olinger said. "That sort of panic will rise up … and take control of you."

Like the Phase I instructors at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, the Panama City cadre watch for "bolters" or students who could potentially flee under duress. If they ascend to the surface too quickly, their joints will feel the effects of gases that still remain in their bodies.

Once, a panicked student swam frantically to the surface during an exercise and took four instructors connected to the same oxygen tank up with him.

In the first month of training at Panama City, master diver instructors will compile a list of students who are most at risk to bolt for the surface.

"You can't teach presence of mind and not panicking," said Sgt. 1st Class Tom Kneipp, a master diver and former cadre instructor. "You either have it or you don't."

Soldiers could also suffer from a condition called nitrogen narcosis. Inert gases build in the body when Soldiers operate at 130 feet below the surface in scuba gear or as deep as 190 feet in surface-supplied diving. The anesthetics of these gases at high pressure can cause what divers call the "martini effect."

"The deeper you go past 100 feet," Kneipp said. "The more of a 'tipsy' feeling you get."

Soldiers must rise ascend slowly, or they can potentially suffer an embolism or serious decompression sickness.

Since Army divers began performing missions as part of special operations units in World War II, the instructors claim not a single diver has died in a mission-related accident, instructors said. There have been some close calls. Divers have suffered embolisms, or a blockage in their blood vessels.

Divers often must perform salvage off a sunken vessel. The skeleton vessels on an ocean's sandy bottom, can be a potential death trap. Sharp edges from the wreckage can puncture a diver's umbilical cord and breathing source.

"There really is just an endless list of things that could go wrong," said Staff Sgt. David Craig, a diving instructor. "The sheer weight of the water -- the depths of the water, drowning all of these things (are) a factor and could potentially harm the diver."

Olinger and Pfc. Nolan Hurrish do not plan on being the first fatalities. They, along with a handful of other Soldiers, and Navy and Coast Guard students, have overcome enough to make it to Phase III, the last step in becoming a certified military diver.

THE CANDIDATES

Hurrish had made a decent living for himself in central Wisconsin. He worked a laborer at a power pump factory next to a paper mill in his hometown of Stevens Point, a small community settled on the banks of the Wisconsin River.

At night, he fished along the river with friends, or travelled to one of the Badger State's many lakes. He would sit for hours on fishing boats in the evening twilight.

"I liked being around the water," Hurrish said.

He also enjoyed the outdoors and playing sports. A quarterback for Stevens Point High's football team, he had grown up working out with teammates in the summer sun. He began CrossFit training as a teenager and knew the discipline it took to develop a strict workout routine.

Hurrish, though, could not shake the feeling something was missing. He needed a change, so he talked to his local recruiter to find a career that could test him.

"I wanted a challenge coming into the Army," he said. "And I kind of wanted to set myself apart from the average (Soldier)."

He found that challenge and perhaps more when he arrived for Phase I of the Army Engineer Dive School at Fort Leonard Wood in the middle of a scorching summer in Missouri.

With spiked brown hair, his face flushes red in the summer heat. But he carries a calm confidence about him. Hurrish entered Phase I with some fortunate advantages. At 6 feet and 160 pounds, his experience as an athlete helped him get in shape for the strenuous hours underwater.

He arrived at Leonard Wood a month early, sitting poolside, watching two classes struggle and wither through the course. He took mental notes as he waited for his turn to begin the training.

A meticulous student, Hurrish could process information and learn exercises quickly, a skill possibly developed during his days as a signal caller on the gridiron.

His path would eventually converge with Olinger's, another new Soldier who arrived a few months before.

Hurrish had plenty of experience fishing above water. But swimming underneath it presented a whole different challenge. The most difficult came in the heavy underwater problem-solving block of the training.

Instructors ask diving candidates to swim along the bottom of the pool in their snorkel equipment. At any moment, a master diver instructor will swoop toward the student and pull off his diving mask and snorkel. Then the instructor will spin the student twice to simulate the disorienting atmosphere of an ocean or river.

The students must locate their equipment and finally tap the end of the lane line. Students must achieve all this in a single breath while remaining calm.

During this event, Hurrish said, he realized that he could pass the course.

