BASIC UNDERWATER DEMOLITION/SEAL (BUD/S) CLASS 002

BUD/S is the front door to Bronze Squadron. Every member entering through SEAL Team 8 starts here, and nothing in the pipeline opens until this course is passed.

The course builds the individual operator from nothing: who we are, how we are organized, and how we speak to each other — then the four skills that keep an operator alive between the insertion point and the objective. How to talk on a net. How to keep a casualty alive. How to find yourself on a map. How to move and fight inside a fire team.

Instruction runs in five phases — Indoctrination, Communications, Individual Skills, Field Craft, and a culminating patrol that tests the whole night at once. Recruits are graded individually against fourteen GO/NO-GO tasks covering weapons safety validation, contact and ACE reporting, the CLS treatment sequence, fixing and reporting a six-digit grid, and react to contact. There is no partial credit. A recruit who cannot execute a task is retrained on the spot and re-tested; a recruit who cannot execute after retraining is recycled.

This course is demanding and it is not hazing. It is also the floor — what a recruit learns here becomes the baseline for the rest of their time in the unit.

Graduates are released to a platoon and continue to Infil Day, Driving Day, and CQC Day.

Starts on

29 Sep 2026 at 8:00 PM EDT

Ends on

29 Sep 2026 at 11:00 PM EDT

Qualifications upon completion

• Military Freefall Parachutist Badge
• Air Assault Badge
• Scuba Diver Badge
• Combat Life Saver
• Driving Day
• Completed BUDS