It’s another Saturday afternoon at the community pool, but for little Johnny who swam into the deep end, things went from fun in the sun… to drowning. Blue the lifeguard spotted the floundering child. He jumped in the water and swam to the youngster in record time. Blue brought the child out of the water and began to assess the boy for injuries or water inhalation. Luckily this child was rescued before any damage was done. Little Johnny’s parents rushed over and the lifeguard reassured them that every thing was ok. The parents thanked Blue, collected their child and called it a day. Blue returned to his stand and resumed his ever-vigilant watch over the pool.

All stories worth telling have a beginning. This story begins in the mid 1950’s when racial tensions were high.

Theodis Springer was born in Orlando Florida in 1955. At the age of five, he moved to the small south Florida town of Stuart. Theo was one of six children and he lived on the east side of Stuart through the 1960’s. He was like most black kids growing up in his town. Theo went to school and played hard. Friends and family called Theo Blue and that nickname would follow him for the rest of his life.

Theo was fascinated with the water. He spent part of his childhood watching a very popular underwater action television series.

Seahunt was a show that featured a former Navy Frogman turned undersea investigator. In Seahunt the star Mike Nelson became a free agent and operated almost exclusively from his boat the Argonaut. In the true spirit of a Navy Frogman Nelson performed salvage operations, rescues and got involved in anything that might happen in the water. If there was danger, excitement and water Nelson was there. Hundreds if not thousands of people were inspired to become divers as Seahunt introduced many, including little Theo Springer to a whole new undersea world.

Growing up Theodis would visit the beach a few times a year. There was no pool to speak of in his community. He went to the Eagle Army Navy store in Stuart and bought his first kiddy fins and kiddy diving mask. His mother would not splurge for such non-essential items so Theo hustled to buy his swim gear. Theodis cut grass in the neighborhood and redeemed bottles to pay for the equipment.

Outside of the occasional visit to the beach Theodis did not have a place to try and learn to swim. Even when visiting the beach he did little more than wear his fins and goggles as he waded along the shore pretending to be the star in Seahunt

This all changed one day when Theodis was about twelve years old. One of his friends took him to the mudhole. The mudhole was a retention pond for the cities water treatment plant. It was about the size of an average hotel pool and 12 feet deep in places. The water was milky white and surrounded by mounds of crushed limestone. Theo was able to dog paddle around the mudhole with difficulty. Determined to learn how to swim he bought a few books on swimming and set out to learn how to propel himself through the water.

The mudhole was murky and unclean but it gave Theo a place to practice what he read in the books. Theo would visit almost daily in the summer and on weekends during the school year. The mudhole was located about half a mile from his neighborhood and was strictly off limits. Theo and his friends would put Vaseline on their skin after swimming in the mudhole. This hid their limestone-chapped skin from parents.

Theo was popular in high school and had a diverse group of friends. At the age of 15 he noticed that after school some of his friends would get on a school bus and drive off to an event of some kind. Theo asked one of his buddies boarding the bus where he was going. The young man replied that he was a member of the school swim team and he was off to practice.

Theo watched them drive off and knew that he wanted to be on that bus. He bought a gym bag and some baggy swim trunks that afternoon.

The following day, the swim team bus pulled up with the coach at the wheel. Theodis Springer climbed aboard, along with the team, and sat down. Theo asked the coach if he could join the swim team and Coach Dick Wells said, “sure Son lets go”. They drove the twenty or so miles from Stuart to Ft. Pierce Indian River Community College pool.

Theodis looked out at the Olympic sized swimming pool and stood in awe at the clear blue water. There were diving boards and the racing lanes were clearly marked. This state of the art pool facility was a far cry from the mudhole where Blue and his friends swam in Stuart. Coach Wells told Theo that if he were going to be a member of the swim team he would need the proper swim trunks. Wells handed Theo his very first pair of black Speedo swim trunks. Blue hit the locker room and changed into the Speedo trunks. He returned to the pool edge and prepared to enter the water.

On that day 15 year old high school sophomore Theodis Springer entered an actual swimming pool for the first time in his life.

Coach Wells immediately noticed Theo’s rudimentary swimming style. Theo spent the next couple of months doing nothing but learning how to properly kick his feet behind a kick board. Theo, under the tutelage of Coach Wells, learned the fundamentals of swimming. The outside most lane of the pool became known as Blue’s lane. The rest of the team honed their swimming skills racing the clock and each other in search of better performance.

Blue learned quickly and progressed to master the freestyle and breaststroke. By the end of his sophomore year Theodis Springer was competing.

Blue’s swim team involvement fueled his passion for water activities. He became a Red Cross water safety instructor and was certified to teach lifeguarding and swimming.

