Jocko Podcast 350: Someone Must Walk The Point. With Marine Corps Major Tom Shueman

2022-09-08T04:00:00Z

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AI summary of episode

and you actually want those things you mentioned your dad got out of jail when you're 13 years old and this sounds and when you talk about in the book this is sort of like kind of a little bit of like sounds like you're living the dream a little bit you're down there in Georgia for the summers you got horses you got four wheelers you got jet skis and you're working hard so that was like a good experience you're learning a lot definitely a little best of both worlds going to grow up run wild in the alleys of Chicago that's kind of where we hung out in the alleys playing basketball playing whatever getting in trouble and No I mean like the body weight I got taped my whole career because if you're like if you're bigger and stronger you're going to get taped because you know like for me the max body weight or something for a guy that's five eleven was like you know one seventy eight or something maybe like one eighty two or something like that It was every time I came home and it was for the first maybe 10 years and it was is like Donald Rumsfeld Dick Cheney George Bush oil I'm like mom where's the detergent like I came home to do my laundry and you're yelling at me about Donald like I don't know anything about all these kind of things. You know, it's like, whether it be for a good cause or it's more for like constructions, just like, like if you, you know, when you lift weights now. You will not give give a seal that's you know in his first platoon give him a squirt gun and you give him that squirt gun and he's going to like immediately have the best muscle discipline and you've ever seen like he won't point it at his kid to squirt me like it's like a physical And so I can just cut this little corner and be like well you know like I've been here for 15 years like do I really need to do like I'll generally kind of get it in the box And it's all like, uh, all really manicured these nice paths and it just looks like this is like the most like, like Jurassic Park scenario. And it's like, okay, has anyone ever thought of like, wow, what this is going to do to like a, you know, 17 year old kid or a person or whatever, if they drink one of these every day, which is kind of the goal. I looked at him and exhaled I don't know sir that file is deleted There was little else to say so I turned away and went back to debrief of my platoon I was tired and sad and likely can suck concussed, but I had a job to do Zach always did his and more I could do the same bringing out the collective narrative in the debrief began to bring back the details for me But Zach standing over me ready to kill to protect me stood out in stark relief from the start That vision Zach silhouetted against the dust still swirling from the explosion that flattened me color and detail becoming clear as my consciousness Returned is what is one I still see sometimes as I wake It says something about Zach as a man as a battlefield interpreter and as my friend it was a common it was common to hear Americans say of the Afghans We can't want it more than they do But it often seemed we did Zach was a huge exception He was not a soldier, but he was there to fight He understood our missions in a way that other interpreters did not Most interpreters were like specially items in our packs Inert and just riding along until it was time to employ them for their purpose But Marines are utility players capable of addressing a wide array of circumstances and expected to prevail in each Like a Marine Zach was an active member of 1st platoon He did not shy away from any danger. oh I should go do something about that no idea what that was and then like oh I Navy Marine Marine guys I like those guys they've got something and then like oh no one wants to be infantry I want to be and so all this stuff is just a theory He was done he was done it's like Dick Winters you know Dick Winters after everything he did in World War two they brought all they got recalled for Korea he showed up to the boat there in San Francisco and they're like hey if you're a combat vet from World War two you don't have to go and he's like cool but they can perform it that you know like you can't measure like that you know where it's like And like, it's got the shake still from, and General Kelly, you know, they like to drink PBR and like have a beer, Tom. You know I'd always been a rail ski like it when I would go up in waist size I was like it's guess it's time for new pants like it was nothing was clicking that I was getting fat. like oh they look like they're going to be doing some finance and some working on engine engineers and like this kind of thing. but it's not like the kind you're measuring body fat or nothing like this and be like hey you're over you know 14 percent or whatever. So what you end up with like in a seal platoon especially like a new guy in a seal platoon they're they're a robot for a little while you want to make sure that their weapons always painted pointed safe direction they know exactly where the other people are during a during an immediate action drill that they're doing the safe thing But when you read about him and how he treated the troops and how much he cared about them, um, you know, Hackworth the same way, like the, like the hardest dudes you could ever imagine and yet they would completely, um, know when they were pushing too hard, pull back the reins, protect their guys from stupid shit. I was like Rob Kelly son of a general was prior enlisted I actually went and looked that up because it was amazing right that this guy whose dad is general was like oh cool what are you doing I'm enlisting in Marine Corps like hell They can go they can go right up to the edge that berm that they know if they go any further they're going to cut off someone else's field of fire they know that so you get them so well trained and so well disciplined that they end up with a bunch of freedom and then that goes all the way up the chain now the guys that have got two platoons under the belt they can start making little adjustments with their whole fire team and then eventually you get a platoon commander that goes oh here's the rule right now and here's what I should do It's a mob and just like any other mob like they can get going in a certain direction And your job as a leader is to make sure that the direction that the mob is going is correct And the two classic examples kind of ones you mentioned a little bit but my team does great And you looked at the Navy guys and said they look like they're going to be engineers and these guys over here look like they're going to carry machine guns and you're a machine gun carrying type of dude. It reminds me of, it doesn't remind me, but it's similar to like the orange where it's like you, I'm not saying you can't go wrong cause of course you can go wrong, but it's one of those ones where it's like, it was good, but I just wasn't surprised that it's good. And I just like everything in me wants to cry for this Marine, but everybody's, you know, as a leader, like you said, everybody is looking at you, how you're going to respond to this thing. you know all my mom my sister and I all slept in the same bed for like the first five six years when we got back in a room in my Aunt's house I mean it was it was tough meanwhile as that's going on your dad ends up going to jail when you're eight years old how's that go down I think I'm staying and then like you know my tour comes up again like okay come back be a fireman do I think I'm gonna stay in. And you know, when you even hear about Zach like hanging drywall 12 hours a day, it's like this guy's going to make something happen. That means they get more money when you, you know, like, so it makes, it's weird because it makes sense on one hand, but on the other hand, it's so like sinister, you know. But then when you realize what part of the process it is, you kind of like now as an adult and we talked about this before offline or whatever where when you have doms, you kind of have like, whether it be from Jiu-Jitsu or lifting, you kind of have a better feeling because you know you're sort of in the game. It sounds like you were a little unimpressed in the book with the Navy when you like what you had in your mind for what military service would be like. And like when you have a purpose and that is being a warrior or combat leader and you're good at that thing, there is nothing more rewarding or satisfying than when you get to, and so got right back in the game and right back in my first firefight, I'm like, okay, here's what I don't do. So then the SEALs made their own PRT that just to make sure you don't have anybody that's not you know because there's no fast SEALs like just to enforce that rule without having to tell anybody like here's the PRT if you don't pass it you got to get on the run program homie. you describe it in here going back to the book here you say I followed my mom into a room after dinner and sat there while she tried to decompress from her day she was folding clothes and she tried to talk to me I was non responsive she looked me straight in the eye Thomas tell me what's wrong I was suddenly crying so hard I couldn't stand I lay on the floor I just want a dad I said over and over through the gasps and sobs eventually my best friends dad started taking me to the father son events he wasn't my father but at least I was with a man who cared about me I want an autographed picture of Chicago Bears wide receiver Tom Waddle at one father and son banquet winning that 8 by 10 black and white headshot capped off the best night of my life then my best friends dad hung himself in his garage My father was in prison three states away my supplemental father figure killed himself and most of the men in my life were unaccountable and made me mistrustful of men and it also left me such that now when I perceive a void or a gap I feel a compulsion to fill it to make it better put less positively I'm unable to resist trying to bend a situation to my will I've never been the smartest or most talented guy in any room I've been in I mean, and maybe I won't put into words as good, but the idea that like, you know how when you feel pain, the natural instinct is to be like, oh, it's pain. It's so funny how like we had like a little stockpile, like a pre-sale stockpile. I know that I have a lot to learn about leadership I know that I need to listen to my squalors I know all these things I also know that I could leave this platoon today and that is a great testament to the infantry officers course. And so like the midshipman kind of, when I would teach a naval academy, would kind of like, you know, bitching complain about different aspects of leadership or timing. And she says like like don't you know are you going to be able to stay here longer I think of like, if you think of it, it gets like the river sticks, you know, we had crossed the river sticks and we're living in Hades. I just know that like it seems like they got their shit together And like the next morning, like the day we're gonna get on the buses that night, but Rob says, hey, you know, stop by, have some lunch. Just attacking and shooting machine guns and rockets all day with this group of savage men and for the first time I said like yes like you've made the right decision and this is these are your people this is your shit and. And he figures out a plan in in like when the sun goes down he starts to freeze he's like I'm out of here how can I get out of here so what he plans to do is he's going to dig a hole big enough to put his leg in and he's going to toss a grenade into this hole and blow his leg up get some shrapnel and go home. And there was years ago by where the guy a guy can you know I had a trip wasn't there for the PRT because like a command like the SEAL team would do one PRT a year. And I'm like, man, if Cam can go down, I mean, like, and I hadn't, I was good in a firefight, I could still kind of compartmentalize and focus on the thing that I needed to focus on in that moment to make the right decisions. You try to bite in the MREs like breaking your teeth off like all are like cold leather gears. You got troops to lead, you got stuff to do, like you don't have, and what really what I found is like, I didn't have the courage to turn them back on. And so if physical courage if you rely less on physical courage through battle drills and immediate action drills and close order drill you you you rely less on moral courage when you have discipline thoughts habits and actions in your life and so that that way it's not I don't have to say I don't need to put myself in a position where my moral courage has to carry the day for me to do get up in the morning to like my boss like we have to be at work at 6 30 p.t.n. And and you know I'm so jacked up like you know more f'd up than a football bat as they'll say you know I probably needed an extra go.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocko podcast number 350 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko willing. Good evening Echo. Good evening
[00:00:09] Sergeant Humphries squad secured a path and established a position from which they could overwatch second squad as they reentered friendly lines as
[00:00:19] Humphries Marines were breaking down their overwatch position to move back to fob incerman
[00:00:24] The rear element of the squad was pinned in a canal by heavy and accurate machine gun fire from Taliban
[00:00:32] Hitted in a tree line. I
[00:00:34] Ran a sergeant Humphrey shouting. Let's go. We got to move on that gun
[00:00:39] Staff Sergeant Henley and I were converging on Sergeant Humphrey as we rushed to develop a plan to relieve the pressure on the pinned down
[00:00:48] Fire team from the Taliban machine gun. I look back to see
[00:00:51] Zack was on my heels
[00:00:55] There would be no need for an interpreter where I was going
[00:00:58] He just saw me start running and he did the same
[00:01:05] Then Sergeant Humphrey stepped on a pressure plate IED
[00:01:10] The sound and force enveloped me in a sensation all went black I
[00:01:15] Have no idea how long I was out, but when I came to the first person I saw
[00:01:22] was Zack
[00:01:24] He knelt beside me over me my rifle in his hand protecting and supporting me as I fought to my feet. I
[00:01:33] Imagine we looked like a filthy Madonna and child in the moment as
[00:01:38] Zack helped me rise. I looked to my left and saw Staff Sergeant Henley
[00:01:42] He lay in a heap a tangle of his own limbs himself struggling to rise
[00:01:49] He had also been knocked out and was shouting at me unaware that blood poured from his own blown out eardrums. I
[00:01:57] Could make no sense of what he was saying then I saw Humphrey and stopped trying to
[00:02:03] When I got to him Sergeant Humphrey's right foot was completely blown off
[00:02:08] All the muscle and tissue on his left calf was gone his left thigh lay open from a piece of shrapnel
[00:02:16] Later I would learn his jaw was broken, but for now he lay at my feet screaming
[00:02:23] Doc Collins and Corporal Matt Bland rushed to Sergeant Humphrey and began treating his grievous wounds
[00:02:29] I called in a medevac as I held the meat of his calf to the bone as
[00:02:34] Niercrick wrapped it
[00:02:36] With Corporal Sean we he
[00:02:39] Directing the squads fire upon the enemy
[00:02:42] Corporal Spivey swept the kill zone for more IEDs and then swept a clear path to the point at which the medevac aircraft would pick up Humphrey
[00:02:51] Through it all Sergeant Humphrey remained poised directing his own treatment and movement
[00:02:57] As we carried Humphrey to the medevac helicopter all I could think was what a bad day
[00:03:02] It was in for insufficient for the moment, but it was all I could think to say
[00:03:08] They tried to put me on the helicopter, but with Staff Sergeant Henley and Sergeant Humphrey both wounded and gone
[00:03:13] There was no way I was leaving
[00:03:16] When we returned to Fobb, Inc. The CO handed me a towel to wipe the blood off my hands and gear and said Sergeant Humphrey is gonna lose a leg
[00:03:24] But the surgeon says he will live
[00:03:27] But what happened out there?
[00:03:29] I looked at him and exhaled I don't know sir that file is deleted
[00:03:36] There was little else to say so I turned away and went back to debrief of my platoon
[00:03:42] I was tired and sad and likely can suck concussed, but I had a job to do
[00:03:48] Zach always did his and more I could do the same bringing out the collective narrative in the debrief began to bring back the details for me
[00:03:56] But Zach standing over me ready to kill to protect me stood out in stark relief from the start
[00:04:03] That vision
[00:04:04] Zach silhouetted against the dust still swirling from the explosion that flattened me color and detail becoming clear as my consciousness
[00:04:12] Returned is what is one I still see sometimes as I wake
[00:04:19] It says something about Zach as a man as a battlefield interpreter and
[00:04:23] as my friend it was a common it was common to hear Americans say of the Afghans
[00:04:30] We can't want it more than they do
[00:04:33] But it often seemed we did
[00:04:36] Zach was a huge exception
[00:04:39] He was not a soldier, but he was there to fight
[00:04:42] He understood our missions in a way that other interpreters did not
[00:04:46] Most interpreters were like specially items in our packs
[00:04:50] Inert and just riding along until it was time to employ them for their purpose
[00:04:55] But Marines are utility players capable of addressing a wide array of circumstances and expected to prevail in each
[00:05:04] Like a Marine Zach was an active member of 1st platoon
[00:05:09] He did not shy away from any danger. He did not question
[00:05:13] Doing whatever the mission demanded because he was committed to it for Afghans
[00:05:17] Zanoula Zaki ran to the sound of the guns in a way that would have made a Marine infantry instructor smile
[00:05:28] Standing at the debrief talking through what happened as is expected after every operation
[00:05:34] I told the platoon that all of us were going out the next day for Humphrey's revenge
[00:05:41] I thanked Zach for his willingness to offer him a mission
[00:05:44] I thanked Zach for his willingness to always be where he might be needed particularly when it was protecting my life
[00:05:53] I'd already come to see Zach as more than an interpreter, but now
[00:05:59] There was no way to call him anything
[00:06:01] but a brother
[00:06:06] And that right there is
[00:06:08] An excerpt from a book which is called Always Faithful a story of the war in Afghanistan the fall of Kabul and the unshakable bond between a Marine and an interpreter
[00:06:23] And this is a book
[00:06:25] That was written by that Marine and that interpreter
[00:06:30] The Marines name is Major Tom Schumann and the interpreter an Afghan national
[00:06:36] His name is Zanoula Zaki
[00:06:40] And they serve together in Helmand Province with three five Marines during an extremely violent deployment
[00:06:48] And they had each other's back on the ground there and they continued to support each other even as
[00:06:56] Afghanistan fell apart and it's an incredible story of
[00:07:00] How all that went down and it's an honor to have the Marine
[00:07:06] From this story Tom Schumann here with us tonight to share his experiences
[00:07:11] and his lessons learned
[00:07:13] from the battlefield and from life
[00:07:18] Tom thanks for coming down man
[00:07:20] Sir, thanks for having me Echo. Thanks
[00:07:23] And you're just right up the street. I can't penalty that's a firm up in San Mateo on the north side of base active duty
[00:07:29] Marine currently serving and you're the what XO operations officer. Oh, oh so not quite XO
[00:07:38] Still on the trenches hooking and jabbing
[00:07:41] Awesome, man. Well, thanks for coming down and thanks to your chain of command for allowing you to come down here for the day
[00:07:46] I know that's not always an easy thing to pull off but appreciate it and I always well
[00:07:51] Everybody knows I love the Marine Corps. So I I appreciate that we're getting a little love from the Marine Corps today. It's outstanding
[00:07:57] Let's just get into this. This is a this is a great story. Well,
[00:08:01] Well parts of it are a great story parts of it are rough
[00:08:06] I like to start at the beginning kind of figure out where you came from and
[00:08:10] How you got to this point in your life today? So I'm gonna go to the book
[00:08:16] It says I grew up steeped in chaos surrounded by weak men who wouldn't control their temper
[00:08:22] Didn't consider consequences and bullied women through their body language or by getting even louder than loud women
[00:08:30] My mom did what she could to provide stability
[00:08:32] But my childhood memories, but in my childhood memories, there is a through line of angry screaming
[00:08:38] Holes punched in walls
[00:08:40] Throne glasses shattered
[00:08:43] The effect of that has been for me to seek the opposite in all things
[00:08:47] It's almost incalculable to me that someone does not consider
[00:08:51] Consequences I am very comfortable in chaotic situations
[00:08:54] But control over myself and my surroundings is second only to my faith in Christ in defining the essence of who I am
[00:09:02] My mom was a good kid left to fend for herself
[00:09:07] The Southside offers a million ways to get off track and by 13
[00:09:11] She was feral drinking and drugging for the remainder of her teenage years
[00:09:16] At 17 she was waiting tables in Chicago to pay for partying
[00:09:20] When my father showed up on a motorcycle with a guitar and long blonde hair
[00:09:25] He chatted her up and played her a song
[00:09:28] She put down her order pad, hopped on the back of the bike and rode off with him
[00:09:34] Then he decided they needed to move to Georgia
[00:09:36] By 18 my mom was a pregnant high school dropout who quit using out of duty to me her unborn child
[00:09:43] Three years later she was married with two kids living 800 miles away from her family
[00:09:49] Things got bad fast. My earliest memories are of them fighting
[00:09:53] When my mom confided in my father's sister, I have to get out of here. I can't raise these kids in all this
[00:09:59] She agreed to take the three of us to Chicago
[00:10:02] My mom packed three-year-old me and my three month old sister Jesse into my aunt's yellow dots and hatchback
[00:10:09] And ran back to the south side when we got there we landed in my great aunt's house
[00:10:15] Mom called my father in Georgia and told him we wouldn't be back
[00:10:23] Well, it's a wild way to get it all, okay to get started
[00:10:29] Yeah it was a wild time there to start off and I think it really was a wild time
[00:10:36] And to some degree it probably helped me professionally
[00:10:43] This idea of equanimity that calm in the storm and when there's constantly chaos and emotion all around you
[00:10:50] I found that I would go inside get everything inside of me ordered and restored
[00:10:57] And to be honest I think I was a little bit more of a person
[00:11:03] I was a person who had been restored and to be able to you know there's a great line in Gates of Fire
[00:11:11] By Stephen Pressfield where the platoon commander Diane Ikees he talks about the role of the officer is self-composure
[00:11:20] And it's the fire your troops when they won't go forward and it's the rain them in when they've gone blind to rage
[00:11:26] This idea of self-composure was really a survival mechanism for me early
[00:11:35] But it translated later on into I think being helpful professionally
[00:11:40] And just to me men who cannot
[00:11:44] Men who resort to physical intimidation or to raising their voice is its weakness
[00:11:56] It's cowardice and if you can't logically compel someone with
[00:12:03] At a conversational tone of your point then you probably don't have a very good argument
[00:12:07] Or maybe you're just talking to the wrong person you know and so yeah it definitely shaped me
[00:12:14] But I think when we're talking about cowardice I think we can juxtapose that with courage and that's my mom's courage
[00:12:22] One to have me when she was 19
[00:12:26] I mean I look back and I reflect on that decision often
[00:12:31] That how scared she must have been the uncertainty and for her to go through with it and to bring me into this world at 19
[00:12:42] I will always just be so grateful for her courage there and
[00:12:49] And then the same thing just to what every parent wants for their child is an opportunity
[00:12:56] And you're going to see that you know when we start to talk about Zach and what he did towards the end of this book
[00:13:02] And she understood that the best way for us to have an opportunity was again required courage
[00:13:10] She's 22 years old with two little kids and drives 800 miles back to Chicago with nothing
[00:13:17] Nothing and but that's a conviction and so yeah really that was my first example of courage is my mom
[00:13:27] Yeah the um as far as one thing I talk a lot about with leaders is
[00:13:34] You're basically there's a mob right your team is a mob whether it's a platoon whether it's a troop whether it's a sales team
[00:13:40] It's a mob and just like any other mob like they can get going in a certain direction
[00:13:48] And your job as a leader is to make sure that the direction that the mob is going is correct
[00:13:55] And the two classic examples kind of ones you mentioned a little bit but my team does great right we go out and do a great mission and everything goes smooth
[00:14:03] That mob mentality can be hey look we're unstoppable we don't need to we don't need to rehearse very much we don't need to worry about planning because we're so good
[00:14:11] You as a leader need to go actually hey we did good but here's some things we can improve here's what we got to watch out for
[00:14:17] So you got to pull the opposite direction of the mob the other time is like oh you go out the mission goes sideways goes bad
[00:14:24] And you can feel the mob start to get dragged down and then it's your job to as leaders say hey yep we made some mistakes we paid for it but here's what we're going to do to fix it next time
[00:14:31] So that idea of and look there's sometimes where the mob is going in the right direction you can just yeah that's the easy that's the fun part of being a leader
[00:14:39] The mob is going in the right direction you get to just cheer them on and say hell yeah
[00:14:44] So that's a very important thing to pay attention to you can't do that if you're getting emotional you just can't you'll be in the mob
[00:14:52] And in the mob is not the place for you to be in a leadership situation yeah the yelling thing I think it's one of the one of the interesting stereotypes that
[00:14:59] The military has the stereotype that you yell and scream to get things done part of it's because of boot camp movies right
[00:15:09] How many times have you watched the first 45 minutes of Full Metal Dracket right I mean it's just that's the oh that must be the way leadership is and it's and as you and I both know
[00:15:19] There's plenty of leaders inside the military that that that do yell and they do scream and that goes back to the book the psychology of military incompetence
[00:15:30] What attracts the military to people like that and attracts people like that to the military but you know I just have an interesting you know with a guy that worked for me and wrote these books with me
[00:15:40] Leif Babin you know he's he's worked for me you know for 18 months workup deployment and then we've been working together for another 15 years or something like that
[00:15:50] And he'll always ask a crowd of people you know how often you think Jocko yells at me and you know you know depending on how much the people know about me
[00:15:58] You know oh he must yell at you all the time and he's like he's actually never yell I've never yelled at him one time and Leif usually gives the caveat that he gave me plenty of times where I probably wanted to yell at him
[00:16:07] But it's just bad leadership and again the same thing you just said if I can't convince you of my idea my idea is probably not that great
[00:16:19] And your ideas either that or my ideas not that much greater than yours so my default is once you go with yours that's easier it's going to it's going to make everything more efficient effective
[00:16:28] So going back to the story here so you're this chapter as soon as I got this chapter the chapter is called a hippie cops son
[00:16:41] So you being the son your mom being the hippie cop talk to us through the transition of your mom going from being a hippie that's that's jumping on the back of a chopper with a random dude with long hair and going to Georgia
[00:16:55] And having kids to coming back here and you know and plus you mentioned you know she was drinking at a young age doing drugs and all of a sudden she does like a 180 and she becomes a cop what was that all about
[00:17:07] Yeah I don't think the hippie part ever fully transitioned I think it was she was duty bound and she
[00:17:15] And the duty was you and your sister
[00:17:17] Yes and so she didn't grow up with her dream job being a Chicago cop it was there was health insurance and she had two hungry babies and and that was who was hiring
[00:17:29] And so I think yeah the if if you talk to my mom today that that hippie part of her is still alive and well and was never quite subordinated by the her time as a cop
[00:17:42] The hippie comes out quite a bit as you're going in the Marine Corps you're going in the infantry
[00:17:48] It comes out sorry mom
[00:17:50] For sure and so yeah my mom had two rules you know don't don't join the military and don't get more cycle did both and then a crash more cycle and I've had quite a interesting Marine Corps career
[00:18:01] But yeah it was it was simply a matter of necessity and duty for her children so that's why she became a cop not not because she'd you know was watching bad boys bad boys or whatever you know the 90s that was not a it was it was yeah
[00:18:18] And I imagine single mom being a cop that's I mean how the hell does that even work yeah she's what kind of hours she working
[00:18:26] She's small 82 you know she's tiny and she's cop in Chicago in the 90s it was tough tough gig but at the end of the day she she had something that she was serving that was bigger than herself
[00:18:41] And and and service always comes at a cost or it's not service you know and service always hurts and if it doesn't hurt to some extent you know then again I would argue maybe it's not service and so I think she's working nights on the south side of Chicago in the 90s
[00:19:04] And kind of raised by a village there as a kid getting passed off to my aunt my grandma you know and but a little collective effort there but yeah it was it was you know all my mom my sister and I all slept in the same bed for like the first five six years when we got back in a room in my
[00:19:22] Aunt's house I mean it was it was tough meanwhile as that's going on your dad ends up going to jail when you're eight years old how's that go down yeah I was still visiting him during the summers for a couple years after we went back to Chicago I'd still go down there for the summer and then just one summer
[00:19:47] I wasn't going and and yeah I think he was something with drug drug related and I what's tough for me about that when I think about my dad I look at pictures of me when I'm a kid and I and I'm the age four or five you know six years old
[00:20:11] And I think you know you've got a choice and you got this little kid this little boy and how could you not choose him and that's like what will sometimes to this day when I when I just come across and this and now I've got my daughter just turned four you know and I and I just think I will always choose you and
[00:20:38] There's that a boy needs a dad period and and my mom was super mom and she did she taught me how to throw football and she played catch with me she was not my dad and and that that was something that you know go you don't want to go to the father son banquet with your friends dad
[00:21:08] And fortunately I had you know some some guys who some of my friends that's who looked after me but that that took a long time to the still I'm still kind of probably working through some of that but he got out of jail when I was about to graduate junior high and I went back for the first time to see him but yeah that that absence was painful and yeah
[00:21:34] Yeah you you describe it in here going back to the book here you say I followed my mom into a room after dinner and sat there while she tried to decompress from her day she was folding clothes and she tried to talk to me I was non responsive she looked me straight in the eye
[00:21:51] Thomas tell me what's wrong I was suddenly crying so hard I couldn't stand I lay on the floor I just want a dad I said over and over through the gasps and sobs eventually my best friends dad started taking me to the father son events he wasn't my father but at least I was with a man who cared about me
[00:22:09] I want an autographed picture of Chicago Bears wide receiver Tom Waddle at one father and son banquet winning that 8 by 10 black and white headshot capped off the best night of my life then my best friends dad hung himself in his garage
[00:22:26] My father was in prison three states away my supplemental father figure killed himself and most of the men in my life were unaccountable and made me mistrustful of men and it also left me such that now when I perceive a void or a gap I feel a compulsion to fill it to make it better
[00:22:45] put less positively I'm unable to resist trying to bend a situation to my will I've never been the smartest or most talented guy in any room I've been in but I am relentless for better or for worse
[00:22:59] yeah as I was reading this they will get to some of these parts where you are determined a little too determined with the kind of determination that'll get you in trouble it's a kind of thing when you have kids and you're like oh my this kids pissing me off and you realize oh that's because it's a strong willed kid and you actually want those things
[00:23:20] you mentioned your dad got out of jail when you're 13 years old and this sounds and when you talk about in the book this is sort of like kind of a little bit of like sounds like you're living the dream a little bit you're down there in Georgia for the summers you got horses you got four wheelers you got jet skis and you're working hard so that was like a good experience you're learning a lot
[00:23:45] definitely a little best of both worlds going to grow up run wild in the alleys of Chicago that's kind of where we hung out in the alleys playing basketball playing whatever getting in trouble and then yeah the summers I get to be a little pretend cowboy and ride a horse almost fall off it you know crash a four wheeler and go out on the lake
[00:24:01] so yeah it was a it was a nice little blend it to kind of get to experience both things and and I did learn some things about hard work working for my dad I worked for him for four years until I was 16 like all summer and on my 16th birthday said you know you've
[00:24:23] throughout the these last four years you've saved up enough to get a car you got a 1985 Nissan Maxima wagon with 250,000 miles on it. Hell yeah. So like definitely appreciate learned learned appreciate hard work and so that there was some there was some good lessons learned and you did you went to an evangelical Christian camp down there yeah and you know
[00:24:48] you know South Side Chicago is all Italian and Irish and very Catholic and so I was kind of raised in and around the Catholic Church my dad was Southern Baptist I went to the Southern Baptist camp and
[00:25:01] very different. I was going to say that's very different. Definitely definitely different but you know I the most important day of my life happened during that camp and that's when I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior and
[00:25:15] undoubtedly that camp in that moment I'm only here today because of that encounter and and and to be I've always had a father you know and so I've always I've men in the church you know may abandon you I've always had a father and and that father has you know when we talk about the title always
[00:25:45] faithful that that's always faithful and so in my darkest hope most hopeless moments there was always a little light of hope and and and that's thanks to what started that day when I was 14 years old down on Jekyll Island at a Baptist church camp.
