Jocko Podcast 139 w/ Echo Charles: In Darkest Times, Start Walking (Bataan Death March)

2018-08-22T19:16:05Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:02:50 - James Bollich, "A Soldier's Journal"  Get The Book Here: https://amzn.to/2wjmW3h 2:07:38 - Final Thoughts and Take-aways. 2:21:30 - Support. 2:49:58 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

And until we do see you at the master or at the roll call or at the immersion camp if you want to cruise with us Kind of hard on the interwebs we are there we are an Instagram Twitter and on that phase booky people echo is at echo trials and i am at jockel willink and finally Thanks all the military personnel that are listening as you defend our Great nation from threats around the world thank you for standing the watch and here in America to the police to law enforcement to firefighters to border patrol paramedics first responders Thanks to you all as well for standing the watch here at home and keeping us safe And thanks to everyone for listening and supporting and i know sometimes it can be hard to listen to stories from atrocities like the baton death march i know that But in listening Remember Remember that evil does exist Remember those that died standing up against that evil And remember that even in the most wretched times When you face darkness yourself no matter how bad things get remember Remember not to stop remember not to pause remember not to hesitate remember to put one foot in front of the other take that first step And start walking If, if personally, you know, speaking for myself, if I'm going to skip a workout on a day where I don't feel like it is going to be one of those workouts, one of those ones that you're doing like, you know, burpees and they're like, the junk ones. Yeah, if you want to boom because a lot of times it's like it's not like people are just gonna be going jocco store every day Boom boom boom, you know, no, no, you don't put new stuff up very often. And you know, my mother is like, you know, she's probably like, I'm like, okay, so I can I went to sleep kind of early which is like I'm not you know some people that they prefer to go sleep hungry because it's like you know Whatever their philosophy. You know what I'm just I was gonna like send both of them a text a group text a group To be like hey, I'm looking outside the door You know And then I'm like cruising with him, you know Like he's a great check Dan Bat is on the path but still yeah way on the path He's a way of the path on the path There was another actually a few other books where this was like that where every situation he kind of goes through, you just get more and more exhaust like you're exhausted because you kind of think like, okay, it'll start to let up. Yeah, then you pass on to ashlandfront Info at ashland you like it little little little you like to get the game info at ashlandfront dot com if you want to just email straight Also the master 006 San Francisco County for in We think about like remembering words and being sharper and quicker, but we don't think about like The opposite of being irritable when it I don't know if there's is there a word for the opposite of irritable Because it's not the kind Yeah like with less than like if you even if you got like a blood test or something. and I do I do some I've branched out a little bit I normally always did two scoops of mock in big glass of milk and now I'm kind of doing little hitters Like little hitters like little hitters I mean give her take you know, they're like a certain age Ten-year-old type Problems and then they ask so they get a little bit more sophisticated You know and the next little more and more so it's kind of chronological and not to mention the story as well I'm gonna make a psychological warfare that says the white rice that you're looking for If she was gonna put it today if she was gonna do 100% sugar once it enters your stomach walk away Walk away from the white rice now actually that's what you that kind of wood because she said Late at night this was long time ago by the way she said late at night It's like a dessert as a meal Yeah, it's both you've seen It's just like the treat you look forward to Unless good to go get all this at Origin main dot com as we can get all this stuff cool website check I would talk about the immersion camp, but it's sold out bummer Here's the thing to I'll suck the Andy Burke cuz I I'm so full when I get done with mock like this morning when I got home since I didn't have mock on my trip When I got home Before I started record before I started prepping for the podcast I had a little hitter of mock Which I by the way took hitter So now they actually end up getting on a train and they go for a long train lot ride and when they finally get off the place looked like and felt like the inside of a deep freezer everything was covered with snow and frozen solid. you know, you know, it's basically the opposite of having You know when you're like what do you call it when you're irritable? I'll actually back to the point back The way okay, so the adaptions it's the opposite of being irritable That's what I felt and I think when we think about like discipline and you know could neutral pay hell brain health all this stuff And, and I was, you know, he was all just like, he's like, oh, you're going to record right now. You know I actually considered whether or not I should put that in there because I know there are some people that really don't like going to the dentist. Okay, so consider that like when I snap at someone You know which I would say I like rarely snap someone yeah But you got to remember that even like, like you just described my day, but there's people out there that did five times more than when I did today. You know, I got to kind of recover, you know, unless I have something lingering or something like that. Yeah, as it turns out Yeah, I didn't know that said the time so you're like and come on down to that Finally we have EF overwatch connecting Speck ops and combat aviation Folks from the military to companies that need leaders need tested leaders so we've got great Leaders out there that we know from our communities and now we've got companies that we know from ashlandfront You just you know, you right and on the stuff We wouldn't have multiple tone That's what we took more of Anyways, you got that you got discipline which is good for Just good for mission life mission getting after it Like last time was time with Dean or whatever when I was saying when I took the three scoops I felt like I could just do with stuff and it's the kind of words like what I already know how it tastes like what I would I'm not even do that okay? because I consider I don't know when I started thinking that way Yeah, like hey just snapping at someone is just when if I snap at you brother's per you did some really Jacked up or maybe you're just super duper

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 139.
[00:00:04] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:07] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:08] Good evening.
[00:00:09] I live to while on Karegador Island.
[00:00:16] That sun baked God cursed land.
[00:00:20] Where bomb and shell made life a hell with death on every hand.
[00:00:28] I got the thirst there of the cursed with no water to be had.
[00:00:33] I heard men scream in hellish dreams and watched my friends go mad.
[00:00:41] To his no man's fault, the water, salt, or that the food is gone.
[00:00:48] The guns are manned by men full-damped, facing each new dawn.
[00:00:57] When our bones blend with the stones, you'll hear the parents cry.
[00:01:04] The men who owned these splintered bones were not afraid to die.
[00:01:16] And that is a poem written on the back of a scrap of paper, postmarked prisoner of
[00:01:25] the war male March 1943.
[00:01:29] The note was addressed to James D. Culp, US Navy, gunners made first class via his wife
[00:01:39] from the red cross while he was in a prisoner of war camp in Osaka, Japan.
[00:01:48] And the author is unknown.
[00:01:49] So it wasn't written by James D. Culp.
[00:01:52] It was sent to James D. Culp.
[00:01:55] The author is unknown, but it's assumed to be one of Culp's fellow prisoners that was captured
[00:02:01] on the Philippine island of Keregador.
[00:02:06] And the fall of the Philippine's World War II resulted in an absolutely horrific event
[00:02:18] that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American and Filipino service members.
[00:02:26] And there's not any great records of how many actually died in this terrible situation,
[00:02:37] but throughout the prisoner of war camps of the Japanese in World War II, the death rate
[00:02:45] was about 40%, it was a nightmare.
[00:02:50] And this is about the baton death march.
[00:02:59] And we've heard a little bit about what the Japanese did to prisoners of war in World
[00:03:04] War II.
[00:03:05] We read the forgotten Highlander by Alistar U.Cart, and that was podcast number 12.
[00:03:14] He didn't talk about the baton death march, but today we're going to hear from someone
[00:03:19] that did the baton death march, a guy by the name of James Bollick, a young member of the
[00:03:29] Army Air Corps who suffered through that terrible situation.
[00:03:38] So we wrote a book about it, the book is called Usoldiers Journal by James Bollick.
[00:03:46] And let's get right into it.
[00:03:49] Going to the book.
[00:03:52] I joined the service August 23rd, 1940 at Barclay Field, Shreafport, Louisiana, and was
[00:03:59] assigned to the 16th bomb squadron, 27th bomb group.
[00:04:03] I joined because Paris had just fallen to the Germans and I felt we would soon be at
[00:04:08] war.
[00:04:10] I was in college at the time and just finished my third semester.
[00:04:13] All the talk around school is about war and it was hard to keep my mind on books.
[00:04:18] I was attending Southwestern Louisiana Institute in Lafayette through a government
[00:04:23] program called the NYA, the National Youth Administration.
[00:04:27] We received $30 a month and had to work for eight hours every other day.
[00:04:34] Because of this, it was hard to schedule classes and hard to study properly.
[00:04:39] From our $30 pay, we had to put about $18 each month for Roman board, which left $12
[00:04:45] for other essentials such as books, paper, pencils, etc.
[00:04:50] Because going to college was so difficult under these circumstances, it seemed that the
[00:04:55] Army could not be any worse.
[00:04:58] So go to join the Army.
[00:05:02] I went home and told my parents what I planned to do, my mother was horrified and strictly
[00:05:06] against it.
[00:05:08] At the time I needed my parents consent to join because of my age, I was 19.
[00:05:12] My father agreed to sign and convinced my mother to sign also.
[00:05:16] I remember her saying that if anything happened to me, she did not want to be blamed for letting
[00:05:20] me go in the Army.
[00:05:23] I was sworn in with the rest of the recruits.
[00:05:25] I had a choice of joining a weather squadron or a bombardment squadron.
[00:05:30] Of course I chose the bombardment squadron.
[00:05:32] I did not join the Army to study the weather.
[00:05:35] I joined a fight.
[00:05:37] That is what I thought.
[00:05:39] I was there for assigned to the 16th bomb squadron to the 27th bomb group.
[00:05:45] Army closed and equipment at this time were in short supply and were not provided and we
[00:05:50] were not provided with clothes, etc.
[00:05:52] For quite some time, obviously my statement that I always make is I'm skipping big chunks
[00:05:57] to this book and reading some of the highlights so you get the flow of the story before
[00:06:02] we get into the meat of the book.
[00:06:06] It's a great book.
[00:06:07] It's a relatively short read, but it's a great book.
[00:06:12] Back to the book.
[00:06:13] The clothing we had was essentially still World War I.
[00:06:17] We had leggings, campaign hats, etc.
[00:06:20] At this time.
[00:06:21] Then he ends up going to a school to learn his skills about bombing.
[00:06:25] Back to the book, the school lasted about nine months and I came out knowing everything
[00:06:29] there was to know about her airplane.
[00:06:31] When school was over from my class, I was offered a position as instructor of drafting,
[00:06:35] but I turned it down.
[00:06:37] I wanted to get back with my outfit and his outfit was down in Savannah.
[00:06:42] When I got back to Savannah, I found out my outfit packing up to go on maneuvers in Louisiana.
[00:06:48] Within a few days, we were on our way by Army Truck.
[00:06:52] Tonight we would stop, set up our mess tent, eat, and hit the sack.
[00:06:56] We slept on the ground under a pup tent.
[00:06:58] It took us two or three days to reach our final stop, which was at the airfield at Lake
[00:07:02] Charles.
[00:07:04] Here we lived in tents, again just as our first days in Savannah.
[00:07:08] As far as I was concerned at the time, maneuvers were a joke.
[00:07:11] Instead of having actual machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, foxholes, etc, there were
[00:07:16] wooden signs all around to indicate these.
[00:07:19] If the air raid siren went off, we were supposed to run out to one of these signs.
[00:07:23] The way that one of the maneuvers did apparently help us with down the line was to adapt
[00:07:29] to hard, rough, outdoor living.
[00:07:32] We were also on reduced rations, which helped prepare us for what was to come later on.
[00:07:39] We were fly over the enemy and drop small sacks of flour on them.
[00:07:44] Referees could tell if we hit or missed, and the sides were scored accordingly.
[00:07:47] I don't remember how long these maneuvers lasted, but it seems like it was at least a month.
[00:07:52] They're out there.
[00:07:53] I thought this was interesting because we do dumb stuff like that sometimes in the military
[00:07:57] where you think it's dumb.
[00:07:59] What you're really trying to do is get the broad muscle movements of a military organization
[00:08:05] working.
[00:08:06] You say, okay, because it's not easy to get 500 men assembled and moved to a location, it
[00:08:11] takes practice.
[00:08:13] They just run people through planning and training exercises that you're just trying
[00:08:17] to get these broad muscle movements, even though for the troops in the ground sometimes,
[00:08:21] I remember sometimes I'd be thinking, this is ridiculous.
[00:08:23] This is so unrealistic, but we weren't training the different line troops.
[00:08:27] What they were training was the logistics of this giant scenario.
[00:08:30] So that's kind of what they're doing here.
[00:08:34] Back to the book.
[00:08:35] We finally got word to pack up and headed back home to Savannah.
[00:08:38] We'd already gotten word that as soon as we reach Savannah, we would need to pack again.
[00:08:42] This time to go overseas, but no one knew where as yet.
[00:08:46] So again, Germany, France had fallen to Germany or Paris had fallen to Germany, but we weren't
[00:08:51] in the war yet.
[00:08:52] So this is pre-World War II for America at this time.
[00:08:56] So he's just thinking he's going on a regular kind of deployment at this point.
[00:09:02] Back to the book.
[00:09:03] When we reached Savannah, we found that most of our gear that we had left behind was already
[00:09:05] created and ready to go.
[00:09:07] As I recall, in about a week or so, we boarded the train for San Francisco.
[00:09:11] All of our crates were stenciled with the letter letters PLUM Plum, but no one knew it meant.
[00:09:18] I should mention here that before we left Savannah, I was called to the first sergeant's
[00:09:22] office and told that I did not have to go overseas if I did not want to.
[00:09:26] Of course, I immediately rejected the idea and said I definitely wanted to go.
[00:09:30] To this day, I don't know why this came up because I'm talking to others in my outfit
[00:09:34] and no one had had that opportunity.
[00:09:37] Since I had applied for flight school, it may be that I could have gone there.
[00:09:41] So he didn't mention his property.
[00:09:43] He wanted to be a pilot.
[00:09:44] So they could have been a possibility that they wanted to send him a flight school.
[00:09:48] But of course, like many young, 19-year-old men, what you want to do is you want to stick
[00:09:53] with your unit, you want to go and fight.
[00:09:55] And at this point, he's no easy fighting, but he wants to go deploy with his guys.
[00:10:00] Back to the book.
[00:10:01] I still don't know what Plum stood for, but looking back now, apparently the P stood for
[00:10:05] Philippines, the L stood for the island of Luzon, but the UNM, I do not know.
[00:10:13] That's awesome.
[00:10:15] Now they get to San Francisco eventually and here we go.
[00:10:20] They're boarding the ship back to the book.
[00:10:22] The SS Coolidge was a lovely ship that normally carried civilian passengers to the Orient.
[00:10:27] But now it was being used to transport troops.
[00:10:29] We did not have state rooms, but slept in quarters comparable to regular army transports.
[00:10:34] But the third day we found out where we were going.
[00:10:37] Up to this time, no one knew.
[00:10:38] Our squadron commander called us together and told us we were headed for the Philippine
[00:10:42] Islands.
[00:10:43] He told us that we were the first part of an expeditionary force being sent out to beef
[00:10:48] up the defenses of the Philippines.
[00:10:51] After this talk, I don't remember anyone getting very excited about it.
[00:10:54] We all went back to killing time and doing things that we were doing before.
[00:10:57] Some people read, some gambled, and some exercised.
[00:11:00] There was light boxing going on, so I decided I would participate.
[00:11:03] I boxed as a light weight at 165 pounds.
[00:11:08] I mentioned 165 pounds because that weight is going to go away.
[00:11:14] Honolulu is a place where I finally learned the port and starboard sides of a ship.
[00:11:19] On large ships I still get lost and confused.
[00:11:21] I had to go out on deck to see which way the boat was traveling, cloaking it myself.
[00:11:25] This is funny.
[00:11:26] You get it first, get on a ship.
[00:11:27] You have no idea where you are.
[00:11:28] And there's a system in a ship that you can use to figure out in the mark.
[00:11:32] Well, Navy ships, they mark it very clearly, but it takes a little time to get used to
[00:11:37] and apparently he didn't get taught.
[00:11:40] We finally left the dock and as we pulled out of pull harbor, saw the ships with our planes
[00:11:45] coming in.
[00:11:48] We never saw our planes again and little did we realize what would happen to Pearl Harbor
[00:11:52] in just a few short weeks.
[00:11:55] This is pre-Purl Harbor.
[00:11:58] Because they set sail throughout its sea back to the book one morning when I got up and
[00:12:03] went out on deck.
[00:12:04] I noticed islands all around us.
[00:12:05] We were finally in the Philippines.
[00:12:08] Just as soon as we got off the ship, we loaded into Army trucks and were taken to Fort McKinley.
[00:12:13] I should point out here that during the peacetime, I like this part.
[00:12:16] I should point out here that during peacetime in the Philippines prior to our arrival, the
[00:12:20] military was on duty only in the morning from 8 o'clock to 11 o'clock.
[00:12:26] It was thought that a white person could not survive in tropical sun after 11 o'clock.
[00:12:31] What a deal they had and to top it off, time spent in the tropics, Hawaii included, counted
[00:12:36] as time and a half toward retirement.
[00:12:39] Another reason we were so honours when we first arrived in the tropics was the fact that
[00:12:43] we still had our winter uniforms.
[00:12:45] So I thought that was pretty funny to think about that.
[00:12:49] That's not that.
[00:12:50] This is the 1940s that I think I looked.
[00:12:52] You're not going to make it.
[00:12:53] Hey, listen up, white boy.
[00:12:54] You're not going to make it past 11, you need to go back in the shade.
[00:13:00] Back to the book.
[00:13:01] As long as I was at Fort McKinley about two weeks, the only thing I ever did was dig trenches
[00:13:05] around the fort.
[00:13:06] These were not foxholes but long zigzag trenches.
[00:13:10] We were undoubtedly preparing for war.
[00:13:13] Then they go out.
[00:13:14] They catch a movie.
[00:13:17] Back to the book.
[00:13:18] After the movie, we took a tram or trolley back to the gate at Fort McKinley.
[00:13:22] Before going to our tent, we decided to stop the mess tent for something to drink before
[00:13:25] retiring.
[00:13:26] And that is when we heard that Pearl Harbor was being jumped bombed by the Japanese.
[00:13:31] This message came from a radio that was playing in a mess tent.
[00:13:34] And I suspect we were one of the first to hear the news.
[00:13:37] I was not terribly surprised or concerned because we'd been preparing for war and now
[00:13:42] it was here.
[00:13:43] I was not frightened by the news and remember going to bed and immediately falling asleep
[00:13:47] because the hour was very late.
[00:13:49] I know I would have been frightened if I had known what terrible destruction the Japanese
[00:13:54] had inflicted on our forces at Pearl Harbor.
[00:13:58] We never knew about our terrible losses until the war was over.
[00:14:02] I am sure our top brass knew but we were never told which I am sure was best.
[00:14:09] I may not have been scared the night when I heard that the war started but I would be
[00:14:12] lying if I said I was not scared when the second night rolled around.
[00:14:16] The day started with an early frantic call before breakfast for all to us immediately assembled
[00:14:21] from the first sergeants tent.
[00:14:23] I had a pretty good idea of what it was all about but most of the outfit had not yet heard.
[00:14:29] Anyway we were told we were now at war with Japan and would be issued arms and ammunition.
[00:14:35] So just like that, everything changes.
[00:14:39] I was issued a 30 caliber springfield rifle and a 45 caliber cult automatic pistol.
[00:14:45] And we were air core personnel.
[00:14:47] We had never received instructions on firing a rifle and a lot of these men had never
[00:14:52] had a rifle in their hands before.
[00:14:54] A lot were like me however.
[00:14:56] They were farm boys who were brought up with guns and knew how to use them.
[00:15:01] So again these guys it's a peace time and even though they might have been preparing for
[00:15:06] war it's a peace time situation and you know how I talk about when you are training
[00:15:11] in GJT so you can't train hard enough to be prepared for a car.
[00:15:15] You can't train the same way a competition field so you just can't.
[00:15:19] It's the same way here.
[00:15:20] When there's no war going on I'm care how much you try to simulate it.
[00:15:23] If there's no war going on you can't simulate it well enough and that's kind of the situation
[00:15:28] that they were in.
[00:15:29] Guys hadn't even some of the guys had never even shot a rifle before.
[00:15:35] This doesn't take long to escalate at all back to the book.
[00:15:39] At night we all retired to our tents early because the total blackout was in effect.
[00:15:44] It really made no difference to us because we had no lights in the tents anyways.
[00:15:48] All of a sudden around midnight or so there was a loud whistling and everyone outside.
[00:15:53] Loud whistling on the outside by our first sergeant.
[00:15:56] The whistling followed by shots of everyone up everyone up air raid.
[00:16:01] We could hear air raid sirens in the background so we were sure it was the real thing.
[00:16:04] A lot of guys were up and dressed in out and minutes but a lot of guys were slow and
[00:16:08] lagging around they figured it was a dry run so why hurry.