Theo spent his high school sophomore and junior summer vacations teaching others to swim. Blue was confident in the water at this point and was signing his name on informal notes…Blue the Black Fish.

In 1974 Blue was a senior in high school. He aspired to go to college. Theo wanted to teach history and coach swimming. He was contemplating a stint in the military as a way to pay for his college education.

Blue received pamphlets from all armed service branches. One particular brochure stood out to Theodis. The brochure showed a group stealthily coming out of the water. It showed guys repelling from helicopters, on jungle patrol and performing underwater demolitions work. This specialized group also retrieved the space capsule and astronauts from the ocean after splash down. The brochure said, “Be Someone Special, Be a Navy SEAL”. Theo was enthralled with the advertisement and decided at that moment he was going to join the Navy and become a SEAL.

In June of 1974 on the morning of his senior graduation, Theo went to the Navy recruiter in Ft. Pierce and began the enlistment process. Two months later Blue was shipped off to Orlando to begin Navy boot camp.

The first day of Navy boot camp began Theo’s four-year enlistment. Day one was described as chaos. Moving from a free spirited high school experience to the structure of Armed forces basic training was taxing to Blue. At the time Navy boot camp was very demanding but Theo described the overall experience as a cakewalk compared to some of the future trials and tribulations he would encounter.

During the first week of training you have to take a swim test. You must be able to swim or to agree to let the Navy teach you how to swim. Theo’s unit marched down to the pool in order for their swimming skills to be assessed. Blue was so excited as he jumped in and swam. He quickly demonstrated that he met all the Navy swim requirements. Others in Theo’s unit were not so lucky. Blue remembers many of his unit could not swim at all. Part of the swim requirement was to jump in the water off of a diving board. Some members of the unit clung to the diving board like a scared dog or cat and had to be prodded into the water with a pole. Some were jokingly threatened with a court martial in order to get them in the water. The Navy of course had people in the water to assist so no one would drown.

Navy Boot camp had a company called the Rock Company. This consisted of all the recruits that could not swim. Theo recalls that young black sailors made up the majority of the company. Rock Company recruits spent their time learning how to swim before continuing on with their basic training.

Navy boot camp was nine weeks long and on the fifth week they had what was called service week. This is where the recruits got a chance to work in various occupations throughout the base.

Blue thought that with his lifeguard and swimming background he would be able to spend service week at the pool. Instead of a week at the pool, Blue spent service week working in the mess hall.

Blue made it no secret that he wanted to be a Navy SEAL. His boot camp company commander told Theo that he really didn’t want to be a SEAL. He said that he could do that later on down the line. Blue volunteered for many leadership positions in his company but was passed over by his chain of command.

Theo passed boot camp and requested a job as an Oceanographic Specialist. The Navy had other ideas and assigned Blue to an Amphibious Construction Battalion stationed in Little Creek Virginia. Blue didn’t really pay attention to where he was assigned. His recruit class was sent to assignments all across the globe and Blue’s luck of the draw just happened to be the Little Creek Naval Amphibious base in Norfolk Virginia.

Blue arrived at Little Creek with several other recruits. Although he was assigned to the Amphibious Construction Battalion he did not have a specific job rating. He was presented with the option of being a Yeoman. The primary job of the Construction Battalion was constructing pontoon bridges. The Yeoman slot was an administration position that was an office job. Theo preferred the inside work to the cold windy waterfront where the construction occurred. Blue had taken a high school typing course that came in handy with his new job.
Blue soon discovered that Little Creek housed various amphibious units and most importantly was the east coast home base for the United States Navy SEALs.

Theo began training whenever possible for the strenuous Navy SEAL assessment test. He told his immediate supervisor of his desire to be a SEAL. The supervisor said “Blue don’t be glory hunting, you don’t want to be a Navy Frogman just do your job here and be a good clerk”.

Another name for Navy SEALs is Navy Frogmen. Before the SEALs were commissioned in 1962 the World War II underwater demolition teams were called Frogmen. Blue most certainly did want to be a Frogman. The fact that Theo’s barracks was across the street from where Navy SEAL team UDT 21 resided only fueled the drive to pursue his dream. Blue felt that fate brought him to Little Creek for a reason. That reason was crystal clear to the young man from South Florida, he was destined to become be a Navy SEAL.

On weekends when his buddies were going to clubs Blue was exercising in his room preparing himself to apply for SEAL training. Theo spent the next few months working in administration and working out.

Theo was jogging along the beach one evening and he found a partial page from a demolition instruction manual. Theo ran along the same beach where the Navy SEALs would conduct there demolition training. Theo would hear the explosions from the base and get even more excited about becoming a Navy SEAL.

During one of Blue’s evening beach runs he encountered a Navy SEAL from UDT 21. Theo jogged alongside the sailor and told him of his wish join a SEAL team. The SEAL gave Theo a pair of jungle boots and told him to run in them. The two became friends and Theo was able to get a few hints on how to prepare for SEAL training.