"Once you start to change your attitude and how you think under the water," he said, "it becomes more bearable and you increase your confidence really fast."

Olinger had more worldly experiences than many of his peers. At just 20, he occasionally rambles, still resembling a teenager. But at other moments he speaks with an articulate sensitivity beyond his years.

He grew up in a military family and his uncle, Mike Shay, joined the Army's combat engineer ranks. Seven of Olinger's cousins also served in the armed forces.

Olinger attended a high school in China where he learned to interact with other cultures at an early age. He moved there with his mother who worked as a teacher at international academic institutions. He later moved to Wyoming, where he enjoyed going to the lake in the summertime with friends. Olinger took swimming lessons as a child and enjoyed playing watersports.

He joined the Army at 19. "I wanted to get (a career) that would change me," Olinger said.

That experience gave Olinger a confidence that he exudes when approaching training during Phase II in Panama City. Phase I in Leonard Wood tested that swagger.

During a Phase I exercise known as "aquatic adaptability," Olinger and his classmates faced a swimming endurance challenge. During the exercise, students must swim 500 yards in a single breath.

"It was brutal," he said. "I didn't think it was ever going to end."

Olinger ran on cross country and track teams in high school and understood how to pace himself to the rhythms of his heartbeat. He knew his limits. Engineer diver training at Panama City and Leonard Wood pushed him beyond them.

He spent extra hours doing pushups and pull-ups as night fell, while other students had already retreated to their rooms in the barracks.

"I can remember a lot of days, a lot of times when we would be doing over unders (exercises swimming the length of the pool at the bottom)," he said. "I (came) up on the other side and I was like 'this is the one, I'm done. I'm quitting. I'm quitting.'

"But I just sat there and waited. I caught my breath. You just delay it and delay it; finally just get to the point where you're like 'you know, I can keep doing this.'"

NATURE THROWS A CURVEBALL

In an odd twist of fate, just a month into their training in Panama City, Hurricane Michael ripped through the Florida panhandle, causing catastrophic damage to parts of the city and its surrounding communities.

The unpredictable weather forced the students and instructors to adjust to the elements, similar to a diver working in the field.

For more than a month, classes halted. Phase II students spent their time helping residents, cleaning debris and helping those whom the storm displaced.

When classes resumed after the Thanksgiving holiday, instructors chose to restructure the course in tighter blocks. Students had to learn their exercises quickly; to get it right in a day instead of two or three.

By the time Hurrish and his fellow students finish training, they will be skilled at welding, construction and making structural repairs to bridges and boats.

If the dangers of the deep seas were not enough, divers risk electrocution during every cutting and welding dive. Electricity in saltwater can be a deadly mix. Using a hand-held torch-like device called a "stinger" controlled by the diver, and circuit breaker on surface, electric current is sent from above down to the diver. For up to 30 seconds, this torch burns at 10,000 degrees.

Gases from the exhaust of burning these rods can accumulate underwater, creating air pockets making oxygen explosions a serious safety hazard caused by the smallest spark.

During a deployment to Kuwait, Kneipp experienced one such explosion firsthand. The strong force ruptured one of his teeth.

"It was like a mule-kick in my chest," he said.

FINAL STEP

Army engineer divers perhaps delve into places few will ever see, whether on an excavation of a shipwreck or searching for veteran remains in the waters of the South China Sea. Before graduation later next month, Army divers must pass one final certification. They begin a six-week block where they learn the intricacies of underwater demolition and learn how to set and detonate charges in maritime conditions.

After Hollinger and Hurrish survived the first four weeks, their odds of passing the phase significantly increased. Instructors estimate 85 percent of students pass the course after they pass the trials at Leonard Wood and the high-stress, initial weeks at Panama City.

If Olinger and his dive school classmates survive Phase III, they will join an exclusive Army diving force.

"I've waited this long and I've put out this long," Olinger said. "So I'm not going to quit now."

(Editor's note: This is part two of a two-part series on the Army's engineer diver training.)

• Date Taken: 02.15.2019
• Date Posted: 12.31.2019 16:03
• Story ID: 358021
• Location: PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, US
• Hometown: PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, US