Lt. Bill Gardner, the Navy SEAL, is the author of "Hell Week", an account of his training as an elite commando. He is one of America's bravest heroes who fought against communism in the jungles of Vietnam. Gardner is one of America's elite warriors.
William E. Gardner was born on April 22nd, 1941, a native of North Carolina. He was a country boy and was no stranger to living off the land. Gardner was practicing war games as a young child and he was destined to become a man o' war.
After he graduated from high school in 1959, he attended North Carolina State College, even being a cadet in the R. O. T. C. for the Air Force. He graduated in 1963 with a degree in mechanical engineering and then volunteered for Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. Gardner earned the rank of Ensign in the U. S. Navy in 1964 and as an officer he served as a SEABEE in the Civil Engineering Corp, earning the rank of Lieutenant.
Bill Gardner began his career as a U. S. Navy SEAL in August of 1966 when he attended BUD/S class #38 and on December 19th, 1966, he received his BUD/S diploma. Bill Gardner completed Underwater Swimmer's School in Key West, Florida as well as Jump School in Fort Benning, Georgia. After completing and surviving all of the Seal Team Training (including Hell Week), Bill was assigned to Seal Team 2 at Little Creek in Norfolk, VA.
As an officer in the U. S. Navy, carrying a Car - 15 rifle and a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, standing 6' 2” and weighing 190 pounds, Lt. Gardner was the platoon commander of SEAL Team Two, Fourth Platoon, during the Vietnam War. He participated in a number of special operations, served as Operations Officer of Underwater Demolition Team 22, and was the Executive Officer of Underwater Demolition Team 21 afterwards.
Gardner served as Second - in - Command with LCDR Jack Schropp on a two month deployment to Greenham Common AFB in England to run joint ops with Special Forces in Germany. He later left active duty at age thirty in February of 1972 from the U. S. Navy. Gardner married in 1969 and helped his wife with their travel agency, and now maintains rental property in Virginia Beach after having written a book titled, "Hell Week", published in 2004, which describes in detail the rigorous training of a U. S. Navy SEAL.
I personally spoke with Bill Gardner over the phone and it was a very memorable moment. He sounded like a Navy SEAL. Gardner has a very masculine, deep, baritone voice and speaks with a slow Southern drawl. He is kind enough to let me use his own words and pictures from his book.
It is likely that he is the first man named Gardner to have been a U. S. Navy SEAL.
It is a true honor to have spoken to and share the same name as Lt. Bill Gardner, the U. S. Navy SEAL.
This excerpt comes from an article dated March 18th, 2004, in the Virginia Beach Beacon section of The Virginian – Pilot:
“On a slow day at the travel agency where Bill Gardner works with his wife Ann, he began jotting down a few thoughts about the week of intense training to become a Navy SEAL.
The words “Wednesday night of Hell Week” popped in his head, and from there, the pages unfolded.
“I’d hit a certain remembrance, and I couldn’t write fast enough,” said Gardner, 62, a first – time author and retired Navy SEAL.”

From the book “Hell Week” by William E. Gardner:
Pg. 65:
“Hand to Hand Combat, in one simple, single word, was “Aggressive!” Hand to Hand was drawn from any and all forms of the martial arts, street fighting, you name it.
There was no bowing in the middle of the mat, and no points awarded for take downs. You did not have an opponent, you had the enemy. Your objective was not to take the enemy down, but rather to take him out.
Some moves were defensive, as in countering someone wielding a club or knife, but for the most part the moves were aggressively designed to break bones, render the nerve endings useless, or deal death blows.
Hand to Hand renders the little guy against the big guy equation to equality. A small, well trained, Hand to Hand man can easily take care of most bar buffoons. The “bar room rule” for the bar room that might be reaching the detonation phase was, “Let your ears listen to the big loud butterball muscle boys, but keep your eyes tuned to the small guy in the corner!”
Pg. 102:
“Weapons instruction was excellent. From how to fire a Chinese B – 40 rocket to learning how to break – down a 50 caliber machine gun, a 30 cal. air – cooled machine gun, an AK – 47, a 9mm Swedish K, M- 16, a Colt 45 hand gun, and many others. Still engraved in my mind is the small spring with the metal cap in the main block of the 30 cal. air cooled machine gun that if not properly removed could put a hole through you before hitting the opposite bulkhead.
John Wayne never had any problem with firing his weapons at night; he just flipped up his hand gun, or rifle, sighted in and blew the bad guy away. What happens when it is so dark you cannot see the back sight, much less the front sight, on the barrel?