[00:16:11] Once out of the tents we were told to go to the edge of the jungle nearby and get away
[00:16:14] from our tents because they were undoubtedly become a great target for the enemy.
[00:16:19] Everyone did as he was told but before long there was grumbling and people wanted to go
[00:16:24] back to bed.
[00:16:26] Eventually we were given the order to return to our tents and needless to say we were ready.
[00:16:32] Once back in the dark tents we got out of our clothes and before long everyone was
[00:16:35] sound asleep again.
[00:16:37] I'm not sure how long we were asleep but sometime later that night we were awakened by horrendous
[00:16:42] sounds but likes of which we had never heard before.
[00:16:45] Great explosions were going on all around us and the ground was shaking as if an earthquake
[00:16:50] was taking place.
[00:16:52] Brilliant flashes of light could be seen through the thick canvas of our tents.
[00:16:56] By now our first sergeant was out again yelling for all the head for the jungle again.
[00:17:01] This time there were no stragglers.
[00:17:03] A lot of the guys just took off and they're underwear, some pants no shirt, some shirt
[00:17:07] but no pants.
[00:17:08] I managed to get clothes on and untied shoes before leaving our tent but once outside
[00:17:13] I was stunned for a while by what I heard and saw.
[00:17:16] The sky was filled with bursting anti-aircraft fire and tracer bullets could be seen, headed
[00:17:22] up in all directions.
[00:17:24] The sound of straining aircraft could also be heard intermingled with the rumbling sound
[00:17:29] of exploding bombs it looked like the world was coming to an end.
[00:17:35] So that's two days to go from hey we're going to a movie and we're hanging out in the
[00:17:40] Philippines drinking some beers to this.
[00:17:43] That's completely insane to think about.
[00:17:48] War had now come to us with a bang and it was real.
[00:17:54] Again fast-forwarding.
[00:17:57] And we received word to pull out of leap which is where they were the reason given
[00:18:00] was that the Japanese had landed a few miles from us and if we did knock it out of there
[00:18:04] in a hurry we might be overrun.
[00:18:06] So think about that.
[00:18:08] You know here you are, you're American, you got the strongest military, you come from
[00:18:13] this giant country and all of a sudden the Japanese who you weren't even at war with
[00:18:19] five days ago, four days ago, now they're landing on beach and you're under the threat
[00:18:23] of being overrun.
[00:18:24] And I look back now and think that the real story was that the Japs landed in force
[00:18:32] and they are commanders wanted all of us evacuated to the Baton Peninsula as quickly
[00:18:37] as possible.
[00:18:38] So they move, they march, they end up in Baton, they no longer have tents and they're
[00:18:45] living basically outside in little shelters that they're building and they are starting
[00:18:51] to get bombed all the time, here we go, back to the book, bombs frighten the devil out
[00:18:55] of me.
[00:18:56] I figured there was no way I could survive so many clothes calls day after day.
[00:19:00] There was many, there was many a day when bombs fell within 20 or 30 feet of me and
[00:19:05] eventually so much closer.
[00:19:07] If it had not been forced strategically located foxholes, I know I would not be here
[00:19:12] today.
[00:19:13] So these guys are getting just crushed because I didn't mention this part but you remember
[00:19:20] when he said when they left Polar Harbor they saw the ships with their planes on them,
[00:19:24] the planes never showed up, they got bombed and Pearl Harbor.
[00:19:26] So they had just a few planes that had already been there in the Philippines, they didn't
[00:19:31] have an actual war load out of planes.
[00:19:34] So the Japanese had total air superiority and that's why they were able to just bomb
[00:19:38] them with complete unrestricted violence.
[00:19:44] Back to the book, during a bombing raid I would normally peep over the edge of my foxhole
[00:19:47] to see where the planes were.
[00:19:50] At first all you knew was that they were headed in your direction and you had better
[00:19:54] stay put.
[00:19:57] As they got closer and closer you could tell better if they were going to pass to the
[00:20:02] side of you or if they were coming directly over.
[00:20:05] You remember the book we read where it builds up with the heavies coming?
[00:20:10] They the big slow war, it's Ernie Pile and he's talking about how the big slow war
[00:20:15] is coming and he looks up and he sees it's the heavies and how the guys were just so happy
[00:20:21] that the bombers were coming.
[00:20:23] The big allied American bombers were coming to give them support.
[00:20:28] Well this is the opposite.
[00:20:31] This is what it's like to be on the ground and the heavies are coming.
[00:20:35] The Japanese bombers are coming.
[00:20:36] Here we go back to the book.
[00:20:38] If they were directly overhead you began to sweat because that meant you were about to take
[00:20:44] a pounding.
[00:20:45] As you watch the planes you could all of a sudden see many small flashes of silver appear
[00:20:51] just below the planes.
[00:20:54] This meant that their bombs had been dropped and they were on their way down.
[00:20:59] These silver flashes were only visible for a few seconds then disappeared.
[00:21:05] If you were still looking up the next thing you saw and now heard where these large black
[00:21:11] objects coming at you with a terrible hissing sound.
[00:21:16] In a fraction of a second they were exploding with a terrific bang as they hit the ground.
[00:21:21] They did not go off simultaneously but one at a time until they had all exploded.
[00:21:26] If the bombs were just in front of you you could hear them getting closer and closer and
[00:21:30] that was the scary part.
[00:21:32] It wasn't until you could hear the explosives go past you that you knew you were safe and
[00:21:37] you could now relax that's when you thanked God for foxholes.
[00:21:42] We've talked about similar before with people being in the trenches in World War I.
[00:21:47] I think it was Bobby Hoffman or Bob Hoffman that was talking about in his book I remember
[00:21:52] the last war where when they would get mordered or hit with artillery that's how artillery
[00:21:58] works.
[00:21:59] You fire around then you move a little to the left then you fire around then you move a little
[00:22:02] to the left then you fire around and you move a little to the left and so you knew
[00:22:06] you could feel it's getting closer and closer and closer and until it goes by you
[00:22:11] you're waiting to get blown up you're waiting to die.
[00:22:15] That's exactly what he's talking about here.
[00:22:19] Back to the book besides bombs and enemy strafing there was another danger coming from
[00:22:23] the air.
[00:22:24] It was the hot whistling metal fragments raining down on us from our own anti aircraft
[00:22:29] guns at Corregador.
[00:22:31] So Corregador is not collocated with them and Corregador's firing anti aircraft and some
[00:22:36] of the fragments from all that fire is raining down on these guys.
[00:22:44] It wasn't long before our food supply was practically gone and we had to scrounge around
[00:22:48] to find something to eat.
[00:22:49] We eventually ate all of our horses that belong to the cavalry and the mules that were
[00:22:54] used to pull their cannons.
[00:22:56] So they ran out of food very quickly.
[00:23:05] Although we were air core we were ultimately designated as infantry and carried on and fought
[00:23:11] as such.
[00:23:13] When the front lines were active we could always hear the roar of cannons being fired in
[00:23:16] the noise of the resulting explosions.
[00:23:19] Many a night I fell asleep listening to this noise and especially during the last few weeks
[00:23:23] and days of our struggle.
[00:23:26] And this noise getting closer and closer as the front lines fell back I never in my wildest
[00:23:32] dreams felt that we would be defeated.
[00:23:36] We were tired, hungry and in many cases sick but we were still ready to fight.
[00:23:42] So let me just break that down a little bit.
[00:23:45] There's infantry soldiers up that are closer to the enemy that are fighting and they
[00:23:49] can hear that fighting taking place and they're back and they're in their air field
[00:23:54] area trying to, well they're holding security but they're basically around an air field
[00:24:00] and the infantry soldiers in the army are further away to the front and they can hear
[00:24:06] day after day that front line is getting closer and closer and closer to where they are
[00:24:11] because the Japanese are pushing them back and back and back and back.
[00:24:16] And it ends up like this.
[00:24:17] This is scary.
[00:24:18] So back to the book one day, stray soldiers started appearing at our air strip and the surprise
[00:24:24] me because I had never seen this before and talking to them they said they had left the
[00:24:28] front line looking for food.
[00:24:31] They were being constantly bombarded by Japanese guns and no food was getting to them.
[00:24:35] It was either go out and look for food or starve to death.
[00:24:39] So now eventually the guys that were out fighting the Japanese front line now they're
[00:24:43] straggler starting to come back to the air field because they're starving.
[00:24:54] One day we got word to gas up the last p40s that we had three as I recall and get them
[00:25:00] ready for takeoff.
[00:25:02] We pulled them out of their hiding place in the jungle and down to the field where the pilots
[00:25:06] were waiting.
[00:25:08] Normally the pilots wanted to jump in and take off immediately before the japs saw them
[00:25:12] but this time it was different.
[00:25:15] They said they were leaving baton and going to a field on one of the islands to the
[00:25:19] south which was still in friendly hands.
[00:25:23] Before the pilot got in his plane he asked me in a friend of mine if we wanted to send
[00:25:27] a message home.
[00:25:29] We said yes because it was the first opportunity that we had had do so since leaving the
[00:25:33] states.
[00:25:34] He had a pencil and I wrote a short note letting everyone know at home that I was well.
[00:25:40] When the last of our planes left that was the beginning of the end.
[00:25:47] It may have been the same day or the day after we were heardly taken back into camp and
[00:25:51] told to pack up we were told only to bring the barricentials the clothes and shoes that
[00:25:56] we had on toothbrushes etc.
[00:25:59] Nothing else.
[00:26:02] So you know you're in a bad way when the planes are taken off and the guys say hey you
[00:26:05] want me to pass them that's your joke because we're not coming back.
[00:26:10] And then to get told to hey take just the clothes on your back basically we're leaving.
[00:26:22] By the time we fought finally pulled out it was getting dark the people that we got back
[00:26:26] from the field said that they could hear jab tanks coming up the road and where and they
[00:26:32] were near.
[00:26:34] For the last several days the word got much closer to us gunfire was almost constant and
[00:26:39] night you could see the flash of our cannons and hear the exploding shells of the enemy.
[00:26:47] It wasn't long before we could hear the drone of jab bombers coming from a distance.
[00:26:51] We looked up and sure enough they were headed our way.
[00:26:54] All of a sudden we could hear the swishing of falling bombs.
[00:26:57] They started exploding as they hit the ground and each explosion kept getting closer and
[00:27:01] closer working in our direction.
[00:27:04] I knew that we were in big trouble when I heard explosions getting louder and louder
[00:27:09] then almost immediately we were practically obliterated by an exploding bomb that missed
[00:27:15] us by a few feet.
[00:27:17] When the bomb went off it sent dirt and large rocks flying in the air and all directions
[00:27:22] and we were almost covered by falling debris.
[00:27:27] This bomb was actually closer to me than the other bomb that killed the engineer on our
[00:27:31] air strip and peppered my arm with strappin'le.
[00:27:35] You could reach out from our foxhole and practically touch the edge of the large crater
[00:27:39] that it made but none of us were seriously hurt.
[00:27:46] That's crazy.
[00:27:48] So you got giant bombs blowing up and you can touch the crater that it leaves and you're
[00:27:53] surviving.
[00:27:54] That's why you dig foxholes by the way.
[00:27:57] That's why you dig foxholes because they provide incredible amount of protection.
[00:28:04] That is when we decided we better go back and find our outfit.
[00:28:08] When we did find our outfit we were flabbergasted by the news.
[00:28:13] We were surrendering.
[00:28:16] I could not believe it.
[00:28:19] All these men still with arms and now under the protection of caragador's big guns we
[00:28:23] were giving up.
[00:28:26] But it was true.
[00:28:28] We were told to destroy all of our weapons and ammunition immediately in any way that we
[00:28:32] could.
[00:28:33] Most people were disassembling their rifles and pistols and throwing them into the bay so
[00:28:38] I did the same.
[00:28:39] It was the quickest way to get rid of them.
[00:28:42] I did not mind getting rid of my rifle but I hated to throw away my pistol.
[00:28:47] We were told by our leaders to stay put until the japs came in.
[00:28:52] When they did we would be taken to prisoner of war camps where we would sit out the rest
[00:28:57] of the war.
[00:28:59] I did not like this idea at all but you could tell a lot of the guys felt relieved.
[00:29:05] They were dirty, tired, hungry and it had enough of war.
[00:29:10] They felt now that they had survived and would soon be fed, sheltered and given some
[00:29:14] long, long-needed rest.
[00:29:19] We all did we know that we were headed for hell.
[00:29:28] He goes into some, the, the, the, you got to get this book and read the whole book because
[00:29:34] he goes into all the details of how this collapse kind of finalized back to the book.
[00:29:41] By the time we got back to the group, Japanese troops had arrived from the other direction.
[00:29:46] They were already lining people up to count us.
[00:29:49] Pretty soon a jap soldier came up to me, muttering something and at the same time, flapping
[00:29:54] his hand up and down.
[00:29:56] I looked at him with a puzzle look because I didn't have the slightest idea what he wanted.
[00:30:01] The jap kept his puzzling jap gestures and I could tell that he was getting more furious
[00:30:07] by the minute.
[00:30:09] I turned around, looked at some of the guys and shrugged my shoulders indicating that
[00:30:12] I did not know what the jap wanted.
[00:30:15] Someone said he wants you to sit down.
[00:30:18] So I sit, so I sat down immediately and received a cross, a crack across my head with a
[00:30:23] rifle but I knew then that that was not what he wanted.
[00:30:27] So I immediately got back up.
[00:30:30] That's when he gave me a shove and the guy next to me a shove and so on.
[00:30:35] He wanted us to start walking.
[00:30:40] That was the beginning of our march out of baton and I believe that I was the first one
[00:30:45] to start it.
[00:30:49] This is where my story is going to be difficult to tell for two reasons.
[00:30:53] The first being that we were told on our return to the U.S. that we were not to speak to
[00:30:57] anyone about our experience as prisoners of war, not the press our family or friends.
[00:31:04] The reason for this was that somewhere down the line we might be in a war again and undoubtedly
[00:31:10] more prisoners would be taken.
[00:31:12] If we were to veiled how we survived this information would get into the hands of our
[00:31:16] enemy which would then make it doubly tough on our prisoners.
[00:31:22] This made good sense and I did abide by it.
[00:31:25] Over the years however our story has been told so many times now I feel free to tell
[00:31:30] mine.
[00:31:32] The second reason is that I was and still am reluctant to tell about my experiences
[00:31:40] of POW is the fact that I thought it would be impossible to describe what we went through.
[00:31:48] Impossible to tell and impossible to describe in written word.
[00:31:54] I have since read many good books on the subject and seen film documentaries made but you
[00:32:00] had to be there to experience it to know what it was like.
[00:32:06] I know that my meager attempt will also fail but I will write about it anyways.
[00:32:16] So now we're clearly now we're starting this horrific situation.
[00:32:20] This is the baton death march.
[00:32:27] As we marched along the road we soon soon found ourselves without hats and something far
[00:32:32] more critical water.
[00:32:34] The Japanese were quick to take our canteens and empty them on the road and knocked our
[00:32:39] steel helmets off with their rifle butts.
[00:32:42] We were marching through frontline troops that had just overpowered us.
[00:32:46] They were still inflicting punishment on us in any way that they could.
[00:32:51] We endured constant beatings, beatings, beatings every time we ran into a new group down
[00:32:57] the road.
[00:32:59] We ate us with rifles, sabers, sticks and anything else they could get their hands on.
[00:33:06] We were half starved and many so weak they could barely walk but they showed us no mercy.
[00:33:16] The day was torture.
[00:33:20] To begin with we did not know where we were going and we kept thinking surely it
[00:33:25] couldn't be much further but it was much, much further.
[00:33:32] The sun on our bare heads was bad but the worst was passing up water after water but
[00:33:38] not allowed any.
[00:33:41] After marching well into the dark that day we finally stopped completely beat and exhausted.
[00:33:47] We felt we would surely now be given food and water but that was not to be.
[00:33:52] They put us in a fenced off yard and told us through an interpreter that if any of us
[00:33:57] was found with a knife, razor blade or anything that could be used as a weapon he would
[00:34:01] be immediately shot.
[00:34:04] I thought to myself they did not say compass but I knew that I would be in big trouble if
[00:34:09] they found it so he had taken a compass and he's keeping that on him in case he ever
[00:34:13] gets the chance to escape.
[00:34:15] This place was extremely dark but there was enough light to see the Japanese soldiers
[00:34:18] with machine guns surrounding us.
[00:34:21] We were packed like sardines with barely enough room to stretch out and no latrine facilities.
[00:34:26] If you had to relieve yourself you did it where you were.
[00:34:31] I had now gone 48 hours without food and what liquid I had before starting the march was
[00:34:37] long gone by way of sweat.
[00:34:41] There was a lot of talking and moaning going on but it stopped immediately when we were told
[00:34:46] we would be shot if they heard any noises out of us again.
[00:34:51] Needless to say things quieted down and that is the last thing I remember that day.
[00:35:00] The next day we were started on the road again before dawn without food or water, same
[00:35:04] treatment by the troops heading into baton, beatings and more beatings.
[00:35:10] We were now plotting along leg zombies all we could think about was water.
[00:35:18] He talks about the fact that they are passing these little wells, these little pump and
[00:35:24] they can see that there is water they could clearly have and the Japanese are not allowing
[00:35:28] them to drink this water and that was the torture and is additional torture to what they
[00:35:32] were going through.
[00:35:36] Back to the book.
[00:35:37] I thought that we were now crossing was a total wreck the forest was literally destroyed.
[00:35:41] It looked like a forest fire had gone through it and all that was left was the skeleton
[00:35:46] of what was formerly giant trees.
[00:35:49] No remnants remained of what were once villages.
[00:35:53] The roadside was littered with burned out trucks and cars and an occasional tank could
[00:35:57] be seen.
[00:35:58] They looked like total destruction that it was.
[00:36:04] The worst part, however, was the dead bodies scattered all over.
[00:36:11] You could tell that they had been there for some time because they were all now black and
[00:36:16] bloated.
[00:36:18] The stench was horrible and the site was made more terrible by the swarm of flies around
[00:36:24] each body.
[00:36:31] Again, all day we staggered along that hot dusty road and that we passed running our
[00:36:37] disins wells from time to time we were not allowed to drink.
[00:36:42] We had long ago stopped thinking about food.
[00:36:44] Now it was water.
[00:36:46] Water.
[00:36:47] You kept thinking, where are they taking us?
[00:36:49] When will it end?
[00:36:50] You are thinking surely they know we are exhausted to the point of death and they would soon
[00:36:55] relent.
[00:36:58] But they did not.
[00:37:00] And we had to muster every bit of strength that we could carry on.
[00:37:06] Many of the sick and wounded had fallen out before now and the world knows how they were
[00:37:11] executed as they fell.
[00:37:16] I saw some of this but not nearly as much as the people bringing up the rear.
[00:37:22] I was fortunate in being near the front of the line and had this strength and fortitude
[00:37:26] to stay on my feet.
[00:37:30] All day we looked forward to the end of the heat and misery thinking that at night
[00:37:34] fall we would stop like we did the night before but this was not to be darkness came
[00:37:40] and we kept going.
[00:37:46] Long before now we had dumped any excess baggage that we were carrying.
[00:37:50] A lot of people started to march with blankets, mosquito nets, etc.
[00:37:55] And by the end of the first day this had all been discarded.
[00:37:59] There was hard enough carrying your own weight, much less anything additional.
[00:38:02] For the most part now we were plotting along with strangers.
[00:38:08] When we found out we were surrendering the squadron broke up and we were lucky if we ran
[00:38:12] into a buddy occasionally.
[00:38:15] Being together as a unit under such a trying situation would probably have helped but that
[00:38:21] did not happen.
[00:38:29] So this is just a nightmare getting worse by the moment and I didn't do a good job of explaining
[00:38:38] that going into this.
[00:38:39] It wasn't like they were well fed and well nourished going into this situation.
[00:38:44] They had already been under attack and they had not had food.
[00:38:47] They had run out of food very quickly.
[00:38:49] And these guys are already hungry and dehydrated when they started this thing and now
[00:38:53] it's just getting worse.
[00:38:57] I do think that the following took place shortly before dark on the third day.
[00:39:05] I was desperate for water even though I had some of the night before.
[00:39:10] By now many of the men were rushing every well that we came to even though they were
[00:39:14] being shot at as they did so.
[00:39:16] There were one or two guards close enough to do the shooting so if 10 or 12 men went
[00:39:22] at once the chances were six or eight would get back without being hit.
[00:39:31] I decided I would go for it but would wait until late evening.
[00:39:36] The opportunity finally arrived.