[00:26:02] I'm talking a little bit about just because the way you said that but also because you may have been born again but you you're not a saint at this point play mighty stretch and we'll get into some of that stuff.
[00:26:17] You may not have been always walking the enlightened path along the way that's a fair assessment. So you roll into high school and you're six to 140 pounds which I didn't I was 100% sure that was possible.
[00:26:35] I got Charles assessment. So what's what's your deal in high school. What are you thinking about what's going on in high school.
[00:26:46] I'm riding the bench playing football. You know I was basically six to 140 pounds and seventh grade. So I was the big and then just never and no additional development there. But I knew I wanted to get out.
[00:27:05] I knew I was getting somewhere and I knew that the chaos and the dysfunction of my childhood that I was getting out.
[00:27:16] And initially I viewed that as you go to college is how you get out of this situation. No one in my family had been to college but I knew that my friends who seemed to have more stability like their parents went to college.
[00:27:29] And so that that was really the goal and then I thought you know I don't know what jobs professional jobs are. I know there are doctors and lawyers.
[00:27:41] And so like I know I'm not going to be a doctor. So that means I could be a lawyer. And so I would do the debate team. Yeah you.
[00:27:50] Yeah you went full nerd. Right. Is that a hundred percent. National Honor Society Drama Club Speech and Debate Team Treasure of the Service Club President of the Ecology Club. Yeah.
[00:28:06] You went full. That's the hippie mom part. I got president of the Ecology Club plus my AP bio teacher was the and I wasn't doing too well in AP bio.
[00:28:14] I yeah. Is this a Catholic school. Yes. Boys. All boys. Yes. All boys. Yeah. How was that. Loved it. It was a blast. I mean it's there's no egos there's nobody trying to impress anybody it's just guys being dudes and having like it was a ton of fun.
[00:28:36] Absolutely. We're in a uniform every day. Yes. Where'd your mom get money for this school. Yeah so she took out a loan her first second mortgage for the house for us to go to school.
[00:28:50] And that's why I always felt like I had to honor you know her sacrifice because she's working her ass off and making all these sacrifices that I felt you know in turn a duty and obligation to her.
[00:29:06] And so I took my studies really seriously in high school and I was was was doing whatever I could to make sure that her investment in me was there would be a return on it.
[00:29:20] And so that's part of why I was in all these clubs. Yeah I thought I'll go to college I'll be a lawyer and then I'll be able to take care of everybody and that's kind of what I was thinking in high school.
[00:29:31] Now September 11th happens. What year are you in sophomore sophomore. Did that start to make you think about joining the military. It's why I'm in the military.
[00:29:47] It made me think you know at that point it was still the age of innocence or ignorance you didn't know that at least I didn't know that there were bad people in the world who wanted to do the U.S. harm.
[00:29:57] And so it was initially very confusing. But by the end of that day I knew at some point I'll do something about that.
[00:30:08] And so I knew I'd serve. I didn't know I joined the ring core. I didn't even probably know there was a branch called the Marine Corps and I wasn't G.I. Joe.
[00:30:16] I wasn't you know didn't have a dad in the house wasn't doing like man stuff. I just knew like hey somebody's got to do something about that.
[00:30:23] You should do that. And that is put me on a trajectory of where I am sitting here today.
[00:30:31] So you apply to college. You get into Loyola University Chicago. Is that a good school. I don't even know. I'm sorry.
[00:30:43] It's all right. Yeah it's pretty good. Pretty good school. Yeah pretty good school. Hard to get into. I don't. I mean I think maybe.
[00:30:50] You're Alma Mater is going to come at you. Yeah. Hell yeah it's hard to get. Yeah it's super hard to get into. It's elite.
[00:30:58] So you get in there. You're kind of stoked but you don't have any money to pay for college. And this is where you first kind of discover NROTC.
[00:31:07] Yeah. It's Ivy League of the Midwest. There we go. OK. Yeah I you know no one is no one I'm not able to talk to kind of anybody about going to college.
[00:31:23] I don't know anything about going to college. And so well after all the scholarship applications are already passed and well after like OK so I'm in the college like how am I going to pay for it.
[00:31:35] And so I Google. Well there wasn't Google on AOL. You know looking up college scholarships and I find that that there's this thing called ROTC and that they pay for your tuition.
[00:31:49] And I said well I want to serve anyways. This could be a thing. And when I call them like yeah the scholarship window closed like six months ago.
[00:31:57] But you could do it for free. And maybe if you're in a couple of years you can you can pick up the scholarship. And I thought well I got no other.
[00:32:07] Nothing else going for me. So I'll try this. And so that's how I ended up in ROTC.
[00:32:12] It sounds like you were a little unimpressed in the book with the Navy when you like what you had in your mind for what military service would be like.
[00:32:21] And then you showed up in the Navy. You didn't really impress you too much at the ROTC branch at Loyola Chicago.
[00:32:25] Sure. I the only thing I still kind of thought I'd be a lawyer. And my grandma had a big crush on Tom Cruise.
[00:32:35] I'd seen a few good men. And so I think well that'll make it happen.
[00:32:40] And so my mom is really against it. But she thinks oh well you're going to be Tom Cruise in this movie. It's not a big it's may not terrible.
[00:32:49] And then I go to my little ROTC orientation week and we go up the Great Lakes Naval Base and get marched around and yell that.
[00:32:58] And it's just it's just clear like the Marine staff the Navy staff and then the midshipmen who are first class who are going to commission the Marine Corps.
[00:33:06] And I just said I don't know but it looks like these guys have these guys have something that this other group doesn't.
[00:33:12] And so I think I want to go. And so that was my still not knowing anything about the Marine Corps not knowing what infantry was not knowing expeditionary.
[00:33:22] None of this kind of stuff. I just know that like it seems like they got their shit together and I want to be like those guys.
[00:33:27] He picked Colonel Jessup.
[00:33:31] Yeah you know that I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who's a who's a regular Navy guy.
[00:33:36] And he said something you know we are just he's deeply involved with the SEAL community now.
[00:33:43] But we we just had a quick conversation about you know like the Navy versus the SEAL teams because when people go to Buds if they don't make it through Buds they're in the Navy.
[00:33:56] And the job for someone that wants to go to Buds that doesn't make it and ends up in the Navy is not the job that they're looking for.
[00:34:04] If you go into the Army and you want to be a special forces soldier and you don't make it cool you can be a rifleman in the 82nd Airborne 101st Airborne or that's still an outstanding job and you're doing something proximal to what you want to do.
[00:34:18] The Navy is not like that.
[00:34:20] And he said well you know that makes makes it sound like my job was horrible.
[00:34:22] And I said no not at all. It's just that there's certain people that are attracted certain jobs and I told them this story that I've told 100 times about I'm on an LPD you know amphibious ship out here off the coast of San Diego.
[00:34:37] We're 30 miles off of Pendleton. We're about to go do a hydrographic reconnaissance. The freaking waves are huge. It's raining and miserable.
[00:34:44] And I'm standing I'm standing there getting these you know getting ready to launch our Zodiacs off the back of this LPD and this Boson's mate first class and it's you know it's whatever 10 o'clock at night storms.
[00:34:59] And he looks at me and he looks out there and he looks back at me and he goes man I'm glad I don't have your job and I looked back at him and I said well I'm glad I don't have yours.
[00:35:07] So there you go. You're like everyone's got their own little thing.
[00:35:08] So that's why when you look at people that are in Navy ROTC they're a different type of person than the type of person.
[00:35:17] There's people that look at Marines and go oh hell no I'm not doing that because they look at the Navy people like oh they look like they're going to be doing some finance and some working on engine engineers and like this kind of thing.
[00:35:27] It's just it's just a propensity of job that people want.
[00:35:31] And you looked at the Navy guys and said they look like they're going to be engineers and these guys over here look like they're going to carry machine guns and you're a machine gun carrying type of dude.
[00:35:41] A firm.
[00:35:42] So but you still have you see you still don't have a scholarship yet.
[00:35:47] So you're at this point you're working at Costco you're time you're changing tires which is a rewarding job.
[00:35:53] Yeah someone brings you something that's damaged broken and then you give back to them and it works again.
[00:35:57] And I thought this was cool you had a guy so now it's your junior year and your gunny gunny steel tells you that your grades your grades aren't good enough for a for a scholarship.
[00:36:09] And he says you know what you better do is you better go to this platoon leaders class.
[00:36:14] So explain the explain the platoon leaders class.
[00:36:17] There are a couple different ways to commission as an officer you can go to the academies are one commissioning source you can do it through ROTC.
[00:36:25] And then there's you can do it through OCC meaning you've already graduated college and you can just do a little 10 week thing or you can kind of hit two summers during your college year.
[00:36:34] This platoon leaders class course PLC.
[00:36:37] And so you do two six week hits.
[00:36:39] And so since I still didn't have a scholarship going into my junior year and I wanted to be a Marine I was advised that this was probably the route I would need to go.
[00:36:49] And so I went to what's called PLC juniors and it was a very good learning experience.
[00:36:58] We talked about learning experiences before we started today.
[00:37:00] Yes we did.
[00:37:02] And people still learning all the time.
[00:37:04] And and you know I'm so jacked up like you know more f'd up than a football bat as they'll say you know I probably needed an extra go.
[00:37:16] And so I think ultimately there was there's a lot of benefit in that six weeks.
[00:37:21] But and I think my gunnery sergeant recognized that I probably could use a little extra training.
[00:37:28] And so I think he withheld some information there until graduation rehearsal.
[00:37:36] And he said you know it's human you had the scholarship.
[00:37:39] I just didn't tell you so congratulations.
[00:37:41] So instead of spending six weeks hanging out with your friends or whatever you spent six weeks doing Marine Corps stuff.
[00:37:49] Yeah down in Quantico.
[00:37:50] Where's that at Quantico.
[00:37:51] How was that course.
[00:37:54] When I went to down six it was it was tough.
[00:37:58] I don't want to tell you know too many OCS war stories because I'll get heckled.
[00:38:02] But I thought it was it was this guy Colonel Chase used to stand at the top of the hill and just say like quick candidate you shouldn't be here.
[00:38:09] You worthless like.
[00:38:11] And then when I went back in 07 it was a new CEO and and I think we the surge was happening.
[00:38:17] So we needed to make sure people got through.
[00:38:19] And so I'll tell you you know one thing that I'll never you know I always remember from that 06 is I had this mean as hell sergeant instructors.
[00:38:29] Efo he was a mean mean man.
[00:38:30] And every night we would hold the M16 by the front side tip between our thumb and our index finger fully extended straight forward.
[00:38:40] And he would say discipline is and we scream instant willingness and obedience to orders and say discipline is instant willingness and obedience to orders.
[00:38:51] And so we just do that over and over again.
[00:38:52] And I've I've always thought that's that's shaped how I think about discipline and.
[00:39:01] You know close order drill is the most basic form of discipline.
[00:39:08] It's it's it's the most rudimentary basic form of discipline that we have that we build off in the military.
[00:39:15] Then there's then you do battle drills which are another form of discipline.
[00:39:19] You do immediate action drills another kind of it's all all this ties into just instant willingness and obedience to orders.
[00:39:26] A drill is so that you you don't have to think about it.
[00:39:29] You know and so thumb clip twist pull pin frag out right.
[00:39:32] And so that's a battle drill or contact left and it's all predicated on a drill something that you do over and over again until it becomes less thinking.
[00:39:43] And and when you why do you do this it reduces the need of physical courage when something is drilled into you.
[00:39:53] It's you're not relying so much on your physical courage in that moment.
[00:39:57] And what I what I've been thinking about as I continue my career in the Marine Corps is is when you become more senior you actually need a lot more discipline than when you are PFC or last corporal or junior officer.
[00:40:18] When you are a PFC or junior in the organization so much your life is dictated to you.
[00:40:23] So there's not a lot of opportunity to do things that are undisciplined and and and as you become senior you have more opportunity to discern what you what routes you want to go.
[00:40:41] And the thing is that as you get more latitude or more freedom you have the potential to be less disciplined.
[00:40:51] And I think when you think of the hard thing is usually the right thing and the right thing is usually the hard thing.
[00:41:00] And as and as you advance in this organization it requires you to have discipline to continue to do the hard and right thing.
[00:41:10] And it's not that you would do the wrong thing you would just do the less right thing.
[00:41:14] And so I can just cut this little corner and be like well you know like I've been here for 15 years like do I really need to do like I'll generally kind of get it in the box but I don't have to do all these little and so I find that that discipline in your habits and your actions and in your thoughts.
[00:41:38] That helps you because otherwise you're relying on moral courage.
[00:41:43] And so if physical courage if you rely less on physical courage through battle drills and immediate action drills and close order drill you you you rely less on moral courage when you have discipline thoughts habits and actions in your life and so that that way it's not I don't have to say I don't need to put myself in a position where my moral courage has to carry the day for me to do get up in the morning to like my boss like we have to be at work at 6 30 p.t.n.
[00:42:10] No one's checking if I'm there at 6 30 like I'm the opposite I could probably come in at 6 40 6 45 you know and but by having the discipline of getting up when my alarm goes off at 5 am every day I reduce the need to have the moral courage to kind of make that decision and same thing with you know if you don't put ice cream in your freezer it's not a matter of discipline at that point.
[00:42:35] It's I had the discipline not to buy it at the store because otherwise if it's in the freezer every time I walk by the fridge it's a matter of moral courage.
[00:42:43] Do I have the moral courage you're talking in Echo's world right now.
[00:42:47] Echo also equates moral courage with avoid the ice cream.
[00:42:51] It's always surprising or not always but a lot of times people are surprised that in basic seal training.
[00:42:56] You have weekends off you go do whatever you want you can you can do whatever you want you can go get drunk you can go party you can you can get crazy.
[00:43:05] And that's part of the test because once you're in the sale teams there's there's literally no one cares if you're showing up to PT now if you go out on a rock comp and you can't hang you're going to get destroyed but they want people that find that that that will discipline themselves that have the self discipline because and that's there there's been plenty of people that didn't make it through seal training because they were because they didn't want to.
[00:43:28] Have discipline on the weekends just to do what they should be doing and said they went and did what they wanted to do so that that's interesting.
[00:43:36] The other thing is man as you get older and you get more senior and you can start cutting some corners.
[00:43:44] Every single person.
[00:43:45] Below you in the chain of command can see it and this is where I got very lucky because I was a I was prime listed so I was the youngest and most junior guy in my first two platoons which thank God what a what a freaking incredible opportunity but I would watch.
[00:44:01] I would watch my platoon chief I would watch my platoon commander and if they were three minutes late I was tracking it they forgot a piece of gear I was tracking they needed a little extra something to get need a little help getting up the ladder I was tracking it.
[00:44:15] So when I moved into a leadership position I always felt those eyes man I felt those eyes all the time and I didn't want to let those guys down so so that's something that always weighed on me and then the last thing you know when we when we start talking about.
[00:44:31] You know immediate action drills and battle drills what's really awesome is because sometimes people think oh so what you have is a bunch of robots you know you've trained a bunch of robots just do whatever you say.
[00:44:42] No actually you get these battle drills down you get people it's like the plenty musical instruments negative.
[00:44:51] So guitar which I play I'm not good at it but Jimmy Page who played for the band Led Zeppelin.
[00:44:58] I go Charles we good sir okay he was a studio musician for years which meant he went into a student he was very well known as a studio meaning they would tell him exactly what to play and he would play the notes they wanted him to play and he did that for forever just highly disciplined mechanical playing of the instrument.
[00:45:18] And that's how he made a living for a long time and because he had all that discipline because he knew every fret and every note and how to bend them and how to how to manipulate him he knew them so well that when he got into Led Zeppelin now all of a sudden he could take those things and break rules.
[00:45:34] So what you end up with like in a seal platoon especially like a new guy in a seal platoon they're they're a robot for a little while you want to make sure that their weapons always painted pointed safe direction they know exactly where the other people are during a during an immediate action drill that they're doing the safe thing so you drill them so it becomes mechanical.
[00:45:55] And then once they start getting it now all of a sudden they can start saying wait I know I'm supposed to be over here but I can provide better cover for my other squad if I.
[00:46:07] Scurry up this little this little mound of dirt a little bit and it's still in a safe zone because I'm not getting in front of anything I'm not cutting out cutting off anyone's field of fire so boom.
[00:46:15] And so you even have the the front line shooters the new guys after a little while they're starting to think but they know the rules they know the rules so well that they can really think they can go right to the edge of that box.
[00:46:27] They can go they can go right up to the edge that berm that they know if they go any further they're going to cut off someone else's field of fire they know that so you get them so well trained and so well disciplined that they end up with a bunch of freedom and then that goes all the way up the chain now the guys that have got two
[00:46:41] platoons under the belt they can start making little adjustments with their whole fire team and then eventually you get a platoon commander that goes oh here's the rule right now and here's what I should do but I actually see something that I can do that doesn't break the rules but it bends them and it's going to give us a better opportunity to get a bigger bite on on this on this battlefield right now.
[00:47:01] So those immediate action drills and like close order drill boom like we are doing without thinking and you got to have that but then we get to the actual immediate action drills people start to understand the concepts of what we're doing and then they understand the parameters.
[00:47:18] You know there's certain certain notes on a guitar.
[00:47:21] If you play this note then you play this other note it's not it doesn't work literally doesn't work the whole world will go that sounds like shit like everyone will think that.
[00:47:27] So when a guy is good at I ads are good at moving through a mountain environment when they're good at it they understand oh I can do this right here I can actually play this note I can play this note over here I can bend that note here's something I can't play that note over there it's not going to work and that's what we want we want people we want thinking shooters we want people that are understand that are so disciplined that they can actually have more freedom out there and that's what always is the goal you know.
[00:47:55] And in the beginning that means we need to be highly disciplined and never you know when you're going through basic seal training.
[00:48:05] If you make a tiny mistake it's it's it's like you're getting swarmed by instructors they do not want you to make it like you will not sweep someone.
[00:48:15] You will not give give a seal that's you know in his first platoon give him a squirt gun and you give him that squirt gun and he's going to like immediately have the best muscle discipline and you've ever seen like he won't point it at his kid to squirt me like it's like a physical like yeah I can't point this squirt gun at my son because it just doesn't feel right.
[00:48:35] That's how like ingrained it is and that's what you want that discipline is embedded in their brains and then over time they go OK now I have such a good foundation to work with my mind can be free.
[00:48:49] That's the goal.
[00:48:50] So you got some of that stuff drilled into you. I'm going to jump into the book here for a second in my senior year with a scholarship I was over the hump money wise but there was a new problem.
[00:49:04] My metabolism slowed down and my regular diet of pizza and beer suddenly started yielding different results on my permanent perennial skinny frame.
[00:49:13] I wasn't prepared for the metabolic cost of that in the appearance is reality Marine Corps where fitness is a virtue superseding most flaws in the core.
[00:49:26] Fatness is an unpardonable sin.
[00:49:29] Gunny steel again took me on and as as a personal mission.
[00:49:34] He was the picture perfect Marine thin haircut high and tight multiple meritorious promotions because he was genuinely squared away Marine.
[00:49:40] I still kept my eyes peeled for him whenever I was at Northwestern trying to avoid him and heavy objects.
[00:49:47] But one day he called me on my cell phone.
[00:49:49] There was no avoiding him.
[00:49:51] He ordered me to come to his office.
[00:49:53] That was never good.
[00:49:54] This was no different.
[00:49:55] Schumann Schumann.
[00:49:58] You might let yourself become a fat piece of shit but I ain't.
[00:50:02] We ain't commissioning a pig to lead Marines.
[00:50:04] Normally I would have at least offered I I Gunny but I was stunned in the silence.
[00:50:10] He continued you're going to come here coming here every morning for PT after that you're going to have uniform inspection every day.
[00:50:16] Every day of your life is going to be the worst day of your life until you conform to standards.
[00:50:20] Boom.
[00:50:21] There you go.
[00:50:23] Yeah I was lacking some discipline for sure and it caught up to me and and we talked about again before we started about how good friends tell you what you need to hear.
[00:50:31] And nobody told me I was getting fat.
[00:50:34] So I don't want to like not take accountability for my own fatness.
[00:50:38] But like I didn't think it was possible.
[00:50:41] You know I'd always been a rail ski like it when I would go up in waist size I was like it's guess it's time for new pants like it was nothing was clicking that I was getting fat.
[00:50:52] And you like the slow boat the boiling frog right that doesn't notice that the waters.
[00:50:57] Exactly looks like a size 42.
[00:50:58] And he got me squared away.
[00:51:04] I had one of my friends he's in the SEAL teams and he had a guy that was that was not to standards and he brought him into his office and says hey bro there's no fat SEALs and you're fat editing.
[00:51:18] You're going to start taking the PRT until you're good to go.
[00:51:20] So sometimes that direct approach with PRT physical readiness test which again in the SEAL teams there's not there's not there's not a bunch of people tracking you.
[00:51:31] And there was years ago by where the guy a guy can you know I had a trip wasn't there for the PRT because like a command like the SEAL team would do one PRT a year.
[00:51:42] And you'd see it you know months in advance I go the PRT is on October 15th or whatever.
[00:51:47] So if a guy is like cool I'm taking leave or I'm going to go on a trip October 15th he's not there.
[00:51:52] You do that three years in a row your pants size can be a 46.
[00:51:56] What is it though like a performance or physical.
[00:52:01] It's like a three mile run push ups pull ups swim something like that.
[00:52:07] So technically you could get gain a bunch of weight still pass that thing and be good to go or what you could but you probably wouldn't be able to pass it.
