“Act of Valor” showcases real Navy SEALs, wives and kids ... and bullets

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were incredibly talented and competent and there was so much honor in this community. We began to realize that the only way to do it was for real.”

But filming reality has its limits. For example, the Pentagon wasn’t going to let Waugh and McCoy tag along on the mission to take out Osama bin Laden — or any other real combat mission. The compromise was to allow them to, as Waugh explains it, “augment existing training evolutions.”

^{Desert deployments}

That was real enough. SEAL training is brutal. It takes over 30 months to train a candidate to the point at which he is ready for deployment. Those who make the cut emerge ready to handle pretty much any task under fire, which includes diving, combat swimming, hostage rescue, navigation, negotiating with civilians you’re trying to rescue, improvisation under extreme stress, creative use of explosives, expertise with a wide range of weapons and jumping out of moving vehicles, boats and aircraft.

^{The explosions are real -- and so are the bullets}

SEAL training pushes recruits beyond human limits – mentally, emotionally and physically. Having the absolutely impossible

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