[00:39:38] I made a dash for it with about 10 or 12 others shots were fired but I got a gop of water
[00:39:44] without being hit.
[00:39:53] And this continues on and on.
[00:39:58] Word continued.
[00:39:59] Word quickly spread that we were finally going to be fed and given water.
[00:40:03] How that rumor got started I don't know but it did not happen.
[00:40:08] After a period of about 30 or 40 minutes they started marching us out on the road again.
[00:40:13] The gate that we went in was the opening between one of the houses and the high vine covered
[00:40:19] fence.
[00:40:22] As we approached this opening on our way out I noticed an army canteen sitting on a small
[00:40:26] ledge on the side of the house.
[00:40:28] My first reaction was that the canteen was a trap.
[00:40:31] You would grab it and the jab guards would shoot you for stealing.
[00:40:35] I thought to myself trap or no trap I am going to grab it which I did as I went by.
[00:40:41] It was in easy arms reach away and somewhat concealed by more ivory growing on the side
[00:40:47] of the house.
[00:40:49] Another miracle it was filled with water but I dared not drink it then.
[00:40:53] I had to wait until dark to make sure that a jab guard did not see me.
[00:40:59] It is unexpected happenings like this that helped us to survive.
[00:41:05] This is about the time that I started pulling out of it.
[00:41:10] By that I mean I no longer expected to stop just up the road to be fed and given water but
[00:41:17] now knew that the Japanese intended to march us until we all finally perished.
[00:41:25] To this day I still believe this to be true but I was not going to give them that satisfaction.
[00:41:37] So that is a hell of a mental transition to make from hey when are they going to stop
[00:41:44] when are they going to give us some food when are they going to give us some water to
[00:41:46] no they are not going to and they are going to march us until we die.
[00:41:51] And you know what I am not giving in.
[00:41:58] Fast forwarding a bit here the next day we reach the town of San Fernando where we finally
[00:42:04] stopped at least for the rest of that day and for that night.
[00:42:08] Here we were finally fed about a cup of a cup of boiled rice and allowed to have
[00:42:13] water.
[00:42:15] At this point many would have said that the rest was more important or appreciated than
[00:42:22] the food because many were suffering from incredibly blistered and bloody feet.
[00:42:26] My feet were badly blistered but not as bad as some who had put on new shoes when they
[00:42:31] were told to pack up and get ready to break camp.
[00:42:34] I had no new shoes otherwise I would have done the same.
[00:42:38] There is no way for a person to walk as far as we did without getting blistered feet.
[00:42:44] We spent the night at San Fernando and the next day took off again no breakfast of course
[00:42:49] but now at least I had a canteen full of water.
[00:42:52] By this time we were in an area where the Filipinos had returned to their barrios and
[00:42:58] Nippahuts bordering the road.
[00:43:01] Damaged property and terrain was not as bad as it was further to the south where more
[00:43:05] fighting had taken place.
[00:43:06] Now they are marching through regular Filipinos villages that weren't as decimated as
[00:43:12] the areas where they were fighting had taken place.
[00:43:15] There were Filipino men, women and children watching us as we weirdly walked along.
[00:43:20] By the way another thing I didn't explain very well the Filipino military men were also
[00:43:27] being marched simultaneously but they had them segregated.
[00:43:32] This is from the American viewpoint.
[00:43:34] They could see that the Filipinos were getting treated equally brutal and if not worse
[00:43:39] and they took massive casualties they took tens of thousands of deaths on this march.
[00:43:48] But now they are walking through where these regular Filipinos civilians are watching
[00:43:53] this death march take place.
[00:43:55] Back to the book in several places the women tried to hand food to us but the Japanese
[00:43:59] guards would not allow it.
[00:44:01] They had bananas, mangoes and coconuts and it all looked so good.
[00:44:07] I never saw it happen but supposedly several Filipinos lost their lives to Japanese bullets
[00:44:12] when they tried passing food to the Americans.
[00:44:16] This was the beginning of the end of the march out of baton but we did not know until
[00:44:20] sometime that afternoon when we arrived at Camp O'Donnell.
[00:44:30] So that kind of like you said this is the beginning of the end of the march and here they
[00:44:34] ended up at Camp O'Donnell.
[00:44:36] Camp O'Donnell was a training camp for the Philippine Army and was built just prior to the
[00:44:39] war.
[00:44:40] It consisted of a series of barracks built in typical Philippine style.
[00:44:43] The fats to roofs had bamboo frame sides and floors and openings for windows but no screens
[00:44:48] or shutters.
[00:44:50] Each barracks was about 50 feet long and could be called a double decker because the
[00:44:55] attic was floored as well.
[00:44:57] The attic space may have been for storing personal gear in instead of an area for sleeping.
[00:45:03] I say this because the highest point between the floor and the ceiling or the roof was about
[00:45:07] five feet.
[00:45:08] It would be cramped even for a short Filipino.
[00:45:12] I should know because that is where I slept.
[00:45:16] Once we passed through gate we were made to sit down and open field with a law was laid
[00:45:21] down by the Japanese commander.
[00:45:23] I did not pay much attention to what he said except if you were to say that if you did this
[00:45:28] you would be shot and if you did that you would be shot.
[00:45:32] I wondered what we could do without being shot.
[00:45:36] After he was through an American officer walked up and introduced himself as General King.
[00:45:43] He said that he was the General in charge of the troops on baton and he was solely responsible
[00:45:48] for our surrender.
[00:45:51] He told us not to feel bad or discouraged or guilty because we had nothing to do with it.
[00:45:56] It was his decision.
[00:45:59] And if any blame was to eventually come it was his to face.
[00:46:04] That's a ownership right there.
[00:46:09] I had never heard of the General before but he struck me as a brave and sincere officer.
[00:46:14] Well there you go.
[00:46:16] That's what happens when you take ownership.
[00:46:18] People, the people in your chain of command look and think you're a brave and sincere officer.
[00:46:21] Imagine if he stood up and said we didn't get the support that we needed and now we're
[00:46:24] in this position.
[00:46:25] It's like no.
[00:46:27] I later learned that he surrendered the troops on baton without orders from General Wayne
[00:46:31] Wright and MacArthur when he realized that to continue fighting was useless considering the condition
[00:46:36] of the men under his command.
[00:46:39] He thought for sure that he would be court-marshilled when the war was over because his last
[00:46:43] orders from MacArthur were to attack the enemy and order which he chose to ignore.
[00:46:49] He knew that it meant sending hundreds more to their deaths something that he would not
[00:46:54] do.
[00:46:57] Needless to say he was not court-marshilled at the end of the war because everyone by then
[00:47:01] realized that he did the right thing.
[00:47:07] We were finally taken to a barracks and I decided the best place was up in the loft.
[00:47:11] I figured it would be the quietest and least disturbed.
[00:47:14] I took my only possession from around my neck, my mouset bag, placed on the floor and
[00:47:19] got some long-deserved rest.
[00:47:23] The day was about over.
[00:47:25] The mosquitoes swarmed around my head before I fell asleep but I did not have the energy
[00:47:31] to brush them off.
[00:47:36] Sometimes I think when I read these books about how pathetic I am and you know how much
[00:47:51] there's a mosquito in your room and it drives you crazy and you have to wake up and go
[00:47:56] kill it because you just can't deal with one mosquito that might bite you and hear you
[00:48:01] are.
[00:48:02] Have you ever been in a subtropical place that has mosquitoes?
[00:48:07] It can be crazy.
[00:48:10] It can be crazy.
[00:48:11] Do you have to sleep at the mosquito net there?
[00:48:13] In your house?
[00:48:14] No, not in the house but there are some places where they all have mosquito net.
[00:48:18] It depends on where you live.
[00:48:19] If you live more up in like a mountain, jungley place, yeah, mosquito net.
[00:48:25] Sometimes.
[00:48:26] I've been in places where you've got to sleep in a mosquito net and even imagine you think
[00:48:32] you're some all-well, this would be a nightmare if I didn't have a mosquito net and these
[00:48:36] guys are they don't have anything close to mosquito.
[00:48:38] They don't have sheets.
[00:48:39] They have nothing to cover themselves from being bitten.
[00:48:42] So you think about these little tiny things that are like a major trauma when you're in
[00:48:48] your normal life.
[00:48:50] It's a major trauma.
[00:48:53] I can't believe there's mosquitoes out right now.
[00:48:57] What's fun is you still, you mentioned the mosquitoes are still kind of bothering me right
[00:49:01] now.
[00:49:02] The thought of mosquitoes being in the room now.
[00:49:04] Yeah, it's kind of like we're sitting here letting it bother and they don't imagine
[00:49:07] the situation these guys are in.
[00:49:08] And he's like, there's no cares about mosquitoes.
[00:49:11] Yeah, he's not even brushing them off.
[00:49:12] He's trying to brush them off.
[00:49:14] Man.
[00:49:15] Yeah, that's the way.
[00:49:17] Back to the book.
[00:49:18] We were now being fed a meager amount of rites but water situation was still critical.
[00:49:22] There was one very slow running faucet out in the yard with a flow capacity of about
[00:49:26] a quart every 15 minutes or so.
[00:49:29] The faucet was wide open and that is still all it would deliver.
[00:49:33] So even now, if and when we got water, it had to be stringently conserved.
[00:49:39] There was a line at the faucet always 24 hours a day.
[00:49:43] Barely enough water to drink and definitely not enough to wash with.
[00:49:46] It had now been a week since we broke camp on baton and we had not been able to wash since
[00:49:54] from here on, I won't be able to recount what happened on a day to day basis.
[00:49:58] But I will try to tell what was going on under and under what conditions.
[00:50:02] As I mentioned earlier, we were now getting a small amount of rice each day and for a
[00:50:06] change in men you started getting vegetables.
[00:50:10] Not the part you would normally eat but the part that was normally discarded.
[00:50:16] We were first given boiled carrot tops.
[00:50:18] I presume the Japanese were eating the carrots and they generally generously gave us the
[00:50:24] tops.
[00:50:26] They may as well have kept them because they were inedible.
[00:50:29] They would not stay down.
[00:50:31] They were so horrible and strong.
[00:50:32] We would up chuck after a few swallows.
[00:50:36] By now there were many sick people around with dysentery, malaria and diptheria.
[00:50:43] We conceivable disease was surfacing because of the physical condition of the men and the unhealthy
[00:50:48] conditions under which they were living.
[00:50:52] The sick were in such bad shape that they no longer stayed in the barracks but remained
[00:50:56] outside, some under the building to stay out of the sun and some lying outside on the ground
[00:51:02] near the slit trenches.
[00:51:05] Their clothes were all covered with excrement and some had discarded their clothes, preferring
[00:51:11] to be naked.
[00:51:13] These men had dysentery and to die of dysentery was the most horrible way to go.
[00:51:21] They had to stay outside or near the latrines because with dysentery you pass blood and
[00:51:26] mucus every 20 minutes or so.
[00:51:30] There is no way to keep from it.
[00:51:34] I know these men would have preferred dying, fighting instead of in a horrible way that they
[00:51:39] were now going.
[00:51:42] Dysentery almost invariably meant death.
[00:51:48] I think I mentioned that my best friend had drunk polluted water and it come down with dysentery.
[00:51:54] Well I now had the initial symptoms even though I did not drink.
[00:51:57] I was lucky if you want to call catching dysentery lucky in that my symptoms were occurred
[00:52:03] a week or so after we reached O'Donnell.
[00:52:05] I was lucky because I found out that the leaves from the trees found on the prison grounds
[00:52:10] were a cure for dysentery.
[00:52:14] I was also lucky because there were still leaves to be found and I was able to get a good
[00:52:19] pocket full of them which I immediately consumed in a few days my symptoms disappeared
[00:52:24] and also in a few days the trees were stripped bare.
[00:52:29] Apparently word had gotten out around that the leaves were a medicine but there were
[00:52:33] not enough to go around.
[00:52:37] Dysentery spreads so rapidly because of the open latrines and the millions of flies around
[00:52:43] them.
[00:52:44] They were the same big green flies that we saw in the dead bodies as we walked out of
[00:52:48] baton.
[00:52:50] There were so many that the branches of small trees around were bent to the ground.
[00:52:58] Sick men were also covered especially those near the latrine because the latrine itself
[00:53:03] held the greatest number.
[00:53:06] It was no wonder under these conditions that so many of the prisoners died.
[00:53:15] Besides the flies the stench was something else that was always with us.
[00:53:20] It was everywhere inside outside on you and on everyone else that was no way to get away
[00:53:25] from it.
[00:53:26] It came with a dysentery and by now the dysentery was also causing the death of many
[00:53:31] many prisoners.
[00:53:33] They were dying by the hundreds.
[00:53:36] We heard that as many as 400 were dying each day.
[00:53:41] And I remember I looked around to try and determine how many of us were still alive.
[00:53:46] I estimated that the rate we were dying we would all be gone within a month or so.
[00:53:54] It reached a point where there were so many sick that I decided it was decided to put
[00:53:58] them in a separate section. It was called a hospital officially but the prisoners called
[00:54:03] it the zero ward.
[00:54:08] When you went there that was the beginning of the end.
[00:54:12] Most died within days.
[00:54:17] The dead were buried in mass graves of about 15 to 20 bodies in each.
[00:54:21] Each grave was about five or six feet wide, eight or ten feet long and about six or seven feet deep.
[00:54:29] About as soon as a grave was finished there were bodies to fill it.
[00:54:35] Every morning in detail was sent to the hospital to collect the dead and then take them
[00:54:39] out to the graves for burial.
[00:54:43] I was on this detail several times and it was gruesome.
[00:54:48] The dead that we picked up were all naked and we're nothing but skin and bones.
[00:54:55] Several of the dead were from my squadron and one I could only recognize from his teeth.
[00:55:03] Each body was carried by four men although now they weighed practically nothing.
[00:55:10] The dead were carried on wicker racks which at some time were probably used as a door
[00:55:16] or as a window shutter.
[00:55:21] When we reached the graves we just damped them in the open holes.
[00:55:28] You could hear the bones crack as bodies were dumped on bodies.
[00:55:35] This seemed like a terrible way to treat our dead bodies but since they had all died
[00:55:39] of dysentery it was wise to handle the bodies as little as possible.
[00:55:45] When the hole was full there was then covered with dirt but no prayer or religious service
[00:55:52] was given.
[00:55:55] Across the road from us the Filipinos were doing the same as we burying their dead by the
[00:56:00] hundreds.
[00:56:03] Diphthira was a big killer as was cerebral malaria and berry berry in the early part of our
[00:56:10] confinement.
[00:56:11] There were two kinds of berry berry wet and dry with the wet a person's hands and feet
[00:56:16] swelled enormously and if the swelling progressed up the legs and into the abdomen death
[00:56:21] resulted.
[00:56:23] With the dry form there was no swelling but a broad excruciating pain to the feet and hands
[00:56:29] with no lead up.
[00:56:31] As far as I know this type is not fatal I came down with the wet type.
[00:56:38] Another killer was hepatitis or yellow jaundice I caught it at prison camp.
[00:56:46] Next to dysentery hepatitis was probably the number two killer in the prison camps.
[00:56:50] It caused you to lose your appetite which is one thing you could not afford to do because
[00:56:54] the food that you were getting was barely enough to keep you alive as it was.
[00:57:05] This when you think of just again putting this in perspective you know when we get sick
[00:57:13] we take a day off from work and you stay in your bed or whatever and these guys there's
[00:57:21] no medical treatment whatsoever.
[00:57:23] There's nothing.
[00:57:32] But to now no one had escaped again I'm fast forwarding up to now no one had escaped
[00:57:39] but one night it happened.
[00:57:42] It should not be called to escape because these prisoners were caught trying to get back
[00:57:46] in the prison camp.
[00:57:48] There were three of them and they had been out looking for food or medicine.
[00:57:52] I remember they were putting a cage near the gate where the prisoners going and coming
[00:57:55] to and from work details could see them.
[00:57:59] The cages were in the hot sun and they were not given food or water.
[00:58:05] You could tell they were suffering miserably but they're suffering only lasted day or two
[00:58:10] as I recall because late one evening we were called out to witness their execution.
[00:58:19] They were made to dig their own graves and fell into them when shot.
[00:58:28] To these men were shot the Japanese came up with an idea that they thought would stop prisoners
[00:58:33] from trying to escape.
[00:58:34] They put us in what was called blood-brothered groups and if one of the group escaped or tried
[00:58:42] to escape the rest would be shot.
[00:58:45] He guard this of their complicity.
[00:59:02] Many of the men felt abandoned and decided that such an existence as ours was not worth
[00:59:07] the price of survival so they just gave up.
[00:59:13] And was it much easier than the fight to stay alive and many chose this way out?
[00:59:26] Now he gets assigned eventually to a bridge detail to build a bridge and this is kind
[00:59:32] of like the bridge on the Riverquite type scenario.
[00:59:35] You've got to go work and help build this bridge back to the book that worked was a short
[00:59:39] distance from our school.
[00:59:41] That's where they were being held and turned out to be the rebuilding of an enormous bridge
[00:59:46] that had been destroyed during the war.
[00:59:49] When we were not carrying and placing timber we were made to carry rocks from the Riverbed
[00:59:54] up to the bridge level a climb of probably 30 or 40 feet but it felt like scaling Mount Everest.
[01:00:02] This entry soon weakened our workforce and before long prisoners were again dying like flies.
[01:00:11] I could not help but notice one guy's foot.
[01:00:14] It looked like it was rotting away and I'm sure he had gang green.
[01:00:18] What impressed me about him was his attitude about his affliction.
[01:00:21] He seemed even jovial as we rode back to camp.
[01:00:25] I never saw him again but it was a miracle if he survived.
[01:00:31] According to a book written by one of the guys on this bridge detail only seven of us were
[01:00:35] alive at wars end.
[01:00:39] Another man had something terribly wrong with him.
[01:00:42] I was never sure what the problem was exactly but it involved his stomach and I don't
[01:00:46] know if it was a war wound or what.
[01:00:50] He wore a very wide rubber band around his stomach and I was told it was to keep his intestines
[01:00:56] in.
[01:00:58] The rubber band was cut from a large inner tube that slipped that he slipped into.
[01:01:04] I never did see his stomach beneath the rubber bandage but I did see a Japanese guard make
[01:01:09] him show it to him and the guards stepped back horrified.
[01:01:17] I doubt if this prisoner survived.
[01:01:23] They end up at a different prison camp called Kabanatuan.
[01:01:29] Kabanatuan prison camp was just like O'Donnell and it's hard for me to separate them
[01:01:33] in my mind.
[01:01:34] I have trouble separating the two prison camps because one was just as bad as the other
[01:01:39] little water and dirty filthy living conditions.
[01:01:44] Back to rice but now more soupy instead of dry people were still dying with dysentery
[01:01:49] and other diseases.
[01:01:51] I was still in my dirty clothes closed that had not been off my body since leaving our camp
[01:01:56] on baton.
[01:02:04] And now they're getting told that they're going to be transported back to the book.
[01:02:08] And we were told we were going to Japan the Japanese made it sound like we were going to
[01:02:11] heaven.
[01:02:12] We would be leaving this stifling tropical heat and going to a climate that was cool and
[01:02:16] comfortable.
[01:02:18] They get transported to Manila and eventually they get on a ship.
[01:02:23] The ship that we got on was large and apparently carried Japanese troops from place to
[01:02:27] place.
[01:02:28] I'm not sure how many prisoners boarded this ship but the number was very high.
[01:02:31] A later estimation put the number at 2000.
[01:02:35] We would end up like sardines except we were packed vertically instead of horizontally.
[01:02:41] It turned out lucky that I was to be on the floor because even though I could not lie
[01:02:45] down and stretch out I could at least sit and stand.
[01:02:48] People crowded in the sleeping bay is also did not have room to stretch out but they also
[01:02:52] did not have enough head space to stand up.
[01:02:57] By now the ship was getting unbearably hot from the heat of the tropical sun in the large
[01:03:00] number of prisoners in such a confined space added to it.
[01:03:05] It was quickly turning into agony but we had not seen the worst because many of the prisoners
[01:03:14] were still coming down with this entry.
[01:03:16] Toilet facilities soon became a problem.
[01:03:19] All we had was a bucket on top side and the Japanese guards would only let about two people
[01:03:25] out at a time.
[01:03:28] It wasn't long before we were crowded at the latter wanting to use the so-called facility.
[01:03:34] It also wasn't long before the place became a stinking cesspool.
[01:03:41] People soiled their clothes and everyone and everything around them.