[00:52:13] If and you know it's weird to like this goes back and forth the Navy has a PRT the regular Navy and the SEALs for a while use the Navy PRT but that one you probably could be out of shape like from a SEAL perspective and still be able to pass.
[00:52:29] So then the SEALs made their own PRT that just to make sure you don't have anybody that's not you know because there's no fast SEALs like just to enforce that rule without having to tell anybody like here's the PRT if you don't pass it you got to get on the run program homie.
[00:52:44] Yeah but it's not like the kind you're measuring body fat or nothing like this and be like hey you're over you know 14 percent or whatever.
[00:52:52] We do have that as well.
[00:52:53] Oh for real if you're out of there there are height and weight standards and every year you're supposed to get height and weight and if and if you don't make weight you get taped and if you're not within tape then you get put on the BCP program what we call and basically you're on the fat body program and you got to do weekly check ins and what's
[00:53:14] tape is they measure your to get your body fat percentage so they measure like your waist your chest your arms that kind of excels.
[00:53:23] That goes wonder if there's a way to get involved in that.
[00:53:27] Could I do a pose down or what.
[00:53:28] No I mean like the body weight I got taped my whole career because if you're like if you're bigger and stronger you're going to get taped because you know like for me the max body weight or something for a guy that's five eleven was like you know one seventy eight or something
[00:53:46] maybe like one eighty two or something like that and I would I would two twenty five and so they tape you know go yeah you're just you're just a big stronger also it's probably like a ratio then it's not like hey your waist is over this therefore you're out kind of yeah
[00:54:00] because you know you get these bigger guys who can you know they can do the PRT yeah and but there yeah two twenty five two thirty five but they can perform it that you know like you can't measure like that you know where it's like oh but you're overweight doesn't make sense.
[00:54:17] Yeah no they have a ratio and then I never like had any issue with the tape at all I mean it was like good to go.
[00:54:24] What about the PRT have you ever had issues with it.
[00:54:26] No PRT good to go.
[00:54:27] Good to go. No you gotta be if you work out regularly you're gonna you're gonna pass the PRT so you gotta be a slacker dude and like they're not that kind of this is a rare dude in the SEAL teams that just gives up.
[00:54:42] I mean you're not wearing a shirt like eighty seven percent of the time.
[00:54:47] Like if you're not in the field you're not wearing a shirt.
[00:54:48] So if you're you know you're walking around every day and you're just putting on the LB there's not too many occasionally it happens occasionally it happens but most of the time and not to mention like the actual physical part of the job.
[00:55:03] If you're not in good shape you're gonna get fired like if you can't go out and walk around the desert with you know a hundred pounds and do it and hang you're gonna get fired you won't be in a platoon so no and I guess if you don't want to be in a SEAL platoon which is a weird thing to even be.
[00:55:23] Right at that point for sure.
[00:55:24] So you got on the run program. Yep. Gunny Steel straightened your ass out for a second time. Sure did. We appreciate we appreciate him.
[00:55:34] Love him. This is the this is the the non-commissioned officers that that make the that make the Marine Corps what it is make the Navy what it is make the military what it is. Absolutely.
[00:55:45] By keeping the young J.O.'s in line and often the senior O.'s as well. Yeah.
[00:55:49] You seen up graduating which is awesome and you had to get laser eye surgery. So you get commissioned they cover that but that that makes it a little time for you to go to the basic school.
[00:56:02] Now at the basic school you still thinking you still might be Tom Cruise at this point. It seems like in the book you were still thinking it could be Tom Cruise.
[00:56:10] No you've got to go into that with a law contract.
[00:56:13] So pilots and lawyers aren't competing at the basic school. They've already got their their contracts ahead of time. Got it.
[00:56:21] I didn't know what I wanted to be when I was heading into the basic school. It's in there. I don't know. I discover pretty quickly what I wanted to be.
[00:56:31] Field exercise one. Yes. That's what changed your mind. Yes. Tell us about field exercise one.
[00:56:35] So you know even though I got to do a little summers with my dad and pretend to be a cowboy I still didn't know anything about being outside. I didn't know how to camp. I didn't know how to.
[00:56:44] And we got our class picked up in October. So our first field exercise is in sometime in mid mid November and it got down to five degrees and everybody canteens were frozen.
[00:56:59] No one knew like put the canteen upside down or put in your sleeping bag with you. You try to bite in the MREs like breaking your teeth off like all are like cold leather gears. Super old sucks and like don't know how to layer.
[00:57:17] Don't know anything about how to live outside in the cold at least the majority of us. And so you know up until that point everybody kind of talks about oh we're going to be infantry.
[00:57:27] I'm going to be infantry. I'm going to be infantry. And at that point I know what I wanted to do like tanks sound cool or this sounds cool like artillery sounds cool.
[00:57:36] But at the end of the effects one field exercise one. No one wanted to be infantry. And I was just like well shit if you all don't want to do that. It makes me want to do that.
[00:57:50] And so it's kind of like just a response to my environment when people don't want to challenge or people don't. I want to I want the opposite. And so I was like well now I do want to be infantry and and and that's that was my I did.
[00:58:04] I still had no idea what that actually meant beyond that it was a response to what other people didn't want. It wasn't until I got out in the woods that I knew at Amtrakh course I said yes yes this is the right place but that was still to come.
[00:58:20] And how was the basic school for you.
[00:58:21] It you know the college the big suck. I mean it was it was it was challenging it was not like extremely challenging it was it was more a grind than anything it's just six months is a long time.
[00:58:38] And and so I think I've gone back to Quantico a couple of times when I've taken the midshipment down there and I've got to talk to some of the instructors and see their the POI down there now I think it's I think it's really good.
[00:58:52] It was just long. It was long. That's what it was.
[00:58:56] Now when you're going through that are you getting is it like Ranger school you like get put in leadership position in a patrol you take it out you get graded then the next one you're a machine gun or the next one you're a point man.
[00:59:05] Yep. So you're getting good experience in the field. Sure. Yeah.
[00:59:10] There's there's several field exercises. Everybody's getting rotated through leadership billets and you know the goal is to make every Marine officer able to lead a basic rifle platoon.
[00:59:23] That's the intent of putting we're the only service that that puts you know our pilots and our lawyers and our adjutants all through this this course where they're we're going out training as riflemen.
[00:59:33] Every Marine's rifleman. Was it hard to get selected for infantry.
[00:59:38] Yeah. So by the time Sleshing came down I know what's like 300 in a in a in a one class Alpha company and I think there's maybe 3040 infantry slots out of that and I mean I remember you were I was first platoon and we were when the SBC the platoon commander is reading out who got what I'm
[01:00:02] There was a dude who was solid his dad was Sergeant Major and he didn't get it. I thought oh well he's like way more squared away than me. Maybe maybe I'm not going to get it.
[01:00:14] So yeah I think it was competitive for sure. Is that because like the talent spread thing. Yeah. So it's top third middle third bottom third so that you have a quality spread across that that that right there.
[01:00:28] That concept is what shows you that the Marine Corps puts the Marine Corps first. Oh yeah it really is. So what it is Echo Charles is when you go to the basic school.
[01:00:41] You'd think number one guy would get the number one pick. What does he want to do. Number two guy get the number two pick. But then everyone would pick the the jobs like the good jobs the cool jobs and the people at the bottom would get you know whatever is considered a crappy job.
[01:00:56] So instead what they do is they cut the class up into thirds. The first guy in the first group gets the first pick. The first guy in the second group. So out of 100 this guy might be the hundred or the hundred and first guy.
[01:01:11] So right. No the two hundred and first guy gets the second pick the three hundred and first guy gets the third pick. So you end up with this quality getting spread through all the different jobs in the Marine Corps. So it's not like there's some category of of Marines of Marine
[01:01:29] officers that are all just like oh they're just like the lowest ranking guys are just terrible. No it's you get an even spread across the board. And that is a thing that tells you that the Marine Corps puts the Marine Corps the whole Marine Corps first.
[01:01:46] That is one of the clearest indicators in history that we want everyone in the Marine Corps to have an opportunity and the Marine Corps comes first. Oh yeah.
[01:01:55] Wait. So what are they based that on like the. Yeah. Throughout the six months it's academic. There's leadership scores a PT score your rifle score. So there's there's several kind of scores that are calculated into your overall class ranking largely academic but definitely like leadership evaluations all kind of.
[01:02:13] I always say like I only think that I got it because we were in the defense and the ground was frozen in my SBC and I was a machine gunner and I just had a pickaxe and I was right next to a tree with big roots and he walked by and is hitting this ground and literally not just the shovels bouncing off.
[01:02:34] He's like what are you trying to do there. I'm getting a chest deep fighting hole sir. On that ground you're not like chuckled and walked away several hours later comes by. How's that going. Shuman. I'm like two inches deep.
[01:02:47] He's like I'm away sir. And then by day three he goes by and he's like this guy's maybe just stubborn enough to be a grunt. I'm sitting in a chest deep fighting hole.
[01:02:56] I always think like maybe that's I think that's my how I got selected. Dude I got this story from Hackworth that I read the other day and I got I got to like do more with it but he's in Korea.
[01:03:10] And he's freezing and he wants to go home.
[01:03:15] And he figures out a plan in in like when the sun goes down he starts to freeze he's like I'm out of here how can I get out of here so what he plans to do is he's going to dig a hole big enough to put his leg in and he's going to toss a grenade into this hole and blow his leg up get some shrapnel and go home.
[01:03:35] So the sun goes down he's a little bit funny he starts digging man it's the same thing he digs and he starts digging and he's digging and he's digging he's digging through the night and right as he's finishing up this hole and he's getting to a point where he can finally throw this grenade in there and go home.
[01:03:52] The sun starts to come up and he's like you know what I got this but it's a it's a good thing to remember that when it really sucks the sun's gonna come up at some point and you'll start to get warm again push through it.
[01:04:07] And it's good lesson that it's not easy to dig and frozen ground.
[01:04:22] He was done he was done it's like Dick Winters you know Dick Winters after everything he did in World War two they brought all they got recalled for Korea he showed up to the boat there in San Francisco and they're like hey if you're a combat vet from World War two you don't have to go and he's like cool I'm out.
[01:04:39] That was Dick Winters I mean who's going to question Dick Winters courage but he was like yeah I'm going back to my farm in Pennsylvania have good luck gentlemen and that was that.
[01:04:47] All right gotta go to the book here we gotta get gotta get mom back in the picture here every time I visited my real home it was a fight over the Marine Corps when I was selected for the infantry my mom lost it.
[01:05:02] I remember her yelling the hell you are that's not fucking happening you'll be used as cannon fodder.
[01:05:06] She mentioned something about shooting me in the kneecaps she swore this was just some macho shit because she was a cop she said it wasn't just me I was dragging down this road I was forcing her to travel it to.
[01:05:20] But a young man has to live his own life and I realized that mine was the Marine infantry so mom was not stoked on this whole seat.
[01:05:27] It was every time I came home and it was for the first maybe 10 years and it was is like Donald Rumsfeld Dick Cheney George Bush oil I'm like mom where's the detergent like I came home to do my laundry and you're yelling at me about Donald like I don't know anything about all these kind of things.
[01:05:49] I want to be a Marine infantry I want to fight and right now I just got to do my laundry so it was it was.
[01:05:58] Always it she's always on a 10 always yelling about it and then you know I end up going to pretty dangerous place and then it's like okay you're gonna get out like.
[01:06:08] I think I'm staying and then like you know my tour comes up again like okay come back be a fireman do I think I'm gonna stay in.
[01:06:15] Awesome stuff wait a listen to your mom from from basic school you get infantry officer school how long is that course three months and you and I were talking earlier about.
[01:06:31] When I had James Webb on the podcast yeah and he like gets done with the basic school gets done with the infantry officer course goes to Vietnam they like bring him out in the field point up at a ridge line they go your platoons up there.
[01:06:47] Who am I relieving oh it's just a sergeant you're the other platoon commander was wounded or killed or he has a back.
[01:06:53] You got it he rolls up there and the first night he's in combat he's just calling for fire I mean just get it just getting after and really leading a complex scenario.
[01:07:07] And you know I said how did you feel like you were prepared for that and he was like yes and I can only imagine that you going to now what is it 2007 2008.
[01:07:19] I started that course 2009.
[01:07:23] Okay so 2009 so we got two wars going on got all these veterans teaching you that must have been about a squared away as a course could be.
[01:07:33] And I would answer the same as Secretary Webb I would say yes you know that course is an incredible course and more than anything it prepares you technically and technically to lead Marines on the very first day it definitely helps you become mentally and physically tougher.
[01:07:51] There's a lot of mental and physical development that happens there moral development that happens there and the instructors as you alluded to were all Iraq guys and so the quality of the instructor is super selective there and then just the actual curriculum there.
[01:08:07] I you know two of my buddies our final exercise is in 29 palms and they didn't come back with us to graduate they went to platoons that were in 29 palms and deployed you know a week later and so this you know this web part is still happening and.
[01:08:24] And you know when I showed up to my platoon.
[01:08:26] I know that I have a lot to learn about leadership I know that I need to listen to my squalors I know all these things I also know that I could leave this platoon today and that is a great testament to the infantry officers course.
[01:08:40] Is there one on the east coast or one on the west coast or they all just in Quantico just in Quantico.
[01:08:46] You just fly out for the final exercise out to 29 palms.
[01:08:49] Okay go out there and get some.
[01:08:50] This is also where in the book you start talking about you start really forming your your bonds brotherhood now you got a bunch of bunch of names bunch of guys you list off Ty Anthony Alex Pearson Vince young Cameron West.
[01:09:06] You got some prior enlisted guys Johnny Epps.
[01:09:10] I'm saying that right and hey to all the Marines who are butchering your names.
[01:09:14] I'm sorry Joe Patterson.
[01:09:16] Robert Kelly.
[01:09:17] So this is Rob Kelly this is the son of General John Kelly.
[01:09:22] John Kelly enlisted in 1970 eventually became a four star general.
[01:09:27] If you recognize his name it's probably from when he and you're not in the military it's from when he when he was the White House chief of staff.
[01:09:38] Rob was a prior enlisted guy like his dad fought in Fallujah.
[01:09:41] These are the guys that you're now forming a bond with and this is kind of like where you really start to become a Marine.
[01:09:54] Absolutely.
[01:09:55] Yeah it's where everything up to this point was hypothetical like I think this is you know it all started when I was a sophomore I said oh I should go do something about that no idea what that was and then like oh I Navy Marine Marine guys I like those guys they've got something and then like oh no one wants to be infantry I want to be and so all this stuff is just a theory and then I get to IOC and it's like no like these are the people I want to be around this violent and I want to be a part of the
[01:10:25] violent aggressive stuff that we do here like it speaks to me in a very and so you know again grew up with the mom even though she's a cop she's still this hippie like there's no like talks about being a warrior is no I and so it was I you know in reflection there's there's something about a warrior calling that was inside my heart and inside my soul that it finally resonated felt validated when I'm running through those woods like a wild animal.
[01:10:55] Just attacking and shooting machine guns and rockets all day with this group of savage men and for the first time I said like yes like you've made the right decision and this is these are your people this is your shit and.
[01:11:08] And you know it taught me this many lessons but one is that you know it's all it's all hard it's all shitty work it's all tough work but when you're doing it with the right group of men like you just talked about like those are the good times and you wouldn't rather be anywhere else and so.
[01:11:28] Yeah I mean that that that list of names that you just read off all those guys went on to combat all those guys went on to do incredible things and then.
[01:11:39] You know if we get back to November 9th where we opened with my with my squad leader I mean that that's the day that Robert Kelly was killed and and.
[01:11:44] To have Rob Kelly is a mentor and a friend.
[01:11:48] You know I didn't know his dad was a general until he's coming to speak to us you know that's the kind of guy Rob was that he never would mention that.
[01:11:58] And just I hope we maybe I don't know if we're going to come back to him but when we find out about the deployment you know so I'll hold.
[01:12:06] Yeah actually as soon as I was reading that section it because you the way you had it broke out broken on the book you like oh we had these guys are all just on with either OCS or ROTC.
[01:12:15] And we're all you know went to the basic school and then it was prior enlisted guys and you mentioned Johnny Epps and Joe Patterson and Robert.
[01:12:22] I was like Rob Kelly son of a general was prior enlisted I actually went and looked that up because it was amazing right that this guy whose dad is general was like oh cool what are you doing I'm enlisting in Marine Corps like hell yeah.
[01:12:35] Hell yeah.
[01:12:36] I was going to college I went to college I had to go to college once I got commissioned did a couple deployments and then I had to go to college and I was in college September 11th that happened.
[01:12:48] I'm and I'm talking to I went I went to the University of San Diego and I had one of my professors I was an English major one of my professors was a nun and I'm talking to her.
[01:12:56] And she says like like don't you know are you going to be able to stay here longer and I was like what do you mean she says well don't don't you want to stay can't you maybe try and get your masters.
[01:13:09] I was like what I was what are you talking about sister quite literally I said what do you mean and she just couldn't comprehend and she goes well don't you want to stay here.
[01:13:20] And you know be isn't this like in her mind this was the greatest thing ever on this guy that was in the Navy now I'm just gonna have to go to school.
[01:13:29] And I was like no I want to go back I'd go back tomorrow if they would let me and she says why do you want to go back.
[01:13:35] She's like why do you dumbfound it.
[01:13:37] Why do you why do you want to go back.
[01:13:39] And I in some awkward way because it sounds bad to say I was like well I go back there and I get to be around a bunch of dudes like me that we listen to the same music we like to do the same stuff we're interested in the same thing we laugh at the same jokes we.
[01:13:57] We that's where I want to go I want to get back there and you know for you showing up there with all these studs it's like yeah this is this is where I'm supposed to be.
[01:14:09] What did you have any challenges there was there anything that you any major lessons learned if you could go back and square yourself away.
[01:14:16] I had the benefit of having a couple months between when I graduated TBS and showing up to IOC so you know Joe Patterson would PTS each day and I'd work out with Ty Anthony and so Steve Trizna so we I showed up in pretty good shape thankfully because you it's hard to maintain or improve your fitness at the base of school because it's just 0 6 to 1900 every day and then you're studying in the weekends and so thankfully I had a couple months and so I had to go back to school
[01:14:46] and so I I the lesson I learned at IOC is is how to embrace the suck and I would say the only thing that I would say is like it would have been better if I learned it sooner.
[01:15:01] But I was I was out we were doing a patrolling exercise at Fort A.P. Hill and I was just GP holding security and been days without food July and Virginia at A.P. Hill and just ticks and and I'm holding the security and just flies landed on my face and
[01:15:25] crawling up my sleeves spiders are pelling down gnats in my ears and on my belly is grumbling and I got chafed everywhere and I'm just trying to fight all this and kind of so sad and this and just trying to survive moment to moment and as I continue to kind of fight nature.
[01:15:42] I'm on security for that 30 minutes this point and and all the Nats are still there all the answer still coming all and I just find I said like you can't you're not going to defeat nature.
[01:15:53] You just got to accept it and in that moment I stopped swatting the flies I didn't care that the answer crawling up my sleeve and it allows you to thrive and when you when you when you when you it's good you know it breaks the suck is the Marine Corps version of good.
[01:16:12] It's the Stoics version of a more faht a love your fate it's it's this idea that whatever the circumstances are I accept them and I'm going to find opportunities within this current environment instead of circumstances rather than just try to survive in it and it and it it's it gives you power it gives you agency autonomy you know you no longer just become this this like this leaf that's in a in a brook that's getting tossed around.
[01:16:42] Now I have a vote.
[01:16:44] It may be a pretty restrained options based on the circumstances but at least I can say how can I best use these challenges and I think of like somebody like Stockdale when when he's when he's in prison.
[01:17:02] And they say well was I a victim. No you know you think of Sultans Dean when he's in the gulag are archipelago and he says thank you prison.
[01:17:12] When you think of someone like Paul who when he's in prison he's rejoicing.
[01:17:19] I think of Sergeant and Tony as he's dying.
[01:17:24] He he turns his last words are is everybody okay.
[01:17:29] And so it takes all these moments and it allows you to just to take ownership back and and so yeah I think that is I probably learned that two thirds of the way through and I was probably feeling a little victim throughout most of that curriculum and then finally I said you know good.
[01:17:52] I'm and now now I'm like crazy because you know when I'm going up the mountains and Bridgeport I just wish it was colder.
[01:17:59] I just wish it was some more snow.
[01:18:00] I'm so happy that's so hot out here in 20 I promise if it was hotter just be a little bit better and you know but you you got to say that kind of stuff and you got to try to at least believe it otherwise you just powerless.
[01:18:13] Yeah.
[01:18:13] Otherwise everything really sucks.
[01:18:15] It sucks when it sucks but if you can't accept it it's good.
[01:18:19] Now this whole book and by the way obviously I'm only reading highlights get the book so that you can get the whole story but it's not just your story.
[01:18:28] It's about half of it is written by your interpreter Zach and it's really interesting to hear his perspective because.
[01:18:37] We as Americans we have a really hard time picturing what we just picture a stereotype of what we think in Iraq is what we think in Afghan is whatever we just have this stereotype in our head and that's kind of what we blanket over and I know I always have to reiterate what an Iraqi person is.
[01:18:56] When I Racky dad is what an Iraqi mom is when Iraqi family is.
[01:19:07] Well there are family actually way usually described as say there like you are.
[01:19:10] So if you're sitting here listening to me what's an Iraqi family like oh it's a family.
[01:19:14] There's a dad.
[01:19:16] There's a mom.
[01:19:17] They want to look out for their kids.
[01:19:18] They're trying to grow their business.
[01:19:20] They're trying to get by their time.
[01:19:21] They want to look out for their kids.
[01:19:23] They're trying to grow their business.
[01:19:25] They're trying to get by.
[01:19:26] They're trying to fix their car.
[01:19:28] They got payments due, right?
[01:19:30] That's what they're doing.
[01:19:32] And it's really interesting to hear Zach's story
[01:19:37] in his perspective.
[01:19:38] He's one of nine children.
[01:19:39] He's from Kunar.
[01:19:41] He's a Pashtun.
[01:19:42] He talks about the Pashtun Wally,
[01:19:46] which is their culture,
[01:19:48] which some people have heard a little bit about.
[01:19:50] He goes into some details, hospitality for visitors, right?
[01:19:56] Showing courage.
[01:19:57] That's just the way they roll.
[01:19:58] You have to show courage in daily life
[01:20:00] and you have to show courage
[01:20:01] and bravery defending their communities.
[01:20:03] You gotta show loyalty.
[01:20:04] You gotta show kindness.
[01:20:05] You gotta show respect.
[01:20:08] Then there's also, they have a code for revenge.
[01:20:13] They don't tolerate insults.
[01:20:14] They're expected to take revenge
[01:20:16] if something goes against them
[01:20:18] or at least negotiate some kind of compensation
[01:20:22] if something happens to their family
[01:20:25] or to their community.
[01:20:28] Zach's mother's father worked for President Najibullah
[01:20:35] who they called Dr. Najib,
[01:20:38] who was the president in Afghanistan
[01:20:40] after the Soviet Union was driven out.
[01:20:42] So in 1989, the Soviet Union leaves
[01:20:44] and this guy, Dr. Najib, takes over as a president.
[01:20:50] And that's where Zach's mother's father worked.
[01:20:52] Zach's father was a soldier
[01:20:55] who worked for the government in Kunar.
[01:20:58] After he got out of the army,
[01:20:59] he worked as a clerk for the Red Cross,
[01:21:01] worked for the Red Crescent.
[01:21:04] The Dr. Najib's government collapsed in 1992.
[01:21:08] By 1996, the Taliban is expanding out of Kandahar province.
[01:21:15] They eventually capture and execute Dr. Najib.
[01:21:18] They take him and his brother
[01:21:20] and hang them from light poles
[01:21:21] in front of the presidential palace.
[01:21:23] That's what's transpiring during,
[01:21:27] as Zach is growing up,
[01:21:28] this is what Zach's growing up in.
[01:21:30] And I'm gonna go to the book here.
[01:21:31] And again, this is a section that's from Zach's writing.
[01:21:35] And he says this,
[01:21:38] I was only five years old when they came from Kandahar
[01:21:41] with their long beards and black makeup
[01:21:44] surrounding their eyes to take control of Kunar.
[01:21:47] But I knew that my parents were scared.
[01:21:50] I remember life was very hard when they were in power.
[01:21:53] In Kunar, we Pashtuns were already very conservative,
[01:21:57] but the Taliban declared controls
[01:22:00] over everything in our lives.
[01:22:02] Each night, I heard father tell my mother
[01:22:04] about the new rules imposed by the Taliban.
[01:22:06] Every day, there were new prohibitions.
[01:22:09] They have declared television and music un-Islamic.
[01:22:12] Then they closed the newspaper.
[01:22:14] Then women may no longer work or go to school.
[01:22:18] Father began to grow his beard.
[01:22:20] Mother, my mother had to wear a burqa
[01:22:22] covering her entire body outside of our home.
[01:22:25] Even her eyes were hidden behind a screen.
[01:22:27] She was prohibited from looking at strangers
[01:22:29] and could not go out of the house
[01:22:31] without my father or one of her sons.
[01:22:33] It was strange to me that I had to escort my mother.
[01:22:37] Except for the madrasa, there were no schools,
[01:22:40] no university, electricity was scarce,
[01:22:43] maintenance of roads and buildings stopped.
[01:22:47] There was really no access to any of the basic life needs
[01:22:50] a government is supposed to provide, except guns.