In March of 1975 Theo met with the recruiter for the east coast SEAL teams and provided the necessary paperwork. The recruiter put Blue through the initial physical assessment, which consisted of pushups, sit-ups, running and swimming. Blue fulfilled all the physical requirements and his completed application was submitted to the Bureau of Naval Personal. In Theo’s mind he was on the way to training and would soon be shipped to San Diego California for Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training commonly known as BUDS.

Six weeks passed before Theo received a letter from the Navy.

Theo opened the letter and was saddened to see that he had been denied entrance to BUDS. According to the letter his ASVAB score was five points below the requirement. The Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery was designed to measure an individual’s aptitude to be trained in a specific job.

Theo was resolved to become a Navy Frogman and was determined to raise his score and retake the SEAL assessment. Blue was told that he could reapply in six months to become a Navy SEAL trainee.

Theo did not have to wait six months; two months later the SEAL recruiter called and said that they had lowered the score requirement on the written test. Blue was encouraged to reapply immediately.

Theo was an administration guy so the next day he resubmitted his request for SEAL training to the Navy for consideration. Theo was optimistic this time and Blue began telling his friends that he was going to California for SEAL training.

A few weeks later another letter from the Navy arrived. This time the letter said that he had been accepted for Navy SEAL training. Theo went back to work and typed up his own orders and submitted them for the appropriate signatures.

Theo flew to San Diego, California and then drove to the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base to begin training. The SEAL trainees were housed in a special barracks on base. The trainees were given about two weeks to acclimate themselves to the California weather. This first couple of weeks was not very regimented. The trainees were not an actual class yet and had a lot of free time. They spent their days working out and running along the beach in an attempt to get in condition.

Blue’s training barracks was fifty feet from the ocean and adjacent to where the three west coast SEAL teams were housed. SEAL Team 1 was in the next building. Blue would see the team guys doing their thing wearing the coveted blue and gold reserved for actual SEAL team members.

Trainees were issued green t-shirts and khaki UDT swim trunks during the training phase. BUDS training is twenty three weeks long and broken into three primary phases. The trainees wore one of three different colored helmets to designate what phase of training they were in. Green helmets signified the first phase, which consisted of physical conditioning and classroom work. Phase two trainees wore red helmets. The red helmet phase was where the trainees learned land warfare and demolition. The third and final phase trainees wore blue helmets to show that they were learning scuba diving and underwater operations.

If all went according to plan Blue would finish the course as a Navy SEAL. Twenty-three weeks is a long time and a lot could go wrong for Theo. Blue talked to quite a few people who had attempted SEAL training only to fail. Theo saw the various green, red and blue helmeted classes conducting training at the base.
Blue knew that his time had come to see if he could hack the intense physical and mental conditioning required to be a SEAL.
The SEAL literature that Blue read clearly stated that a Navy SEALs performance should be ten times greater than that of an average man.

There was a large brass bell next to the Navy SEAL instructor’s office. The bell was the way for a trainee to ring out of SEAL training. When a trainee had enough all the trainee had to do was ring the bell three times and he was out of the program and sent back to the fleet. No questions asked. Blue would hear the bell ring often during those first two weeks. It was a chilling sound to know that every time the bell rang it meant another trainee just couldn’t hack it. Theo was excited and nervous about his upcoming training.

In the two weeks of conditioning before day one of training the new trainees were becoming confident. They could run miles along the beach and exercise with ease. Occasionally one of the SEAL team guys would congratulate them on making the cut and welcome them to sunny California. Blue thought that these SEAL guys were nice and very cordial. He began to think that Navy SEAL training couldn’t be all that hard, after all he was in prime shape and ready for anything.

So he thought.

Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training class # 86 was officially formed. Day one of Navy SEAL training began. Approximately seventy trainees were in the class including Blue. That first day’s exercise session wore all the new trainees down to the bone. The SEAL instructors were not just barking out orders. Those instructors did every exercise right along with the trainees. The trainees were left in a frazzled heap while the instructors barely broke a sweat.

After the morning work out the trainees were assembled and the senior instructors addressed the group. The first senior instructor addressed the group and told them that most of them were not going to make it. Of the trainees six were black. The instructor quoted” and you brothers down there, by the time I finish this class I will be able to count all of you on one finger”. The second senior instructor stepped forward and addressed the trainees. He said that his job was to help you “out” of the program. This instructor issued a simple reminder. He said” all you have to do to return to your former life was to ring the bell three times”. He went on to say that this was going to be the hardest thing that any of them would ever do in life. He was big and intimidating. He was the model of a Navy SEAL instructor. Blue was soon to learn that he meant every word he said.