[01:03:45] If anything it was worse than Campo Donald because now everyone was confined in a small
[01:03:50] overcrowded space and you just could not get away from it.
[01:03:56] Even drinking water was also just as bad because it was also topside and you got it
[01:04:01] when you went to the little train.
[01:04:06] As expected under such conditions people began to die.
[01:04:12] At first it was maybe one or two a day and some days none but eventually it got up to several
[01:04:16] a day, most of the dying occurred at night for some reason.
[01:04:21] In the morning they were passed up to the Japanese to be thrown overboard.
[01:04:26] Nights were probably more stressful because the whole that we occupied was in total darkness.
[01:04:31] You could not see a thing but you could hear the constant moaning of men in agony.
[01:04:42] One night all bedlam broke loose.
[01:04:45] There was loud screaming and thrashing of disturbed bodies which caused a considerable
[01:04:50] uproar.
[01:04:53] In the dark you could tell that many people were involved even though they could not be
[01:04:57] seen.
[01:05:00] Next morning we found out what happened.
[01:05:02] One of the prisoners had gone mad and started attacking everyone around him with his
[01:05:08] canteen.
[01:05:11] When he severely hurt several around him it was obvious that he could not be restrained.
[01:05:18] He was killed by those around him with his own canteen.
[01:05:25] Next morning he was lifted out of the hole with several others and slipped overboard.
[01:05:34] His troubles were over.
[01:05:41] So I don't know what is much worse than this situation that we're in right now.
[01:05:52] When you have guys going crazy and the only choice that you're left as a fellow soldier is
[01:06:00] to kill your fellow soldier to prevent him from hurting anyone else.
[01:06:08] Eventually after about three or four weeks we came to a complete stop we could hear voices
[01:06:12] on the outside of the ship as our ship was tied up.
[01:06:17] We soon learned that we were in a Taiwan harbor.
[01:06:22] Now that we were back out in the open and breathing again fresh air felt like we had
[01:06:27] a collision from the dead so they get off the ship and they end up there.
[01:06:36] Obviously they're literally covered in shit and you know when he talked about people
[01:06:41] with dysentery you're you're you're relieving yourself and you're shedding out blood
[01:06:49] and mucus and that's what they're just covered in.
[01:06:56] I don't know if this was their original intention but after they saw how dirty and filthy
[01:07:00] would they we were they decided to clean us up as well as the ship they made a strip
[01:07:04] completely and then blasted us with water from fire hoses.
[01:07:08] The force of the water hurt and stung but it felt good.
[01:07:11] We had no soap but that was all right.
[01:07:14] This was the first water I'd had on my body since we left our bibwack on baton.
[01:07:21] We were also stomping on our wet clothes to hope to work out some of the dirt and crud
[01:07:26] as well as that on our own bodies.
[01:07:30] While this was going on there was a crowd of Taiwanese onlookers taking all this in.
[01:07:35] There were both men and women.
[01:07:36] It was about now that I noticed my own body.
[01:07:42] I was shocked and horrified by what I saw.
[01:07:46] It was not the dirty body as such but the physical condition of that body.
[01:07:52] I had dwindled to skin and bones and had not been aware of it.
[01:07:56] My legs and arms were completely devoid of muscle and flesh and I looked like a living
[01:08:01] skeleton.
[01:08:04] I was the skinny as the men who had died of dysentery.
[01:08:07] It really shook me to discover this.
[01:08:12] And if you go on the internet, you can see pictures of guys that were involved in this
[01:08:17] and they look absolutely wretched.
[01:08:21] They actually look.
[01:08:22] Some of them look exactly how he describes it as.
[01:08:25] They look like living skeletons.
[01:08:27] That's how much how completely mownerished they were.
[01:08:34] Back to the book when we finally did get back on the ship.
[01:08:38] We found our so-called quarter still dripping wet and now very cold.
[01:08:42] Even after we were all back in, it did not feel warm.
[01:08:46] By now because the number of prisoners that had died, there was a little more space for
[01:08:50] everyone.
[01:08:52] I remember the one guy who had a bunk position now had enough room to lie down.
[01:08:57] He was even kind enough to give me his space from time to time to stretch out and take
[01:09:00] a nap.
[01:09:01] It was funny because we never did learn each other's names.
[01:09:05] I think it was the best way.
[01:09:08] Because if the person died, you would not take it so hard.
[01:09:13] Just another stranger gone.
[01:09:16] So they go out and see again.
[01:09:21] And then they pull into another port.
[01:09:23] Finally after many days, I felt the ship's low and come to a halt.
[01:09:26] I thought Japan at last and now I might get medical help and medicine for my sickness
[01:09:30] and pain.
[01:09:31] Before long, prisoners were crawling up the ladder out of a hole until the place was
[01:09:36] almost empty.
[01:09:38] My mousse set bag around my neck and my cantine in it.
[01:09:41] I made an attempt to cross over to the ladder, but that was not to be.
[01:09:45] I could not even raise rise much less walk.
[01:09:49] Pretty soon two Japanese soldiers came down into the hole and sort of lifting the second
[01:09:53] dying to the other Japanese above.
[01:09:57] I was not the only one unable to move.
[01:10:01] When they came to get me, they lifted me to my feet and drug me over to the ladder.
[01:10:04] They wanted me to crawl up and out, but that was impossible.
[01:10:09] I was too weak and I hurt too much.
[01:10:12] When they saw I could not do it each Japanese guard, grabbing by the arms, lifted my arms
[01:10:17] above my head, then handed me to waiting guards above.
[01:10:20] The jab guards above grabbing by my wrists and lifted me out.
[01:10:26] How I survived this ordeal, I shall never know.
[01:10:29] The pain that I felt when being lifted by the arms was excruciating.
[01:10:36] I had never felt anything like it before nor have I felt anything come close since.
[01:10:46] So I mean he just can't even stand up.
[01:10:50] He's just completely broken and starving and they have to drag him out of there luckily
[01:10:56] they didn't kill him. They load him onto a truck back to the book. The truck ride that
[01:10:59] followed was no joyful experience either.
[01:11:01] Now my bones began to take a beating as I lay on the metal bed of the truck.
[01:11:05] I was being bounced around because of a very rough road and I had no flesh on my bones
[01:11:09] to cushion each bounce.
[01:11:12] Again, pain and misery when would it end?
[01:11:17] Finally we arrived at what appeared to be an army camp and the trucks drove up to one
[01:11:21] of the barracks.
[01:11:22] Once inside we found the place to be very clean and nice and warm. There was snow on the
[01:11:27] ground outside which accounted for the heat inside.
[01:11:30] There were even straw-filled mattresses and blankets for each man.
[01:11:36] We learned a little later that we were not in Japan but in a place called Pusan Korea.
[01:11:41] I'd never heard of it before.
[01:11:45] So now they're obviously they're in Korea now and you can see the treatment gets a little
[01:11:50] bit better. There's a little bit of influence from the Koreans trying to be a little bit
[01:11:54] more humane I think.
[01:11:57] All back to the book as all as in all the places I'd previously been people were
[01:12:02] dying at the rate of two or three a day.
[01:12:05] They were picked up in the morning when the doctor came in and taken out and cremated.
[01:12:10] By then you could tell when a person was about to die.
[01:12:15] They had what we called a death grin.
[01:12:18] The skin was stretched so tightly across their fleshless faces that their mouth stayed permanently
[01:12:23] open as though grinning.
[01:12:27] A person in that condition was not long for this world.
[01:12:31] There was another condition that we called the death rattle.
[01:12:34] This also meant death within a few days.
[01:12:38] I was shocked beyond belief one morning when the person next to me said that during the
[01:12:42] night I was making the rattling sound.
[01:12:48] After that I was afraid to go to sleep because that was usually when a person died.
[01:12:54] I remember fighting to stay awake night after night.
[01:12:57] The night seemed to last in eternity and I remembered how glad I was to hear the sound
[01:13:02] of the crows in the distance.
[01:13:03] It meant morning was near and I was still around.
[01:13:08] You reach a point where dying becomes easy but staying alive is a battle.
[01:13:15] Many chose not to fight any longer.
[01:13:21] I would say that after two or three weeks the dying ceased.
[01:13:26] There were about 20 or 25 of us left and we were slowly starting to get out of bed and
[01:13:31] move around some.
[01:13:33] So like I said there's starting to get a little bit more food a little bit better treatment.
[01:13:39] One thing that I'm not sure of in my mind is when the Japanese finally gave us new clothes
[01:13:43] and shoes to wear.
[01:13:44] The clothes we were given were all Japanese Army issues.
[01:13:47] Shoes, caps, shirt, pants, socks, underwear and coat.
[01:13:51] These were Japanese summer uniforms and clothes and not willing uniforms that our guards
[01:13:55] were now wearing.
[01:13:57] We hated having to wear a Japanese uniform but we really had no choice.
[01:14:06] So now they actually end up getting on a train and they go for a long train lot
[01:14:14] ride and when they finally get off the place looked like and felt like the inside of a
[01:14:21] deep freezer everything was covered with snow and frozen solid.
[01:14:29] And then they get put into a truck after they get off the train in this frozen area
[01:14:35] and they travel out from the train area, from the train station away from the city and
[01:14:42] they keep going and they keep going and finally they get to a place that looks like a prison.
[01:14:48] Back to the book I remember there were several buildings possibly a dozen or more but I am
[01:14:52] not sure of the exact number.
[01:14:57] The buildings were loaded the ground and barely visible because the thick blanket of snow
[01:15:00] that covered everything we stopped shortly at one of the buildings and unloaded.
[01:15:04] Again I needed assistance.
[01:15:06] I wasn't in the building more than five minutes when one of the men said that my nose
[01:15:10] was frozen or frostbitten and I had better quickly do something about it.
[01:15:16] If I knew my frost my nose was frozen my feet surely were also both my nose and feet
[01:15:24] blistered horribly and turned black and blue like a bad bruise.
[01:15:29] The skin eventually peeled off and I was fine except for some badly scarred feet.
[01:15:33] So I didn't go into enough detail but while they're transporting in these trucks it's
[01:15:38] freezing.
[01:15:39] And so you've got these guys that are in whatever summer uniforms and by the way they're
[01:15:42] they're way nothing they have no they literally have zero body fat on them and they're
[01:15:47] freezing in these trucks and he gets frostbite.
[01:15:51] Back to the book we also found out that we were near the city of Mookden, Manchuria.
[01:15:58] We had come from the furnace of the tropics into the deep freeze of the Arctic and if you
[01:16:02] remember that name might sound a little bit familiar, Mookden, Manchuria that is one of the
[01:16:10] locations where the Japanese the unit 731 did experiments on Caucasian.
[01:16:20] They wanted to have Caucasian prisoners to do experiments on to make sure that the
[01:16:25] reactions to biological and chemical weapons were the same as they were on the Asian
[01:16:32] prisoners that they had been using on them on on the Chinese prisoners that they've
[01:16:36] been using these these chemical weapons on and these biological weapons on and so that's
[01:16:43] where he is now.
[01:16:52] Settle in a little bit here before long it was lights out time.
[01:16:56] I again became aware of how weak I was.
[01:16:58] I tried to crawl under my blankets when I read this I was thinking about this.
[01:17:03] So listen this.
[01:17:04] I tried to crawl under my blankets but could not lift them.
[01:17:09] Eventually with the help of others I managed to make it.
[01:17:12] The covers felt good for a while but before long my body began to ache from the weight
[01:17:18] of the covers and I had a miserable night.
[01:17:20] If I removed the blankets I would freeze and if I left them on I would hurt.
[01:17:24] I decided herding was better because I was used to that by now.
[01:17:31] The next day or close to it the Japanese came around and gave each man a number.
[01:17:36] Mine was 1439.
[01:17:40] About this time we were also weighed.
[01:17:44] We were placed on a foot scale.
[01:17:47] I figured I weighed around 90 pounds after subtracting for food for shoes and clothing.
[01:17:53] So if you remember he was boxing at 165 and as you know in a boxer you don't have
[01:17:58] a lot of weight on you.
[01:17:59] You're not sitting around with a bunch of extra weight.
[01:18:02] Now he's under 90 pounds.
[01:18:06] Why are they getting weighed?
[01:18:07] Well he didn't know at the time why are they getting weighed?
[01:18:09] They're getting weighed because they're going to be experimented on.
[01:18:12] He doesn't really connect the dots in this book but obviously they're getting weighed because
[01:18:19] they're trying to figure out how much weight they're going to lose and how much weight they're
[01:18:23] going to gain and how long it takes them to get sick.
[01:18:27] If you remember it unit 731 one of their goals was to keep the prisoners healthy enough
[01:18:32] that they could experiment on them.
[01:18:34] That is one I guess small benefit to this situation if I could even call it that I guess
[01:18:42] I can't but there's one upside to this is that since they're going to be used as
[01:18:49] experiments and again he doesn't talk about it too much and it's not very clear but
[01:18:56] they start feeding them better.
[01:18:59] Back to the book going to Beans from Rice I'm sure saved many prisoners lives as I
[01:19:03] am almost positive it saved mine.
[01:19:05] Beans are rich in vitamins and protein while rice is a starch or a carbohydrate which we
[01:19:09] know is not good.
[01:19:14] Contrary to expectations coming to a cold climate did not stop the dying.
[01:19:19] The first winter was the worst with the killers still being distantry, hepatitis and now
[01:19:23] pneumonia was added to the list and again who knows how many of these disease were actually
[01:19:29] inflicted on the prisoners by the Japanese because they're in a cold climate while they're
[01:19:35] getting these tropical diseases.
[01:19:38] Well back to the book here the second dying had a new scourge body lice.
[01:19:45] They were crawling all over by the thousands body hair clothes you know him it they were
[01:19:50] there.
[01:19:52] In the heat of the tropics it was flies and here it was body lice.
[01:19:56] Body lice probably spread germs as readily as flies.
[01:19:59] Everyone had lice but those were well enough to keep the number of lice down.
[01:20:05] They got in the seams of your clothes when they went when they were not biting you and
[01:20:09] that is where you looked for them.
[01:20:12] Because they were discovered they were squashed between your fingernails exposing the
[01:20:16] blood they had sucked from your body.
[01:20:18] The Chinese coolies did not let them get away with their blood because they ate them
[01:20:21] when they were discovered.
[01:20:23] A Chinese coolie at rest was always searching for lice.
[01:20:25] Come to think of it.
[01:20:27] We were too at least at this time.
[01:20:31] During that first winter all the dead were placed in the storage building.
[01:20:35] That was necessary because the ground was still frozen solid making impossible to dig graves.
[01:20:40] Real could not therefore take place until mid to late spring.
[01:20:45] When the time arrived the large burial detail was sent out to dig graves even when even
[01:20:51] then digging was difficult because only the top eight to ten inches of the ground was
[01:20:55] thawed with frozen rock hard soil below.
[01:20:58] This was permafrost country.
[01:21:01] When the graves were finally dug we went for the bodies.
[01:21:04] We found them stacked like cordwood again.
[01:21:07] This is remnants of unit 731 because they were still frozen solid.
[01:21:12] As in the Philippines they were all naked.
[01:21:14] They looked like skeletons with skin stretched over their bones.
[01:21:17] The one difference was many of the bodies were lemon yellow.
[01:21:22] They had died from hepatitis or so called yellow jaundice although it was prevalent in the
[01:21:26] tropics.
[01:21:27] It was catching up with us now.
[01:21:33] Eventually he gets well enough and they put them on a work detail in a factory and
[01:21:45] still dealing with troubles.
[01:21:46] Back to the book when we were in prison camps and the Philippines our strongest want or
[01:21:50] desire was water.
[01:21:52] Food was secondary.
[01:21:53] Now that we had sufficient water it was food that was constantly on our minds.
[01:21:56] I remember how we used to say that if we ever got back to the states we would carry food
[01:22:00] with us wherever we went.
[01:22:01] If we had a house it would be full.
[01:22:03] If we had a car the trunk would be loaded.
[01:22:05] The pockets of our clothes would also be stuffed with candy bars and peanuts.
[01:22:10] We could at least dream if nothing else.
[01:22:14] This is pretty cool.
[01:22:16] In this factory and what they're doing is they're preparing this work detail is to prepare
[01:22:20] a factory for the Japanese and they're putting cement flooring and they've got these big
[01:22:27] machines that are going to be used to build whatever.
[01:22:31] Here we go.
[01:22:32] The machines that were in crates were brand new and consisted of metal lades, large drill
[01:22:36] plus presses, extremely large shapers and others that I was not familiar with.
[01:22:43] Closer investigation they found a little wooden box in the corner for each created machine.
[01:22:48] Closer investigation revealed that the wooden box contained handles, knobs, dials, screws,
[01:22:54] bolts, etc.
[01:22:55] In other words precision tools and essential parts that went with the machine.
[01:23:00] Right away we knew what we had to do with them.
[01:23:03] Get rid of them.
[01:23:05] We started by taking the smaller parts and dumping them in the latrine and the same old
[01:23:09] saddle trench style but eventually got bolder.
[01:23:12] When a hole was completed and ready to be filled with concrete, someone grab a bunch
[01:23:16] of parts and throw them in the hole where they would be quickly covered without these
[01:23:21] important parts the machines would be useless.
[01:23:24] That's like hardcore.
[01:23:25] These guys are still resisting and still fighting.
[01:23:27] They want the Japanese to be able to build anything.
[01:23:30] So they destroy these parts.
[01:23:33] I mean that's at risk of obviously that's at risk of death.
[01:23:35] If you get caught doing that you're going to get killed.
[01:23:40] They eventually move to a different camp and this one looks, it's another one that
[01:23:47] looks just like a prison and he talks about some of these other diseases.
[01:23:55] When I wrote earlier of diseases that existed among the prisoners in the Philippines, I forgot
[01:23:59] to mention that we also had much scurvy and something else called Gwam blisters.
[01:24:06] They were like a raw sword without a scab but they started as a small blister which
[01:24:11] would not heal but kept getting bigger and bigger.
[01:24:15] Since there was no medication to cure them they would eat away at the entire layer of skin
[01:24:19] leaving the flesh below exposed.
[01:24:22] As the blister grew and devoured more skin, no scab formed which made for an ugly looking
[01:24:28] sore.
[01:24:30] Where the good skin was being eaten away, there was always a small rim of pus.
[01:24:35] Some of these blisters has got as large as silver dollar and some of the prisoners had
[01:24:39] several at one time.
[01:24:42] I was lucky I did not have one but I did have a very large ringworm on my stomach.
[01:24:48] It was about the size as a saucer and getting larger by the day.
[01:24:54] There are something all of us, Gjitsu people can relate to.
[01:24:56] You get a ringworm that is the size of a dime and it is a nightmare.
[01:25:02] Here you got a ringworm that is the size of a saucer.
[01:25:10] It gets worse.
[01:25:11] Here we go.
[01:25:12] Here came the fleas.
[01:25:15] They only showed up in great numbers at night but then it was by the hundreds.
[01:25:20] They were actually a lot more aggravating than the mice.
[01:25:24] Their bite was a lot more painful and they made it almost impossible to sleep at night.
[01:25:30] I reached a point where our underwear and look like it was made from polka dotted material
[01:25:36] when in fact it was spotted with dry blood.
[01:25:41] Even though we were in much better quarters our food did not improved so we still had
[01:25:44] much sickness and some dying still to burculosis was now killing people and Barry Barry
[01:25:50] was still prevalent.
[01:25:52] I think I've been bitten by a flea five times in my whole entire life.
[01:25:57] Maybe zero here, zero for echo trolls and here are these things that are biting
[01:26:03] you so much that you're underwear looks like it's spotted like it's polka dotted.
[01:26:08] A another person had dry Barry Barry so badly that he consented to be taken to a place
[01:26:21] in Moukden where the nerves to his feet were severed.
[01:26:26] It apparently relieved his pain but his feet now looked floppy to me like he did not
[01:26:31] have any control of them anymore.
[01:26:33] Yeah, they cut his nerves by now by now my main problem was with my teeth.
[01:26:41] I had developed bad cavities in two back teeth and they hurt constantly so now his teeth
[01:26:47] are all jacked up so now he goes to a to a supposed dentist.
[01:26:54] I sat down in the chair one of the Japanese reach for an instrument and I instinctively
[01:26:58] opened my mouth.
[01:26:59] He reached in and immediately I felt this horrible pain.
[01:27:02] I thought good and it is finally out in another second or two more pain just like the
[01:27:07] first and more and more.
[01:27:09] What was happening was that the Japanese was not pulling yet.
[01:27:12] He was just cutting the gum away from the tooth so he could reach way down on it and get
[01:27:18] a good grip for pulling.