[01:22:55] There were always plenty of guns that the Talibs
[01:22:57] carried AK-47s and rocket launchers everywhere they went.
[01:23:00] There was Sharia law, of course.
[01:23:03] That was a form of government the Taliban were interested in.
[01:23:09] They cut off the hands of thieves,
[01:23:11] to leaps from the department for the enforcement
[01:23:14] of right Islamic way and prevention of evils.
[01:23:18] The religious police enforced laws about modesty with sticks.
[01:23:24] They beat people in public who said
[01:23:26] they were not following the laws, especially women.
[01:23:29] Many people were killed by beheading
[01:23:31] or stoning as punishment for their violations.
[01:23:34] There was no real court, just the Taliban.
[01:23:37] Although they were from a very different part of Afghanistan
[01:23:40] and had very different accents,
[01:23:42] the Taliban and Pashtun like the people in my village,
[01:23:47] so some of our neighbors were for the Taliban.
[01:23:51] My father was not and he suffered for that.
[01:23:54] Power shifts suddenly in Afghanistan.
[01:23:56] Who you know and support matters more than who you are.
[01:24:00] It has always been that way.
[01:24:02] My father lost his job because he'd worked
[01:24:04] under Dr. Najib.
[01:24:06] He grew his beard even longer
[01:24:08] so that he would not attract Taliban attention.
[01:24:11] Without his clerk job, he became a farmer
[01:24:14] and our family, any child old enough to walk was a farmer.
[01:24:16] We grew enough vegetables to feed ourselves
[01:24:18] with a leftover to sell in the village market.
[01:24:21] We grew and sold flowers too, red roses.
[01:24:24] Afghans love flowers and plant them everywhere.
[01:24:27] Maybe they represent hope that something good
[01:24:30] can grow from dust.
[01:24:32] I was only 11 years old on September 11th, 2001.
[01:24:36] I did not really understand what happened that day.
[01:24:39] We really had no concept of America or the West.
[01:24:43] We were told that the people there were infidels
[01:24:47] and that they would try to make us stop practicing
[01:24:49] Islam or living in an Islamic way.
[01:24:53] I certainly did not understand their governments or laws
[01:24:56] or the things to come soon.
[01:24:58] After the Americans began their invasion,
[01:25:00] I still farmed and played cricket in the forest,
[01:25:02] but our village was growing
[01:25:04] more and more frightened every day.
[01:25:07] People were scared that the Americans
[01:25:09] would kill us with their planes,
[01:25:10] especially those who worked for the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.
[01:25:14] My father had the radio up to his ear all the time.
[01:25:19] The day the American bombs started falling
[01:25:21] across Afghanistan, the President of the United States said,
[01:25:25] the oppressed people of Afghanistan
[01:25:27] will know the generosity of America and our allies.
[01:25:31] As we strike military targets,
[01:25:33] we will also drop food, medicine, and supplies
[01:25:36] to the starving and suffering men and women
[01:25:38] and children of Afghanistan.
[01:25:41] The world had finally remembered we existed.
[01:25:44] The Americans came with more guns and more trucks
[01:25:47] and more planes.
[01:25:48] We hoped they would bring good things too.
[01:25:51] Afghanistan had nothing.
[01:25:53] After two decades of war, there was no government.
[01:25:55] We had no schools, no police, no military.
[01:25:59] Literacy was 18.6% in 1979.
[01:26:03] In 2001, no one knew because no one had asked.
[01:26:08] There was nothing to make us a nation except our hopes.
[01:26:12] So, I think it's really lucky that Zach kind of got to see,
[01:26:27] you know, he understood freedom, he understood education,
[01:26:30] and maybe that's not the best section to read,
[01:26:31] but he definitely understood freedom.
[01:26:33] He understood education.
[01:26:35] He saw the oppressiveness of the Taliban.
[01:26:38] If he wouldn't have seen that, he might have not had
[01:26:42] this place in his heart where he wanted to really help
[01:26:46] out America.
[01:26:48] And again, almost half the book is his words.
[01:26:54] So, get the book, we'll read some more, but get the book.
[01:26:57] You want to get the real details of what it was like
[01:27:00] on the ground for these people.
[01:27:02] That's a great place to get it.
[01:27:03] But September 11th happens, America enters Afghanistan.
[01:27:11] And for him, that's an opportunity he talks about.
[01:27:14] That's an opportunity for freedom again.
[01:27:16] Like he sees that and eventually he does end up
[01:27:20] getting a job as an interpreter and we'll get there to that.
[01:27:24] But going back to you, you get done with IOC
[01:27:29] and you get assigned third battalion, fifth Marines,
[01:27:34] three, five Marines.
[01:27:35] And anyone that listens to this podcast knows about
[01:27:37] three, five Marines from, well, from with the old breed
[01:27:41] by Eugene Sledge.
[01:27:46] Three, five fought in World War I.
[01:27:47] They fought in Nicaragua.
[01:27:48] They fought in World War II in Guadalcanal,
[01:27:50] New Britain, Pellew, Okinawa.
[01:27:53] In Korea, they were at Incheon.
[01:27:58] They were at the breakout and withdrawal
[01:27:59] from the chosen reservoir in Vietnam.
[01:28:02] They were in Huy City.
[01:28:05] They were in the case on Valley, the Death Valley.
[01:28:08] They were in Desert Shield, Desert Storm,
[01:28:09] and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.
[01:28:11] So you get orders to three, five, hallowed unit.
[01:28:17] You get there and you get assigned
[01:28:21] a little quote from the book,
[01:28:22] Second Lieutenant Schumann, first platoon, Kelo Company.
[01:28:26] That's what you get told.
[01:28:30] How does that make you feel?
[01:28:31] Yeah, excited.
[01:28:34] I had been reading with the old breed
[01:28:37] and with E.B. Sledge there and that's Kelo three, five.
[01:28:41] And just one thing that we as Marines do
[01:28:46] would do a very good job of preserving our history,
[01:28:49] our heritage, our legacy.
[01:28:50] It's drilled into you everywhere you go.
[01:28:52] And then, so it's a lie.
[01:28:55] It's a lie from the stories that your sergeant
[01:28:58] and sergeant tell you at boot camp
[01:29:00] and officer can at school.
[01:29:02] But you walk outside of the Kelo office and the CP for three,
[01:29:10] five, there's a picture of Kelo on Pellilu
[01:29:14] with a note from E.B. Sledge.
[01:29:16] And this is the idea that you have a responsibility
[01:29:21] and an opportunity to carry that legacy forward.
[01:29:27] I mean, it's all you could ever dream of.
[01:29:29] It's all you could ever hope for.
[01:29:33] Second Lieutenant Schumann, first platoon, Kelo Company.
[01:29:39] How long have you been in the Marine Corps for at this point?
[01:29:42] A year, nine months.
[01:29:44] So you're nine months to a year
[01:29:46] and this is everything you've been working for
[01:29:47] through college and you get this.
[01:29:51] But that being said, there's also like some,
[01:29:56] and it'll be weird for people to hear this,
[01:29:57] there's also some bad news.
[01:29:58] And the bad news is that you're scheduled to go
[01:30:00] on a West Pact deployment,
[01:30:01] which means you can be on a ship
[01:30:02] going around the Pacific Ocean,
[01:30:06] not going into combat.
[01:30:07] That was the plan for your battalion.
[01:30:12] Yeah, all I wanna do is fight.
[01:30:14] I mean, you leave IOC and it's just basically
[01:30:19] this controlled aggression.
[01:30:20] And this is maximum violence.
[01:30:22] And all your instructors, I've just left Iraq
[01:30:28] and it's what you've been seeing for the last several years
[01:30:32] and you're ready to do that.
[01:30:34] You know, Alan Iverson, he says,
[01:30:37] we're talking about practice, we're talking about practice.
[01:30:39] You wanna get, it's time for the game.
[01:30:41] And you wanna go get validated.
[01:30:45] And so when you find out, hey, you're gonna go to Okinawa
[01:30:49] and float around a little bit, you think, well, shit.
[01:30:53] That's not what I was trying to do here.
[01:30:57] So yeah, definitely initially disappointed.
[01:31:01] I got, I was, I guess that disappointment
[01:31:05] to an extent persisted, but once I started working
[01:31:09] in lead and Marines, I mean, every day I'm living
[01:31:12] in San Clemente, driving down El Camino Real
[01:31:14] past Trestles Beach into the North Side
[01:31:17] at Camp Pendleton to go shoot machine guns
[01:31:19] with 35 savages, like it's a pretty good deal.
[01:31:22] And so I pretty quickly, like my little sadness
[01:31:25] was mostly taken care of, but yeah,
[01:31:27] still a little disappointed for sure.
[01:31:29] Any challenges when you were doing your workup,
[01:31:31] preparing for deployment?
[01:31:33] Undoubtedly the start, these, so three, five last went
[01:31:39] to Iraq and 08.
[01:31:41] And so the senior Lance Corporals all had done
[01:31:46] the Iraq deployment and some of the Sargeants.
[01:31:50] And then the platoon that I picked up had just gotten
[01:31:52] back from Okinawa.
[01:31:53] They were the first time that three, five hadn't been
[01:31:56] in combat in 10 years.
[01:31:59] And so they are all feeling,
[01:32:01] that's why infantry Marines joined for one reason.
[01:32:04] They joined a fight.
[01:32:05] And so they're, you know, all their seniors have been
[01:32:08] to Iraq, they've all been to combat.
[01:32:10] They had to live with this that they didn't.
[01:32:13] Then they, of course, like always their leadership is
[01:32:17] saying, well, we could go, we're gonna go,
[01:32:19] we're gonna go, and then they don't go.
[01:32:22] And they just, you know, and so morale was low,
[01:32:26] discipline very low.
[01:32:30] There was, I mean, it was very tough.
[01:32:36] Leadership is always challenging.
[01:32:39] And so like the midshipman kind of, when I would teach
[01:32:44] a naval academy, would kind of like, you know,
[01:32:45] bitching complain about different aspects of leadership
[01:32:49] or timing.
[01:32:50] And I can't think of a time as a second lieutenant
[01:32:52] in the over 245 years in Marine Corps where it would be,
[01:32:55] oh, this must have been an easy time to be a second
[01:32:58] lieutenant.
[01:32:59] It's always a tough time to be.
[01:33:00] It's in Huy City, in Quezon, I bet it was pretty hard
[01:33:04] to be a second lieutenant, you know?
[01:33:05] Immediately following Vietnam in the 1970,
[01:33:08] probably pretty hard to be a second lieutenant.
[01:33:09] And so there's no time where it's easy.
[01:33:11] And it's just, those challenges are different based
[01:33:14] on peacetime, garrison, wartime.
[01:33:18] But those Marines were disgruntled, low morale,
[01:33:21] and not disciplined.
[01:33:22] And that's what I was stepping into initially
[01:33:25] as a platoon commander.
[01:33:27] Now, when we found out we got overheaded,
[01:33:31] you better shape up or you're gonna put on the bench.
[01:33:34] But you did much of your workout thinking you were
[01:33:37] going on Westpac, right?
[01:33:38] About six months.
[01:33:39] And yeah, this is when the guys were like,
[01:33:42] well, we gotta do this again.
[01:33:44] We're just gonna go sit on a boat, not cool.
[01:33:49] But as you mentioned, things changed.
[01:33:53] So you guys get together, it's around Christmas time.
[01:33:55] You get together, you gather for your Christmas leave,
[01:33:58] a safety brief where they're gonna tell you not to be idiots.
[01:34:03] Battalion commander has some work to put out.
[01:34:05] Here's what he says.
[01:34:07] Here's what he's saying in the book.
[01:34:08] As we gathered for a safety brief,
[01:34:09] prior to releasing Marines for Christmas leave,
[01:34:11] Lieutenant Colonel Morris stood in a circle
[01:34:13] of more than 1,000 Marines, all impatient
[01:34:16] for the freedom of the leave period
[01:34:18] and prepared for the usual tired exhortations
[01:34:21] about tire pressure and not drinking and driving.
[01:34:24] Those came in as expected.
[01:34:26] But when Morris announced we would no longer
[01:34:28] be deploying to Japan, the air became suddenly charged,
[01:34:32] like the ozone smell before a lightning storm.
[01:34:35] 1,000 Marines collectively leaned in to hear his next words.
[01:34:40] When he announced that Dark Horse, which is 3-5,
[01:34:42] when he announced that Dark Horse was instead deploying
[01:34:45] to the Sangen district of Helmand province, Afghanistan,
[01:34:49] there was a roar so loud I felt it as much as I heard it.
[01:34:55] I could not have wanted anything more for Christmas.
[01:34:58] I felt a surge of heat through my body,
[01:35:00] a charge of adrenaline and excitement,
[01:35:02] and deep down a tiny cold pit of fear.
[01:35:06] I looked over at Rob Kelly,
[01:35:08] expecting to see the same excitement on his face.
[01:35:12] And I did not find it.
[01:35:14] I gave him a, come on, man, look.
[01:35:17] He looked back at me with half a smile and said,
[01:35:20] I was ready for a Mew, meaning the Japan deployment.
[01:35:24] Mine was the fire of the unblooded.
[01:35:27] Rob knew Sangen meant we would bury Marines.
[01:35:40] Yeah, that's what's happening.
[01:35:45] It's hard to explain to civilians
[01:35:48] that the young men that signed up to go to war
[01:35:53] really want to go to war.
[01:35:54] And it's hard to convince young men
[01:36:00] that are really excited to go to war
[01:36:03] to be careful what you wish for.
[01:36:09] At this point, we haven't really talked about this yet,
[01:36:12] but you have long time girlfriend at this point.
[01:36:18] Andrea, is that right, Andrea?
[01:36:20] Andrea. Andrea.
[01:36:21] So you got Andrea, how long have you been together
[01:36:23] with her at this point?
[01:36:26] Close to 10 years.
[01:36:29] And so you met in high school?
[01:36:30] Yep.
[01:36:32] And so this is a long, I mean,
[01:36:34] you don't get much more long term in relationship
[01:36:36] as a 20, whatever old year guy you are at the time
[01:36:40] than 10 years, that's a long time.
[01:36:42] And you weren't a perfect boyfriend.
[01:36:46] No.
[01:36:47] But you'd still been together for a long time.
[01:36:50] And you decide that you're gonna break up with her
[01:36:54] just before deployment?
[01:36:56] Yeah, I couldn't get my shit together.
[01:36:58] I knew what was the right thing to do.
[01:37:01] She's my high school sweetheart.
[01:37:02] You know, we met at youth group.
[01:37:05] She'd always been good and loyal and devoted.
[01:37:10] And she's beautiful and she's everything
[01:37:15] I could ever hope or dream of.
[01:37:16] And the right thing to do for a girl
[01:37:20] that's been dealing with your crap
[01:37:22] for 10 years at that point is-
[01:37:24] A decade, by the way.
[01:37:26] Is to make an honest woman of her.
[01:37:28] And so we go ring shopping.
[01:37:34] This is all pre-deployment leave.
[01:37:36] We go ring shopping, we're talking about it.
[01:37:38] And I don't have the courage to do the right thing.
[01:37:42] And so we pull up to LAX and we're about to deploy
[01:37:47] the next day and she's about to fly back to Chicago.
[01:37:49] And she thinks I'm about to ask her to marry me.
[01:37:52] And instead I say, you should find a new boyfriend
[01:37:56] while I'm gone.
[01:37:57] And she just, she had a fountain drink in the cup holder.
[01:38:05] Gave me a little fountain drink bath
[01:38:07] and told me that I was real shit and that was it.
[01:38:13] And yeah, terrible, terrible thing I did there.
[01:38:28] All right, you get done with that.
[01:38:30] You spend the last day back in California.
[01:38:35] You go with Cam, who's one of your buddies.
[01:38:39] And you go with Rob, you go to General Kelly's house.
[01:38:42] And you have a barbecue.
[01:38:45] It's like pretty poetic scenario for you guys
[01:38:50] to be rolling out.
[01:38:51] It's gotta be kind of crazy going to General Kelly's house
[01:38:53] for like the going away, right?
[01:38:56] So there's the cabins on Palatin
[01:38:57] and we went down to the Del Mar beach
[01:39:00] and those cabins there.
[01:39:01] And Cam and I, after the little fiasco with Andrea,
[01:39:05] I just got hammer drunk.
[01:39:07] And like the next morning,
[01:39:10] like the day we're gonna get on the buses that night,
[01:39:12] but Rob says, hey, you know, stop by, have some lunch.
[01:39:16] And like, it's got the shake still from,
[01:39:20] and General Kelly, you know, they like to drink PBR
[01:39:23] and like have a beer, Tom.
[01:39:25] Like, well, you say, you say, yes, sir.
[01:39:28] And so, yeah, I mean, it's always when you're a second
[01:39:33] lieutenant and you're around a four-star general,
[01:39:35] it's a little bit weird.
[01:39:39] But really, despite the hangover,
[01:39:43] what was really captured my attention is just the overall
[01:39:48] family dynamic of just a family really centered around service
[01:39:53] and duty and then just the love and how so much of that love
[01:39:59] was through Rob and emanated from Rob.
[01:40:02] And just as a guy who never had that,
[01:40:06] it just was always remarkable just to kind of see that.
[01:40:14] From there, it's go time.
[01:40:17] Going to the book.
[01:40:18] From the battalion headquarters
[01:40:20] to the forward operating base, Jackson 3-5 was responsible
[01:40:23] for almost 37 square miles of Sengen district
[01:40:26] and almost 60,000 people living throughout.
[01:40:29] I was in Afghanistan a week and at PB Fires for 24 hours
[01:40:34] when I received my first mission on October 9th, 2010.
[01:40:38] I had everything I thought I wanted.
[01:40:40] Now it was time to find out the truth.
[01:40:42] I left patrol base Fires with a mix of 96 Marines
[01:40:45] and Afghan National Army soldiers to look out three areas
[01:40:50] the 3-5 headquarters wanted to know more about.
[01:40:53] In addition to first platoon, I had a host of attachments,
[01:40:55] four Marines from 3-7 to give us their insight into the area
[01:40:59] and their experience within it.
[01:41:01] An entire squad of engineers and two explosive ordnance
[01:41:03] disposal Marines to contend with IEDs,
[01:41:06] the primary threat in Sengen, a section of six snipers,
[01:41:09] the embedded training team, detailed to work with the ANA,
[01:41:14] three interpreters to help us communicate,
[01:41:16] a joint terminal attack controller to get us air support
[01:41:21] if any of the Taliban who typically operated in groups
[01:41:23] of three to four men wanted to challenge a group of 96.
[01:41:27] Sengen was primarily dirt and blowing dust,
[01:41:31] but irrigation canals stretching out from the banks
[01:41:33] of the Hellman River created verdant fields of corn
[01:41:36] and the pink and red splashes of opium poppy.
[01:41:39] On trails, roads, anywhere we would be forced to pass,
[01:41:43] the Taliban hid IEDs by the hundreds.
[01:41:48] They buried yellow plastic jugs containing pounds
[01:41:51] of homemade explosives triggered by pressure plates
[01:41:53] that completed a circuit when someone stepped on them.
[01:41:56] IEDs were indiscriminate weapons,
[01:41:58] killing Marines and Afghan civilians alike.
[01:42:01] Their density demanded we move single file
[01:42:04] with about 30 feet between each person to keep an IED
[01:42:08] from getting more than two or three of us at once.
[01:42:12] Patrol base fires was at the center of it all.
[01:42:16] Walking single file is the best way to mitigate an IED threat,
[01:42:19] but it's a horrible way to encounter your first ambush.
[01:42:22] I was at the front of the formation,
[01:42:24] moving among the jade leaves and whispers of wind
[01:42:27] through a cornfield, stalks towering over us all
[01:42:31] and concealing our movement when machine gun rounds
[01:42:33] from a nearby building began ripping through the corn.
[01:42:36] I dove behind a brush pile that concealed me from view,
[01:42:39] but would not stop a bullet, much less hundreds of them.
[01:42:43] The size of our group and the dispersed formation
[01:42:45] meant our element was in a firefight before the remainder
[01:42:48] of my patrol completely exited from PB fires.
[01:42:53] I was going to die before I got the second half
[01:42:56] of my unit out of the base.
[01:42:59] I looked to my left at one of my Marines,
[01:43:02] Sergeant Joseph Nickirk, Nickirk?
[01:43:04] Nickirk.
[01:43:05] Nickirk.
[01:43:06] And shouted, I'm gonna stand up and put some
[01:43:08] propulsive fire through that window.
[01:43:10] You fire grenade through it.
[01:43:12] I stood and fired at the window as quickly as I could
[01:43:15] while still retaining any kind of accuracy.
[01:43:17] Nickirk followed with a grenade
[01:43:19] that silenced the machine gun.
[01:43:20] We both dropped into the back into the corn
[01:43:23] where the three seven lieutenant acting as our tour guide
[01:43:25] turned to me and said sarcastically,
[01:43:27] Lieutenant Shuman, you got your combat action ribbon.
[01:43:29] Now make a decision.
[01:43:32] I was angry.
[01:43:33] He was a fellow lieutenant, not an IOC instructor.
[01:43:36] I was the new guy, so I just stayed quiet and took it.
[01:43:39] But I did think to myself, make a decision.
[01:43:41] I did make a decision.
[01:43:42] My decision was not to die in the impact zone
[01:43:44] of a machine gun and kill the guy shooting at us.
[01:43:48] I thought I wanted combat, but finding myself
[01:43:50] in a complex ambush with half the platoon still
[01:43:53] in the patrol base seemed like a bad way to start.
[01:43:56] Suddenly the combat action ribbon seemed less important.
[01:43:59] Less than an hour later, I knelt at the edge
[01:44:01] of a corn field as the ANA, their American advisors,
[01:44:04] and the three interpreters spoke to a local elder
[01:44:06] to tell him we would need to use his compound for 24 hours.
[01:44:09] Like most in Hellman, it was a mini fortress
[01:44:11] made of thick walls, six to 10 feet high
[01:44:14] with a sheet steel gate.
[01:44:16] Goats and children would almost certainly roam within
[01:44:18] while women in Burke have stayed out of sight.
[01:44:20] Inside home, it's made of the same mud brick as the walls.
[01:44:25] As I waited for an update from the compound,
[01:44:27] a single shot rang out, followed by Sergeant Decker
[01:44:31] coming at me in a run.
[01:44:33] Sir Teague, is it Teague?
[01:44:35] Sir Teague shot someone, I took a breath.
[01:44:38] Okay, did he have a gun?
[01:44:39] Decker nodded his head.
[01:44:40] Yes sir.
[01:44:41] Is he dead?
[01:44:42] Very.
[01:44:43] All right, well-telt Teague, he did a good job.
[01:44:46] That's when the reality of Sangen hit me.
[01:44:49] We could kill people here.
[01:44:51] It was a notion that would soon become prosaic,
[01:44:54] but in the moment, it was striking.
[01:44:56] So that's the kickoff to deployment right there.
[01:45:05] Right into it.
[01:45:06] Right into it.
[01:45:07] I always say that I got very lucky in my combat experience
[01:45:11] that it was the most gradual, nice escalation over time.
[01:45:17] Sure.
[01:45:18] And that's just pure luck.
[01:45:21] And you did not get that gradual escalation.
[01:45:24] Baptism by fire.
[01:45:27] I had a guy that was one of the Sante Raiders on,
[01:45:31] special forces guy.
[01:45:33] He did one mission in Vietnam.
[01:45:35] He, they flew from America.
[01:45:37] He was a brand new special forces guy.
[01:45:40] He, his first combat operation was the Sante Raide.
[01:45:43] He got off the aircraft and five seconds later
[01:45:46] was killing a dude.
[01:45:47] Like stepped off the aircraft and killed someone
[01:45:49] and 20 minutes later they were gone.
[01:45:51] And that was his whole experience in Vietnam,
[01:45:53] but it was a pretty intense 20 minutes.
[01:45:57] That's the kickoff to this deployment.
[01:45:59] And this deployment is extremely kinetic deployment
[01:46:02] for you guys.
[01:46:03] And, you know, this is the true of all wars.
[01:46:06] I mean, depending on where you are and when you're there,
[01:46:09] it can be anything from a deployment
[01:46:12] where you're sitting around a chow hall,
[01:46:14] eating whatever gourmet food from some contractor,
[01:46:19] or it can be this type of deployment.
[01:46:23] This is a hardcore deployment.
[01:46:25] How much did you know when you were going in,
[01:46:28] how hot was it when you were showing up there?
[01:46:30] You knew what you were getting into?
[01:46:33] Not really.
[01:46:34] We were still very coin centric.
[01:46:37] So, you know, the final exercise that a battalion does
[01:46:41] before they go out to deployment is called EMV
[01:46:44] or a Hans Mojave Viper.
[01:46:45] Now it's got a new name of course.
[01:46:47] But that final exercise that we're doing
[01:46:50] was all about kissing babies.
[01:46:53] There's a big key leader engagement
[01:46:55] where you're sitting with the villager elder
[01:46:57] and shaking hands with him.
[01:46:59] And so it was like Shuras and Kalees.
[01:47:03] When I ran training, we started doing key leader engagements.
[01:47:07] Right?
[01:47:08] And they were gonna go about 100% of the time.
[01:47:12] It was so awesome.
[01:47:13] But we had great actors and people would come out
[01:47:16] and the key leader guy and you know,
[01:47:18] oh, it's very nice to meet you.
