Well last first, we always called LT's Butterballs depending on first or second. Don't know what the navy calls them.
I was fortunate to be in a team with Airborne ranger training first, then Special ops where I did my OCS at Benning along with sniper training( a bit different than Bragg) then off to Coronado for some training( merely four weeks, then hopped to Camp Pendleton and back to Camp Peary where I went elsewhere( few forts in between All told it was about 13 months plus five more months training).
I figure to be absolutely honest I wouldn't have made the SEAL grade. My cousin( 1st lt) is sinewy, strong, and smarter than the average person. I watched him grow up and on the farm( lives to this day on the farm) he took up shooting well, then hunting and surfing(in the family, no cords[strap on legs]) so he was a great ocean swimmer and had a goal since early on in life to be a SEAL. He really was a talent others had to work for but came to him naturally and he has a penchant for languages also
So I'm NOT disagreeing with you, in fact I agree wholeheartedly, and they cross train with amazing SAS, French elite, israel Sayyeret Mhktal( sp?) which I was fortunate to train a little with, and well the SEAL's are awesome hands down. Don't have to look far( Somalia four shots four kills) to see their expertise.
I have a few fun stories( not on here though) about training with some of the very best, and me just getting knocked around, being waterboarded9 since i surfed a LOT also it's not all that bad...there's other types of torture and SERE training that I absolutely hated way worse than waterboarding).
Not the place for stories on a thread regarding a CIA" Red Cell" which I think is just a common name with Christians In Action. But I will say, once in country in a hole named "hell" we had a two SEAL's attached to our unit( this was rare, even had a couple marine recon scouts with us) and due to my medical training( enginneering in college, minored in nursing)I remained close to the corpsman. Most folks in out unit besides three of us( me and two others) were two tour nam guys with multiple ops) elsewhere; dang, I thank GOD for them, all of them.
So, I think I'd have done well in some SEAL stuff but I'd probably be a bell ringer. Like you I'm proud of my small opportuity to train with some, better still have to great SEAL friends to this day and some stories, well, like I said, I'd probably have been a bell ringer and back into the fleet building something, heck I don't know.
When I was a teen we were all partying and I told him about my desire to join and he had some nasty strong words( he was 30 years older than me). After which when he decided I was firm in my commitment he calmed down and told me this story( I'll have to paraphrase)
We trained continuously and some of those islands were a bastard. not many of the navy believed our charts, the currents and such and those stories of guys catching bullets when diving close to the beach, well some are true. And we did sometimes put up signs occasionally welcoming the marines
We were at this one island. It had another island adjacent to it( I can't remember the name sorry). And the currents were tremendous plus te coral for a landing made it not good for the LST's they had so we were planning to set chargeds and they could just roll up to the beach. But anyway we had to get in close and we could actually see the machine gun nests, sometimmes japs( what he called them) walking along smoking cigarettes. I was one of the few that got caught in the current, missed the scheduled time the boat was to pick me up
Plan B was to run across this island and a submarine would pick me up at a certain time. If I missed that time well, hell, that was it. So I get up on the beach and start running through the jungle to the other side. You know all we had was a knife, swim fins I had to carry and a knife strapped to my leg, I come around this bend and what do you know some jap kid in full gear,, even his samurai sword. I look at him, stop. he looks at me and stops dead. We both look crazy scared, I know I was and WHAM we just both yelled and ran the other way.
That was the closest I got throughout the whole war coming close to the enemy and I just scooted. Made it to the sub and that was the end of it. But that island was hell, they never listened and the beach was just a F***ing killing ground. I'm telling you this to let you know, war is hell and there just aren't no John Wayne's in the military. it's you, your buddy and fear. don't let anyone tell you different.