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It’s been over two decades since Navy SEAL Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy was killed in action, but the world will always know — and feel — his mighty strength.
Fitness enthusiasts worldwide put themselves through a small sliver of the Patchogue-born hero’s grit each Memorial Day weekend through a debilitating workout Murphy crafted during basic underwater demolition/SEAL training (BUD/s).
“I think Murph is somewhere up there in Frogman heaven, smiling down at all these people who honor fallen service members through sweat and sacrifice,” former SEAL Kaj Larsen, a friend of Murphy’s from BUD/s, told The Post.
“I think nothing would have made him happier than to know that was part of his legacy.”
That legacy is a one-mile run, 100 pull-up, 200 push-up, 300 air squat circuit, followed by a second one-mile run, that the two warriors concocted in the early 2000s to best prepare them for the hardest days of the hardest military training around.
The origin was that Larsen and Murphy — he later added a 20-pound vest while deployed in Afghanistan — would run to and from their barracks to the beachfront pull-up bars about a mile away on base in Coronado, Calif.
“We just kind of came up with it on the fly,” said Larsen, who added that Ukrainian troops even do the workout, which was posthumously named for Murphy, amid their war against Russia.
Former SEAL Chris Wyllie is the executive director of the Lt. Michael P. Murphy Museum in West Sayville and is preparing to host its annual “Murph” challenge Saturday, drawing a growing number of participants for the 7:30 a.m. sharp opening ceremony at 50 West Avenue.
“We had 366 sign up and are expecting even more. Last year we had 280,” added Wyllie, who has done the challenge around 100 times.
“There are quite a few people who usually show up and get humbled a little bit.”
Long Island’s finest
The 29-year-old Murphy, a former lifeguard nicknamed “The Protector” at Lake Ronkonkoma, was gunned down by the Taliban in 2005 during “Operation Red Wings,” which remains one of the darkest days in the elite fighting force’s history that claimed just under two dozen lives.
He was killed in Afghanistan after deliberately exposing himself to enemy fire while calling in reinforcements.
It was a heroic effort to save his four-man SEAL team, of which only Marcus Luttrell survived after hiding out for days in a nearby village that offered him refuge while viciously wounded.
Murphy and other soldiers’ bravery is immortalized in the 2013 film “Lone Survivor.”
This weekend’s event will again serve to show a principle that Murphy and his SEAL brethren devoutly believed and endured from hell week on for a lifetime.
“It’s that you push yourself another rep or two further than you thought, because then that’s a win, that’s a victory,” said Wyllie.
“Just do the best that you can do, where you get an emotional reaction from the Murph challenge. Especially during Memorial Day weekend, when we’re honoring our fallen.”
Murphy’s ultimate sacrifice and the challenge in his honor continue to inspire all these years later, like that of Bay Shore teenager Finn Schiavone.
He was in a middle school wrestling accident that caused paralysis in 2022.
“I was in a wheelchair, unable to walk, talk, read or write for a while,” the 17-year-old high school junior said.
Schiavone came to the museum to seek inspiration and go through the painstaking therapy in hopes of walking again.
He met both Michael’s father, Dan, and Wyllie, who both made it their new mission to support Schiavone throughout his agonizing recovery. It involved months of painful electro-stim therapy and passing out while trying to stand, waking up, and doing it again right after.
Schiavone never rang the proverbial surrender bell three times, and they were there every step of the way, rooting him along.
Wyllie even pushed Schiavone’s wheelchair during a special run named in Michael’s honor at Lake Ronkonkoma in 2024.
He rose to take the final steps toward the finish line.
The only easy day was yesterday
The unbeatable teen was then given a perseverance award at the 2024 Murph Challenge after seeing firsthand the physical sacrifices so many were making that day.
“I saw people crying, I saw people bleeding, and everyone just had a shared amount of discipline, and they were all working to honor Michael Murphy,” Schiavone said.
“To me, that was really special. So I set a goal for myself that next year I would work really hard to beat the paralysis — and try to accomplish the Murph.”
That he did, surrounded by the loved ones who stayed in his corner through hell and high water.
“I did the Murph for them, to prove to them that if you put your mind to something, you’re able to achieve it,” Schiavone said.
“As long as your mind wants something, your body will listen, and it’ll follow you.”
Schiavone not only beat the challenge, but did so wearing a weighted vest signed by Robert O’Neill, the SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden.
After all, he aspires to join the unit and graduate from Annapolis.
“Nothing Finn does surprises me,” Wyllie said. “But I still have to commend him.”
The triumphant teenager returns to do the Murph Challenge this Saturday morning, rain or shine, with a simple goal in mind that echoes Murphy and the SEAL ethos.
“I just want to do it better than last year.”
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