[01:47:20] And the spider hole would open up
[01:47:21] and I would come people with machine guns.
[01:47:23] But it sounds like maybe you weren't getting that treatment.
[01:47:24] You were getting the treatment like it was gonna go.
[01:47:26] Like, hey, that's what you're there to do.
[01:47:27] So we still did our live fire training.
[01:47:30] But the emphasis was, you know,
[01:47:32] the just try to recreate the Iraq awakening, you know,
[01:47:36] that was the playbook.
[01:47:38] And about a week before we left though,
[01:47:42] the company commander of the AO that we were gonna rip out,
[01:47:47] he's now battalion commander, Ryan Cohen,
[01:47:48] Tana Krohn Cohen came and he'd been medevacked.
[01:47:52] And he's like, shit is real.
[01:47:54] And this was the first guy that kind of say like,
[01:47:57] hey, you're gonna go there and fight.
[01:48:00] Did you guys know where you were going specifically?
[01:48:03] We did, but the Intel briefs were pretty spotty, the ARs.
[01:48:10] There was not a whole lot of.
[01:48:11] Are you communicating with guys directly?
[01:48:14] So I think some guys have zipper maybe talking,
[01:48:18] but you know, second lieutenant,
[01:48:20] no, not getting read in on really much of this stuff.
[01:48:23] And still, I mean, to the point that the book that I'm reading
[01:48:27] on the flight over is three cups of tea.
[01:48:30] And that's an appropriate reaction.
[01:48:34] And then, you know, we're doing the cultural courses
[01:48:37] at Leatherneck, the big base before we fly into,
[01:48:39] out to the Pachol bases.
[01:48:41] And I've got like a little smart pack of like,
[01:48:44] how are you, how do you do nice to meet you, sir?
[01:48:46] And I'm quizzing all my squad leaders.
[01:48:49] I'm like, no, you don't know how to say nice to meet you.
[01:48:51] Like, let's do it again.
[01:48:53] And like, that's still really what I thought
[01:48:56] we were headed into.
[01:48:58] And it very immediately was apparent
[01:49:02] that no one was gonna drink tea
[01:49:04] and everybody was gonna try to kill us.
[01:49:06] We, when in Ramadi, we had guys like our friends
[01:49:11] were coming to relieve us.
[01:49:12] And so we're telling them what's going down
[01:49:16] and what's happening.
[01:49:17] And they're going to,
[01:49:21] like my guys are coming on wounded,
[01:49:23] they're going to my guys' funerals here.
[01:49:25] It was like a, it was a rare occasion for, you know,
[01:49:29] that tight turnover into like really hard combat.
[01:49:34] But, you know, they came over,
[01:49:35] they knew what they were getting into.
[01:49:37] Doesn't, a lot of times it doesn't work like that.
[01:49:41] Three cups of tea.
[01:49:44] I had one of my senior leaders who's a friend of mine.
[01:49:49] And, but, you know, he was really hyped on three cups of tea.
[01:49:53] And we were not, especially coming home from Ramadi,
[01:49:56] we were especially not hyped about three cups of tea.
[01:49:59] And when that book turned out to be a big lie,
[01:50:03] boy, did I have fun without one throwing it back in his face.
[01:50:10] Did you, when you, during like those final exercises
[01:50:15] and stuff, what was the attitude with your guys?
[01:50:18] Were they like, okay, well, that's what, you know,
[01:50:20] that's what the boss is saying we're going to be doing.
[01:50:21] We're going to be drinking tea with the locals.
[01:50:24] No one had any Afghanistan experience.
[01:50:28] And, and so, you know, some of those guys had been
[01:50:32] in the flusion, 08 where it was kind of that, you know,
[01:50:35] clearhold bill that was really more towards the bill phase
[01:50:38] there. And so that 08 Iraq experience was kind of reinforced
[01:50:43] some of the stuff that we're doing.
[01:50:44] And so, you know, we're all hoping for a fight,
[01:50:49] but we're Marines and we're going to do whatever we're told
[01:50:52] we got to do and do it well.
[01:50:53] And so if it's kissing babies, you know, and then we'll,
[01:50:57] we'll do that, you know, and that's kind of what we're.
[01:51:00] So what was the, what was the mission that you guys
[01:51:04] were tasked to do like broadly?
[01:51:07] Yeah, secure, provide security for the singing district AO,
[01:51:12] increased security that I mean, increased security.
[01:51:16] That's it.
[01:51:16] And your company commander was, when you write about him
[01:51:20] in the book, he had an aggressive attitude.
[01:51:24] He did.
[01:51:25] But it was hard to know like what his tolerance or willingness
[01:51:32] of risk assessment or, you know, risk tolerance was
[01:51:35] or what he would accept or what he wouldn't.
[01:51:38] But he was, we, Kelo company, Sledgehammer, E.B. Sledge,
[01:51:42] if historically always had the aggressive reputation.
[01:51:46] And we had hardcore sergeants that work up and, and yeah.
[01:51:50] So we maintain this, which it was enabled by our RCOs.
[01:51:54] Is this really aggressive company for sure.
[01:51:57] And then in order to maintain or establish security,
[01:52:02] you're going out on patrols.
[01:52:04] Yeah.
[01:52:04] You're taking A&A with you all the time?
[01:52:08] Trying not to.
[01:52:09] Initially we would often forget them at the,
[01:52:12] at the patrol base, but towards the latter half
[01:52:16] of the deployment, we were bringing them,
[01:52:18] always bringing them out, but we, we,
[01:52:20] that first mission had like such high visibility
[01:52:23] because it was a, we were scaring battalion objectives
[01:52:26] and doing a three day operation that we had to have
[01:52:28] the A&A with us.
[01:52:30] But they and they were happy to not go out
[01:52:33] and we were happy to not take them out.
[01:52:35] And so it wasn't towards the latter half of the deployment
[01:52:38] that we really started kind of employing them consistently.
[01:52:42] But yeah, those, those first patrols were conventional
[01:52:48] fighting.
[01:52:49] I mean, it was the enemy was in a defense in depth
[01:52:51] with obstacles covered by machine guns.
[01:52:55] And we were on the offense and just straight assaulting
[01:52:59] into an enemy defense.
[01:53:00] And that's, and so anything about improving local security
[01:53:06] or doing any kind of counterinsurgency, it was no,
[01:53:08] just go out there and kill as many guys as you can.
[01:53:13] Yeah. Well, that's actually part of counterinsurgency
[01:53:15] is killing a bunch of bad guys.
[01:53:17] And that was, that's a very effective and necessary part
[01:53:21] of it because you can't build schools
[01:53:22] while you're getting blown up.
[01:53:24] And, you know, security for the populace is the way that I,
[01:53:28] for lack of a better word, pitched it up my chain
[01:53:31] of command, what we were doing.
[01:53:32] Hey, we're going to provide security for the populace.
[01:53:34] Well, how are you going to do that?
[01:53:35] We're going to kill all these bad guys
[01:53:36] or at least as many of them as we can.
[01:53:39] What was your op tempo like?
[01:53:41] So how often are you guys going out?
[01:53:42] How long are you staying out for?
[01:53:44] I mean, every day, I mean, we're doing
[01:53:48] a platoon size patrols every day for the first month or two.
[01:53:52] And that's because you needed a platoon size element
[01:53:57] to get in the, to effectively fight the types of fights
[01:54:00] that we were engaged in.
[01:54:01] And then it, then it was a squad.
[01:54:03] And, but it was tough because you had a,
[01:54:06] you had a squad on post, you had a squad on QRF,
[01:54:10] and then you had a squad patrolling.
[01:54:12] And the QRF squad almost always got called out.
[01:54:16] And so that rest squad was really never resting.
[01:54:19] And so you're either on post patrolling
[01:54:21] or responding out as QRF.
[01:54:23] So it was, it was a, that tempo was pretty brutal.
[01:54:27] And so the troops were out every day.
[01:54:32] I don't know if this is the right word,
[01:54:33] but it sounds like it might be the right word.
[01:54:35] You kind of gotten a little bit of trouble
[01:54:37] up the chain of command.
[01:54:38] Yeah.
[01:54:40] You got counseled for your cowboy attitude
[01:54:43] and this kind of thing.
[01:54:44] Break that down a little bit.
[01:54:45] What mistakes did you make?
[01:54:46] What could you have done that better?
[01:54:48] Where were you right?
[01:54:49] Where were you wrong?
[01:54:52] We were out on operation and we'd been out until two or three
[01:54:56] and I, and I called into the main, the CP.
[01:55:00] And I said, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna turn our radio
[01:55:02] off for a couple hours.
[01:55:03] Conserve battery will be up at zero six
[01:55:05] and call them with the radio check.
[01:55:07] And when I turned the radio back on at zero six
[01:55:09] couple hours later, it was like,
[01:55:10] broken arrow, where are you sledgehammer?
[01:55:13] Have you been overrun?
[01:55:14] Sledgehammer one, call in.
[01:55:16] I'm like, hey, we called you guys, got Roger up
[01:55:21] that we were turning the radio off
[01:55:23] and the night watcher said that was good to go.
[01:55:27] So, and it's like, no, you're not in the log book.
[01:55:30] I'm like, so yeah, when we got back,
[01:55:35] you know, my CO was there and he said,
[01:55:38] you know, I'm gonna kick your ass
[01:55:39] and you think you don't have to call in
[01:55:41] and you don't think you don't have to report.
[01:55:43] And one of my squad leaders, we were in a fight
[01:55:47] and they had shot some already or a high mar.
[01:55:49] And the main kept calling for a sit-rep.
[01:55:52] And you know, what's the BDA?
[01:55:53] What's the sit-rep?
[01:55:54] And he said, how about you guys just grab a cup of coffee,
[01:55:56] take a seat, I'm in a fight.
[01:55:59] And you know, we had this company gunny Carlisle.
[01:56:04] He was a savage dude and he's like,
[01:56:06] what'd you say you motherfucker?
[01:56:08] Like they're fighting over the radio.
[01:56:10] So my guys were, yeah, my guys were,
[01:56:14] it's like kind of that common tension
[01:56:16] between higher headquarters and the dudes doing the fighting.
[01:56:19] And so yeah, we got reigned in and we got,
[01:56:24] but you know, it was punishment
[01:56:26] that had to go back to the company position
[01:56:29] from being out at a patrol base,
[01:56:31] just as the platoon by ourselves.
[01:56:33] But it wouldn't, it turned out it was a reward
[01:56:36] because the area around the company
[01:56:40] hadn't been patrolled aggressively.
[01:56:42] And we had been patrolling now for a month, month and a half.
[01:56:44] So we kind of created a little security bubble.
[01:56:46] We were having a harder time getting into fights.
[01:56:48] And so they brought us back.
[01:56:49] And then the first time we go out,
[01:56:50] we killed a ton of dudes and come back with some AK-47s.
[01:56:53] We're like, yeah, such hammer once here now.
[01:56:55] You know, here's his AKs.
[01:56:58] And so yeah, I could have had more tacked for sure.
[01:57:03] Yeah, I was probably light on tacked.
[01:57:06] You know, one thing I used to tell my guys was that,
[01:57:09] like the next echelon is always messed up, right?
[01:57:13] From our perspective, the next echelon up the chain of command
[01:57:15] is always like, they don't understand.
[01:57:17] Well, here's the deal.
[01:57:18] Why don't they understand?
[01:57:19] They don't understand
[01:57:19] because I'm not doing a good job of pushing them information.
[01:57:22] And I'm not seeing what their perspective is
[01:57:24] because they're probably got someone screaming at them,
[01:57:26] going, what do you mean you're dropping already into that?
[01:57:28] Well, you tell us what's going on.
[01:57:29] And they're asking, and that's how these things,
[01:57:32] that's how you get a little disconnect.
[01:57:33] You get a disconnect between the guys that are fighting
[01:57:36] and the guys that are not.
[01:57:38] There can be some animosity there
[01:57:40] and it can be a problem.
[01:57:41] If you're not careful,
[01:57:42] especially from a leadership position,
[01:57:44] you know, for you guys that are out there,
[01:57:46] you're gonna be the one that translates things
[01:57:49] up and down the chain of command.
[01:57:51] And that is not an easy job,
[01:57:54] but it's a really important job
[01:57:56] because if we have a real disconnect,
[01:57:58] then we're not getting the support that we need
[01:58:00] and it causes all kinds of problems.
[01:58:02] So don't take anything personally, right?
[01:58:07] When they're asking you what the hell's going on,
[01:58:10] just do your best to try and tell them
[01:58:12] what the hell's going on.
[01:58:13] When they're asking you stupid questions,
[01:58:18] it's because you didn't tell them,
[01:58:19] well, you know, how you were going to do a Kazovac
[01:58:23] in this particular scenario
[01:58:24] or how you were gonna handle this particular type of threat.
[01:58:28] They're asking you this stuff
[01:58:29] because they wanna know,
[01:58:30] because you didn't tell them and just do your best.
[01:58:33] I know it's hard.
[01:58:35] And for senior leaders out there,
[01:58:37] when your folks are in the field,
[01:58:39] they're working on some shit.
[01:58:42] And as soon as they get the chance,
[01:58:44] they're gonna tell you what's up,
[01:58:45] but leave them alone as long as you possibly can,
[01:58:49] leave them alone and let them sort their shit out
[01:58:52] and then they'll get back to you
[01:58:53] and you can get your numbers and get your update
[01:58:56] and get your sit-rep and all that.
[01:58:58] Just try and understand each other's perspectives,
[01:59:00] please, it goes a long way.
[01:59:02] Yeah, I think that was a good summation of lessons learned.
[01:59:10] All this fighting going on,
[01:59:13] there's gonna be a price.
[01:59:15] Cam, your buddy Cam gets severely wounded by an IED.
[01:59:20] Lost his right leg, injured his left leg.
[01:59:26] Or sorry, lost one leg.
[01:59:27] It really injured the other one.
[01:59:29] Bright eyes messed up.
[01:59:32] That seemed, at least when I read it in the book,
[01:59:34] it seemed like that was a little bit
[01:59:37] of a reality check for you
[01:59:40] because we are young and we feel invincible.
[01:59:45] Yeah, Cam was this kind of larger than life.
[01:59:48] John Wayne kind of figured to me a guy, big, strong dude
[01:59:52] that we all looked up to, charismatic.
[01:59:54] And when I came into patrol base that day,
[01:59:58] Will Donnelly, the second platoon commander,
[02:00:00] meets me and says, I don't think Cam's gonna make it.
[02:00:04] And we were taking casualties at such a crazy rate.
[02:00:08] And I'm like, man, if Cam can go down, I mean, like,
[02:00:13] and I hadn't, I was good in a firefight,
[02:00:15] I could still kind of compartmentalize and focus on
[02:00:19] the thing that I needed to focus on in that moment
[02:00:21] to make the right decisions.
[02:00:23] But I was, I, there's another great scene in Gates of Fire
[02:00:30] where the Spartans before battle will break the twigs
[02:00:33] and they'll put half the twig in the basket.
[02:00:36] It's like symbolic of a dog tag.
[02:00:40] And so that if they get so disfigured,
[02:00:42] they match up the twigs at the end of the battle
[02:00:44] and they say, okay, this is this guy.
[02:00:46] But there's another aspect of that.
[02:00:47] It's they break off their humanity
[02:00:50] because their sons or dads or their husbands
[02:00:53] and they're about to go have to stick a zyphosword
[02:00:55] into somebody's guts.
[02:00:56] And so they've got to separate.
[02:00:58] And I still had not separated my humanity
[02:01:02] from the violent warrior killing and death
[02:01:07] that I was so intimately.
[02:01:09] That was the world I was living in.
[02:01:10] I think of like, if you think of it,
[02:01:11] it gets like the river sticks, you know,
[02:01:14] we had crossed the river sticks and we're living in Hades.
[02:01:16] And I kind of had one foot on one shore
[02:01:19] and one foot in hell.
[02:01:20] And I was kind of just, and when I found out,
[02:01:26] when I heard Cannes wasn't gonna make it,
[02:01:28] he did ultimately make it.
[02:01:29] But when I found that out, I just, I broke down.
[02:01:33] And then I went back to my room
[02:01:36] and I had stored away a little Snickers bar
[02:01:40] at the bottom of my ruck.
[02:01:42] And I thought, on a rainy day,
[02:01:44] you will need this for your morale.
[02:01:45] And I didn't think that rainy day was gonna be like
[02:01:47] a weekend to happen to the deployment,
[02:01:49] but I go to dig in my ruck and I find that
[02:01:52] these little tailband mice have been living
[02:01:55] and shitting in my ruck and they ate my Snickers bar.
[02:01:58] And I had no more resilience left, you know?
[02:02:01] And so that was like the, and so I got sick.
[02:02:05] I was puke and emotional.
[02:02:07] Not in front of my troops, this was all private,
[02:02:09] but it was at that point that I said,
[02:02:12] you can't be feeling these things anymore.
[02:02:16] Like you have a job and so you separate
[02:02:20] from, you detach from that humanity
[02:02:23] and everything is compartmentalized from that moment forward,
[02:02:26] which makes you super effective under fire.
[02:02:30] The issue is if you don't reconnect to that humanity
[02:02:33] after your deployment, you become cold,
[02:02:38] emotionally unavailable.
[02:02:40] You don't experience the richness and fullness of life.
[02:02:44] It's a really safe way to live, very compartmentalized
[02:02:47] because I don't get too happy, I don't get too sad,
[02:02:50] but it's not a very fulfilling way to live.
[02:02:54] And the longer you, and you know,
[02:02:57] I was right back in Afghanistan 12 months later.
[02:02:59] And so the longer you kind of keep all those nerve endings
[02:03:03] dead so that you don't can't feel anything,
[02:03:05] longer is harder to turn them back on.
[02:03:07] And also you start to get afraid of like,
[02:03:12] what will I feel when I do turn all that stuff back on?
[02:03:17] Because I've been packing stuff in the sea bag
[02:03:18] for a long time here.
[02:03:20] And so what I convinced myself is,
[02:03:23] is that like, hey, you don't have time.
[02:03:25] You got troops to lead, you got stuff to do,
[02:03:27] like you don't have, and what really what I found is like,
[02:03:30] I didn't have the courage to turn them back on.
[02:03:34] I didn't have the courage to feel the things
[02:03:35] that I needed to feel to figure out
[02:03:36] what the hell was going on.
[02:03:38] And I basically told myself a lie that said,
[02:03:41] you're too busy, you're too busy,
[02:03:42] but really I was too scared to unpack that sea bag.
[02:03:44] And as I said, good way to be in combat,
[02:03:48] probably a bad way to live.
[02:03:50] Well, I think it's important to,
[02:03:52] a lot of times things are going on around us
[02:03:53] and we just don't know what they're happening.
[02:03:55] So like you pointing that out,
[02:03:57] it will help someone else go,
[02:03:59] oh, I know what's going on.
[02:04:00] Like I know my wife, I was on deployment,
[02:04:03] my wife sent me an email.
[02:04:05] This is before FaceTime and stuff like this,
[02:04:07] but she sent me an email and said,
[02:04:10] the kids wanna see a picture of where you sleep.
[02:04:13] Like, can you send a picture of where you sleep?
[02:04:15] And I said, yep, got it.
[02:04:17] And I remember I took a picture of,
[02:04:20] like my little wooden plywood cot thing.
[02:04:24] And I looked at it and I was like, oh, this isn't good.
[02:04:26] And I pulled out from some dug down in some backpack,
[02:04:32] grabbed some pictures of my wife and kids,
[02:04:34] hung them up around the bed, took a picture,
[02:04:38] took them back down, put them back in the folder
[02:04:41] and back in the rucksack because the last thing
[02:04:44] I needed to be doing was thinking about my wife and kids
[02:04:47] when I got guys that are, you know,
[02:04:49] counting on me to make decisions.
[02:04:53] And I think that that was like a physical representation
[02:04:58] that I knew what I was doing.
[02:05:00] And I think that when I got home, I kind of knew,
[02:05:02] okay, you can put these pictures back up now in your head.
[02:05:05] And I think a lot of times,
[02:05:07] like just you, the way you're describing that,
[02:05:09] other people will recognize that,
[02:05:14] oh, they took those pictures down.
[02:05:15] They put them in a folder, they're not looking at them.
[02:05:17] When you get done with that deployment,
[02:05:19] you can open that folder back up and it's gonna be okay.
[02:05:23] Important stuff to learn.
[02:05:27] At this point, you meet Zach for the first time.
[02:05:30] Seemed like you guys kicked it off pretty good,
[02:05:31] hit it off pretty good right out of the gate.
[02:05:33] Initially very transactional, he was a good interpreter.
[02:05:37] He knew his past due, he knew English.
[02:05:39] Up to that point, the only interpreters who were left
[02:05:43] either didn't speak English or didn't speak the local dialect.
[02:05:46] And so they knew they weren't gonna be able to get a job,
[02:05:47] so they hung around.
[02:05:48] And what I was finding is that every interpreter was quitting
[02:05:53] or they were such a liability under fire
[02:05:57] that we'd have bounded a couple hundred meters,
[02:06:00] like where's the term and we gotta go.
[02:06:03] And so we had had a rough, rough go with our interpreter.
[02:06:08] So yeah, he shows up, he's fit, he's healthy,
[02:06:10] he's not a coward and yeah, that's good.
[02:06:15] Meanwhile, you're pushing, going to the book here.
[02:06:18] In our first nine days of operations,
[02:06:20] First Platoon had killed 15 Taliban.
[02:06:22] We were fighting harder and killing more enemy
[02:06:24] than any unit in three five.
[02:06:26] By extension, that meant we were fighting
[02:06:27] and killing more than any unit in Afghanistan.
[02:06:31] I saw that as in keeping with my CO's direction
[02:06:33] as I understood it.
[02:06:35] But pushing that hard can create political
[02:06:37] and personal issues that people more removed
[02:06:40] from the sharp end of things can perceive
[02:06:43] as unnecessary risk.
[02:06:45] They may even be right, given the clarity
[02:06:47] that distance can offer.
[02:06:49] In my aggressive approach to the area of operations,
[02:06:52] I followed the rules of engagement,
[02:06:53] but I was not particularly attuned to political liability
[02:06:56] that increased the farther anyone got from PB fires.
[02:07:00] But I was consciously absorbing a lot of physical risk.
[02:07:04] It made me short of patience with people
[02:07:05] I saw as less engaged, which to be honest,
[02:07:08] was everyone who was in Afghanistan
[02:07:10] and not in First Platoon.
[02:07:12] When I got back to PB fires that day,
[02:07:14] the CO told me he was pulling First Platoon back
[02:07:16] to Fobb, increment over his concerns
[02:07:18] that I required closer supervision.
[02:07:22] We were moving, but thankfully,
[02:07:24] Zach was coming with us.
[02:07:26] We kind of addressed that,
[02:07:32] the fact that that little disconnect showed up
[02:07:36] between you and this is like,
[02:07:39] I mean, how many books can you read,
[02:07:41] movies can you watch about that disconnect
[02:07:44] between the remps, the rear echelon motherfuckers
[02:07:48] and the people on the front line?
[02:07:50] There's a lot of documentation about that.
[02:07:57] You just, you get back to Fobb, increment, like you said,
[02:08:01] and the ops continue.
[02:08:06] The ops are still going on.
[02:08:08] Back to the book.
[02:08:09] That command is a lonely, is a trite observation,
[02:08:13] but it is no less true for the countless times
[02:08:16] it's been observed.
[02:08:18] It should be paired with the fact
[02:08:19] that leadership hurts.
[02:08:20] Every time you discipline a Marine that you love,
[02:08:23] every time you watch them bleed,
[02:08:24] every time you watch them breathe their last, it hurts.
[02:08:29] I was 24 years old and living a reality
[02:08:31] that I now look back upon and wonder
[02:08:34] if some of it even truly happened.
[02:08:37] I want to deny that humans could be so callous
[02:08:40] as I became in the destruction of people put on this earth
[02:08:43] by the same God I was.
[02:08:45] I was convinced I would not survive Sengen,
[02:08:49] but I had realized that life is a gift
[02:08:52] and if I did survive, I had some growing up to do.
[02:08:56] I prayed to God and asked that if I did survive,
[02:08:59] he would help me live a grateful, meaningful life
[02:09:02] that would do honor to the people denied that chance.
[02:09:04] I was largely incapable of making any objective decisions
[02:09:08] myself beyond where to patrol next
[02:09:10] and how to fight through the next ambush,
[02:09:12] but I was ready to acknowledge I was not the man
[02:09:17] I professed to be.
[02:09:19] I called Andrea and told her I wanted to be a better man
[02:09:22] that I could only do that with her beside me.
[02:09:28] I apologized for mistreating the woman who loved me
[02:09:30] and begged her to take me back.
[02:09:32] She agreed.
[02:09:34] Though I still thought it unlikely I would ever live
[02:09:37] to see her again, the idea was something to live for.
[02:09:43] At some point that evening, the CO came in and told me
[02:09:47] that my friend and mentor, Lieutenant Robert Kelly,
[02:09:49] was dead, struck and killed instantly
[02:09:52] by an IED earlier that day.
[02:09:56] I rolled over and stared at the wall.
[02:09:59] I thought about Rob, Cam West, and me spending the last day
[02:10:03] before we deployed drinking beer at Del Mar
[02:10:05] with Robert and his family.
[02:10:10] The next day was the 245th birthday
[02:10:12] of the United States Marine Corps.