[01:27:22] Luckily it finally came out without any problem.
[01:27:25] The pulling was less painful than the cutting.
[01:27:28] I forgot to mention there was no novokane or other pain killer provided when the teeth
[01:27:33] were pulled.
[01:27:38] Don't like that one.
[01:27:39] No sorry man.
[01:27:41] Because you know when you go to the dentist it's nerve wracking.
[01:27:44] It's a whole week.
[01:27:45] You know I actually considered whether or not I should put that in there because I know there
[01:27:49] are some people that really don't like going to the dentist.
[01:27:52] I myself was never never really cared and it was not that big of a deal to me to go to
[01:27:56] the dentist.
[01:27:57] I know that some people have like a legitimate phobia of the dentist and I apologize.
[01:28:01] I'm sure that last little section isn't going to help out.
[01:28:04] No no and I don't know that I'm a phobia.
[01:28:08] I think I'm just like normal dentist.
[01:28:11] Reguider I guess.
[01:28:12] It's a but it is nerve wracking though.
[01:28:15] So you know well the dentist you know when they when they do put novokane.
[01:28:19] Right.
[01:28:20] That needle for some reason doesn't hurt.
[01:28:21] I don't know.
[01:28:22] Does it hurt?
[01:28:23] I mean you don't feel the needle right?
[01:28:24] You feel a little bit.
[01:28:25] Yeah like with less than like if you even if you got like a blood test or something.
[01:28:29] Okay.
[01:28:30] So you're all numb but when they bust out that drill and doing like all the stuff they
[01:28:34] do in there it's nerve wracking because you're like quite a feeling grinding my teeth
[01:28:39] out whatever they're doing and then but you don't really feel the actual pain everyone
[01:28:44] someone you know.
[01:28:45] So it's just you're constantly at this high stress level and then this guy.
[01:28:50] No no we can't.
[01:28:51] Hopefully what you're at the stress level for he's just taking it head on 100%.
[01:28:58] And then he's like hey when they pulled out my tooth it wasn't as bad as the cutting.
[01:29:03] No cutting your gums is not going to be a good situation.
[01:29:06] It is.
[01:29:07] No sir it's not.
[01:29:09] For a very long time now we had had no news about the progress of the war.
[01:29:13] The Japanese kept telling us that before long they would be sitting in the White House in
[01:29:17] Washington.
[01:29:18] None of us believe this propaganda but why was it taking the US?
[01:29:21] It's so long to beat the Japanese.
[01:29:23] We did not or at least I did not know about Pearl Harbor and maybe that was a good thing
[01:29:28] not knowing.
[01:29:29] Had we known I know that Armorow would have sunk to the bottom of our toes and he's
[01:29:33] just talking about the mass destruction that that would that happened.
[01:29:40] So far I have not mentioned anything or very little about our thoughts of home and family.
[01:29:45] It was a personal thing with every one of everyone and was little if ever discussed but
[01:29:50] you can be sure that it was on everyone's mind.
[01:29:53] If others were like me and I'm sure most war you thought about your parents back home
[01:29:58] almost every night and knew how they were suffering not knowing where you were or how
[01:30:03] you were or even if you were alive or dead.
[01:30:07] This must have been an agony to them.
[01:30:09] The same could be said of brothers and sisters and wives and children.
[01:30:14] I always felt that the prisoners who suffered the most mentally were the ones with wives
[01:30:19] and children back home.
[01:30:21] I know it was extra hard on them but they were few and number.
[01:30:26] Most of the men were young and not married.
[01:30:30] So that's interesting if you remember when Captain Plum was on I think those guys got to
[01:30:35] a level where they knew they were going to survive and even Captain Plum said he didn't
[01:30:40] think he was going to die.
[01:30:41] He said I was going to live like he thought that they were going to live through the
[01:30:45] war.
[01:30:46] And I think for these guys it must be a different and that's why the guys that were
[01:30:51] in like the Noah Hilton remember they knew everything about everyone's life and every
[01:30:55] single story that you would try and remember every single possible thing that you could
[01:30:58] about your whole life and tell it to your roommate.
[01:31:02] But I think these guys are in such a state where survival is not a known entity.
[01:31:08] And so I think it sounds like and he mentioned earlier that not knowing people was actually
[01:31:15] easier so it's sort of a different psychological situation.
[01:31:23] Now he goes on I know everyone enjoyed going to sleep at night and if you dreamed it was
[01:31:29] usually always the same but it left you extremely depressed the next day in most dreams
[01:31:36] you were at last freed from prison camp and back in the states and feeling you fork.
[01:31:44] Free free free again.
[01:31:49] How wonderful.
[01:31:52] But the shock of awakening was so heartbreaking when you found out you were still in prison.
[01:32:00] I believe these dreams actually did more harm than good even so they came back time
[01:32:05] and time again.
[01:32:06] There was no getting away from them.
[01:32:11] And no the people not home were not forgotten and we knew they had not forgotten us.
[01:32:19] So that's you have these beautiful dreams that everything is cool and you wake up and you're
[01:32:22] still in prison camp.
[01:32:26] Back to the book the Japanese put everyone to digging fox holes.
[01:32:31] They were not for us but for the Japanese some were at the factory and some of on the
[01:32:35] Japanese side of the camp none were on our side.
[01:32:41] When this work started we knew that the Japanese were now expecting possible air raids
[01:32:47] and we were excited because the war was getting closer.
[01:32:50] It wasn't too much longer after we finished digging all of the fox holes that we were
[01:32:54] required to cover them over.
[01:32:56] They were covered with heavy timbers and then further covered with a large amount of dirt.
[01:33:02] This told the Japanese that we were taking this told us that the Japanese were taking a
[01:33:06] pounding somewhere which an armines was great.
[01:33:10] At about the same time the Japanese were becoming rather aggressive and there was a definite
[01:33:14] change in their attitude and treatment of us.
[01:33:17] We now had to really watch what we were doing and if we did anything illegal make sure
[01:33:21] we were not caught.
[01:33:24] Some of the men were caught however and suffered the consequences.
[01:33:29] So this is great news.
[01:33:30] They're like oh you got to dig in that means Americans are common.
[01:33:38] One morning shortly after we had gone to work air raids cyber and started going off all
[01:33:43] over the city and everyone became very excited especially the Japanese.
[01:33:47] We were quickly rounded up and made a double time back to camp.
[01:33:51] This time we were not searched but sent immediately to our barracks and told us to stay
[01:33:54] inside.
[01:33:55] We could still hear sirens going off in all directions.
[01:33:58] We had not been back to our barracks very long when the Japanese came back and said everyone
[01:34:02] outside in the yard.
[01:34:04] Our yard was probably 150 to 200 feet long and perhaps 100 feet wide more or less.
[01:34:09] When everyone was out the Japanese made us lie down and then took off probably for their
[01:34:14] foxholes.
[01:34:16] It wasn't long before we could see a large formation of heavy bombers headed our way.
[01:34:21] They were up very high and each left a streak in the sky that extended for many miles
[01:34:26] behind it.
[01:34:27] It was a beautiful sight and we felt proud and excited.
[01:34:31] It had to be American planes and the war had reached Manchuria.
[01:34:37] We watched them slowly come our way but the Japanese also saw them coming and sent up
[01:34:42] fighter planes to intercept them which was a mistake.
[01:34:46] From the ground it looked like a swarm of mosquitoes going after a flock of geese and the
[01:34:50] pink comparison is good because that is about how effective the Japanese fighters were.
[01:34:57] In the ground we could see flashes of fire coming from the bombers and see Japanese planes
[01:35:01] go plunging down in smoke.
[01:35:04] Just about then you could hear the roar of the guns from the bombers as the sound reached
[01:35:09] the ground.
[01:35:11] Time after time the japs moved in but the results were the same.
[01:35:14] Japs going down in flame with no apparent damage to the bombers.
[01:35:18] What a fight.
[01:35:21] I would like to interrupt writing about this attack at this point to mention that our prison
[01:35:26] camp was in the middle of a heavy, heavily industrialized area which was against international
[01:35:32] rules of war.
[01:35:34] We should not have been imprisoned where we were.
[01:35:37] Right next to us was an ammunition factory and a short distance behind us a tank factory.
[01:35:43] We were very close to an airplane factory and a major rail yard.
[01:35:46] There were numerous military targets for Americans to bomb and unfortunately we were right
[01:35:51] in the middle of them.
[01:35:54] The lying on my back I kept my eyes on the bombers and was impressed by the large number
[01:35:58] in the formation about 18 or 20 as I recall.
[01:36:03] Pretty soon I could see the silver flashes of released bombs and then in another few seconds
[01:36:09] saw the sky filled with hundreds of bombs hertling down on us and making their typical
[01:36:14] loud swishing sound.
[01:36:16] I knew they would not miss and they did not.
[01:36:21] Three of the bombs from the plane on the outside of the formation hit our camp and the destruction
[01:36:27] was horrible.
[01:36:28] One of the bombs landed near the high brick wall that surrounded our compound and knocked
[01:36:33] a big chunk out of its top.
[01:36:35] The bombs fell right in the yard where we were lying and instantly killed 19 of us and
[01:36:40] severely wounded many more.
[01:36:43] The third bomb was an incendiary and fell on our barracks and set it on fire.
[01:36:47] It was a tragedy here we were after so very long a time excited beyond belief at watching
[01:36:54] our side win for a change and look what happened.
[01:36:58] We could hardly believe it but we were now being killed by our own bombs.
[01:37:05] Even though I was within 20 feet or so of the bomb I was not hurt.
[01:37:09] I looked up as I looked up I saw men blackened from the blast try to rise but fall back
[01:37:16] terribly wounded or dead.
[01:37:19] Again it's the heavies from the other side the other perspective.
[01:37:28] Now at a certain point one of those bombs one of those bombers did get shot down and the
[01:37:36] air crew and pilots from the aircraft that got shot down got captured.
[01:37:43] And so here we go these were men who had survived the blowing up of their B-29 bomber
[01:37:48] and were now being held captive in a house within sight of our camp.
[01:37:53] They said they did not know of our prison camp and they get communication with them.
[01:37:57] They said they did not know of our prison camp and in actuality it was marked on their
[01:38:02] maps as they must get target.
[01:38:06] This wasn't terribly reassuring but they did pass on more cheering information than that.
[01:38:11] They said Japan was being defeated all over the Pacific and it appeared that the war should
[01:38:16] not last too very much longer.
[01:38:19] By the action in the sky we had already come to assume that.
[01:38:23] They also said that they were flying out of from the island of Guam.
[01:38:31] There was always the possible they feel like the war.
[01:38:33] Okay but this is obviously a really positive side the Japanese are getting beat all over
[01:38:38] the Pacific the bombers are there even though it's horrible that they're getting bomb
[01:38:41] they at least feel like the war is getting in the right direction but then there's this
[01:38:45] back to the book there was always the possibility we felt that when the war was over or
[01:38:50] about over and the Japanese realized that they had lost they made decide to execute all
[01:38:56] of us instead of letting us go free.
[01:39:00] So they got that in the back of their mind.
[01:39:05] Little section here he gets in some trouble one morning when we arrived at the factory
[01:39:09] and headed for our work in the lumber yard we noticed Japanese soldiers all over the
[01:39:14] place they were running and crawling and obviously playing war so the Japanese were
[01:39:17] running and drill.
[01:39:18] We just ignored what was going on and walked right through them to get to our shack.
[01:39:22] When we were in the process of hanging up our coats when a jitter we were in the process
[01:39:25] of hanging up our coats when a Japanese officer burst in and all of us and he was mad, mad, mad.
[01:39:35] So he gets in trouble the the Japanese officer that's all mad lines up everyone in the
[01:39:41] little shack and he has his savor in his left hand and he started punching each guy in
[01:39:47] the face and that's what that's what he does and he ends up the end up getting in trouble.
[01:39:55] Because they got punched I guess they got in trouble because they got punched and finally
[01:40:01] he's going to be questioned and he's in this going to get questioned this guard house
[01:40:05] which is sort of like where they do solitary confinement in this guard house the prison
[01:40:11] within the prison.
[01:40:12] So James is about to get interrogated back to the book.
[01:40:19] He asked me if I thought that the Japanese officer of the factory had a right to hit us the
[01:40:22] way he did.
[01:40:24] I hesitated for a second like I was pondering the question then answered well I am not
[01:40:29] sure just as soon as these words came out of my mouth I knew that I had answered wrong
[01:40:34] but nothing happened and I was questioned a bit further until the same question came
[01:40:38] up again.
[01:40:39] Did I think that the Japanese officer at the factory had the right to hit us the way he
[01:40:43] did?
[01:40:44] For a second I was in a quandary should I just say yes sir or should I repeat my first
[01:40:49] answer?
[01:40:50] I decided maybe being consistent was the way to go so I repeated my original answer
[01:40:55] and that was a mistake almost instantly I was hit on the right side of my jaw with a
[01:40:59] close fist not by the officer but by the interpreter.
[01:41:04] From that point on he decided to slap me in the face as hard as he could.
[01:41:08] I think he really hurt his fist when he hurt me the first time which is why he changed
[01:41:13] to the slap.
[01:41:16] Over a while you are being beaten you are being made to stand a detention with this kind
[01:41:21] of beating you don't give them the satisfaction of knowing you letting them know you are hurt.
[01:41:27] You just don't let yourself fall down and moan all I could think about was you little
[01:41:31] son of a bitch if I could just get you alone under different circumstances I would tear
[01:41:36] you apart.
[01:41:40] After the beating stopped I was thrown into the guard house with the rest of the guys.
[01:41:45] The inside of my mouth was badly cut and I swallowed blood for several days my face was swollen
[01:41:51] and I had black eyes.
[01:41:54] I stayed in the guard house for about three weeks.
[01:41:59] Conditions in the guard house were unbelievably cruel and I hope I can explain exactly what
[01:42:03] it was like it was built similar to our barracks accepted had cells instead of separate
[01:42:08] sleeping quarters.
[01:42:09] There was a central hall with cells on either side.
[01:42:12] Cell was about eight feet wide and probably 12 feet long with a very narrow slit trench
[01:42:17] for a latrine in the back corner.
[01:42:21] The floor was concrete and that was it no bed blanket chair or anything else.
[01:42:29] The guard house with solitary confinement at its worst.
[01:42:34] I found the hardest thing to take was the boredom.
[01:42:38] You heard the song time goes by so slowly well it certainly applied then standing in one
[01:42:43] place even if not a detention can be a killer.
[01:42:47] I used to watch a spot of light that came in through the crack on the board at window and
[01:42:51] it almost drove me mad.
[01:42:54] I tried to ignore it but I couldn't.
[01:42:58] It would be made to get up.
[01:43:00] I would be made to get up in the morning at five o'clock and several hours later when
[01:43:05] there was sufficient light the spot would appear.
[01:43:08] It first showed up on one side of my cell and then moved so terribly slowly across the
[01:43:13] other side until it finally disappeared.
[01:43:15] After it was gone I knew I still had several hours to go before I would get rest.
[01:43:20] It was agony to watch and it was the same thing day after day after day.
[01:43:29] And then eventually we were probably released when we were without the usual trial
[01:43:34] and sentencing because the Russians invaded Manchuria.
[01:43:40] Here we go.
[01:43:42] At this point I would like to refer you to a diary that I started on August 15th, 1945
[01:43:48] and continued until September 2nd, 1945.
[01:43:51] It tells the story as it was happening which is much better than my trying to recall events
[01:43:55] 50 years later.
[01:43:57] The diary is short but I think it's worth including here.
[01:44:02] We end up with him getting released and he starts tracking what's happening because he
[01:44:08] can.
[01:44:10] There were some Americans that were brought into the situation and he starts keeping a little
[01:44:17] journal as he said and I'm just going to read a little bit from the journal.
[01:44:24] Americans working at the Japanese garage brought in news that about the same time that
[01:44:29] the war was definitely over.
[01:44:32] They said that a nip told them that Japan had surrendered at 930 o'clock on 15th of
[01:44:37] August.
[01:44:38] These men were willing to bet anything on this dope.
[01:44:42] Yes, optimism, rain, supreme and I had never seen excitement such as this before.
[01:44:49] But such a heart rendering drop came a little while later when World was passed around
[01:44:53] that these six new men had been placed under locking key in the guard house.
[01:44:58] Yes, morale rating was now zero minus.
[01:45:02] Now we'll go August 17th.
[01:45:04] This morning we found out who these new men are.
[01:45:07] They are American volunteers who were flown over from China to take over this prison camp
[01:45:11] and to see that the Japanese did not mistreat us.
[01:45:15] Also set up communications between here and our American forces.
[01:45:19] The story of their undertaking is very thrilling in these men deserve a word of praise
[01:45:24] and credit for their brave deed.
[01:45:29] And then this happens.
[01:45:30] The American assembly call was blown about eight o'clock and we formed outside where
[01:45:34] General Parker the senior American official made a speech.
[01:45:38] Before he would cut us in on the real dope, he told us that we must be calm and maintain
[01:45:43] a hold on ourselves.
[01:45:45] He emphatically stressed that there were to be no demonstrations.
[01:45:49] He proceeded to tell us of the armistice between America, England, the Netherlands and
[01:45:55] Japan which brought about a roaring cheer from the prisoners.
[01:45:59] But he warned us that we were still prisoners and that Japan and Russia were still at war.
[01:46:06] This little speech brought happiness to everyone even though we knew what he was going to
[01:46:10] say before he started.
[01:46:12] This was the news that we had been waiting to hear for three and a half years and it was
[01:46:15] now official.
[01:46:17] Man, three and a half years.
[01:46:19] So I just buzzed through this in an hour and forty seven minutes right now and this is
[01:46:25] three and a half years.
[01:46:26] You got to get the book and then you got to think about even more than what's great
[01:46:30] you read about in the book.
[01:46:35] We were still under Japanese guard but the administrative administration of the camp was
[01:46:38] taken over by Americans.
[01:46:42] We really we really chowed like we should have now that we had the keys to the store room.
[01:46:48] So boom, let's go.
[01:46:51] There's they start seeing Russian pursuit planes over the camp.
[01:46:56] Sunday the 19th held church services to get today in thanksgiving for our wars ending.
[01:47:02] More Russian planes overhead today.
[01:47:04] The men really got to throw out of seeing friendly planes again.
[01:47:07] They're all anxious to see the American Air Force and its large bombers that they've
[01:47:11] heard so much about.
[01:47:13] Sunday August 20th we were told today that the Russians would be in camp.
[01:47:18] Saw our first B-24 bomber today at around 430.
[01:47:22] The prisoners really went wild with joy.
[01:47:24] It's circled over the camp three two or three times and dropped leaflets telling us about
[01:47:28] the war being over and for us to remain where we were until help arrived.
[01:47:34] These leaflets were late.
[01:47:36] They should have been dropped before the parachute is came in and that's the rumor mill.
[01:47:41] The guys that had come in earlier.
[01:47:43] The Russians came in at about 7 o'clock and did they cause great excitement.
[01:47:49] There was a general in five or six officers.
[01:47:51] The general called us together and gave us a speech and American prisoner acted as an
[01:47:55] interpreter.
[01:47:56] The general said that from this day on we were free and no longer under the hand of the
[01:48:01] Japanese.
[01:48:02] The crowd went wild with joy.
[01:48:05] Cheer after cheer rang through the air.
[01:48:06] He told us how in the last 10 days they had covered 1,000 kilometers of mountain streams
[01:48:11] and wilderness.
[01:48:12] More cheering from the crowd.
[01:48:14] He told us that he was in Berlin when Germany surrendered and met officers of the US-8th
[01:48:19] Army.
[01:48:21] He said that he would he told them that he would soon be leaving to fight Japan and that
[01:48:25] he would set us free.
[01:48:29] Also had a ceremony of the surrender of the Japanese guards and the turning over of their
[01:48:34] sabers and arms to the American guards.
[01:48:36] It was quite an interesting and strange spectacle what made it appear strange was that it
[01:48:42] was performed in the light of the moon.
[01:48:44] The Russian general presented general Parker with a Japanese revolver.
[01:48:49] The ceremony was completed by the Russian general having the American guards parade the
[01:48:54] Japanese before the prisoners and off the parade ground.
[01:49:02] The restraint is insane.
[01:49:08] It's hard for me.
[01:49:10] I consider myself to be a pretty emotionally controlled person.
[01:49:16] I think if I was in that prison for 3.5 years and the war ended and the Japanese that
[01:49:21] had tortured and beat and starved, we might have a little something to talk about.
