He Quit On The First Day Of BUD/S?

About this video

Mike Ritland discusses the BUD/S training experience with a guest who started with 119 candidates and graduated with only 14 original students plus rollbacks. The guest describes how BUD/S forces teamwork regardless of personal relationships. Ritland recounts an incident where a student quit on the first day of his BUD/S class before even getting in the water, questioning whether too much available information causes candidates to psych themselves out.

Key takeaways

• The guest reports graduating BUD/S with only 14 of the original 119 candidates, plus additional rollbacks
• The guest states that BUD/S forces participants to work as a team whether they like each other or not
• Ritland recounts having a student quit on day one before entering the water, suggesting excessive pre-training information may cause candidates to overthink and quit prematurely

Episode details: published February 16, 2026 · 7K views · 1:02 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.

← Previous: Trump Personally Received Our Mission Intel During Our Dive Op · Next: Attached to Canadian Special Ops in the Bloodiest Deployment in Afghanistan 2006 →

All Mike Ritland videos · Mike Ritland profile · Mike Drop (official site)