[02:10:15] First platoon killed four Taliban.
[02:10:18] It didn't bring anyone back.
[02:10:25] By Thanksgiving 2010, most of my closest friends in 3.5,
[02:10:29] Rob, Kelly, Cam West, Will Donnelly
[02:10:31] and Gunnery Sergeant Carlisle had been killed or wounded.
[02:10:36] Only Staff Sergeant Henley and Lieutenant Vic Garcia
[02:10:39] who replaced Cam at PB Fires with 3rd platoon remained.
[02:10:43] I only saw Vic in passing.
[02:10:45] Another IOC classmate, James Biler,
[02:10:48] had been horribly wounded, losing both his legs.
[02:10:53] The death or grievous injury of friends
[02:10:55] with whom I had been living, training and fighting
[02:10:57] for two years left me feeling dead inside.
[02:10:59] I was just waiting for my body to catch up.
[02:11:05] We'd arrived in Sengen in October 2010
[02:11:09] and settled into a life of brutal sameness.
[02:11:11] We patrolled through suffocating heat and penetrating cold,
[02:11:15] sometimes multiple hour long patrols in a day.
[02:11:18] We engaged the elders.
[02:11:20] We did post-blast analysis.
[02:11:21] We responded to ambushes.
[02:11:23] We called in medivacs.
[02:11:24] We called in air support.
[02:11:25] We zipped our friends into bags for a final ride home.
[02:11:31] They were men I loved because I knew them
[02:11:33] or I loved despite not knowing them for the simple fact
[02:11:36] that they had volunteered to serve as Marine infantry men
[02:11:39] in a time when that meant war.
[02:11:44] But it was harder and harder to feel that emotion
[02:11:46] as the toll of dead and wounded grew
[02:11:48] and I felt increasingly ground under the wheels of war.
[02:11:55] So this is the burden of command that you're talking about.
[02:12:09] And as you mentioned, it's a burden that leaders
[02:12:13] have to bear alone.
[02:12:20] And what's interesting and it's an interesting,
[02:12:22] I mean, this is what the book is about,
[02:12:25] is that you actually had an outlet for this.
[02:12:30] And that outlet ended up being your interpreter, Zach.
[02:12:38] He wasn't a Marine.
[02:12:40] He was, there was no mask to put on with Zach.
[02:12:49] How did that relationship grow and develop?
[02:12:52] Out of necessity for my sanity is kind of how it came to be.
[02:12:58] And this idea that war is both heaven and hell
[02:13:04] and that each day you're experiencing
[02:13:08] the worst depravity that you can imagine.
[02:13:11] But then you're seeing no greater love
[02:13:15] that has a man who laid down his life for his friends.
[02:13:17] You're seeing the greatest forms of love manifested
[02:13:22] where someone willingly lays down their life for their friend.
[02:13:25] And so you get these little glimpses of heaven and hell.
[02:13:29] And through that, you start to grow and mature.
[02:13:33] And General Madness kind of talks about it.
[02:13:36] He got his PhD in combat, that you learn so much about life
[02:13:42] in five minutes in a firefight that maybe could take
[02:13:45] five years outside of it.
[02:13:46] And so I'm refining my character.
[02:13:50] I'm growing up finally.
[02:13:52] I was a little boy.
[02:13:53] And I went to the combat a little boy.
[02:13:55] And I finally start to say, it's time for you to be a man.
[02:13:58] And none of this is guaranteed.
[02:14:01] And if you do make it, what are you going to do differently?
[02:14:05] Because what you profess is not congruent with your actions.
[02:14:09] And so first time I get the sat phone,
[02:14:12] I call Andrew a little cry and a little sad.
[02:14:15] I know I broke up with you.
[02:14:16] Please forgive me.
[02:14:17] Take me back.
[02:14:21] And then you kind of hinted at this idea
[02:14:27] that as the junior officer, you are the dam.
[02:14:31] You're between two rushing tides, higher, and then
[02:14:37] your troops and your subordinates.
[02:14:39] And so you are in the middle of this.
[02:14:42] And so you're trying to keep all the crap from rolling down
[02:14:46] hill on them.
[02:14:47] But at the same time, you've got all this stuff bubbling up,
[02:14:49] because you've got a bunch of 18-year-old kids that
[02:14:51] got stuff going on in the lives that are losing their own friends.
[02:14:53] And it's all valid.
[02:14:54] It's all valid.
[02:14:55] It's almost all valid, I should say.
[02:14:57] And it's you who's the mediator of all this pressure
[02:15:02] from higher and the bubbling up from your sport.
[02:15:05] Plus you've got some stuff going on in your own life.
[02:15:07] You're trying to get back with your girlfriend,
[02:15:09] your best friends, getting killed or injured.
[02:15:11] And so you've got your own.
[02:15:13] And you've got to be this person, this intermediary
[02:15:18] in between all that.
[02:15:20] And the pressure, you just keep absorbing pressure,
[02:15:24] because you don't want to pass it to your troops.
[02:15:26] And you can't pass it to hire.
[02:15:29] And so an outlet was critical.
[02:15:33] And because you can't.
[02:15:36] Like my platoon sergeant had been through enough.
[02:15:37] Like I couldn't.
[02:15:39] He was dealing with all the same crap.
[02:15:41] And so I didn't want to put anything else on his plate.
[02:15:43] And there's really only one person who I could vent to.
[02:15:48] And that was Zach.
[02:15:50] And yeah, it really helped me maintain my sanity.
[02:15:57] So this book, again, I'm reading less than 10%.
[02:16:05] I'm reading 4% of this book.
[02:16:07] You have a ton of experiences here
[02:16:10] that you talk about.
[02:16:11] I'm trying to get some of the high points.
[02:16:13] You develop this awesome relationship with Zach,
[02:16:16] who's a good listener.
[02:16:17] And who you can talk to about what's going on.
[02:16:22] Fast forward a little bit.
[02:16:24] Actually, fast forward quite a bit.
[02:16:25] This is a seven month deployment.
[02:16:28] Yes.
[02:16:29] So it's a seven month deployment.
[02:16:30] I think we covered maybe one or two operations.
[02:16:34] I'm going to go all the way forward to,
[02:16:38] I think it was your last stop, or certainly
[02:16:40] one of your last stops.
[02:16:41] This is a turnover operation, which is always
[02:16:47] sketchy anyways, because you've got a bunch of people that
[02:16:49] are coming in.
[02:16:50] They have their ideas.
[02:16:51] You have your ideas.
[02:16:52] And if they're not open to your ideas,
[02:16:54] it's going to be a lot harder.
[02:16:58] There's an area outside the wire that's called the golf course.
[02:17:05] And when you guys go on patrol, you
[02:17:07] stay away from the golf course because it's filled with IDs.
[02:17:10] You guys go out on patrol.
[02:17:11] When you leave to go out on patrol,
[02:17:12] you guys are going through the village
[02:17:14] where there's a bunch of Afghans running around.
[02:17:16] So you can't put a bunch of pressure plate IEDs.
[02:17:18] So it's a lot less IEDs.
[02:17:22] New Lieutenant.
[02:17:23] So on this op, is it mostly your guys,
[02:17:26] or is it mostly his guys?
[02:17:27] No, it's the last of the left seat, right seat.
[02:17:29] So it's just me and two sergeants and all his guys.
[02:17:32] And it's all his guys.
[02:17:34] He wants to go out and patrol through the golf course.
[02:17:37] You strongly recommend that that's not a great idea.
[02:17:43] He decides that it is a good idea and he's going to go out.
[02:17:49] Going to take the patrol out through the golf course.
[02:17:54] Guy hits a low order IED out of the gate.
[02:17:57] What happens then?
[02:17:59] So Sergeant Nykirk was one of my two other Marines
[02:18:04] that were on that patrol.
[02:18:06] I see him go up in the yellow smoke.
[02:18:08] And I think, son of a bitch.
[02:18:10] And when I get up to him, he's standing
[02:18:14] on top of a 105 shell with a yellow jug underneath it.
[02:18:18] And the yellow jug just as barely cracked open.
[02:18:21] And we're only 100 meters outside the patrol base
[02:18:25] at this point.
[02:18:25] So we call EOD to come from the company position.
[02:18:28] They come out and they say, 105 shell on a 40-pound jug
[02:18:31] would have killed a couple people in front,
[02:18:33] a couple people in back.
[02:18:35] Nykirk, you would be in little pieces.
[02:18:39] And they said, this is actually a tripwire IED.
[02:18:42] This is the first time we've seen this in this AO.
[02:18:44] We've never seen this little fish line that you kick.
[02:18:48] And it was two little branches.
[02:18:51] And you kick the little fish wire.
[02:18:53] You can't see it.
[02:18:53] And that's what closed the circuit rather than a pressure
[02:18:55] plate.
[02:18:59] And so they reduce the IED.
[02:19:02] Nykirk has HME, the homemade explosives, all over his face.
[02:19:06] He's been doused in it.
[02:19:08] He's jittery.
[02:19:10] Can I go back with EOD back to the CP?
[02:19:13] And I'm like, yeah, go ahead.
[02:19:15] And Decker, my third squad leader,
[02:19:17] turns to me and says, can I go back with them too?
[02:19:19] Because these guys, they're going to get us killed.
[02:19:22] And I just had a son on this deployment.
[02:19:24] And I haven't met my son yet.
[02:19:26] He named his son Maximum Danger Decker, by the way.
[02:19:29] And the kind of guy he is, he's still in.
[02:19:33] One of my heroes.
[02:19:34] And I'm like, hey, Decker, if stuff goes sideways out here,
[02:19:38] I need at least one other person I know that I can rely on.
[02:19:41] Like, sorry, you got to stay.
[02:19:46] And he's not happy about it, but Roger.
[02:19:48] And you still couldn't convince the new lieutenant, like, hey,
[02:19:52] bro, remember when I said this was a bad idea?
[02:19:54] We just got the absolute luckiest thing we could have ever
[02:19:59] hoped for.
[02:19:59] Yeah.
[02:20:00] Let's backtrack and try this again tomorrow.
[02:20:03] Correct.
[02:20:04] Couldn't talk him off, crossing the field.
[02:20:06] But what I was able to do is convince him that, hey,
[02:20:08] send the engineer who's already on the far side
[02:20:11] to sweep back through the field, because he's clearly
[02:20:14] missed at least one IED that should have had a pretty big
[02:20:18] signature coming off a 105 shell.
[02:20:20] So he's going to re-sweep if we're going to push through
[02:20:23] this field.
[02:20:23] And as that guy starts to sweep back, goes up.
[02:20:28] And immediately, huge ambush.
[02:20:32] I mean, just firing from everywhere.
[02:20:35] And this is this unit's first time in contact.
[02:20:38] So they're just heads down, just not looking where they're
[02:20:41] firing, just blossom, shooting everywhere.
[02:20:45] And there's only one Marine who's standing up, running
[02:20:48] into the field to go get the guy who got this blown up.
[02:20:50] And it's Sergeant Decker, the guy who just said a few minutes
[02:20:54] before, hey, sir, can I go back?
[02:20:55] Because I've never met my son.
[02:20:57] I'm like, OK, well, now he's going to be dead.
[02:20:59] And the last thing I'm going to live with forever
[02:21:01] is that this kid will never meet his dad.
[02:21:06] And so I'm able to flag him down.
[02:21:08] I'm like, you're not going to go.
[02:21:10] I'm going to go.
[02:21:12] But just getting across the canal towards the field,
[02:21:15] I mean, the canal looked like it was like a hellstorm,
[02:21:17] with just the bullets ripping through the water,
[02:21:20] hitting all the sides of the dirt.
[02:21:22] And so just it was, and so I'm running along the line.
[02:21:26] I'm like, where's the corpsman?
[02:21:27] Where's the corpsman?
[02:21:28] Where's the corpsman?
[02:21:29] Finally, one little hand goes up.
[02:21:31] I'm like, grabbed by the troop staff.
[02:21:32] I'm like, you're following me.
[02:21:33] I'm like, Decker, you call in the medivac.
[02:21:35] I'll go out there and get this guy.
[02:21:38] And I'm the only guy standing up.
[02:21:41] And so the machine gun, the P-CAM,
[02:21:44] is just following me through this field.
[02:21:46] And as I enter into this field, I'm like, 105 shell
[02:21:52] on top of a 40-pound jug.
[02:21:54] The kids told us that they said they saw them at least put
[02:21:57] 15 to 20 IDs in this field.
[02:22:01] We were on a big op.
[02:22:02] We had just left a skeleton security.
[02:22:05] And this place was in low ground.
[02:22:08] We couldn't see it.
[02:22:09] And so the tailband puts at least 15 to 20 IDs in there.
[02:22:12] We've been in this field for five minutes.
[02:22:14] It hit two of them.
[02:22:16] So I'm going in this field thinking, best case scenario,
[02:22:20] no legs, ML COA, most likely course of action here.
[02:22:24] You are dead.
[02:22:25] And then a lot of pieces.
[02:22:26] People are picking you up with a vacuum.
[02:22:31] And I'm also like, the P-CAM is just
[02:22:33] following me the whole way through.
[02:22:35] I'm a tall guy with a big head.
[02:22:36] They're just like, yeah, that's an easy target.
[02:22:38] Shoot that thing.
[02:22:39] And every time I put my foot down, I'm like, mother fucker.
[02:22:45] And we get to the casualty, start the treatment
[02:22:49] on the casualty.
[02:22:51] He's got it lowered or deaded again, but it heaved him up
[02:22:56] and slammed him down.
[02:22:57] And his head of compound fascia, his arm bone
[02:23:00] was sticking through.
[02:23:01] And so I'm like, OK, that's good.
[02:23:02] That's not a big deal.
[02:23:03] Doc, you got that.
[02:23:05] And I've been carrying them M32 for a couple weeks.
[02:23:08] And it's a six shooter grenade launcher.
[02:23:10] It's like a revolver that shoots grenades.
[02:23:12] And I'm like, yeah.
[02:23:14] Get some.
[02:23:14] And so I got to pop some nugs.
[02:23:18] Six-piece nugs.
[02:23:18] Nope, 12-piece nugs.
[02:23:19] Well, how many nugs do you need before you quiet down?
[02:23:22] And I'm able to get these guys to break contact.
[02:23:30] But now I'm thinking, OK, now I got to walk back with this guy.
[02:23:33] Because when I'm running out, I'm
[02:23:35] thinking I'm going to get shot.
[02:23:36] I'm thinking I got to go help this Marine.
[02:23:38] Oh, I don't even know this Marine.
[02:23:40] He's from the different unit, but he's a Marine,
[02:23:41] so it doesn't matter.
[02:23:42] At that point, I am thinking with every step,
[02:23:45] like little pucker factor for sure.
[02:23:47] But there's a lot compelling me forward, like not getting shot
[02:23:51] and trying to get to this guy.
[02:23:52] And now I'm like, OK, well, now we got to walk back.
[02:23:55] And this is the engineer.
[02:23:57] So he's the guy that sweeps the ground.
[02:23:59] And so, yeah, it was a tail bend did not treat me nice.
[02:24:06] I'm a way out, that's for sure.
[02:24:09] You get back.
[02:24:10] You get the wounded guy back to the line.
[02:24:12] You look at the lieutenant, and you say this patrol's over.
[02:24:16] At which point he admits, I guess I should have listened
[02:24:19] to you about the route.
[02:24:21] It's just a thing about combat.
[02:24:23] It's so unique is that everybody can live the same experience,
[02:24:29] but have a different version of it.
[02:24:31] And so this guy is a super talented guy, way smarter than me.
[02:24:36] He did great stuff with that platoon.
[02:24:37] So I have nothing but great stuff to say about him.
[02:24:40] He remembers it some of these details differently.
[02:24:43] So I will put that out there.
[02:24:46] I remember this clear as day to me, from my perspective,
[02:24:50] is this how it happened.
[02:24:51] But yeah, we agreed, patrol's over.
[02:24:56] He said, yeah, that was maybe going through the golf course
[02:24:58] wasn't the right call.
[02:24:59] I said, yeah, I think so.
[02:25:00] And when I smoked my first cigarette.
[02:25:02] Did you talk to him while you were writing this?
[02:25:06] I posted something about it one day.
[02:25:09] Again, not inditing him, not calling him out,
[02:25:12] but just talking about talking through this patrol.
[02:25:16] And he had sent me the message.
[02:25:17] He's like, well, here's how I saw that all unfold.
[02:25:22] And again, there's no animosity.
[02:25:24] There's a ton of mutual respect.
[02:25:26] Nobody knows, well, besides Vic Garcia,
[02:25:30] I think who was the my adjacent platoon commander out there
[02:25:33] out there in the northern green zone.
[02:25:34] Nobody else can empathize with what
[02:25:39] we were doing on the edge of the empire
[02:25:41] and the most kinetic area of operations
[02:25:43] more than this guy.
[02:25:44] So there's a lot of mutual respect.
[02:25:46] But yeah, we had our difference of opinion there.
[02:25:50] You smoked your first cigarette after this operation.
[02:25:53] Yeah.
[02:25:56] You said.
[02:25:57] And that's it, right, for this deployment.
[02:26:01] You leave Zach.
[02:26:04] You talk about the fact.
[02:26:05] You talk about what that's like when
[02:26:09] you're leaving Zach basically on the tarmac.
[02:26:11] You had this great relationship with him.
[02:26:14] He ends up getting a job, another translating job.
[02:26:17] He ends up leaving that AO as well.
[02:26:19] But we'll get into some of that.
[02:26:22] But it's you at this juncture returning home.
[02:26:27] I'm going to go to the book.
[02:26:30] On April 20, 2011, I landed back on US soil.
[02:26:35] I was 25 years old.
[02:26:37] Had had just lived a lifetime on fast forward.
[02:26:40] My body was battered.
[02:26:42] And my brain was traumatized by multiple blasts,
[02:26:45] the type of injuries sustained by so many of us
[02:26:48] in the post-911 wars.
[02:26:51] But I also came home from Sangen, exhausted,
[02:26:53] embittered, angry, and unsure how to express any of it.
[02:26:58] There was no way to physically represent the moral injuries
[02:27:01] I had sustained.
[02:27:02] And I did not know a way to talk about them,
[02:27:06] though they were evident to anyone who knew me.
[02:27:08] I was still angry at what I had felt had been
[02:27:12] Kilo Company headquarters punishing me for aggressively
[02:27:15] implementing orders I was given.
[02:27:17] I was depressed by the death and injury of my friends.
[02:27:21] I was physically rung out from seven months of insomnia,
[02:27:25] long daily movements under load, and the accumulated stress
[02:27:29] of leading young men in a place where someone
[02:27:31] was trying to kill all of us every day.
[02:27:35] Strangely, like an addict having withdrawals,
[02:27:40] I still missed the almost daily combat
[02:27:42] for the first four months of our deployment.
[02:27:46] Worse yet, just as an IED does invisible damage to Marines,
[02:27:50] as its shockwave passes through their soft internal organs,
[02:27:54] people in my orbit were suffering from my injuries.
[02:27:58] In the week before we got back, my mom
[02:28:00] was counting the hours through sleepless nights
[02:28:03] at work or inability to stop crying
[02:28:05] in a bathroom.
[02:28:06] Stahl got her sent home for the day to recover.
[02:28:10] When she met me in Southern California on return,
[02:28:16] she tried to talk to me about how I was feeling.
[02:28:19] I didn't want to talk about it.
[02:28:21] My desire not to talk never really
[02:28:23] mattered where my mom is concerned, especially
[02:28:25] after she took it upon herself to read my journal from Sangen.
[02:28:30] I was angry at the violation of my privacy.
[02:28:32] Thomas, I can't understand what happened over there
[02:28:35] because you won't talk about it.
[02:28:37] Mom, I'm fine.
[02:28:39] Then please make eye contact with me when I'm talking to you.
[02:28:42] Would you just let it go?
[02:28:44] Thomas, you're my son and my best friend.
[02:28:46] You have been since you were born.
[02:28:49] It's like you're not there anymore.
[02:28:50] You're just this angry person and I'm on eggshells.
[02:28:53] I'm not letting anything go.
[02:28:56] What do you want to say to me, mom?
[02:28:58] I said, I'm fine.
[02:29:03] So doing just fine, huh?
[02:29:09] You weren't exactly fine.
[02:29:11] A lot of stuff going on in the head.
[02:29:15] Yeah, undoubtedly, there are tons of benefits
[02:29:20] of those experiences.
[02:29:22] At that time, still a little bit raw.
[02:29:25] I think ultimately we get to post-traumatic growth.
[02:29:30] But before you can get to post-traumatic growth,
[02:29:33] you've got to get to gratitude and you've
[02:29:35] got to find a way to be thankful for that adversity,
[02:29:39] thankful for that hardship.
[02:29:40] You've got to get to your good.
[02:29:42] And initially, when those tough things happen,
[02:29:49] you don't say, oh, I'm so happy that this tough thing happened.
[02:29:54] Whether it's a car accident or cancer,
[02:29:55] you don't say, I'm so happy.
[02:29:57] But the thing happened.
[02:30:00] And so at some point, you can either
[02:30:03] continue to be a victim of that thing
[02:30:05] or you can take your agency back and say good.
[02:30:09] And when you do that, you can say,
[02:30:12] I am thankful for the things that I've
[02:30:14] learned from having this experience.
[02:30:17] And that's why I know many amputees and lots of,
[02:30:20] and this is the cycle.
[02:30:23] Initially, bitter, angry.
[02:30:26] But even the double amputee, triple amputee,
[02:30:29] these guys I know, they'll finally get to a place
[02:30:31] where they say, I wouldn't trade that experience
[02:30:35] because of the things that I've learned and been and fitted
[02:30:37] from and the man that I am today because of that.
[02:30:40] And so you get to gratitude and then you finally
[02:30:43] can get to that growth.
[02:30:44] But undoubtedly, in this moment, I'm still very hurt
[02:30:49] and offended.
[02:30:51] I don't know, offended.
[02:30:52] Again, there was felt like some betrayal, do this thing.
[02:30:57] But then I'd come back in and be like, why are your hands
[02:31:01] bloody?
[02:31:02] Why you got a lot?
[02:31:05] You kind of seems pretty messy out there.
[02:31:08] Yeah, you go out there and tell everybody,
[02:31:11] we go kill these guys, go do this thing.
[02:31:13] And then when the generals come, we're like, hey,
[02:31:15] sledgehammer kills everybody.
[02:31:18] And then you call me in and say, oh,
[02:31:20] well, are you sure that guy had a gun?
[02:31:24] Yes, what are you implying, sir?
[02:31:27] And so it's just carrying too much weight already
[02:31:33] to have, did not feel like your chain of command
[02:31:37] has your back.
[02:31:39] And there were times within the company
[02:31:42] where I felt extremely betrayed.
[02:31:44] And so yeah, I think I was dealing with that.
[02:31:51] Ultimately, though, I think I was
[02:31:54] thankful to have porcelain toilets, California
[02:32:00] burritos, pretty girlfriend.
[02:32:03] San Clemente doesn't suck.
[02:32:05] So a lot of things to be thankful for at that time as well,
[02:32:09] but still trying to figure some things out
[02:32:12] and maybe not doing it that well.
[02:32:18] What was your enlistment status at this point?
[02:32:21] Like, where were you at?
[02:32:22] Did you come back thinking maybe you'll get out?
[02:32:26] Did you come back thinking I'm definitely staying in?
[02:32:28] No, I thought I was going to get out.
[02:32:30] I mean, I didn't have this lifelong desire to serve.
[02:32:36] I didn't grow up as a kid thinking, oh,
[02:32:38] I want to be a soldier someday.
[02:32:39] And I never thought, oh, I want to be a general or a colonel
[02:32:45] or any of this kind of stuff.
[02:32:47] I thought I should do something.
[02:32:49] And then I thought I should be a Marine.
[02:32:51] I thought I should be an infantry Marine.
[02:32:52] And then once I finally figured out, yes,
[02:32:54] I should be an infantry Marine, I thought I should fight.
[02:32:57] And I did that.
[02:32:58] And I got to lead the best men in this nation.
[02:33:01] And so I had met my career goals.
[02:33:04] And then with the amount of crap that I had experienced,
[02:33:07] I said, maybe I'm out.
[02:33:10] And so there's this thing called career designation
[02:33:12] that you're offered as a lieutenant.
[02:33:13] And you've got to accept it.
[02:33:14] And I was not going to designate because I was really
[02:33:19] disenchanted or just disappointed with some
[02:33:24] of that company leadership.
[02:33:25] And so I was going to get out.
[02:33:27] I was serving as an Exo and an adjacent company.
[02:33:31] So from this.
[02:33:31] Is this when you went to Lima Company?
[02:33:33] Yeah.
[02:33:34] You know the frustration that you're talking about,
[02:33:36] with the leadership, right?
[02:33:38] How did you work through that?
[02:33:42] During the deployment, not well.
[02:33:46] I mean, between my company, Gunny,
[02:33:49] who ended up getting medivac'd and Zach,
[02:33:51] I would say there were times where I was on the verge
[02:33:54] of a nervous breakdown.
[02:33:56] It was never the Taliban.
[02:33:58] It was like, I've been training to shoot silhouettes of men
[02:34:03] for years.
[02:34:04] And now I'm shooting.
[02:34:06] And so I am only happy when a Taliban is dead.
[02:34:11] That is no problem.
[02:34:13] And I also am not personally offended that the Taliban is
[02:34:17] shooting at me.