Enter “Quick Kill”, or as what some people refer to as “instinct shooting” (practicing over and over again bringing your weapon to your shoulder in the same position, and in the same alignment every time). “Quick Kill” comes by practicing over and over again, bringing your hand gun up to the firing position in both hands, arms extended, elbows flexed, and with the same alignment every time. With both eyes open, you squeeze off a round. With enough practice the round will travel the same line as the line of your eyesight. “Enough Practice” cannot be over stressed.
With Daisy pump air rifles and plenty of BB’s we would pair off with one tosser and one shooter. Initially the tosser would throw a tin can into the air and the shooter would fire. When the shooter could consistently hit 9 out of 10 tosses, the size of the target would be reduced to a metal disk about the size of a silver dollar. When the shooter could consistently hit the silver dollar size target 9 out of 10 times, a smaller size metal disk would be used. All shooters progressed until we were hitting tossed dimes.”
Pg. 105:
“Individual weapon selection depended mainly on what normal position an individual occupied in a squad or platoon; rear security – machine gun, radio man – M – 16 with grenade launcher, etc. Working point, I preferred the Car – 15 with extra short barrel and telescoping stock. My second consideration would have been the 12 gage pump Ithaca feather weight shot gun with double “00” buck shot. In addition to being longer than the Car – 15, after five rounds the shot gun had to be reloaded. The shot gun shells were heavier and more difficult to carry than the .223 caliber for the Car – 15.
If you are the only man carrying the shot gun on a given operation and you expend all of your ammunition you essentially end up with a club without a bayonet.
Personally my two main reasons for preferring the Car – 15 on point were ease of movement through thick shit and the one hand operation of the weapon.
We were honed and fine-tuned. On December 12 1969, myself, LTJG Ace Sarich, DMCS Tom Blais, EMI Ken McDonald, BM1 Pat Martin, DM1 Davey Sutherland, PR2 Steve Dunthorn, MR2 Ron Rogers, GMG2 Dan Olson, HM2 Steve Elson, PR3 Greg Frisch, EN3 Bob Shamberger, BM3 Bill Bibby, RM3 Jim Burison, SN Dick Peters, and AE1 Curtis Ashton boarded our U. S. Navy transport at NAS Norfolk for our 5 ½ day flight to Veit Nam.”
Pg. 107:
“One individual in our platoon really had a problem with falling asleep. On one particular night ambush, early in our tour, he fell asleep. Before any of the guys could arouse him, he let out a snoring “snort”. After the post – op. de – briefing, I had a very serious nose to nose discussion with this individual on falling asleep not being a future option. The discussion worked well for the next month or so, but damned if he didn’t fall asleep again on another all night ambush.
The snorer’s position was about four men down from me in the ambush line. After hearing the first snort I passed the word I was coming down the line. We had a good moon that night, and I was able to work down the line without too much difficulty.
When I crawled up next to the snorer I could see he was laying flat on his back, his weapon next to him pointing down towards his feet, mouth wide open, and getting ready to let out another snort any second. Very slowly I eased into a crouched position and stepped over the snorer’s body with one foot. Now I am straddling the snorer with my ass almost touching his stomach. Simultaneously I dropped a knee on each of his shoulders, one hand over his mouth, and the other hand around his neck completely pinning him to the ground. The snorer’s eye balls popped wide open with nothing but white showing. They looked like two hard boiled eggs.
By now the snorer is trying to suck air, and my mouth is by his left ear. I whispered three short words “you are dead” in his ear. I rolled off him and crawled back to my position. Not one word was mentioned at the de – briefing about the incident. To the best of my knowledge, not one of us ever went to sleep on another ambush. At least I never heard any more snoring.”
Pg. 116:
“Leaving my ammo vest and Car – 15 with McDonald, I slid into the canal with my trusty Smith & Wesson 38 Combat Master Piece in my shoulder holster, and very slowly kicked, stroked and glided to the other side of the canal.
Trying to stay as low as a mud fish, I inched up the far bank hoping to see some opening or objective we could maneuver towards. No such luck, same old thick shit. Sliding back into the canal I was about half way back to the other side when suddenly I heard loud Vietnamese chatter to my left. Glancing to my left I saw two guys walking and talking loudly, with their rifles slung over their shoulders. They had not spotted me, and I was not about to stick around to see how many more were behind these two. Executing a turtle dive as slowly as I could, then all ahead full underwater towards the bank. Underwater oxygen depletion never crossed my mind.
After bumping head first into the bank and slowly easing my head above water the whole world exploded. The two lead guys had literally bumped into McDonald on our flank without ever knowing he was there. McDonald had his Stoner singing, and shit was starting to fly. I came out of that canal like I had a rocket up my ass; got back into my ammo vest, and was wired to the hilt and ready to go.
By now Shamberger is chomping with his M – 60, and Dunthorn is spitting M – 79 grenades. What had I walked us into? One thing was for sure, we could not sit tight. Surely there would be more coming our way!”