[01:49:26] I might have a little something for those guys a little bit more than just marching around
[01:49:30] the camp.
[01:49:32] What that shows you, it shows you that that's how professional the American soldier is.
[01:49:39] It's amazing.
[01:49:40] It's amazing.
[01:49:41] We got this from Unit 731.
[01:49:44] Those books as well.
[01:49:45] The people that were being tortured, they got turned over by the Russians and said, do what
[01:49:49] you want with them and the determination was, we're going to treat them humanely.
[01:49:57] Back to the book, back to the diary, September 2nd, we have been moving, we have been
[01:50:02] having moving pictures means movies for at least two nights.
[01:50:07] I've never enjoyed anything so much before in all of my life.
[01:50:11] Being in prison camp for so long almost made me forget what was going on back in America.
[01:50:16] I'm just beginning to realize now what I have missed.
[01:50:20] If I would have seen a movie two years ago, my freighter would have tried to escape
[01:50:23] at any cost.
[01:50:26] If I would have realized what I was really missing, this long time in prison camp would
[01:50:29] have been much harder to bear.
[01:50:33] More sick left by plane today, our new Colonel told us that we would probably be out of
[01:50:38] here, out here for at least another month.
[01:50:42] What's a measly month more after having been here for so long?
[01:50:46] In fact, it is good to know that we will be leaving for home in only a month's time.
[01:50:56] Yeah, when you kind of consider in his mind, it's either it went from never to one month.
[01:51:05] So it's like, oh, I can't do that month.
[01:51:08] Yeah, it's also interesting how he got detached from what the world had and he actually
[01:51:14] found that beneficial.
[01:51:16] And I've talked about the first interview I did with Tim Ferriss.
[01:51:18] I talked about how I kind of detached from what's going on.
[01:51:23] I don't know from like pictures of my kids and didn't hang them up because I didn't want
[01:51:26] to be thinking about that.
[01:51:27] So they're to do the job.
[01:51:28] You can see that he's saying he would have gone crazy and tried to escape a feed.
[01:51:31] No, he was missing.
[01:51:35] Back to the book.
[01:51:36] When we finally got to see what the Japanese had on their side of the prison camp, we
[01:51:40] were astonished and mad.
[01:51:42] They had a room full of male and packages from the states that they never delivered plus
[01:51:46] the large quantity of red cross packages.
[01:51:49] We speculated that the Japanese were living off our red cross packages when food became
[01:51:54] scarce, food that was meant for us.
[01:52:01] By now, since we were all free to leave prison camp and wander, everyone was looking
[01:52:06] for a Japanese savor to take home as a souvenir from the war, it would show that at long
[01:52:10] last in the end we were the winners and they were vanquished.
[01:52:21] Eventually, and again, get the book that he's leaving, moked in.
[01:52:27] I was on the last truck out and as we pulled away, I saw the Russians come out of the
[01:52:32] front gate with the Japanese and walk on the outside of the brick wall toward the back
[01:52:36] of the camp.
[01:52:37] My impression was that they were going to line the Japanese up against a back brick wall
[01:52:42] and shoot them.
[01:52:45] Check.
[01:52:49] I'm supporting the Russians and this one, I think.
[01:52:55] Back to the book.
[01:52:57] They end up in the port in China where they're going to get their ride home on a ship.
[01:53:04] There was an American transport waiting for us to dock, but when the ship capped and saw
[01:53:09] all of us armed with rifles and sabers, he would not let us on the ship unless we gave
[01:53:13] up our weapons.
[01:53:14] We said no way, Captain, these are ours and we're not going to part with them.
[01:53:18] He then said that he would safely store them for us and they would be returned when we
[01:53:22] docked.
[01:53:23] Our reply was an emphatic, no.
[01:53:27] By now we were looking for a place to sack out because we were not going to board
[01:53:30] that ship without our arms.
[01:53:32] After a lengthy delay, the captain relented and we were finally allowed on the ship with
[01:53:36] our sabers clanking at our sides.
[01:53:38] He talks about they go through great efforts to get these Japanese sabers.
[01:53:44] Once on the ship we were given a cursory medical check, D-Louse, and given clean clothes
[01:53:48] I believe before being taken to our living quarters.
[01:53:52] Our dispute with the captain, the ship was over now and everyone could relax and clean
[01:53:55] quarters on a very comfortable bed.
[01:53:58] This was the first real mattress that I'd slept on since leaving the SS Coolidge almost
[01:54:02] four years ago.
[01:54:06] It felt great and the food provided was also very good.
[01:54:10] Now our minds and bodies were truly at ease.
[01:54:13] No mattress for f- You know when you got to sleep in the airport or whatever and you
[01:54:20] complain about it, that's a carpet.
[01:54:23] That's actually a pretty good deal and you've got to sweatshirt that you've wrapped up
[01:54:26] in and you put a little something under your head.
[01:54:28] A bathroom too by the way.
[01:54:30] Yeah, there's a nice bathroom.
[01:54:32] Right?
[01:54:33] There's not nice, dig into your skin or flees eating at your...
[01:54:36] Four years, four years on the dirt.
[01:54:45] So now they get to, they sail from there to Okinawa.
[01:54:49] Once they're in Okinawa, they're doing a little bit of port timing Okinawa getting
[01:54:53] some supplies.
[01:54:58] This was in the open water instead of the shallow bay.
[01:55:26] This I could hear sailors working their way down toward us shouting everyone topside
[01:55:30] to everybody topside and prepare to abandon ship.
[01:55:37] Everybody topside, hurry, hurry.
[01:55:39] And he goes through some of the details.
[01:55:42] We had hit a mine which tore a hole in the side of our ship and flooded the engine
[01:55:47] room and in turn knocked out our power.
[01:55:50] There was a possibility that the ship might sink, which is why we were all ordered topside
[01:55:55] and given life preserves.
[01:55:57] We had to be ready to abandon ship if needed.
[01:56:00] Even if we abandoned ship, I doubt many of us would have survived.
[01:56:03] It was still dark on the top of that.
[01:56:04] There was no possible way to lower the life boats with the ship, lurching back and
[01:56:08] forth as it was.
[01:56:11] Once on deck we had to tie ourselves to something to keep from getting thrown off.
[01:56:15] At least that is what I did.
[01:56:17] I found a place where I could sit down and also time myself with the straps of my life
[01:56:21] preserver.
[01:56:23] I now everyone was wet from the driving rain and the wind, whistled and howled I thought
[01:56:28] to myself is our misery ever going to end.
[01:56:34] When daylight came I sort of wished it hadn't.
[01:56:36] What I saw was enough to scare a person to death.
[01:56:38] We were a drift in violent seas with 50 foot waves.
[01:56:44] You had to look almost straight up to see their crests when they came rolling toward you.
[01:56:48] You were much higher than the ship, especially when the ship was in a trough.
[01:56:55] So they had hit this mine.
[01:56:58] Yeah.
[01:56:59] The engine room was flooded.
[01:57:01] There are still 200 miles from Okinawa.
[01:57:04] This is the captain comes on and is like, don't worry, we are only 200 miles from Okinawa.
[01:57:15] He says to himself, hey, I can't swim 200 miles.
[01:57:18] I'm about you, Captain.
[01:57:21] Back to the book besides severely damaging the ship, the exploding mine was responsible
[01:57:25] for the deaths of about 10 ex prisoners and several sailors that were in the engine room.
[01:57:30] The ex prisoners were on the deck when the mine went off.
[01:57:34] The explosion slung landing ladders that were hanging on the side of the ship up and over
[01:57:39] the railing like lethal whips.
[01:57:42] These men were apparently killed instantly.
[01:57:45] These were the same ladders that we had used to board the ship just a few days earlier.
[01:57:49] I felt the press and I'm sure that the other men felt the same.
[01:57:52] These were men who were on their way home after their terribly long and hard ordeal
[01:57:59] and now they were dead.
[01:58:02] To get this far and still not make it was unbelievable, the japs finally got them after
[01:58:09] all with their floating mine.
[01:58:12] I couldn't help but think of the poor parents and families back home.
[01:58:16] They had been notified that their son or husband or brother was on his way home and you
[01:58:21] can imagine the joy that they felt now they had to be notified that they had been killed
[01:58:28] on the way home.
[01:58:33] Yeah.
[01:58:34] They eventually go from Okinawa to Manila and then from Manila.
[01:58:41] They're waiting for a ship to go back to the states one day I finally saw my name on
[01:58:45] a list pinned to a bulletin board as I was leaving as one leaving by ship for the states
[01:58:50] on such and such a date.
[01:58:53] Before long, it gets on the ship.
[01:58:54] Before long, the last of the tropical islands disappeared in the distance where now well
[01:58:58] out in the open ocean.
[01:58:59] There was nothing to do but eat, sleep and read and this would go on for several weeks.
[01:59:04] My body tingled in the dark when I thought about what the future might bring.
[01:59:09] Coming out on the deck with a cool breeze blowing and the ship gently rocking made me feel
[01:59:15] a little guilty for having it so good.
[01:59:23] Goes on.
[01:59:25] They sail.
[01:59:28] One day we spotted land and before long we were going under the Golden Gate Bridge and
[01:59:32] in to San Francisco Bay.
[01:59:35] We eventually docked at the same pier where we had taken off almost four years earlier.
[01:59:40] At the dock, many soldiers were met by their families and you could see the joy in their
[01:59:44] faces as they tightly embraced each other.
[01:59:47] They had been to war and survived.
[01:59:53] Now they check into a hospital.
[01:59:55] One of the first things that the doctor said when he saw me was you have hepatitis.
[02:00:01] We were fed four large meals a day between meals and nurses brought around ice cream,
[02:00:05] candy and cookies for anyone that was still hungry.
[02:00:08] They were obviously trying to fatten us up before we went home.
[02:00:11] Finally he gets on a hospital train car.
[02:00:14] He heads for San Antonio, Texas.
[02:00:17] From there he was finally given a pass to go home.
[02:00:21] He's with a friend of his.
[02:00:23] Before we got to Lafayette, I talked to my friend and was staying overnight and Crowley so
[02:00:27] we could clean up and be rested for our trip home the next day.
[02:00:31] We spent the night at the rice hotel.
[02:00:35] Next morning I decided to get a haircut so I went to a barber shop nearby.
[02:00:39] The barber started talking about the boys that had left to go to war.
[02:00:43] Some of whom had been killed.
[02:00:47] He then talked about a family that lived near Moata that had two sons killed and another
[02:00:56] missing in action.
[02:00:59] He said that the one missing in action later turned out to be a prisoner of war of the
[02:01:03] Japanese.
[02:01:06] I was shocked beyond belief and I know I turned pale because I was positive he was talking
[02:01:14] about me and my brothers even though he did not give names.
[02:01:20] This news came as a complete surprise but I had begun to suspect something before now in
[02:01:26] a letter or two that I sent home I inquired about Andrew and Stephen.
[02:01:31] But never got me information concerning them when I received mail and returned.
[02:01:36] I thought maybe they had overlooked my questions or at worst or at worst maybe they had
[02:01:42] been wounded in the war.
[02:01:45] I knew that Stephen was in the service but not Andrew.
[02:01:49] You can imagine my grief when I found out they had both been killed.
[02:01:58] Before long I decided to call my sister Eunice to see if she could come and get me and of
[02:02:03] course she was overjoyed to hear my voice.
[02:02:06] She said that she would be over as soon as she could before long she arrived and some
[02:02:10] of her first words that she said were Pat.
[02:02:13] I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.
[02:02:16] That was a nickname that my family calls me.
[02:02:20] I knew what she was about to say so I stopped her and said I already know about my brothers.
[02:02:28] I finally got to the farm.
[02:02:30] My mother met me at the front gate.
[02:02:33] She was crying which I expected and started to tell me about Andrew and Stephen.
[02:02:40] I told her I knew everything and everything would be alright but she kept crying.
[02:02:48] We hugged each other for a while and finally I was able to shake hands with my father.
[02:02:54] He said one word, Pat and I said one, Papa and that was it.
[02:03:05] He was never much for talking but I knew that he was glad to see me back.
[02:03:16] So after all that he comes home and finds out that both of his brothers had been killed.
[02:03:24] His father says hey if you want to stay here and work at the farm and hang out that's
[02:03:31] fine and he tells his dad no he's going to go to college and finish his degree in the
[02:03:36] GI bill covers his cost of his college and he says there's not a great deal to do while
[02:03:45] home on leave.
[02:03:46] I walked in the woods a lot and visited our old swimming hole at the big cypress tree.
[02:03:52] I thought of the fun we used to have and especially the mudfights that we're so exciting.
[02:04:00] We were all grown up now that is the ones who were still alive.
[02:04:06] Such a change in five and one half years.
[02:04:13] I was given my discharge on February 17th, 1946.
[02:04:20] I'd been in the service for five and one half years and those are years I shall never forget.
[02:04:25] When I was in the service I always felt so very young because everyone else was older than me.
[02:04:31] Returning to college I felt just the opposite.
[02:04:35] I felt so much older than most of my students and of course I was.
[02:04:42] One thing I never talked about while in college was my experience in the service.
[02:04:47] I would tell new friends that I was a veteran and had served overseas but that was it.
[02:04:53] I was still abiding by the military's requests not to tell about your POW experience to anyone.
[02:05:00] I may not have had trouble keeping my POW experiences to myself after my return.
[02:05:06] But one aspect of the experiences I did have trouble with and that was my dreams at night.
[02:05:15] Almost every night when I fell asleep I found myself back in prison camp and I would
[02:05:20] think to myself and my dream how did this happen.
[02:05:24] I was sure I'd been freed.
[02:05:28] It was heartbreaking to find that I was still a prisoner.
[02:05:32] It was just the reverse of what I had experienced in prison camp when I always dreamed I was
[02:05:37] free.
[02:05:41] When I woke up during the war I found I was still a prisoner.
[02:05:46] I was not at least when I woke up as a civilian.
[02:05:52] I found that I was free.
[02:05:53] As good as this felt it was still very disturbing mentally because these dreams lasted for about
[02:05:58] 10 years.
[02:06:03] For the first few years I hated to go to sleep.
[02:06:07] But luckily the dreams became less frequent.
[02:06:13] And now they are not completely gone.
[02:06:18] This dream tells me that in the recesses of my mind I am still haunted by my participation
[02:06:25] and experiences during the baton death march.
[02:06:31] It is something that I will undoubtedly be there always.
[02:06:38] Even though I may not be able to control my dreams I long ago learned to live with my life
[02:06:47] as though none of this had ever happened.
[02:06:53] The dream that keeps coming back most often is one in which I find myself across a large
[02:06:59] body of water.
[02:07:02] I know that I must walk for miles and miles to return to where I want to be.
[02:07:10] In my mind I know I have made this long, long walk before and I know how difficult and
[02:07:16] time consuming it will be.
[02:07:23] In my dream I feel completely dejected because I wonder what could have happened to get
[02:07:29] me back to this place again.
[02:07:36] But in my dream I start walking.
[02:07:44] I start walking.
[02:07:51] I think that that right there wraps up the book and I think that is a very powerful
[02:07:59] message for everyone, for everyone no matter what you face.
[02:08:10] No matter how bad it is going to be when there is a challenge.
[02:08:21] By a challenge I mean anything in life any challenge.
[02:08:26] The thing that you're facing the only way to overcome the challenges that you face is
[02:08:35] to start walking.
[02:08:39] Take that step.
[02:08:45] That is what James Bowley did.
[02:08:53] The baton death march, it was absolutely ruled a war crime after the war.
[02:09:02] The Japanese lieutenant general, Homa Masaharu, who oversaw the march and oversaw the atrocities
[02:09:11] that took place during the march.
[02:09:14] He was put on trial.
[02:09:17] He was found guilty of war crimes and he was executed April 3rd 1946 just outside of Manila.
[02:09:30] But James Bowley lived.
[02:09:33] He survived the death march.
[02:09:35] He survived three and a half years in absolutely wretched conditions and James Bowley survives
[02:09:45] today.
[02:09:47] He still alive and he lives in Louisiana still.
[02:09:54] And as a matter of fact on the 25th of May of this year 2018 James Bowley was awarded the
[02:10:02] Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award for the accomplishments that he achieved
[02:10:12] in his life and that he has achieved in his life.
[02:10:15] He's a retired geologist.
[02:10:17] He's written 11 books including the one that I read from today, a soldier's journal.
[02:10:24] And actually the copy that I got, which I got from a used bookstore, he's got a note.
[02:10:31] He signed it and his signature has a note and the note says simply respect the flag.
[02:10:45] And I definitely recommend you pick up a copy of the book and I also recommend that you
[02:10:57] take his advice every day no matter what you are facing.
[02:11:05] Get up and start walking.
[02:11:12] And I think that's all I've got for tonight.
[02:11:16] So echo Charles, I guess at this point maybe since we're talking about walking you
[02:11:25] could tell us how to walk.
[02:11:27] Maybe you know walk down the path a little bit.
[02:11:29] A little bit of an easier walk.
[02:11:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:11:33] There was another actually a few other books where this was like that where every
[02:11:41] situation he kind of goes through, you just get more and more exhaust like you're exhausted
[02:11:45] because you kind of think like, okay, it'll start to let up.
[02:11:48] Yeah.
[02:11:49] And then it's great.
[02:11:50] It doesn't let out in his mind.
[02:11:52] It's madness.
[02:11:53] And then the storm, if you put this like if you put this into a movie, you wouldn't believe
[02:11:58] it, yeah.
[02:11:59] It's a aisle known.
[02:12:00] It's a really gonna have a storm.
[02:12:01] Oh, they're gonna get a line.
[02:12:02] Come on.
[02:12:03] Yeah.
[02:12:04] I'm not buying that.
[02:12:05] No, it's true.
[02:12:06] Yeah, it literally does sound like something like someone would try to put in a movie.
[02:12:08] Yeah.
[02:12:09] Oh, his journey was so hard.
[02:12:11] Yeah, everyone by the way.
[02:12:13] Yeah.
[02:12:14] And you kind of feel when he starts talking about like, for some reason, I don't
[02:12:18] know, maybe it's because I'm kind of hungry right now, but when he's talking, he's
[02:12:22] starring me and I was being the star.
[02:12:24] And then when he, when he'd be like, yeah, when they switched.
[02:12:27] So we're talking about a man that was lost 75 pounds of body weight.
[02:12:34] Who was the beating man?
[02:12:36] He was an eating and you have an eating in four hours.
[02:12:38] And you're still here throwing that after.
[02:12:41] I'm not comparing, bro.
[02:12:43] You compare.
[02:12:44] No, no, no, you did.
[02:12:45] I'm not comparing.
[02:12:46] I'm saying I kind of felt like felt his situation in the eye and I.
[02:12:49] Oh, man.
[02:12:50] You might want to edit yourself out.
[02:12:52] No, it's under that head.
[02:12:54] I did.
[02:12:54] I will say this.
[02:12:55] I will say this.
[02:12:56] You know what I'm looking forward to tonight is I'm going to go.
[02:12:59] First of all, I've been traveling.
[02:13:00] I am tired.
[02:13:01] Sure.
[02:13:02] And tonight, I'm going to go enjoy my mattress and my bed.
[02:13:07] Yeah.
[02:13:08] Think about that when I'm crawling.
[02:13:09] I've got to, I got to pretty nice bed.
[02:13:11] It's nothing crazy.
[02:13:12] But it's nice.
[02:13:13] You're going to California King is.
[02:13:16] That's the biggest bed you can get.
[02:13:17] It's the longest.
[02:13:19] Eastern King is wider.
[02:13:20] Really?
[02:13:21] Yeah, man.
[02:13:22] I spent a lot of time trying to do.
[02:13:24] Oh, man.
[02:13:25] I've got the California King.
[02:13:26] Thank you.
[02:13:27] And I'm going to get in that day tonight with the bed spread on it.
[02:13:34] Yeah.
[02:13:35] So you felt, you were feeling this man a little bit extra too.
[02:13:38] Then when he was talking about the floor and all this stuff, and then he finally got
[02:13:41] out in that mattress that he hadn't been, you know, no mattresses.
[02:13:44] Yeah, I think if you compare anything, literally anything in that book, anything that
[02:13:50] he's talking about, you can just say, I have it good.
[02:13:53] I don't care who you are.
[02:13:54] Oh, yeah.
[02:13:55] I got it so good.
[02:13:56] I'm just living in the lap of complete luxury.
[02:13:59] You have read it.
[02:14:01] You know, the part when they were like, oh, yeah.
[02:14:02] And then they feed us cookies and candy bars.
