Surviving the Cut

- Season 1

(2010)

For sixty-one days and nights, this extreme training replicates the nonstop stress of warfare. Soldiers sleep an average of three hours a night and receive just one meal per day. They train continuously, running missions 20 hours straight in mountains, swamps and dense woodlands. Most lose 20 or more pounds before it's over, and many quit or fail the course along the way. Only one in three make it though.

Students must survive one notoriously difficult milestone called Extended Training Day nothing else in any special operations training course rivals the torment of this single day. Only 10 percent survive the cut.

Marines are pushed to unconsciousness in the pool, wrestle 90-pound packs in the pounding surf of the Pacific Ocean. It's a man-breaking, all-out endurance test that forges top soldiers with unparalleled skills. One in three don't survive the cut.

Elite special ops soldiers challenge themselves to become the most highly trained combat divers on the planet. For six weeks, they are tested in the most severe underwater conditions, pushing the limits of the human body to prove they have what it takes.

Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians or EOD are the only explosives and bomb specialists qualified for special operations. Before a Navy EOD team can go to war with Special Forces, they must go through one final test. Like the job itself, it's all-or-nothing training: A five-day, non-stop series of high stress missions. Make the wrong move, allow fatigue or distraction to take over and the entire team will fail. The team that survives the cut stays together as a certified special ops team.

Marine Snipers are legendary in the sniper world for being the best, waiting hours in the worst possible conditions but only have seconds to make the shot.Units will only send their best men to this course, but on average 1 in the 3 will fail.