Bill Rapier Reveals the REAL Difference Between BUD/S and DEVGRU Selection

About this video

Bill Rapier discusses his journey from wanting to attend West Point to joining the Navy SEALs, motivated by finding the hardest military organization to join. He recounts struggling through BUD/S with multiple rollbacks due to running problems and failing dive physics because of long division, eventually graduating with class 201. Rapier describes his spiritual transformation during his time at SEAL Team 3 and his subsequent move to DEVGRU, comparing the selection process favorably to both BUD/S and NSW sniper school.

Key takeaways

• Rapier chose the SEALs by researching what he believed was the hardest military organization to get into with the highest likelihood of seeing action, despite having limited swimming background
• Rapier experienced two rollbacks during BUD/S—one for failing dive physics due to not knowing long division, and another for failing timed runs—forcing him to repeat first phase without redoing Hell Week
• Rapier recounts having a spiritual conversion during his first enlistment after praying for the desire to change his party lifestyle, leading him to become more serious about his Christian faith
• Rapier found DEVGRU selection less difficult than both NSW sniper school and BUD/S, noting that sniper school was challenging because he initially didn’t treat it as a ‘game’ and failed to properly camouflage himself during stalks

Episode details: published August 22, 2026 · 17.6K views · 21:26 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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