[02:14:06] Yeah, whatever.
[02:14:07] But when you're saying that, I was thinking tonight, if I want to, and I'm considering
[02:14:10] it too still, right now by the way, I can go to the store on the way home.
[02:14:14] By the way, and just pick up as many candy bars as the way.
[02:14:17] Right now.
[02:14:18] This candy bar stakes ice cream.
[02:14:19] Oh, yeah.
[02:14:20] You can pretty much any possible thing.
[02:14:23] You could possibly imagine you can get within seven minutes of departing from this
[02:14:29] podcast.
[02:14:30] This place right now on your way to your California, on the California, on the California
[02:14:34] Kangabad. Yeah, and the sheets and the strength. Yeah, put your blanket.
[02:14:38] Yeah, yeah.
[02:14:38] So that's cool.
[02:14:39] Yeah, that's nice.
[02:14:40] We'll be able to pull your blankets over yourself.
[02:14:42] Yeah.
[02:14:42] It's not so malnutrition.
[02:14:44] Yeah.
[02:14:44] And when the blankets are on you, that's kind of nice.
[02:14:47] Yeah.
[02:14:48] It doesn't cause you pain.
[02:14:49] Yeah, it doesn't like suffocate because you're going to break your rib.
[02:14:51] Just like that.
[02:14:52] Yeah, bro.
[02:14:53] Big time.
[02:14:54] And let me, and yeah, but you were feeling it though.
[02:14:56] I think you might.
[02:14:57] Okay, let me.
[02:14:58] I wasn't for the people out.
[02:14:59] Definitely feeling it.
[02:15:01] Okay, here's Jocca today.
[02:15:02] By the way.
[02:15:03] I witnessed his whole journey more or less his whole journey.
[02:15:06] Cause I follow him on Instagram.
[02:15:09] So what?
[02:15:10] 350 recorded wake-ups.
[02:15:13] So you probably woke up at at the very.
[02:15:15] Yeah, I think.
[02:15:16] Let's wait for it.
[02:15:16] One, one, one, one, three, 45.
[02:15:18] Okay.
[02:15:18] So three, 45.
[02:15:19] I was in Denver.
[02:15:19] I had to, I was in Denver.
[02:15:21] Denver.
[02:15:22] And then yeah, so I had to catch an early.
[02:15:25] I wasn't actually wasn't in Denver.
[02:15:27] I was in Boulder.
[02:15:28] So I had to get a car from Boulder.
[02:15:30] It's that one for one hour.
[02:15:31] That's one hour.
[02:15:32] I put one.
[02:15:33] Yeah, it's one hour.
[02:15:34] Okay, so 250.
[02:15:35] Okay.
[02:15:36] Oh, I didn't think about that.
[02:15:37] Yeah.
[02:15:38] Yeah.
[02:15:39] You were taking away credit.
[02:15:40] Nonetheless, 250 wake up travel, which, like I said earlier,
[02:15:46] trick it.
[02:15:47] Okay, so travel from Colorado to San Diego.
[02:15:50] To me, that's the day already.
[02:15:52] My day is done.
[02:15:53] You know, my work is done.
[02:15:54] The space that I got to recover from that.
[02:15:55] That's me.
[02:15:56] Okay, you come home.
[02:15:57] You do what?
[02:15:58] Oh, we're down.
[02:15:59] Oh, on your way home, you prep.
[02:16:00] Yeah, I finished prep podcast.
[02:16:03] And then when I got home, the first thing I did when I got home was finish the prep of
[02:16:08] the podcast.
[02:16:09] I had about another hour to do.
[02:16:10] Okay, so then you shift mentally to a workout.
[02:16:13] Yeah.
[02:16:14] Okay, so, so here's the thing.
[02:16:16] Where, you know, a workout, cool workout.
[02:16:18] I've worked out after, bro, when I worked at the night clubs, I'd work out after
[02:16:23] a whole day and at like three in the morning.
[02:16:25] And I'd trained you just to be forward.
[02:16:27] You know, social.
[02:16:28] Here's the thing, though.
[02:16:30] You make that mental shift where you're like, okay, you wake up at 250am, you travel.
[02:16:36] To me, mentally traveling just just kind of finishes me.
[02:16:39] You know, I got to kind of recover, you know, unless I have something lingering or something
[02:16:42] like that.
[02:16:43] Okay, there's that.
[02:16:44] Then you still working, by the way, shift into workout mode.
[02:16:48] Still the morning, by the way.
[02:16:50] Okay, so workout mode, you get your workout done, which is, we're not going to
[02:16:55] detail them, but it's a mini-conditioning circuit.
[02:16:57] Yeah, I pretty much took me.
[02:16:59] I don't know.
[02:17:00] Yeah, but yeah, basically, the most solid little workout.
[02:17:03] If, if personally, you know, speaking for myself, if I'm going to skip a workout on a day
[02:17:08] where I don't feel like it is going to be one of those workouts, one of those ones that
[02:17:12] you're doing like, you know, burpees and they're like, the junk ones.
[02:17:16] Okay.
[02:17:17] The pain for anyway.
[02:17:18] Like if you're a little bit of a get-to.
[02:17:19] Yeah, and then so, but your gets exactly right.
[02:17:22] And then you're going to do Jitu.
[02:17:24] Yeah.
[02:17:25] Do bunch of rounds.
[02:17:26] Yeah.
[02:17:27] A bunch of hours.
[02:17:28] Over an hour of straight rolling.
[02:17:29] Yeah.
[02:17:29] I mean, you know, you have breaks between rounds.
[02:17:31] Yeah.
[02:17:32] But it was an hour as about an hour and 15 minutes.
[02:17:35] Yeah.
[02:17:36] Okay.
[02:17:37] So that's a big deal.
[02:17:38] That's way, that's like maybe two or three times the amount of, we'll say, quote, unquote, normal
[02:17:41] rolling depending on who you are.
[02:17:43] Okay.
[02:17:44] And with like Andy, a subteller here.
[02:17:46] And an entailer.
[02:17:47] Okay.
[02:17:48] So, all right.
[02:17:49] So, it's not like you're by with some guy get to maybe catch a new girl or something
[02:17:52] like this.
[02:17:53] No, it's not like this.
[02:17:54] Okay.
[02:17:55] Okay.
[02:17:56] Here we go.
[02:17:57] Still on Jockel's schedule, by the way.
[02:17:58] I'm just going to be a podcast.
[02:17:59] Okay.
[02:18:00] So, guy, I'm trying to imagine your state of being in your mind.
[02:18:03] And then when he said the part, actually there's a bunch of parts when he's talking
[02:18:08] about on the ship and, you know, the breeze and the basically the rest parts, I think you
[02:18:14] were feeling that.
[02:18:15] What do you mean I was feeling it?
[02:18:17] Because you had that state, you have that state of like, you put in a lot of work.
[02:18:21] And now you, you know, you're kind of on the backside to the recovery portion of the day.
[02:18:25] Oh, yeah.
[02:18:26] So I think that part resonated with you.
[02:18:27] Yeah, I guess so.
[02:18:29] Right.
[02:18:30] Well, there it is.
[02:18:31] Boom.
[02:18:32] See, I know long explanation, but still.
[02:18:33] Just saying.
[02:18:34] I guess so.
[02:18:35] But you got to remember that even like, like you just described my day, but there's people out there
[02:18:38] that did five times more than when I did today.
[02:18:41] Yeah.
[02:18:42] There's, there's people everywhere that are getting after it.
[02:18:45] Super.
[02:18:46] Yeah.
[02:18:47] More than a day.
[02:18:48] Some people every single day, you know.
[02:18:50] Yeah.
[02:18:51] No, it's true.
[02:18:52] It's up a little bit.
[02:18:53] And it does.
[02:18:54] A lot of books like this man where the, you know what kind of got me fired up was Dan Bat.
[02:18:59] Dan Bat's here.
[02:19:00] Yeah.
[02:19:01] Yeah.
[02:19:02] And he, and the family's home.
[02:19:03] Yeah.
[02:19:04] And his wife.
[02:19:05] And so Dan Bat's a guy that's been like kind of in the game for since day one.
[02:19:10] And he, and, and, and so I knew him from social media.
[02:19:14] And as soon as I saw him, he's like, hey, I'm, and I was like, hey, what's up man?
[02:19:17] Yeah.
[02:19:18] Yeah.
[02:19:19] We're old school.
[02:19:20] Yeah.
[02:19:21] But then, you know, him and his brother and, and, you know, Dan was in the Marine Corps.
[02:19:26] And now he's a, he's a government official still.
[02:19:31] He's still a, uh, uh, carries a gun for a living, right?
[02:19:35] And, and I was, you know, he was all just like, he's like, oh, you're going to record right now.
[02:19:41] And I was like, yeah, and he was pumped.
[02:19:43] Yeah.
[02:19:44] Yeah.
[02:19:45] Yeah.
[02:19:46] Yeah.
[02:19:47] Yeah.
[02:19:47] Yeah.
[02:19:48] Yeah.
[02:19:49] Yeah.
[02:19:50] Yeah.
[02:19:51] I mean I know, we know.
[02:19:52] And you know, my mother is like, you know, she's probably like, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be in the air.
[02:19:55] I'm gonna be in the air.
[02:19:56] Well, I'm going to be in the air.
[02:19:58] Sorry, you're coming to book and you tell me, and I was like, yeah, I'm covering the soldiers journal.
[02:20:01] I go, it's an awesome, I go, it's about a guy on the baton death march because I can't wait to Wednesday.
[02:20:04] And I was like, I'm going to go in the air.
[02:20:06] I'm going to go in the air.
[02:20:07] Brush thing.
[02:20:08] Yeah.
[02:20:09] Yeah.
[02:20:09] Dan, bad, thanks for coming up.
[02:20:11] And yeah.
[02:20:12] Thanks for swing the by the, yeah.
[02:20:13] Yeah.
[02:20:14] You're coming, get me to roll though.
[02:20:16] Unfortunately.
[02:20:17] But is that I mean I know we know and you know so as like okay
[02:20:22] I'm Dan Bat I'm coming in I see Jocca for the first time he's over there rolling with Andy and Taylor by the way
[02:20:27] Yeah, and I'm over here doing no ghee a little bit early in the jujitsu career
[02:20:31] You know Jocca with their training hardcore do I walk over there and try to roll with Jocca?
[02:20:36] That's the question. Yeah. Well some people do some people though for us like yeah
[02:20:40] If I would ask you that you be like yeah come wrong. Yeah, but like I said it from Dan Bat's my first time
[02:20:45] At victory I see you over there. Do I do that? Yeah, maybe I overestimated the I feel like I know him pretty well
[02:20:53] Yeah, yeah
[02:20:55] He probably feels like he knows us real well
[02:20:58] What beef he came up he was like my other friend Anthony. He was like oh yeah that guy
[02:21:02] He's he's one farm buffalo
[02:21:04] Jiu Jitsu and all this stuff his name's Dan. I was like yeah cool Dan and meet him. I'll take a damn cuz I didn't drive in
[02:21:09] Make the connection that he's Dan Bat. Yeah, just say it's Dan Bat cuz every all know we don't Dan Bat from from the beginning
[02:21:15] There's out for whatever maybe I'm not looking at his pictures close enough for whatever, but oh
[02:21:19] Yeah, when you were like yeah Dan Bat I was like oh this is Dan Bat
[02:21:22] And then I'm like cruising with him, you know
[02:21:24] Like he's a great check
[02:21:27] Dan Bat is on the path but still yeah way on the path
[02:21:32] He's a way of the path on the path yeah big time and so are we and we can talk about some stuff to help support the path and
[02:21:41] Support you all right first one talk about origin
[02:21:44] So origin origin is the company the company. This is where you get your gear when you're on your Getsu
[02:21:50] Okay, we're just said it. It's real quick. So one you take you Jitsu you need a gear
[02:21:54] Cuz you're doing gear and no gear. Yes. That's a good idea
[02:21:57] I'm gonna be mad at you if you just do key or if you just do no key. Did you see everyone's gonna be mad at you?
[02:22:04] No one's gonna be mad at you, but as a strong recommendation to both yeah, so when you do both you can need a key
[02:22:12] Origin gear is why you get an origin gear. No other gear. Don't get any more
[02:22:15] Deity other gear. You don't have to. No. I have other gears from before or you still have yeah
[02:22:20] Well, they're in my lunch room in fact. I got scolded from my wife
[02:22:23] Why are those gears up there? They're been up there for a while
[02:22:26] Your wife's in the game. She's a game rid of them. No, yeah
[02:22:30] You're not gonna wear them. You're legitimately not gonna wear it
[02:22:34] There's no point to have them. Yeah. It's true good. Good. Well. Yeah, yeah good will or even you don't bring it to
[02:22:40] I don't know. You know, it's good to bring it to your academy and then they can use those as
[02:22:44] Loner keys. Yep. There you go. That's a whole piece. So and
[02:22:48] All these loner geese too that is true so yeah
[02:22:51] And then yeah in the meantime before people get an origin. Yeah, make sense. Yeah, but yeah all made America
[02:22:58] From the beginnings of the birth of the geese is their birth of the geese not really
[02:23:03] Okay, and the will the cotton is grown in America how about that? That's how early on the main in America
[02:23:09] situation
[02:23:10] Commences you know
[02:23:12] all made America and by
[02:23:14] Pete and his team
[02:23:17] Who know about jiu jitsu black belt in jiu jitsu in the game of jiu jitsu for day one
[02:23:23] So he knows all about it make the connection that's why that's why they're the best geese over all right there
[02:23:28] Boom that's it they also make rash cards as well. So I'll get no geek boom key rash card rash cards and you can all kinds of stuff on there too t-shirts
[02:23:38] They may have shorts now
[02:23:40] Do you have a pair of the shorts yet?
[02:23:42] I don't either but I'm gonna get me
[02:23:44] You know what I'm just I was gonna like send both of them a text a group text a group
[02:23:51] To be like hey, I'm looking outside the door
[02:23:54] You know I mean like I'm getting other mail no shorts, but then again origin the emerging camps coming up
[02:23:59] I'm sure it's the thing where the boom and actually that makes more sense less packing there
[02:24:03] Okay, I'm saying but I'm not happy about it. I'm you know
[02:24:07] I'm with you know, I'm not happy about it
[02:24:09] So yeah some other stuff then then just jiu jitsu stuff. Yes, I'm on jiu jitsu
[02:24:15] Yeah, and and really the shorts are starting to get into like
[02:24:18] Because they're not even they're not for training
[02:24:21] There's just for straight-up wearing just for wearing around plus there's supplements on there too
[02:24:29] We got joint warfare
[02:24:31] Which is good for your joints. Sure. We got
[02:24:34] Crill oil which is also good for your joints was that did was at this supplement that pushed you over the edge
[02:24:40] What do you know over the edge that got you to start using supplements? Crill oil?
[02:24:44] Yes, okay, I thought and that was like a what do you call it?
[02:24:48] It was like a gateway supplement. Yeah, what actually you know what?
[02:24:50] I don't know if that in and of itself was the gateway so I think you were essentially the influence gateway
[02:24:57] Entity if you will right, but that was the one where you when you started taking it and you were like oh
[02:25:01] This actually works and so I'm gonna continue and then with then when I was saying you know what?
[02:25:05] I got something called joint warfare and then you're like almost our crackdown
[02:25:08] So that's it and then you got your army old up, but now you're a believer
[02:25:11] Well and the thing about both of those things is cake glucose immune conjuritan is in joint warfare
[02:25:17] Right, it has other other good stuff
[02:25:18] It's like that but that was kind of humanity has in there which is actually as big of a deal as the other two things that you just mentioned
[02:25:23] Yeah, as it turns out
[02:25:24] Yeah, I didn't know that said the time so you're like yeah
[02:25:26] Joint warfare cruel oil all this stuff and these are things that I heard about before and I was like cool, but you know
[02:25:32] And I don't need to take supplements. You just you know, you right and on the stuff
[02:25:37] We wouldn't have multiple tone
[02:25:39] That's what we took more of
[02:25:41] Anyways, you got that you got discipline which is good for
[02:25:45] Just good for mission life mission getting after it yeah Brian was explaining to me
[02:25:51] That it helps you a look. I'm gonna get terminology wrong
[02:25:57] But because I'm doing this off of memory, but it's like
[02:25:59] Adaptedions or something basically it helps you manage any stress that comes to you. Look at you
[02:26:05] I'm saying
[02:26:06] Apped you like that
[02:26:08] It helps you manage stress
[02:26:11] And that goes for like physical and mental stress. So remember when I was telling you yeah
[02:26:16] Like last time was time with Dean or whatever when I was saying when I took the three scoops
[02:26:19] I felt like I could just do with stuff
[02:26:21] Oh yeah, that's what it was my patient
[02:26:24] That's been it's wearing the house
[02:26:28] You know, after the ginger were in the house and they're in the house so Brian totally explained it so I'll look all that makes sense
[02:26:33] Yeah, I'm saying see that's a little subtle. I think that that's a little subtle thing that you know how it's like yeah
[02:26:38] I can remember words quicker and like all this stuff good, man good and I'd rather have the adapt
[02:26:43] Yes, I hear another thing I'd rather or not I'm saying that's part that I think anyway
[02:26:49] We all might kind of disregard you know, you know, it's basically the opposite of having
[02:26:55] You know when you're like what do you call it when you're irritable? You know that yeah, okay?
[02:26:59] So consider when you're irritable not I'm not gonna say you're gonna behave a certain way some people do though when they're irritable
[02:27:04] They're shorter they're shorter temper
[02:27:06] They you know when things don't go their way
[02:27:08] You know when I I consider that to be a weakness yes, yeah, so consider that to be a week
[02:27:13] Okay, so consider that like when I snap at someone
[02:27:16] You know which I would say I like rarely snap someone yeah because I consider I don't know when I started thinking that way
[02:27:23] Yeah, like hey just snapping at someone is just when if I snap at you brother's per you did some really
[02:27:29] Jacked up or maybe you're just super duper irritable
[02:27:33] Yeah, I don't know in general. I think you're right though. Yeah, I'm literally sitting here trying to figure out the last time
[02:27:38] I felt
[02:27:40] Legitimately we know it'll be something you know what bothers me
[02:27:45] It bothers me if I'm trying to work and people want to talk to me about stuff
[02:27:50] So this is more of a home life scenario and normally I schedule my situations that
[02:27:56] Everyone's asleep or I'm
[02:27:59] Separated but sometimes people want to interact and and when I'm doing my work, you know
[02:28:05] And I have a somewhere with with my wife where you know you've seen the movie the shining right?