[02:34:17] I know that that's what the Taliban does.
[02:34:19] They shoot at us.
[02:34:20] And so I've been training for that.
[02:34:25] Contact front, contact left.
[02:34:26] I'm training to be shot at.
[02:34:29] And then Marines get wounded.
[02:34:32] Well, why do we have the tourniquets on?
[02:34:34] Why do we do tourniquet drills?
[02:34:35] Why are we doing all these combat lifesaver?
[02:34:37] And it's all these things you expect.
[02:34:41] And if you're paying attention and taking your training
[02:34:43] seriously, you expect that there will be casualties,
[02:34:46] that you will have to kill people, that you will see.
[02:34:48] And so all of that was OK.
[02:34:50] And when you go outside the wire, you're in the yellow.
[02:34:53] You're alert.
[02:34:55] You're scanning your baseline.
[02:34:56] You're waiting for that.
[02:34:57] And so when you're in the yellow and you're alert,
[02:34:59] you can respond to things fluidly, adaptively.
[02:35:03] But you leave the wire at condition one.
[02:35:05] You leave the wire in full PP, flat, gavelar,
[02:35:08] because you know you're going into a hostile environment.
[02:35:11] When you come back inside the wire, condition four,
[02:35:15] take your flak off, because now you're
[02:35:17] within friendly lines.
[02:35:20] And when you get ambushed within friendly lines,
[02:35:24] that's where you're vulnerable.
[02:35:25] And that's when you can really get hurt.
[02:35:27] And those moral injuries, I think, often
[02:35:30] not last the pain associated with physical injuries.
[02:35:36] And so what I did when I got back to the States
[02:35:40] is I just ran.
[02:35:42] I ran and ran and ran.
[02:35:44] And those fire breaks outside Camp Pellenton,
[02:35:47] every morning I would just go run for as long as I could,
[02:35:51] for as far as I could.
[02:35:53] And then I would just pour myself into my work,
[02:35:56] as I was dealing with things.
[02:36:01] How did you come to the conclusion that you would stay in?
[02:36:05] I had a new boss.
[02:36:06] And the new Lima Company commander came in.
[02:36:10] He's my current boss.
[02:36:12] And he was everything I'd hoped for.
[02:36:16] He was IOC instructors, had such high standards.
[02:36:20] And they were so challenging.
[02:36:21] They were so good.
[02:36:23] And I was like, man, a Marine captain, that's something.
[02:36:26] That is a Marine captain.
[02:36:28] That is really something.
[02:36:29] And then I found myself disappointed throughout my work
[02:36:34] up and deployment and disillusioned.
[02:36:37] And then this, and so I'm thinking I'm out.
[02:36:41] I'll go back to Chicago, going to be a fireman,
[02:36:44] took the fireman test.
[02:36:46] Then this guy came in.
[02:36:49] And we want to be Marines because we
[02:36:51] want to do hard shit.
[02:36:52] We want to be challenged.
[02:36:54] I wanted to be a Marine because they had higher standards.
[02:36:56] I looked at them and thought it's high standards.
[02:36:58] That's what I want.
[02:36:59] And this guy came in and he emulated all those high
[02:37:02] standards.
[02:37:02] And every day, I had to be at the top of my game.
[02:37:05] Every day, I had to get better.
[02:37:07] And that's all I want.
[02:37:09] A leader who emulated what he espoused,
[02:37:14] a leader who was accountable and who held me accountable.
[02:37:18] As a lieutenant, I had very little oversight, which
[02:37:23] in some ways was awesome.
[02:37:24] Because I just got to go running gun all the time out
[02:37:27] and doing my thing.
[02:37:28] But I needed somebody to mentor me.
[02:37:29] I needed someone to hold me more accountable.
[02:37:31] I needed someone to develop me and coach me and teach me.
[02:37:35] And he did those things.
[02:37:36] And I said, OK, well, I want to do this, what he's doing
[02:37:42] for somebody someday.
[02:37:42] And so I said, I'm going to stay in.
[02:37:44] But as we grinded towards the Mew,
[02:37:49] I saw a flyer at the gym that said,
[02:37:51] do you have what it takes, come try out for recon.
[02:37:55] And I said, yeah, maybe this XO staff life isn't for me.
[02:37:58] I'm going to try to go fight again with some troops.
[02:38:01] Yeah, I guess no matter what industry you're in,
[02:38:07] whether you're in the Marine Corps, Army, IBM,
[02:38:14] you name the company, you're going
[02:38:16] to have some good bosses.
[02:38:17] You're going to have some bad bosses.
[02:38:19] And a lot of it has to do with what I was talking about
[02:38:22] earlier, like if you're not doing your best
[02:38:24] to understand the perspective of the person above you
[02:38:27] and the chain of command, it's going to be hard.
[02:38:30] And here's the thing.
[02:38:31] There's at least a 50% chance that they're not
[02:38:34] trying to understand your perspective at all.
[02:38:36] There's a 50% chance that they just
[02:38:38] think you should just be conforming to what I'm telling
[02:38:41] you and complying with what I tell you.
[02:38:44] There's a 50% chance you got a boss like that.
[02:38:46] And in that case, you can sit there and be mad like,
[02:38:50] why don't they understand?
[02:38:51] Or you can say, OK, I got to work with this.
[02:38:53] I got to make sure I do my best to make them understand.
[02:38:57] I got to paint a better picture.
[02:38:59] I've got to do a better job.
[02:39:01] And again, it goes back to that gives you
[02:39:03] some kind of agency over your life to think, OK,
[02:39:08] my boss is an egomaniac.
[02:39:10] My boss has a bad temper.
[02:39:11] My boss doesn't understand my perspective.
[02:39:15] My boss is looking to get promoted,
[02:39:17] and that's the main thing he's felt.
[02:39:19] Like all those things, all those horrible things.
[02:39:21] And we all work for people like that.
[02:39:23] And you go, OK, cool.
[02:39:24] That's what my boss is like.
[02:39:25] All right, here's what I'm going to do.
[02:39:26] Here's how I'm going to build a relationship with my boss.
[02:39:28] Here's how I'm going to build trust with my boss,
[02:39:30] regardless of what their situation is.
[02:39:32] So I'm just saying, I like the fact
[02:39:35] that you were able to get to a point where you say, OK,
[02:39:39] there's good bosses.
[02:39:40] There's bad bosses out there.
[02:39:42] Of course, everybody.
[02:39:43] Try and be a good boss.
[02:39:45] Try and support the people in the field.
[02:39:46] That's 100% it.
[02:39:48] But when you're a subordinate and your boss is maybe not
[02:39:52] quite what you dreamed of, good challenge.
[02:39:55] Build a good relationship with them.
[02:39:57] And things are going to get better.
[02:40:00] That's the way it works.
[02:40:03] In the meantime, you get married, right?
[02:40:06] You make that decision.
[02:40:08] You finally say, all right, I'm going to do this.
[02:40:11] Is that before you screened for recon?
[02:40:14] It was before I screened.
[02:40:15] It was right when I got back.
[02:40:16] Right when you got back?
[02:40:17] You closed the deal.
[02:40:18] Court wedding.
[02:40:19] Yeah.
[02:40:20] She put up with me dumping her right before I left.
[02:40:23] And then all my sad phone calls, and I never get the sad phone.
[02:40:25] I said, you better go do the right thing.
[02:40:28] And so I did a court wedding a couple of weeks
[02:40:30] after I got back.
[02:40:32] And then you go to recon.
[02:40:33] And you got some cool, you had an interesting day
[02:40:36] of getting selected for recon, which was actually
[02:40:40] a pretty cool story.
[02:40:41] We won't go into it now.
[02:40:42] People can read the book for that one.
[02:40:44] But you end up getting selected for recon.
[02:40:47] But do I have this right?
[02:40:49] Instead of going to reconnaissance school,
[02:40:52] they have recon on deployment or going on deployment quickly.
[02:40:55] And they say, hey, you're not going to recon school.
[02:40:57] You're going to go be an advisor.
[02:40:59] So the battalion was deployed.
[02:41:01] So when I showed up, the battalion was deployed.
[02:41:03] I'm the one guy back, a couple guys back.
[02:41:06] And I was supposed to go to school.
[02:41:08] And then it's called an IA, and an individual augment
[02:41:11] came down.
[02:41:11] And they said, hey, we need one dude
[02:41:14] to go advise the Afghan on how to be recon.
[02:41:18] You're all we got.
[02:41:19] Even though you haven't been to school,
[02:41:21] you're going to go advise these guys how to be.
[02:41:23] And so I joined an advisor team that
[02:41:25] was mostly guys, senior officers who
[02:41:28] were going to advise a brigade level, so like staff stuff.
[02:41:33] And me and a recon staff sergeant
[02:41:36] were going to go out and advise the Afghan recon company.
[02:41:41] So you've been back home for how long at this point?
[02:41:44] I was home probably for about five or six months
[02:41:47] when I got the word that I was going
[02:41:50] to get the individual augment.
[02:41:52] And then July 2012, you go back to Afghanistan.
[02:41:56] You're out at patrol base Long Beach.
[02:41:58] What was that setup like?
[02:42:00] It was an old artillery firing position.
[02:42:01] It was just a triangle, tiny, tiny little firing base
[02:42:05] outside of Marja.
[02:42:07] And it was July.
[02:42:09] And the human factors, like the human factors
[02:42:13] of the first deployment was the losing the guys
[02:42:16] and the fighting and the grinding every day.
[02:42:18] This was, I mean, not that I had any amenities really
[02:42:22] on that first deployment, but this deployment,
[02:42:24] I mean, it was a cot, a camionette, a pallet of water,
[02:42:27] and a pallet of MREs.
[02:42:28] And that's it.
[02:42:29] And I was living with the ANA.
[02:42:32] Right downwind from the shitter.
[02:42:34] It was like the plagues of Moses coming through that place,
[02:42:38] like bugs coming through and waves blocking out the sun.
[02:42:42] I mean, it was hard, hard living out there in July.
[02:42:48] And then, yeah, I'm going out, I'm fighting with the ANA
[02:42:50] and then I'm a JTAC.
[02:42:52] So I'm like a freelance JTAC.
[02:42:54] So anybody who needs the guy for an op, they're calling me
[02:42:58] and I'm getting to go on some pretty cool ops.
[02:43:00] How many ANA are you out there with?
[02:43:02] About 50.
[02:43:04] So it's you, how many American advisors?
[02:43:07] The one other Staff Sergeant counterpart
[02:43:09] and then we'd pull like four or five grunts
[02:43:11] from the AEO who would kind of help stand security.
[02:43:17] So it was very lonely.
[02:43:18] So this is a totally different kind of deployment.
[02:43:20] Again, the disparity of different types of deployment
[02:43:23] you can go on is insane.
[02:43:24] For you to be out in the middle of nowhere now
[02:43:27] with a bunch of freaking Afghans.
[02:43:30] God.
[02:43:34] Did you, so was your mission just to train these guys up?
[02:43:37] Yeah, train the Afghan and partner, advise, assist
[02:43:41] and then go out with them on operations.
[02:43:44] And yeah, it was, but I mean, at this point
[02:43:46] those guys have been trained for a really long time.
[02:43:48] So I mean, really I'm just kind of talking to their leadership
[02:43:53] and then going out on operations with them.
[02:43:55] What's the op-temple like?
[02:43:56] How often are you guys going out?
[02:43:57] We're going out every day,
[02:43:59] but it's not reconnaissance type missions.
[02:44:01] It's like they're just basically better infantrymen
[02:44:03] than your average Afghan soldier.
[02:44:05] And so, but we really patrolled from like two a.m. to six a.m.
[02:44:10] because by, you know, when the sun came up
[02:44:13] it was over a hundred degrees.
[02:44:14] And so for the first couple of months
[02:44:15] it was just real early morning patrols,
[02:44:18] not too kinetic with those guys.
[02:44:21] But again, a company going out would say,
[02:44:24] oh, we can have a JTAC just jump on this op.
[02:44:27] And so when I was jumping on these ops
[02:44:29] with the different Marine companies
[02:44:30] we were getting it really getting into it.
[02:44:33] Freelance JTAC in Afghanistan.
[02:44:36] What'd you take away from a leadership perspective
[02:44:38] on this deployment?
[02:44:40] Leadership is lonely, which I've kind of already knew,
[02:44:44] but it was particularly lonely when it's, you know,
[02:44:48] couple of Lance Corporals
[02:44:50] are the only other Americans around.
[02:44:52] And so you could only talk about the things
[02:44:56] that Lance Corporals talk about for so long.
[02:44:59] And so that was really a lot of time to think by myself.
[02:45:09] One of the things that I'm advising these guys
[02:45:11] and one of them turns me and says,
[02:45:14] well, you know when you leave is the Taliban
[02:45:16] is just gonna take Afghanistan back anyways.
[02:45:19] And I'm like, what are you talking about?
[02:45:21] You got a whole army.
[02:45:22] You got 10 years of training.
[02:45:24] You got millions and I was like,
[02:45:28] I want Afghanistan more than you want Afghanistan.
[02:45:33] And it was a really important lesson for me
[02:45:35] that you can't want something more for someone
[02:45:37] than they want it for themselves.
[02:45:39] And that applies to many different areas of life.
[02:45:43] And so that was kind of hard to accept.
[02:45:47] And I found that I am happiest when I'm under fire.
[02:45:55] And like when you have a purpose
[02:46:00] and that is being a warrior or combat leader
[02:46:04] and you're good at that thing,
[02:46:07] there is nothing more rewarding or satisfying
[02:46:10] than when you get to,
[02:46:11] and so got right back in the game
[02:46:14] and right back in my first firefight,
[02:46:16] I'm like, okay, here's what I don't do.
[02:46:18] Like you're gonna do this, you're gonna do that.
[02:46:20] And so, and then I was an enabler.
[02:46:24] And that was a weird role for me
[02:46:27] because I used to be in a commander.
[02:46:29] And so when I'm the JTAC,
[02:46:31] I don't have command of anybody.
[02:46:34] I'm just there to support a commander.
[02:46:36] And so it's tough because you see like,
[02:46:39] here's what we need should be doing,
[02:46:42] but like that's not your role.
[02:46:43] So like staying in my role as an enabler
[02:46:47] was different for me.
[02:46:49] And so I got to appreciate maybe that role a little bit.
[02:46:56] You get orders, go back to Pendleton.
[02:46:59] It's now March, 2013.
[02:47:03] When you get home, it's safe to say at this juncture,
[02:47:07] your work-life balance was not in balance at all.
[02:47:12] No, I just only did Marine stuff.
[02:47:15] Andrea at this point, she had moved back to Chicago.
[02:47:19] Yeah.
[02:47:22] One of your buddies pulls you aside and is like,
[02:47:27] do you want the Marine Corps or do you want marriage?
[02:47:29] Like which one of these two things did you want?
[02:47:31] Because they're mutually exclusive.
[02:47:33] Like it doesn't sound like you'd be able to do both.
[02:47:37] You decide marriage.
[02:47:40] That's the thing you're gonna work towards.
[02:47:41] And you tell your wife, I'll get out of the Marine Corps.
[02:47:44] We can go home, we'll figure it out.
[02:47:48] She says, nope, not it.
[02:47:51] I still don't wanna be with you.
[02:47:55] So this is a rough, this is rough.
[02:47:57] Eventually you get her to come back.
[02:48:01] She comes back out, back out here.
[02:48:03] Yep.
[02:48:07] Doesn't end up being, once again,
[02:48:10] still not where it needs to be with her.
[02:48:14] And you eventually find out that she'd been unfaithful to you
[02:48:20] while you were on deployment.
[02:48:23] With one of your fellow Marines.
[02:48:26] With a Marine that live with you.
[02:48:31] I'm not sure.
[02:48:40] How do you get through that?
[02:48:43] So I talk about ambushes, that life is full of ambushes.
[02:48:47] And sometimes combat veterans will try to say like,
[02:48:53] oh well, I was in an ambush with bullets and bombs.
[02:48:57] And so you can, and I'll tell you that my worst ambush
[02:49:01] was that was my worst ambush in my life.
[02:49:06] So I try not to establish higher,
[02:49:09] like everyone's trying to compete
[02:49:10] and who had the worst or who,
[02:49:12] and so combat veterans think that we have this,
[02:49:15] or veterans in general think that we have this special kind of,
[02:49:19] people should feel bad for us because we did this.
[02:49:21] First off, I volunteered for those things.
[02:49:24] I wanted those things.
[02:49:25] I sought those things.
[02:49:26] No one made me do that.
[02:49:27] I was trained and prepared for those things.
[02:49:31] I wasn't trained or prepared for that.
[02:49:39] And that was a moral injury that took a long time,
[02:49:47] and maybe still presently one that you heal from.
[02:49:51] And much of my motivation in life is a response not to repeat
[02:50:00] the same mistakes that I experienced when I was growing up.
[02:50:03] And one of those was divorce.
[02:50:05] And so I thought, no matter what,
[02:50:07] I'm not gonna get divorced.
[02:50:08] But at that point, I thought, yeah, this is over, and I wanted to make it very clear that ultimately,
[02:50:18] that those actions from my wife are not representative of who she is as a woman,
[02:50:25] and that she has been the greatest blessing of my life outside of my savior.
[02:50:31] And so I wouldn't be here today without her.
[02:50:35] I wouldn't be here without her.
[02:50:37] I wouldn't be here without her.
[02:50:39] I wouldn't be here without her.
[02:50:41] I wouldn't be here without her.
[02:50:43] I wouldn't be here without her.
[02:50:45] I wouldn't be here today without her, but I was hurt.
[02:50:50] I was angry.
[02:50:53] I lost my mind a little bit.
[02:50:55] I went crazy.
[02:50:59] Not like crazy yelling or screaming,
[02:51:02] but just kind of went on a bender of doing unhealthy shit for a long time.
[02:51:12] But through it all, I dated and did whatever, but they're always inside me.
[02:51:23] I was so happily married, and I was so much looking forward to starting a family.
[02:51:29] And there was no one else that I wanted to be the mother of my children.
[02:51:32] There was no one else that I wanted to grow old with.
[02:51:35] There was no one else I wanted to do life with more than her.
[02:51:38] And so even though I met some great people on the way and had a lot of fun along the way,
[02:51:44] at the end of the day, I'd always come back to thinking about her.
[02:51:47] And so I kept trying to stuff other stuff into that.
[02:51:53] And then finally I said, maybe you stop trying to force.
[02:52:00] And so she had been so forgiving with me and so graceful with me and so merciful with me.
[02:52:06] I have gone wayward many, many times.
[02:52:10] And yeah, I'd finally call there and I said, yeah, let's try this again.
[02:52:20] Which was probably the best decision I ever made because now I've got the most beautiful,
[02:52:25] loyal, devoted wife and most phenomenal mother to my three children.
[02:52:29] And so I messed a lot of things up in life.
[02:52:32] I think doing a re-attack on that was, it leads to some really interesting conversations
[02:52:39] at IPEC.
[02:52:43] When you go to the S1 or the admin and they're doing your S1 audit, they say, do you ever
[02:52:46] get divorced?
[02:52:47] And I'm like, yes.
[02:52:48] And they're like, OK, who's like, who do you divorce?
[02:52:50] And then like, are you remarried?
[02:52:52] I'm like, yes.
[02:52:53] And they're like, OK, who's in it?
[02:52:54] And there's all this-
[02:52:55] Copy and paste.
[02:52:56] There's Lance Corporal's like, oh my god, just keep pushing Lance Corporal.
[02:53:01] Keep pushing.
[02:53:02] Yeah, no, I mean, again, I'm only reading a small part of this book and you give a lot
[02:53:08] more background on the whole situation on, you take ownership, a lot of your behavior.
[02:53:15] And I think that's, you can kind of, as I read the story, I was like, yeah, well, that's
[02:53:20] to be, you can see it.
[02:53:23] And then even the reconciliation, you can see it as it's being put together that you
[02:53:29] had to square your shit away.
[02:53:33] And that's what was able to allow this to happen.
[02:53:38] But again, I think it's just like, man, I mean, the SEAL team has like a 90% divorce rate.
[02:53:44] It's insane because of all this stuff.
[02:53:47] You're gone.
[02:53:48] You're, it's just mayhem.
[02:53:49] I don't know what it is in the military at large, but it's really freaking hard on relationships.
[02:53:55] Really freaking hard on relationships.
[02:53:57] So I think it's just the way that you spell this stuff out.
[02:54:01] You talk about it is really important.
[02:54:03] It's going to help a lot of people when they're going through this kind of thing.
[02:54:07] So appreciate you putting it in there.
[02:54:12] 2014, winner, you're assigned to the School of Infantry.
[02:54:18] You're going to, you become the director of combat instructor school.
[02:54:22] So what does that exactly mean?
[02:54:25] So the School of Infantry is where all the privates come after they go to boot camp.
[02:54:29] And so if you're going to be a non-infantry Marine, you go to a course called MCT where
[02:54:34] you get like six weeks of basic infantry stuff or four weeks of basic.
[02:54:37] And then if you're going to be an infantry, you get three months of your basic, your rifleman,
[02:54:42] machine gunner, mortarman.
[02:54:44] And so, and then from there, you go out to your unit.
[02:54:47] And so that the combat instructors are the ones that receive those privates and PFCs and
[02:54:53] train them in their craft.
[02:54:56] It's also where we have all the advanced infantry schools.
[02:54:58] So if you come back as a squad leader to go to the advanced squad leader, advanced machine
[02:55:01] gunner, the combat instructors are the ones bringing the squad leaders in and teaching
[02:55:06] them the advanced tactics.
[02:55:07] And so, but before you can be an instructor there, you've got to go through a course,
[02:55:14] combat instructor school, and then you go out and you train the privates or you train
[02:55:17] the sergeants.
[02:55:18] So I was the director of that school, which was just a phenomenal position working with
[02:55:25] the highest caliber sergeants and staff sergeants in the entire Marine Corps.
[02:55:29] And it was really, really refreshing and good for my soul to be around 20 to 25 dudes who
[02:55:36] are at the top of their game every day and just doing grunt and shit.
[02:55:40] It was a great time.
[02:55:42] And were you teaching as well?
[02:55:43] I did a little bit of the platform instruction, but I was more like the principal.
[02:55:48] And mine, I had combat instructors who taught combat instructor school.
[02:55:52] And so, you know, hike with them, go out on the range.
[02:55:55] Oh, I see the range.
[02:55:56] Do a little class here and there.
[02:55:58] But generally, my instructors did the bulk of the teaching.
[02:56:02] I always feel like you learn so much when you're an instructor role.
[02:56:06] And I was very, very, very lucky to have been in that role quite a few times.
[02:56:10] I was an E five, man.
[02:56:11] I was an E five teaching immediate action drills.
[02:56:14] And you've learned so much, man.
[02:56:16] You're detached.
[02:56:17] You're watching it happen.
[02:56:18] You see that officer that's looking down his gun instead of looking around you.
[02:56:22] Like, Hey, what are you doing?
[02:56:23] And by the time you're in that by the time I was out in position, like, it was frigging
[02:56:26] awesome to have been through that from a detached perspective because you're watching it over
[02:56:31] and over again.
[02:56:33] So you're doing that.
[02:56:35] Meanwhile, Zack is carrying on, by the way.
[02:56:38] And again, I'm, I'm, Zack's not here.
[02:56:40] We're, we're, we're not reading much of his story, but he's, he got married.
[02:56:46] He married a woman named D. Wa.
[02:56:47] Is that right?
[02:56:48] D. Wa.
[02:56:49] They're having kids.
[02:56:54] He graduates from a school.
[02:56:57] Of course, the Taliban still gained in power.
[02:57:01] And that's not good for him.
[02:57:02] Not good for his family.
[02:57:04] 2016, they're, they're receiving nightletters, which are just straight up death threats from
[02:57:10] the Taliban, Taliban to kill him, to hurt his family, kill his family, anyone that helped
[02:57:16] America.
[02:57:17] A nightmare for him.
[02:57:20] He decides to apply for the special immigrant visa program.
[02:57:26] That's a long process, still not even complete for him to this day.
[02:57:30] So he gets poisoned at some point, loses his pancreas.
[02:57:37] So he gets poisoned.
[02:57:38] He's, you know, his guts hurting.
[02:57:39] He goes to the doctor.
[02:57:40] The doctor's like, Hey, they're, they're poisoning people.
[02:57:42] The Taliban's poisoning people lose it.
[02:57:45] Like I said, loses his pancreas.
[02:57:46] I mean, it's just horrible.
[02:57:49] Uh, meanwhile, still no, still no real progress in, um, in his SIV, you know, to get his visa
[02:58:00] to get over here.
[02:58:01] Meanwhile, you are going through your career.
[02:58:05] You take command of Lima company, third battalion, fourth Marines.
[02:58:09] Um, lucky Lima.
[02:58:11] So now you're kind of back in the game, back to leading troops.
[02:58:15] You're going to go on a deployment with the whole deployment plan for Australia.
[02:58:22] Yes.
[02:58:23] Damn.
[02:58:24] I never, I, when I was in the military, man, uh, the, the guys talked about Australia
[02:58:31] as if it is like the promised land heaven.
[02:58:34] And I never went there until I retired.
[02:58:37] And it is, it's, it's frigging amazing.
[02:58:40] Um, there's a place called Nusa.
[02:58:43] Have you ever heard of this?
[02:58:44] I was there.
[02:58:45] Yeah.
