Consider:


*Chris Deitz, Township Class of 1999, is a Navy Seal stationed in Iraq.


*Matt Lewis, Township 1999, is a Navy Seal stationed in Iraq.


*There is another Navy Seal from Township, currently stationed in Iraq, who asked that his name not be used.


*Dr. Andrew Baldwin, Township 1995, is a Navy physician, stationed in Hawaii, who supports the Seals.


*Laura Dogger, Township 2002, is a graduate of the Naval Academy currently serving in the military.


If the Midshipmen score a touchdown in the Army-Navy game and a roar goes up in Manheim Township, now you know why.


“They were all very team-oriented individuals,’’ Dan Graybill, Township’s swim coach, said Tuesday.


“They all had great discipline and a great work ethic. They brought that to everything they did in school, and now they’re bringing it to serving their country.’’


Graybill coached all of the five in high school and most of them at Overlook Swim Club from age 6 or 8 on.


All of the above were honor students and multi-sport athletes in high school. Deitz attended Penn State, Lewis Virginia Tech, Baldwin Duke and Dogger the Naval Academy.


Baldwin has been part of the Navy’s triathlon team and has completed several Ironman triathlons. Dogger was a varsity swimmer at Navy.


Neither has likely undergone anything like what Deitz and Lewis did to become Seals.


The Seals are not merely the Navy’s varsity, they are its All-America team. They are elite, special operations units that consist of about 1 percent of the total Navy.


The 16-month training begins with physical testing which requires the following minimums: a 500-yard swim using the breaststroke and/or sidestroke in under 12:30; 42 push-ups in two minutes; 50 sit-ups in two minutes; six pull-ups; and a 1.5-mile run in boots and long pants in less than 11:30.


Those are the minimums, but the testing is competitive, and realistic successful numbers are more like under 10 minutes for the swim, under 9:30 for the run, 20 pull-ups, and 80-100 push-ups and sit-ups.


That’s just the beginning of the testing. The “highlight” might be Hell Week, in which trainees spend four days wet, cold, covered with sand and nearly without food or sleep.


Hell Week ends with an exercise in which trainees crawl through scum-covered water while automatic weapons fire blank bullets over their heads and artillery simulators explode around them.


By the end of Hell Week about 70-80 percent of the Seals prospects have failed, left because of injuries or quit. Once deployed, Seals could be anywhere in the world, engaged in almost any kind of warfare, reconnaissance or counter-terrorism activity.


Which is why it was a surprise to Lewis and Deitz to run into each other in the Baghdad airport a few weeks ago. Deitz is known to be in Iraq, although his father, Skip Deitz, declined to say more last week.


“I can’t really talk about that,’’ he said. “I can tell you that everything I’ve gotten from him [about the military operation in Iraq] has been very positive.’’


Dogger is a surface warfare officer deploying to Southwest Asia. She is training to drive Navy ships.


The Seals, by the way, aren’t open to women.


Graybill says all these ex-swimmers have “it’’ — the combination of mental and physical toughness to push themselves to their absolute limit. He had a front-row seat to watch them develop it.


He even remembers the moment he knew Dogger had it.


This was in February 2002, at the Lancaster-Lebanon League girls’ swimming championships.


Township went into the day’s final event, the 400 relay, with a three-point lead over Cedar Crest. First place was worth 14 points, second place 10.


Dogger was swimming the anchor leg opposite Cedar Crest’s Marsena Vranesic, one of the best in the state, later a scholarship swimmer at Michigan State.


“I never shook so much in my life,’’ Dogger said after that race.


Dogger hit the water with a lead of about two body lengths, but Vranesic pulled even with a pool length remaining. Dogger held her off. By .06 of a second, Township was the league champ.


“I think she came of age that day,’’ Graybill said.


“She reached further inside herself than she ever had before.’’


Swimming, the ultimate grinder’s sport in which there’s no substitute for massive effort and sacrifice, can draw that out of a person.


And maybe help the person see the value in more effort, and more sacrifice.


“I’m glad this story’s going to be in the paper,’’ Graybill said.


“I want some of the [swimmers] I have now to see it.’’