[02:28:10] Yes, I'll be I'll be sitting there and I'll be working. I'm like
[02:28:13] When you hear this noise when you hear that it means I'm typing that is my typewriter
[02:28:24] And that means I'm trying to work and if you hear me barking they don't and she starts laughing
[02:28:29] So I thought I thought a little Jack Nicholson sure and she realizes that I'm trying to do what I do
[02:28:36] Well, I will say that that's podcast prep right books whatever. Yeah, fully you get down and I do it
[02:28:42] But that's not really you snapping though is no no no friendly version of fun. Hey, it is my way
[02:28:50] of
[02:28:52] of
[02:28:53] Let's say
[02:28:55] projecting my frustration into a good positive humorous thing that releases the tension and gets the message across remember earlier
[02:29:04] Today we were talking about getting the message across without doing collateral damage. Yes
[02:29:08] Well, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, so I just don't want a little bit of that here. This
[02:29:14] Well, that actually that's good because man, I'll suck in I don't want to deviate too much but
[02:29:18] What do you mean we're talking about completely different stuff that we deviate it so far
[02:29:21] There's not even I don't know where we came from it has to do with getting the message across right you can have a greatest info in the world
[02:29:27] most important info in the world, but if you can't get it across right so it's like yeah, I'm in for super important
[02:29:32] Potentially but here's the thing about information and what you say and why you say it's like all it's good
[02:29:40] It has to land, you know, so you can start throwing out info and but if it doesn't land you might as well not have said nothing
[02:29:46] Okay, so what just hopefully you're pended whatever you were talking about earlier with the with the discipline you were talking about this
[02:29:54] Oh, yeah, that's the jins. Okay
[02:29:56] Yeah, all the things we're all the different subject. Now we'll go back to the how to that land
[02:29:59] Amen each you're talking about you being talking about adaptive you know this stuff. Okay. I'll actually back to the point back
[02:30:05] The way okay, so the adaptions it's the opposite of being irritable
[02:30:10] That's what I felt and I think when we think about like discipline and you know could neutral pay hell brain health all this stuff
[02:30:16] We think about like remembering words and being sharper and quicker, but we don't think about like
[02:30:20] The opposite of being irritable when it I don't know if there's is there a word for the opposite of irritable
[02:30:25] Because it's not the kind oh like it's just okay. I'm cruising. It's not that feeling. It's more like the opposite of
[02:30:32] I keep cruising
[02:30:35] All right speaking of information. Why don't you give us an information about mocks so we can move on okay? Well
[02:30:40] Take the don't don't don't slip on the discipline. Anyway. Okay. Yeah, don't slip on that. Okay, here's mock
[02:30:44] Here's mock because you'll be the opposite of irritable. That's a good tagline. We should use that
[02:30:49] Obviously, it would be irritable. Yeah, man. It works. It works for me. Yeah, keep in mind when you're irritable
[02:30:54] That's not a good feeling. No most of us if we don't get like in a sleep or or sometimes
[02:31:00] Well, I guess it depends on who you're but some people when they get angry that's what that is
[02:31:04] So that is not a good feeling. If you'll opposite of that it is a good feeling. Seems same check just simple math
[02:31:10] Anyway, mock. Okay, mock
[02:31:13] If you want some additional protein
[02:31:16] This is a good way to get it. Can you imagine you remember how you was talking about if he's had seen movies
[02:31:21] While he was in prison camp, you would have tried to break out. Yeah, if you were in that situation and you had
[02:31:29] Had mock before you
[02:31:32] That would be horrible because you'd be thinking about not only
[02:31:36] How just about mock is it how good is how tasty is it's like you're stuck there you can't have it
[02:31:43] That happened to me yesterday when I was on my trip
[02:31:45] Dang it didn't bring the mock. I didn't bring mock and I need to figure that situation out a little bit better
[02:31:50] But because that's it just and I do I do some I've branched out a little bit
[02:31:56] I normally always did two scoops of mock in big glass of milk and now I'm kind of doing little hitters
[02:32:03] Like little hitters like little hitters
[02:32:06] Well, they're still they're still one full scoop. I haven't gone below. I haven't done just like a straight-up shot
[02:32:12] Yeah, but I'm been doing little hitters just one just one scoop and what's the philosophy behind the you know like what you know
[02:32:19] I cuz I I'm so full when I get done with mock like this morning when I got home since I didn't have mock on my trip
[02:32:26] When I got home
[02:32:27] Before I started record before I started prepping for the podcast I had a little hitter of mock
[02:32:34] Which I by the way took hitter that whole concept of using the word hitter from the oven
[02:32:40] So yeah, I think he uses it for everything like things can just be a hitter
[02:32:45] I have a little hitter a little one scoop hitter yeah, yeah, that's right there
[02:32:51] Boom there you go that is
[02:32:54] No, I don't want to say that's odd so it's the opposite. There's something you have to be careful of if you think in the future
[02:33:00] You may be completely
[02:33:02] In a situation where you can't have mock maybe it's better to never have it
[02:33:06] Yeah, so you don't even always think about it for you like you can't you can't miss what you don't know
[02:33:12] Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah
[02:33:14] Yeah, I'm going I'm going the opposite direction. I'm going I'm making them bigger just bigger like last
[02:33:20] They you know is weird so I can I went to sleep kind of early which is like
[02:33:25] I'm not you know some people that they prefer to go sleep hungry because it's like you know
[02:33:29] Whatever their philosophy. I'd prefer not to go sleep hungry
[02:33:32] So I had a dinner and then I stayed up a couple hours and I'm like oh I either eat right now
[02:33:37] I'm not really hungry or risk being hungry at some point very soon
[02:33:41] So what I did is you will in prison. Yeah, bro
[02:33:44] No, I would not work out for me for sure. Yeah, and the last I take the mock three scoops. Oh
[02:33:52] God peanut butter man. I don't know why I mean I do know why two peanut butter scoops to admit to the mint
[02:33:57] From I'm total double dipping out you're going crazy. Yeah. I don't know it just the thing is I know how I don't do
[02:34:04] Like the sound of that. Yeah, but it's good for them
[02:34:06] They taste that sounds it's good to sound good nonetheless, but
[02:34:14] I've been doing it and it's the kind of words like what I already know how it tastes like what I would
[02:34:18] I'm not even do that okay? Well, like I've said it and you actually I said don't cross the streams like ghostbusters
[02:34:23] And you said that's how they won. Yes, so maybe you got across the peanut butter in the mint
[02:34:28] I don't know I'm not I don't you think I'm gonna try it all right? That's up to you
[02:34:31] And maybe it's one of those things if I try it then I'll have to carry around both types all the time for the rest of my life
[02:34:36] Or you can mix them that one you pour you mix them up
[02:34:39] Right, that's up to you anyway. Hey, mok how you want to mok up bulk up
[02:34:44] That's that's good right that rhymes yeah, mok a bucket anyway, so
[02:34:48] So I so I hit it. It's the big you know, or oh you got a hitter no I hit it so technically it may be was a hitter
[02:34:55] But it was you
[02:34:57] Founder
[02:34:58] Oh, you got one of those big
[02:34:59] The huge one pound did it no problem. I'm just mok is gonna consume it the immersion camp you think I
[02:35:06] Think it's gonna be a lot well considered myself alone. I mean man. I'm on the mok train big times. That's every day
[02:35:13] Yeah, well how many scoops while we're at immersion camp how many scoops of mok will you consume per day? Well pretty
[02:35:21] I don't know I just say six minimum because every game will you figure
[02:35:24] I'm just saying crazy well, you know as much juice is going on yeah six two scoops
[02:35:30] I don't want to three I can see maybe doing four for me
[02:35:34] Maybe two in the morning maybe two in the afternoon maybe maybe every one more hitter
[02:35:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[02:35:41] Nonetheless that's small good good protein and it tastes good see and that's the thing
[02:35:45] Well if you do it as like someone who's texting me. Oh, can you do it as a meal replacement?
[02:35:49] Can you do this meal for me and the day before I got that text
[02:35:52] Pete was saying I said something I forgot what it was and he said ha ha yeah, you can use it as a meal replace
[02:35:58] Oh yeah breakfast mok and dinner
[02:36:02] I think that's one other reasons why I was texting Pete and then so yeah, so when you do it as a meal replacement
[02:36:09] It's like
[02:36:11] It's not the meal. It's like a dessert as a meal
[02:36:13] Yeah, it's both you've seen
[02:36:15] It's just like the treat you look forward to
[02:36:17] Unless good to go get all this at
[02:36:19] Origin main
[02:36:22] dot com as we can get all this stuff cool website check
[02:36:26] I would talk about the immersion camp, but it's sold out bummer
[02:36:30] Here's the thing to I'll suck the Andy Burke
[02:36:35] Not Dave Burke
[02:36:37] Good deal Dave good deal Dave not good deal Dave Andy Burke no relation and we're talking about like okay
[02:36:44] So it's one thing to be like hey, we're getting kind of full. We'll just get more mats, but then we're now
[02:36:48] We're talking about the camp. Yeah, so it's we're doer full. Yeah, we're full. Yeah, we're full. Yeah, can't do it
[02:36:54] Unless maybe like you'd be bringing your tent or something like that
[02:36:57] Maybe no less sold out. So yeah, maybe next year. There it is all origin stuff good way to support as well
[02:37:04] shifting gears
[02:37:06] Jocco as a store. It's called jocco store. So you let it jocco store dot com. This is where you can get
[02:37:13] shirts
[02:37:15] hoodies tank tops some rash guards more rash guards
[02:37:21] Good way to support like I said this is where if you want to represent discipline equals freedom just the general concepts and how should I say
[02:37:31] philosophies of the game overall deaf core yeah
[02:37:37] Overall does overall if you want to represent that's where you get it jocco store
[02:37:41] dot com got some new designs on there. I was I was gonna send out like email to everybody
[02:37:47] Like that sign up for the email list. It's been a few months. So I'm as well
[02:37:51] So I'll probably send out something just to indicate hey, we got some new stuff boom. There it is. If you want it
[02:37:56] Yeah, if you want to boom because a lot of times it's like it's not like people are just gonna be going jocco store every day
[02:38:01] Boom boom boom, you know, no, no, you don't put new stuff up very often. Wow, what they do that
[02:38:07] Well, we'll just say there's no
[02:38:11] Strong reason to do it. So hey, I send a email boom that I'm no
[02:38:17] Anyway, yeah, jocco store dot com good way to support
[02:38:21] Also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. I know seems obvious, but I
[02:38:27] Think it is obvious. It's obvious. It's real. I just but just let you know if you just so you know they're listening right now
[02:38:33] Yeah, so like we they subscribe
[02:38:35] Yeah, that's true and
[02:38:37] When you're subscribing to that also there's a warrior kid podcast
[02:38:41] So if you got kids
[02:38:43] between the ages of
[02:38:44] four and
[02:38:47] 44 they can get something out of the warrior kid podcast and
[02:38:51] You can subscribe to that you can also subscribe to YouTube
[02:38:56] And we're we're discussing today making some some some these are these are not even these are in different situation
[02:39:02] What I briefed you on today about what we're gonna make those are a different thing there are different
[02:39:09] They're not enhanced videos. They're not excerpts. They're a different specific thing for specific
[02:39:17] Lessons learned specific topics that I've
[02:39:20] Discovered that I need to cover and I think the best way to cover them is through video medium
[02:39:25] Yeah, we're gonna do that and
[02:39:27] That will be specific to YouTube actually they will be very specific to YouTube because
[02:39:31] They're both involved graphics
[02:39:34] You know, they involve
[02:39:37] Yeah, me explaining something utilizing graphics. Yeah, what the right word graphics for what I was doing yeah
[02:39:44] charts
[02:39:45] charts
[02:39:46] Diagrams
[02:39:47] I do
[02:39:47] things yeah, but this is yeah, and this is it was funny. It's like you just say it like it's like
[02:39:54] Yeah, it'll be a cool addition to the thing this like what you what you we talked about we explained
[02:40:00] is
[02:40:02] if I would have known this
[02:40:04] It's almost like the secret to life
[02:40:08] It's not true. No, I know I know it's it so
[02:40:12] We'll put it to we get this this means we're not to put it together. Maybe we could do go we do it while we're in Maine or something
[02:40:17] It's not good. I don't want to I don't want to get crazy with it
[02:40:20] I just want to put the word out there. I need a dry erase board. I need to explain it. I'll think through it a couple times and then I'll put it out there
[02:40:25] Because it will help it will definitely help
[02:40:28] Yeah, yeah fully and both both those topics. There's two topics that need to come out
[02:40:33] And I'll discuss both them. We'll put it on the YouTube and then then people can get them
[02:40:37] So it's so subscribe to the YouTube channel for that. It the channel is called jockel podcast and
[02:40:46] Also when I said subscribe that's to the audio you know so YouTube's video the audio is like iTunes
[02:40:51] Stitcher Google Play. Oh, yeah, listen to podcasts, but I know it seems obvious but it might smell
[02:40:55] What in there just in case maybe someone's new to podcasting in general. Okay. You just never know I'm just gonna be quiet
[02:41:02] Just a fly one
[02:41:05] Also also
[02:41:08] On it so on it dot com slash jockel by the way you get 10% off of what what do we get 10% yeah because we so
[02:41:16] Where if you want to vary up you work out. I know I said it before but very we work out kettlebell stuff
[02:41:22] Battle ropes stuff I got some rings. Are you bringing your rings to me? Yes, yeah me too
[02:41:29] I'm bringing mine cool. This is where you get it on it dot com slash jockel really good stuff on there good info as well
[02:41:35] So if you're new to certain types of workouts get the info first you can enter it you can enter into that workout
[02:41:42] Situation educated keep yourself safe and
[02:41:45] You know boom get the results without all the injuries. Same same also we made a spoken word spoken word
[02:41:55] Album with tracks and it's it's me actually we made it, but it's me talking
[02:42:01] Sure, and it's me just telling you not to be weak today
[02:42:05] But to go do and what you're supposed to do and we're gonna make another one of those working on it now gathering the topics
[02:42:11] So if you have topics for psychological warfare then you can put them on the social media thing and I'll get them
[02:42:21] We will assess if they are important topics or if they're important topics you away
[02:42:25] Yes, we'll figure it out so basically if you're struggling not struggling, but yeah, if you're like kind of struggling something
[02:42:31] You have moments of weakness. What is it?
[02:42:34] What's the scenario are you in? What are you weak with yeah my sister used to say?
[02:42:38] White rice is like her weakness
[02:42:43] Oh, I'm saying white rice. I'm gonna make a psychological warfare that says the white rice that you're looking for
[02:42:48] If she was gonna put it today if she was gonna do 100% sugar once it enters your stomach walk away
[02:42:56] Walk away from the white rice now actually that's what you that kind of wood because she said
[02:43:01] Late at night this was long time ago by the way she said late at night
[02:43:05] So yeah, she were to play it and you're like walk away
[02:43:09] She'd be walking away that's all this. See that sounds starts psychological warfare. It's available in iTunes
[02:43:14] Google play and the three platforms blah blah blah blah
[02:43:17] Jocquity that you can get in a can or you can get it in a tea bag and you get both those
[02:43:25] From Amazon that's where they're at so if you want to be able to deadlift
[02:43:31] No less than 8,000 pounds 100% guaranteed all you have to do is drink chocolate
[02:43:37] You don't have to work out even you don't even have to lift weights
[02:43:40] You just drink it and then you can deadlift 8,000 pounds. Don't worry. It's no problem
[02:43:46] Books yeah, I wrote some books
[02:43:49] wrote some kid books actually way of the worry kid
[02:43:51] Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's the first one and way of the is this okay the second one is marks miss you sexy
[02:43:58] But is it called way of the warrior kid mark marks miss you? I'm not sure let's look at the cover
[02:44:03] It does say way of the warrior kid marks mission
[02:44:06] So it's it's way of the warrior kid marks mission. Yeah, I think I should put a big one and two on them
[02:44:12] So that's more clear. Yeah, the next book the next one that comes out it will say three on it
[02:44:16] Yeah, good idea because they are kind of essentially the whole story and even the lessons by the way are they built on a larger first
[02:44:24] Same saying so like the first one the lessons and the struggles and the problems whatever are
[02:44:30] Nine-year-old problems right? I mean give her take you know, they're like a certain age
[02:44:33] Ten-year-old type
[02:44:34] Problems and then they ask so they get a little bit more sophisticated
[02:44:38] You know and the next little more and more so it's kind of chronological and not to mention the story as well
[02:44:43] So it makes makes it
[02:44:44] Yeah, do it that way and that's if you want your kids to
[02:44:49] Actually get after it straight up
[02:44:51] I get I get the best feedback from those bucks. Yeah, so yeah, I could see why I mean shoot
[02:44:57] I'm one of those people who's giving me the feedback
[02:44:59] It's very well the
[02:45:02] My daughter is a book. Yeah as a book
[02:45:05] What do you call critic yeah
[02:45:08] Someone who has
[02:45:11] Red a book before you know, it's good. It's good. I have it as like just an up running theme
[02:45:16] You know like I just keep reading the book just keep reading both of them yeah, so it becomes the ethos
[02:45:22] That's why your daughter which I primarily see your daughter more she's like, you know
[02:45:26] She gets after it. Yeah, she does get it after it does it
[02:45:30] Constantly work though, man. Yeah, of course. This is a big health course huge health. Oh, bye
[02:45:34] Also discipline equals freedom field manual
[02:45:39] Who would have thought
[02:45:41] That that book would be popular that people would be into it. That's what's cool. Yeah, you wouldn't think see most people don't think there's people that
[02:45:52] Really want to get after it. Yeah, and know but they do yeah, and they don't know how yeah
[02:45:57] When you think about it's gonna start to it kind of makes sense really when you just like okay, so it's field manual
[02:46:02] Right you have a manual a manual because that's a lot of times that's why people don't do stuff
[02:46:06] I don't know how to do it. They don't know how and if I do stuff and then I got to look into it and I keep and looking into
[02:46:12] I wish I just had a manual. I wish I had a manual for life. How about that?
[02:46:15] I wish I had a manual for parenting. I wish I had a manual for life. I had a manual for you know a bunch of other stuff
[02:46:21] But if you want to get after it whatever you want to call it you got a manual
[02:46:26] You want to stay disciplined and you want freedom directly from that discipline boom you got a manual right here
[02:46:31] There you go
[02:46:32] Also extreme ownership which is the first book that I wrote with my brother-lave babbin it takes the combat principles that we learned on the battlefield and
[02:46:42] teaches you and
[02:46:44] Show's you how you can apply them to your business and your life and then we got a follow on book to that coming out September 25th
[02:46:48] The dichotomy leadership you can pre-order it right now so that way the publishers who
[02:46:56] Are pessimistic that's that's how publishers aren't they're just pessimistic because for them
[02:47:01] They don't really care if you get if you don't get the book right when it comes out
[02:47:04] They're gonna make their their money either way, but when the when the book comes out and you
[02:47:08] Orgret the day it comes out and then it takes nine days to get to you cuz because they had a reprintum because they ran out
[02:47:16] But I guess they're cons- I shouldn't say they're conservative
[02:47:19] They're being all conservative
[02:47:21] You know I'm just not sure and we don't want to spend a money on money on storage if these things and then you're gonna have to wait to get your copies
[02:47:27] don't do that you can pre-order
[02:47:29] And late for and I just did a podcast on what it's about that's podcast number one 38 if you haven't heard that one yet
[02:47:35] Also speaking of life speaking of me we have a leadership
[02:47:39] Consulting company and it's not just me and life. It's also JP to Nell Dave Burke Flynn Cochrane and also Mike Surreli and
[02:47:49] We come to your company and we'll help you with your leadership. We solve problems through leadership also
[02:47:55] If you want one of us to just come speak at your company don't call a speaking agency
[02:48:02] You don't need to call a speaking agency you don't need to call
[02:48:05] Cool speakers dot com no go to ashlandfront dot com and
[02:48:11] And get the information there
[02:48:14] Give the get the info and that's how you get to us
[02:48:17] Some people call me by the way or email me. Yeah, then you pass on to ashlandfront
[02:48:21] Info at ashland you like it little little little you like to get the game info at ashlandfront dot com if you want to just email straight
[02:48:27] Also the master 006 San Francisco County for in yeah
[02:48:31] 17th 18th it's probably gonna sell out pretty soon the registration for that is at extreme ownership dot com and also there's registration for
[02:48:39] The roll call roll calls 001 which is for current uniformed personnel
[02:48:44] So military law enforcement
[02:48:46] Border patrol firefighters paramedics other first responders. We put together the roll call because you lead in dynamic
[02:48:53] situations. We want to do something a little bit cheaper a little bit shorter so you could get to it. It's September 21st Dallas Texas
[02:49:00] and come on down to that
[02:49:04] Finally we have EF overwatch
[02:49:07] connecting
[02:49:08] Speck ops and combat aviation
[02:49:10] Folks from the military to companies that need leaders need tested leaders
[02:49:18] so we've got great
[02:49:21] Leaders out there that we know from our communities and now we've got companies that we know from ashlandfront
[02:49:28] And we are bringing them together so EF overwatch dot com if you want to if you're either someone that wants to hire
[02:49:35] A bad ass leader or if you're a bad ass leader that is retiring or getting out from your military service
[02:49:42] Get on there and fill out that information
[02:49:46] And until we do see you at the master or at the roll call or at the immersion camp if you want to cruise with us
[02:49:53] Kind of hard on the interwebs we are there we are an Instagram Twitter
[02:49:59] and
[02:49:59] on that phase booky
[02:50:02] people echo is at echo trials and i am at jockel willink and finally
[02:50:07] Thanks all the military personnel that are listening
[02:50:11] as you defend our
[02:50:14] Great nation from threats around the world thank you for standing the watch and here in America to the police to law enforcement
[02:50:21] to firefighters to border patrol paramedics first responders
[02:50:24] Thanks to you all as well for standing the watch here at home and keeping us safe
[02:50:32] And thanks to everyone for listening and supporting and i know sometimes it can be hard to listen to stories from atrocities like the baton death march
[02:50:44] i know that
[02:50:46] But in listening
[02:50:50] Remember
[02:50:52] Remember that evil does exist
[02:50:58] Remember those that died standing up against that evil
[02:51:05] And remember that even in the most wretched times
[02:51:11] When you face darkness yourself no matter how bad things get remember
[02:51:17] Remember not to stop remember not to pause remember not to hesitate remember to put one foot in front of the other take that first step
[02:51:34] And start walking
[02:51:36] And until next time this is echo and jockel out