It was a single-file march of 150 people up to the flight deck of the USS Midway.
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Ascending the stairwell on the vessel’s side, those making the journey each carried a U.S. flag, some of them still wet from the more than 3-mile swim they’d just made from Coronado to Navy Pier in downtown San Diego.
After reaching the flight deck, dozens took on the challenge of completing 22 pullups and 100 pushups.
The final workout capped a sunny California morning of grueling athletic performance — but all for a good cause.
For six years, The Honor Foundation has organized its Swim for SOF event, a charity workout and swimming event aimed at raising money to help members of U.S. special operations forces transition out of elite military units and into civilian life.
This year’s swim, held on Saturday, had the most participants to date, all of whom pledged to raise at least $1,500 for the charity.
All told, organizers and participants had raised about $600,000 through the event, said Kelly McGraw, Honor Foundation’s CEO.
“I love that the whole community is out supporting,” McGraw said as participants finished the swim and hoisted themselves out of San Diego Bay and onto a raft.
The morning began steps from the palatial grounds of the Hotel del Coronado.
At the nearby jetty, participants kicked off their workout with a run to Glorietta Bay. Starting the event at the jetty is a symbolic spot for Navy SEALs, who do their initial training just down the strand at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado and perform their rock portages exercises at the jetty.
From Glorietta Bay, the swim begins.
The first mile takes swimmers below the San Diego-Coronado Bridge to Tidelands Park. There, a workout of 22 pullups and 100 pushups is done, then participants get back in the water and complete a final 2.3-mile swim to the Midway.
Doing 22 pullups is not a random number, and is meant as a tribute to the mental health struggles of veterans who have returned home. A past study from the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that 22 former service members die by suicide every day.
That’s where the efforts of The Honor Foundation come in, by providing one-on-one coaching for special forces operators in the first three months of their transition to civilian life.
McGraw, whose husband was a SEAL for 25 years, said special forces operators “feel like they fell off a cliff” in their early days of civilian life.
“They’re like: ‘what’s next?’,” she said.
Jason Goyanko, a former SEAL who first organized the swim event, knows what that transition is like.
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After finishing a 10-year career in the Navy, Goyanko had a mentor who was also a former SEAL.
“He said to me words that I’ll never forget. He said, ‘When you find success, send the elevator back down’,” Goyanko recounted.
For Goyanko, that morsel of advice was where the swimming event was born.
“This vision came to me because it was not only a way for me to be able to give back, but also to empower other people in our community to contribute to the mission,” he said.
Indeed, it was not only former service members taking part in Saturday’s event.
Angelica Orozco stood at the end of Navy Pier ringing a cowbell as her son Alexander, who has been in the Navy 17 years, finished the swim.
It’s Orozco’s second time at the swim, which has an atmosphere she considers “wonderful.”
“But the mission is what is more important,” she said.
Community members who haven’t been in the military also joined the swim.
Saturday was Lexi Sandvig’s fifth time finishing the swim. Sandvig works for BUBS Naturals, a supplement company founded to honor Glen “Bub” Doherty, a former SEAL and CIA contractor who died in the 2012 terrorist attack on U.S. personnel in Benghazi, Libya.
In all her years of doing the swim, Sandvig said the final stretch between Coronado and the Midway is by far the most “brutal” part.
Still, the people and the atmosphere they create is what keeps bringing her back out.
“It’s a great group to come out and support,” she said.
Michael Conaton isn’t a military member, either. But on Saturday, the former Georgetown University swimmer completed the swim for the fourth time.
“Supporting these guys who are ex-military is such a rewarding feeling,” Conaton said.
Conaton first got connected to the event through his employer, Apollo Global Management, a major investment firm that donates to The Honor Foundation.
A New Yorker, the excitement and purpose of the event is enough to have him make the cross-country flight year after year.
“This becomes my thing to look forward to,” he said.
