April 5, 2021 at 12:31 p.m.
LUHS grad to dive for the U.S. Navy
LUHS grad to dive for the U.S. Navy
By By Colin Aspinall-
The Navy divers are one of the five advanced divisions of the Navy Special Warfare unit, the others being the SEALs, Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen (SWCC), Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD), and Aviation/Air Rescue.
A lot went into this achievement, including Hunt's personal interest in diving as well as his family history in the military.
"Initially, when I first started to be interested in diving itself it was because of the saturation divers that work deep sea, like oil rigs," Hunt said. "I just thought that that was a crazy job."
According to the Divers Institute of Technology, saturation diving is one of the most advanced forms of commercial diving. Regular commercial diving is inefficient in some situations because commercial divers have to come to the surface after each dive to normalize their body pressure.
"As a saturation diver, you are submerged in the water in a small pressurized chamber. The diver lives for 28 days in this small topside chamber," the Divers Institute article read. "It is pressurized to the same level as the underwater construction environment, so divers do not have to decompress after each shift."
After looking into saturation diving, Hunt found the Navy's program.
"I discovered Navy diving is a real select group and it's the best way to put yourself out there for the higher risk, higher paying jobs," he said.
Hunt also said his family history was a reason for joining the Navy, as his father was in the Navy during Desert Storm, and his grandfather also served.
The selection process
Hunt spoke about the selection process and how it was designed to weed out those who physically can't make the cut, but also those who weren't team players.
He said he almost got thrown out of the process because of vision concerns.
"I had a slight color vision issue that I didn't even know I had," Hunt explained.
He went to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) to get his vision tested, and after he failed he got sent down to the Navy station in Great Lakes, Ill., to take vision tests again with the medical corpsmen there.
"If it wasn't for them allowing me to go down there, I probably wouldn't have even been contracted, just for something as little as that," Hunt admitted.
He said beside the health qualifications, he had to go to Green Bay, Sheboygan, and Kenosha for physical screening tests (PST). An example of a workout he had to do, Hunt said, was weight treading, where he had to continuously tread water while holding weights above his head.
"We had guys dropping out of the program left and right, just because the workouts were ridiculous," Hunt said.
Hunt also explained the typical pipeline of someone who was looking to join a Special Warfare division of the Navy.
"When you join the Navy, you don't just walk in there and say 'I want to be a Navy SEAL' ... you have to earn a contract," he said.
The typical pipeline for a regular Navy guy would just be to sign up and wait to leave, basically, Hunt said, whereas Special Warfare guys have to, quite frequently, put their contracts on the line by passing PSTs. But, he said, that alone doesn't cut it.
"If you have good score on your pushups and your run and your swim, that's all fine and good, but if one of the coaches doesn't like your attitude, or they feel like you're not a coachable individual, then they're not going to give Navy Special Warfare the go ahead to give you a contract," Hunt said.
He said a retired Navy diver has taken him under his wing. This previous Navy diver is now a superior in the program in Wisconsin and has the final say over who gets a contract and who doesn't.
"It's all setting a good example, proving that you're a leader, that you're willing to learn because it's all about a team mindset as opposed to a one-man show," Hunt said.
He said he hopes to climb the ladder as far as he can in the six years he will be a Navy diver.
"I don't know if I want to make a career out of Navy diving yet ... six years is a long ways away," Hunt said. "It's basically just a matter of trying to be the best I can be and not settling for anything when there's bigger things just ahead of me that are out there to get."
Colin Aspinall may be reached at [email protected].
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