Do you have what it takes?

CORONADO, Calif. - As Navy Ensign Brandon lay slapped by wave after black wave of frigid Pacific surf, his arms linked with a row of other would-be Navy SEALs, a cold but comforting thought surfaced from his murky consciousness: "No matter what," he reassured himself, "they're not going to kill me."

Shaking uncontrollably in the cold brine, the slight, 22-year-old from Ohio dreaded the nighttime "surf torture" as one of the toughest ordeals of the SEALs' aptly named Hell Week, designed to break down the bodies and wills of all but the steeliest young men.

Today, one of the Pentagon's main dilemmas is how to get more candidates such as Brandon to outlast the trials of selection -- without lowering standards -- as it tries to expand the ranks of SEALs and other elite U.S. military forces for critical missions in the war on terrorism.

Facing their biggest deployments in history, as much as 80 percent of the combat forces of the 53,000-strong U.S. Special Operations Command -- including Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets and Rangers, and Delta Force operatives -- are committed in Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding countries. That leaves too few for other vital missions, many of them clandestine, such as intelligence gathering and partnering with forces in nations where the United States is not at war, according to senior military officials.

Stepped-up war-zone rotations are cutting into training time, and shortages in the force mean hundreds of Special Operations jobs are unfilled, leading to more reliance on civilian contractors, they said.

"We as a nation are taking great risk" by having too few maritime commandos, said Rear Adm. Joseph Maguire, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC) here. NSWC should have 2,200 SEALs but is undermanned by about 400 men on SEAL teams and scores of officers, he said.

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