We here at The After-Action Report try to stay out of politics, but we can’t ignore it when a presidential front-runner shows up at SEAL headquarters, apparently seeking to borrow some courage.
Vice President JD Vance arrived at Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California, on Monday, less than 24 hours after his appearance at a major conservative conference, where he made headlines not for what he said but for what he didn’t. As the AP put it, “Vance refuses to set red lines over bigotry as conservatives feud at Turning Point.”
Before Vance took the stage Sunday at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest, commentator Ben Shapiro warned that the conservative movement was “in serious danger” from antisemitism and conspiracy theories. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy warned about the nativist elements in the GOP and declared that it was “a time for choosing in the conservative movement.”
Vance chose not to choose. Speaking to thousands in what Fox News called a preview of 2028, he said nothing about the far-right racists who had been attacking his wife, Usha, an Indian American (though he did say in an online interview published separately online that they could “eat shit.”)
From the stage at AmericaFest, his message was one of inclusion. “President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless self-defeating purity tests,” he said. “We have far more important work to do than canceling each other.” Profile in courage, it wasn’t.
So naturally, the next logical step was to fly to Coronado. Few things project effortless masculinity quite like boarding Air Force Two and working out with Navy SEALs for the cameras.
The visit was billed as 90 minutes of physical training. It played more like what I call SEAL-washing: a quick rinse in borrowed toughness.
Vance is not the first politician who hoped the SEAL magic would rub off on him like a temporary tattoo. Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his 2016 presidential run flanked by five SEALs. Earlier this year, SEALs flanked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at his confirmation hearing and a rally and march for him in the capital.
But in the second Trump administration, it’s not enough to be flanked by SEALs. You have to actually carry the boats while the shutters click. Hegseth did it first, joining morning PT in Coronado in October. Now it was Vance’s turn.
“Just finished PT with the Navy SEALs for 90 minutes. (I’ll post some photos when I get them),” Vance wrote on X. “They took it easy on me and I still feel like I got hit by a freight train.”
The photos he posted a few hours later showed him climbing a cargo net, jogging on the beach, paddling into the surf in an inflatable boat, and taking part in “log PT.”
For those unfamiliar with the practice, log PT involves a group of SEAL trainees doing painful exercises while carrying a 150-pound log: hoisting it overhead, doing lunges, setting it down, picking it back up, over and over, until time itself loses meaning.
Log PT is not fun. It exists solely to make you miserable. (One extra-heavy log was known as “Old Misery.”) Log PT is designed to make you seriously reconsider your life choices, such as why you signed up to carry a log in a wet, sand-caked uniform, when you could instead be playing video games, chasing girls, or doing literally anything else.
What Vance got was a brief, controlled version of the experience, optimized for photos. It was the appearance of pain and suffering without any actual pain and suffering.
The vice president even got to wear the coveted brown shirt, normally earned by those who survive Hell Week—five days of near-constant physical exertion and sleep deprivation designed to push trainees to their breaking point. Vance’s Hell Week, by contrast, involved deciding how best to defend his wife without alienating either the shitheels who call him a race traitor or the wealthy GOP donors appalled by them.
The brown shirt in Vance’s log PT photo looked pristine. Not sand-caked. Not sweat-stained. Not ocean-soaked. Pristine.
Does anybody remember Mike Dukakis in the tank?
Meanwhile, just across San Diego Bay, Marine recruits have been carrying logs in basic training for years without the benefit of visiting dignitaries, photo-ops, or anyone paying them any attention at all. As a former Marine, Vance might have used the moment to reconnect with his own service. Alas, Marine training has no branding machine behind it.
The message of Vance’s visit to SEAL HQ appears to be that toughness itself is the job. Or at least looking tough is. If you can hang with the SEALs in a modified workout for 90 minutes, perhaps no one will notice that you couldn’t stand up on stage to bigots and antisemites for 90 seconds.
In this version of leadership, appearing tough replaces being tough. Carrying a log for a few minutes with Navy SEALs stands in for carrying your weight when it counts. Photo-op courage substitutes for actual courage.
Old Misery, after all, was designed to be carried for hours by people who did not have a government plane waiting to take them home—and who would stand by their teammates no matter what.