[02:58:46] There's not too many places in the world I would move to like tomorrow afternoon, but
[02:58:50] that's a one of them.
[02:58:52] The freaking waves there, they got like the most incredible waves.
[02:58:57] There's a place in California called Malibu.
[02:58:59] I'm sure you've heard of it.
[02:59:01] There's like 10 Malibu's in a row, like all just different little spots and you can walk,
[02:59:07] walk down.
[02:59:08] You ever been to, uh, the San Diego zoo, the one right here in downtown?
[02:59:11] Yep.
[02:59:12] And it's all like, uh, all really manicured these nice paths and it just looks like this
[02:59:18] is like the most like, like Jurassic Park scenario.
[02:59:21] You walk around this thing at Nusa is like that.
[02:59:24] It's like you're on this Jurassic Park, a beautiful nice little trail and then you're
[02:59:27] just watching these beautiful, beautiful waves.
[02:59:30] Um, so you're going to Australia, uh, your company commander.
[02:59:34] How, how was that?
[02:59:36] How was that?
[02:59:37] How are you like being in command again?
[02:59:38] Yeah.
[02:59:39] When I was at the school of infantry, I, there was one regiment, seventh Marine regiment,
[02:59:43] which is out in 29 palms and they were the only ones doing the specialist magtaf.
[02:59:47] So they were going to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria.
[02:59:50] And so I contact the monitor and I say, Hey, I want to volunteer to be a company commander.
[02:59:53] Cause I know it's my time's coming up.
[02:59:55] I want to go out to seven Marines.
[02:59:57] Not a lot of people volunteered to go to 29 palms.
[03:00:00] And so within like 30 seconds, he writes me back.
[03:00:02] It's like, you got it.
[03:00:03] And this in the monitor is like a person who's always impossible to get a hold of, you know,
[03:00:06] you're writing.
[03:00:07] And this, this incident instantaneous, you got, you want to turn up home?
[03:00:11] No problem.
[03:00:12] You got it, man.
[03:00:13] Uh, I'm like, cool.
[03:00:14] He's like, you're going to go to three, four.
[03:00:15] I'm like, okay, cool.
[03:00:16] Uh, and then I find out that they're not even a bit, they had deactivated because of force
[03:00:23] cut structure.
[03:00:24] And then they had reactivated.
[03:00:25] So there, there's only an H and S company of three, four right now.
[03:00:28] And I'm like, okay.
[03:00:30] And by the way, they're going to Australia.
[03:00:32] And so I call, I call him on her back and say, Hey, I said, I want to go to 29 palms.
[03:00:36] I go on one of the deployments to Iraq.
[03:00:39] And he's like, uh, you said 29 palms, you got 29 palms.
[03:00:42] Got to go.
[03:00:43] And, uh, so I was initially a little but hurt.
[03:00:47] Uh, but ultimately yeah, Australia doesn't suck.
[03:00:51] Uh, there are worse places to be deployed.
[03:00:54] And so had a good time there.
[03:00:56] Um, company command was awesome.
[03:00:58] I mean, company command was awesome.
[03:01:01] It's just 150.
[03:01:03] Savage aggressive out in 29 palms, just attacking, shooting shit, blowing shit up.
[03:01:09] And, uh, great Lieutenant.
[03:01:11] It's great.
[03:01:12] Petunia Sargent's great squad leaders.
[03:01:13] I mean, just an aggressive company, aggressive workup.
[03:01:16] Uh, it's, it's an infantryman's Disneyland out there.
[03:01:20] You know, and so it's every day you get to go do great infantry training.
[03:01:23] And so, uh, workup was a blast.
[03:01:25] It was a great team.
[03:01:26] I was very, very fortunate to have the team that I had.
[03:01:29] And then, uh, yeah, we had a good time in Australia.
[03:01:32] Any major leadership lessons learned there?
[03:01:35] A whole lot.
[03:01:36] Um, for sure.
[03:01:37] I think I become very obsessive in how I approach training and command.
[03:01:47] And it's because at a very young age, I gained a great appreciation for the consequence of
[03:01:55] this profession.
[03:01:56] Uh, that there, that it's not called duty.
[03:01:59] There is no responding, uh, and that when these kids are dead, they're dead forever.
[03:02:05] And that the whole that is left is felt for eternity.
[03:02:12] And, uh, and having had that shape me at, so that's how I, I approach everything that
[03:02:19] I do is like, I will not stop until I know that these Marines are as lethal as possible.
[03:02:26] And then I had the best opportunity to come back to their moms, you know, and their wives
[03:02:29] and their children.
[03:02:31] And so push, push, push.
[03:02:35] And um, also I'm very competitive.
[03:02:37] And so like I want to be the best, but to know what to be the best company I want.
[03:02:41] And so when with, with that in mind, you know, we were the main effort company.
[03:02:46] Uh, we got, uh, during all the big exercises and then on deployment, we got to go to Queensland
[03:02:51] and I got to become part of a, uh, Australian battalions that my boss and where the rest
[03:02:57] of everybody stayed back in Darwin and so it's like staying in Indiana or being in Malibu,
[03:03:01] you know, so it's like, uh, you want to get it.
[03:03:04] And so, uh, it Queensland is much nicer and, and I was a senior Marine in Queensland.
[03:03:10] Uh, so a lot of this like was pretty good.
[03:03:14] Um, but I didn't have all that came at a cost where I drove my Marine so hard that, uh,
[03:03:25] I burned them out, uh, pissed them off.
[03:03:29] Um, and I could have had a more harmonious approach to leadership and I look at you either,
[03:03:38] you're either, I'm either looking at you professionally or personal as a person, but not both at
[03:03:44] the same time.
[03:03:45] And so if you come into my office and you, you could be anybody and say, Hey, sir, this
[03:03:49] my mom got breast cancer.
[03:03:51] Okay.
[03:03:52] Whatever I can do to support you right now, how can I help you?
[03:03:54] Like you have my undivided attention.
[03:03:56] I care about you.
[03:03:57] How, so I will still treat you very much like, like you're my son.
[03:04:02] And, uh, but outside of that, I'm just, I, I'm ruthless.
[03:04:08] Like I don't want you to be sorry.
[03:04:10] I just want you to be better.
[03:04:11] I don't want your excuses.
[03:04:12] I just want your results.
[03:04:14] Uh, the solution is generally just work harder and be more aggressive.
[03:04:18] And so I drove, you know, redlined the comp and that's a long workup, a long deployment.
[03:04:25] And by the end of it, um, I'd really wore out a lot of those Marines.
[03:04:32] And I think I, I think I could have had a more harmonious approach to, to leadership
[03:04:37] and try to at least keep them humans and Marines kind of a little bit at the same time.
[03:04:45] But, uh, so, you know, if I have an opportunity to be a battalion commander, I think I'm going
[03:04:49] to try to be more mindful of, of that.
[03:04:52] Yeah.
[03:04:53] It's definitely something that you, you, uh, a lot of these great leaders or allegedly
[03:05:01] great leaders or even myth, mythological leaders that we have in the military, you,
[03:05:07] you, you, you see, that's the, that's the thing that shines through about a lot of them.
[03:05:12] Um, that you don't see on the surface.
[03:05:13] But when you read about them or you read their books, like Chesty, puller, like, oh, this
[03:05:17] is just the ultimate hard ass.
[03:05:18] But when you read about him and how he treated the troops and how much he cared about them,
[03:05:23] um, you know, Hackworth the same way, like the, like the hardest dudes you could ever
[03:05:27] imagine and yet they would completely, um, know when they were pushing too hard, pull
[03:05:33] back the reins, protect their guys from stupid shit.
[03:05:37] And like, that's why these guys were so totally beloved by, by their troops because they,
[03:05:43] the troops want to get pushed hard, but they don't want to do dumb shit and they know,
[03:05:47] and they're, and they're humans and they need to get treated that way.
[03:05:50] So that's, uh, definitely some great advice for anybody that's in a leadership position
[03:05:54] in any scenario.
[03:05:55] Um, yeah, you want to push hard.
[03:05:57] Yeah.
[03:05:58] You want to win.
[03:05:59] Yeah.
[03:06:00] You want to do better than everybody else.
[03:06:01] And one of the ways to get the most out of your people is to treat them like people.
[03:06:05] Um, you come back from that deployment.
[03:06:10] Is that when you get re, you actually get remarried is after that deployment.
[03:06:13] Yes.
[03:06:14] So you get remarried.
[03:06:16] Um, all's looking good.
[03:06:19] You are now driving across country, get your next set of orders.
[03:06:24] I'm going to, I'm going to go to the book here.
[03:06:26] Um, you're driving across country.
[03:06:30] Now I had a lot to think about.
[03:06:32] I'd been to war twice.
[03:06:35] I had married divorced and was about to remarry the same woman.
[03:06:39] I had commanded a company of Marines and the Marine Corps had seen fit to select me for
[03:06:43] a promotion to major.
[03:06:45] I was now a career Marine on my way to spend three years molding future Navy and Marine
[03:06:51] officers.
[03:06:52] This is when you're heading to the Naval Academy via some schooling.
[03:06:57] As I crossed our nation, I visited the graves of nine dark horse Marines where and when
[03:07:05] I could, I visited their families.
[03:07:09] They were still living, breathing men to me.
[03:07:13] They certainly were to their families.
[03:07:17] As I began to turn my thoughts to training and educating future officers, I felt it critical
[03:07:22] to visit and reflect in the presence of some of the men who had made me who I am.
[03:07:30] Corporal Tevin Nguyen.
[03:07:33] Sergeant Jason Pedo.
[03:07:35] Pito Sergeant Jason Pito.
[03:07:41] Lance Corporal Alec Catherwood.
[03:07:45] First Lieutenant Robert Kelly.
[03:07:48] First Lieutenant William Donnelly, the fourth Corporal Derek Wyatt.
[03:07:57] Lance Corporal Arden Ben Agua.
[03:08:01] First Sergeant Christopher Carlisle.
[03:08:05] And Sergeant Matthew Abbate.
[03:08:10] All but Sergeant Pito and first Sergeant Carlisle died in Sangen.
[03:08:16] Sergeant Pito made it back to Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland before he died.
[03:08:22] First Sergeant Carlisle survived his wounds the day that the day Zach and I watched from
[03:08:28] a distance, then got promoted, retired, and was killed in a motorcycle accident.
[03:08:34] I owed him much of my sanity while in Sangen.
[03:08:39] I needed to tell him that.
[03:08:43] Matt Abbate was the heart and soul of 3-5.
[03:08:47] A recipient of the Navy Cross, the second highest award for valor presented by our nation,
[03:08:53] his death and combat stunned every Marine in the battalion.
[03:08:57] He was a scout sniper who spent much of his time in support of Kilo Company.
[03:09:03] He was the one, the one of whom Heraclitus spoke, the one who will bring the others back.
[03:09:13] No one was cooler than Abbate.
[03:09:17] No one cared more than Abbate.
[03:09:21] He was the author of the gunfighting commandments posted on the wall at PB Fires and now inscribed
[03:09:28] on the back of his grave marker.
[03:09:31] Quote, Thou shalt never leave the wire without bandana containing at least four inches of
[03:09:38] slack.
[03:09:40] In any situation thou shalt blaze.
[03:09:45] Nothing matters more than thy brethren to thy left and right.
[03:09:52] Thou shalt protect no matter what.
[03:09:56] When going out in a hail of gunfire, thou shalt pop them nugs until the body runs dry of blood.
[03:10:05] And look hella sick.
[03:10:19] I found a newspaper article about Abbate.
[03:10:22] It said, Sergeant James Finney 25 served with Abbate in Sangin.
[03:10:28] When he heard of his friend's death, he had the same reaction as many of the Marines in
[03:10:32] the battalion.
[03:10:35] How do we win this war without him?
[03:10:51] As you're driving across country, as you're stopping by gravestones, as you're talking
[03:10:59] to families, how is your perspective changing?
[03:11:09] These goals of our families are incredible.
[03:11:16] And the loss for them is as present today as it was the day they lost their son.
[03:11:25] And the pain doesn't go away.
[03:11:33] And we have a collective duty and responsibility to carry their son's legacy forward and to
[03:11:42] do everything that we can to honor their sacrifice.
[03:11:47] I have a personal responsibility to honor these men and how I live.
[03:11:54] And a responsibility to the families.
[03:11:58] And so, you know, Tevin Nguyen was killed December 28th.
[03:12:04] His son, he'd been there for the birth of his son right before he deployed.
[03:12:09] And that was it.
[03:12:12] And so going to see little Tevin Jr.
[03:12:16] Part of Benagua, his first generation American, both his parents' immigrants, was killed when
[03:12:25] he was 19.
[03:12:28] He was the, of that engineer squad attached to Kila Company, he was the 12th Marine that
[03:12:34] was injured or killed.
[03:12:38] And I got to tell this family, like, your son is my hero and your son is the reason
[03:12:46] I'm alive.
[03:12:48] And that everybody in his position before him, who was walking point through minefield,
[03:12:53] either died or lost or limb, and your son, when he was 18 years old, still grabbed his
[03:12:57] pack, grabbed his rifle and a metal detector and walked out in front of us.
[03:13:01] Never once turning to me at 18 years old and saying, sir, can somebody else take this responsibility?
[03:13:08] My son is his namesake.
[03:13:13] And the idea that these men knew the consequences ahead of time and win anyways.
[03:13:19] And then if you told them how the story ends, every single one of them would be right where
[03:13:23] they were fighting next to their brothers.
[03:13:29] Manabate, when he got his Navy Cross, the squad leader got shot and one Marine goes
[03:13:35] to help the squad leader, he gets blown up.
[03:13:36] The corpsman goes to help the Marine that gets blown up, he gets blown up.
[03:13:38] The next Marine goes to help the corpsman, he gets blown up.
[03:13:41] Finally, everyone recognized we're in the middle of a minefield and every time somebody
[03:13:44] moves, they're killed.
[03:13:47] So people stop moving.
[03:13:49] It's a normal thing to do.
[03:13:52] Everybody but one Marine.
[03:13:54] And he runs and he treats all the casualties.
[03:13:56] He coordinates the medivac.
[03:13:58] He grabs the metal detector, sweeps to LZ, doesn't not train to do that, just proofs the minefield
[03:14:03] with his feet, repels the enemy, calls in that helicopter.
[03:14:08] And so when I talk to these families, it's so heavy but it's so important.
[03:14:24] And I just thank God that men like this lived and that I had, and just for a moment I got
[03:14:33] to know them.
[03:14:35] And not only did these men die well but they lived well.
[03:14:42] And they're meant to celebrate.
[03:14:46] And it is my lifelong duty to continue to honor these men, every opportunity I get.
[03:14:55] That's it.
[03:14:57] I know I eventually told Mark Lee's mom a story about Mark, very similar to what you're
[03:15:06] talking about.
[03:15:07] So I would start off by telling her that in Vietnam, like the point men would rotate because
[03:15:14] your walking point, you're going to get ambushed.
[03:15:16] You're going to get blown up.
[03:15:17] You're going to hit a trip wire and they would rotate those guys.
[03:15:21] And in Ramada, you'd be in the lead vehicle.
[03:15:25] You're the one that's going to get blown up.
[03:15:26] You're the one that's going to get hit in the ID.
[03:15:29] And especially being the gunner, no one now you're not any armor and you're just totally,
[03:15:37] you're exposed.
[03:15:39] And we'd line up the vehicles and Mark Lee, you know, he's a new guy.
[03:15:44] And so guess what he is?
[03:15:46] Turret gunner in vehicle one.
[03:15:49] Night after night.
[03:15:50] And when you leave the gate at Ramada, when you drive towards the gate to go out into
[03:15:56] the town, there was a vehicle graveyard and there's like 75 or 100 vehicles out there
[03:16:05] and they're just twisted and gnarled.
[03:16:08] They've all been dragged back and every one of those vehicles represents one, two, three,
[03:16:15] four, five casualties, wounded, killed, you know, just, just heinous.
[03:16:20] And that's what I don't know who the, I don't know who the hell decided that was a good
[03:16:24] place for the vehicle graveyard, but it was a shitty place for the vehicle graveyard because
[03:16:28] that's what you saw.
[03:16:30] And same thing with Mark, man, never asked for somebody else to take his spot.
[03:16:51] Some heroic dudes for sure and did it with a smile on his face.
[03:16:57] I go, how you feeling?
[03:16:58] Hey, Mark, what's up, man?
[03:16:59] How you feeling?
[03:17:00] And like his favorite response, he liked to gamble a little bit.
[03:17:04] He said, I'm feeling lucky, sir.
[03:17:09] So that's the guys we get to work with.
[03:17:13] Now this, you're taking all this with you to be a professor at the Naval Academy, which
[03:17:25] is a pretty, I mean, you've got all this awesome combat experience.
[03:17:30] I know, awesome might not be the right word, but you've got this real experience and you're
[03:17:35] going to take that back now to the Naval Academy.
[03:17:40] How did you, how did you end up getting that bill?
[03:17:43] How did that bill end up coming about?
[03:17:44] Yeah, I think it was a mistake.
[03:17:47] I was deployed to Australia and I said, you know, when's the last time you read any fiction?
[03:17:54] All you do is read biographies and you used to be in high school, you were smart.
[03:18:00] You'd like to do AP literature.
[03:18:01] You let your kind of, as you pointed out, nerdy.
[03:18:05] And then you progressively got dumber through college and maybe try to read a book that
[03:18:10] isn't just a, and so I Googled popular works of fiction and the first one that came up
[03:18:20] was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
[03:18:22] I read that and I said, oh, I like this.
[03:18:25] And a message came out and we said, we need someone to teach English at the Naval Academy.
[03:18:31] I know anything about the Naval Academy and not an Academy guy.
[03:18:34] I'm not an English major.
[03:18:36] I failed English.
[03:18:38] And I said, well, maybe that's me.
[03:18:41] Sounds like a good pick.
[03:18:43] And so I'm a guy that, you know, shoot your shot and put my hand in the ring and, yeah,
[03:18:50] clearly the Marine Corps needs to refine that selection process, but they picked me.
[03:18:57] And before I knew it, I was at Georgetown in an MA, English MA program, get in my ass
[03:19:05] kicked.
[03:19:08] That qualified to be in that program.
[03:19:11] I should have been in the T-Ball League and I showed up at the All-Star game.
[03:19:15] How long was that course of instruction?
[03:19:17] So it was supposed to be a two-year program.
[03:19:18] The Marine Corps likes to keep the morning tight.
[03:19:20] So 12 months.
[03:19:21] So I did a two-year program in one month, or 12 months.
[03:19:25] So yeah, working on a compressed timeline, been in the fleet at that point for 10, 11
[03:19:32] years.
[03:19:33] And so just got thrown in the deep end of the pool, didn't know how to swim.
[03:19:40] But it was an incredible experience.
[03:19:42] It was an experience I really needed because I very much was just a hammer.
[03:19:47] And that's all I knew.
[03:19:49] And I had no other tools in life and studying literature and writing.
[03:19:54] And it really helped me work out a lot of things that I had not unpacked yet.
[03:20:02] And so I knew I was going to be outside of my comfort zone.
[03:20:06] I didn't know quite how out of my comfort zone I was, but I was outside of it.
[03:20:11] And from orientation to when we're going around the table where I think you just tell people
[03:20:16] what's your name is, like I'm Tom Fromschka, like no.
[03:20:19] From orientation I was already out of my depth through conclusion.
[03:20:23] But I had some great friends that I met there that helped me and I had some great professors.
[03:20:27] And so yeah, then a year later I show up and I start teaching English.
[03:20:32] And how was it when you showed up at the Naval Academy?
[03:20:35] Had you ever even been to the Naval Academy before?
[03:20:37] No, I couldn't even told you where the Naval Academy was when I applied for that position.
[03:20:42] Just I just thought, what I thought is like they're going to pay me to go read books and
[03:20:46] I got to write a little book report on it.
[03:20:48] Like that's what I thought like an English program would be.
[03:20:53] And then we're having these discussions in class and I'm like, what the hell are these
[03:20:56] words?
[03:20:57] They're supposed to be English and we're using all these words.
[03:20:58] I have no idea what I was talking about.
[03:21:00] Like we're doing this close reading and literary analysis and all this kind of stuff.
[03:21:06] But yeah, I got up to Annapolis.
[03:21:07] It's beautiful.
[03:21:09] And it was an awesome, awesome job.
[03:21:12] These midshipmen were hungry.
[03:21:13] They're good, good Americans.
[03:21:16] And I got to pick my favorite books and then talk to them about my favorite books, you
[03:21:21] know?
[03:21:22] I was doing Fields of Fire and Mad Horn and Gates Fire and Starship Troopers and so.
[03:21:28] That course was not offered when I was an English major.
[03:21:31] I didn't get to do any of those books, unfortunately.
[03:21:33] And so yeah, teaching these midshipmen poetry and composition and but I was teaching a little
[03:21:41] bit about literature.
[03:21:42] I was teaching a little bit about composition.
[03:21:45] I was teaching a lot about leadership in the classroom and it was a super rewarding tour
[03:21:51] and really, really enjoyed my time there.
[03:21:55] Now one thing that you talk about in the book is as you start as you start teaching Justin
[03:22:01] Justin McLeod, who's one of your Marines dies of an overdose.
[03:22:07] And in the same month, two of your other Marines.
[03:22:15] Die by suicide.
[03:22:18] You at this juncture ask for and get counseling, professional counseling.
[03:22:29] What did that consist of and how did it help you?
[03:22:34] So McLeod wasn't my first Marine that I lost to the war after it, but McLeod was tough
[03:22:41] in a lot of ways.
[03:22:44] I still have a hard time coming out of the yellow, getting into the white and being vulnerable.
[03:22:51] When I would sing my daughter to bed and she was one years old at the time, I'd always
[03:22:55] try to just be real present and vulnerable with her and sing this little light of mine
[03:23:00] with her.
[03:23:01] And then I'd just finish that and then I'd come to my room and one of my Marines from
[03:23:04] saying it says, hey, you got to call me.
[03:23:08] And McLeod, he had shown up to 35 in 2008, he had gone on the Iraq deployment, he had
[03:23:16] gone on the Mew deployment.
[03:23:18] And so he'd done our work up, but then he was going to EAS.
[03:23:22] He said, you know, I thought I was going to extend by just had a son.
[03:23:25] I'm going to EAS.
[03:23:26] And I said, you know, you're my best shot.
[03:23:29] You're my best nav guy.
[03:23:30] Like, I know you just had a son, but we really need you.
[03:23:36] So do whatever you need to do.
[03:23:39] If you want to EAS, EAS, if you, but I hope you extend.
[03:23:42] And he comes back and says, you know, sir, you're my family too.
[03:23:46] Few months later, the engineer steps on the pressure plate.
[03:23:51] The McLeod is over the charge and they both get hit and I'm about like five people back.
[03:24:00] And as I come up, as I come up, one of my Marines hands me McLeod's fingers and I look
[03:24:14] at McLeod, he's missing his arm and his legs and like, it was Teague and I said, thanks
[03:24:23] Teague.
[03:24:25] And now I'm in this like weird position.
[03:24:26] I had these body parts with a body part that doesn't exist anymore.
[03:24:30] I put him in my cargo pocket and my engineer is going into shock.
[03:24:37] So I, all I have is my frog top.
[03:24:39] So I take my, take my blouse off.
[03:24:41] I wrap him in my blouse and I've got nothing on under my flat jacket and I go back to McLeod
[03:24:45] and initially he's like real calm and cool.
[03:24:49] He's smoking a cigarette saying like kill these mothers, you know, whatever.
[03:24:54] And, but we're having a really hard time landing the Medevac bird and there's probably
[03:24:59] five or six guys all working on them.
[03:25:02] When you've got an amputee, it takes a couple dudes to patch up, you know, each thing.
[03:25:06] And so what I would always do is the first thing is I would take a junior Marine off
[03:25:09] and once I had security set, once I had the Medevac in motion, I would take that junior
[03:25:14] Marine off so that they can hold security and I get my hands in that Marine's guts.
[03:25:17] And so, but it was dusk and they were having a hard time telling the laser or smoke.
[03:25:24] They couldn't, they couldn't see where to land.
[03:25:26] And so, and then every time they'd come in, the zone would get hot and Taliban would start
[03:25:30] shooting at them.
[03:25:31] And so they keep waving off and McLeod starts to succumb to his wounds.
[03:25:38] And I, like I said, IOC and the Marine Corps training is, is just so it's phenomenal.
[03:25:47] It prepares you to do the things technically and tactically.
[03:25:52] But there's nothing that can prepare you to have a conversation with a guy who you convince
[03:25:57] to extend, who said, I'm going to get out because I want to teach my son to play baseball
[03:26:03] because McLeod had high school scholarship or college scholarship to go play baseball,
[03:26:06] but he enlisted and said, and I'm saying, Hey, you got to stay here for Desmond because
[03:26:11] someday you're going to teach him how to play catch and you get and, and knowing that what
[03:26:19] is he going to be able to do?
[03:26:21] You know, he's got no arm, no legs.
[03:26:26] And he starts a flat line.
[03:26:28] And I just like everything in me wants to cry for this Marine, but everybody's, you know,
[03:26:36] as a leader, like you said, everybody is looking at you, how you're going to respond to this
[03:26:40] thing.
[03:26:41] And, and, and I got to keep trying to talk to this guy about finding that will to live
[03:26:44] again for his son.
[03:26:47] And very, and the will to live is a powerful thing and he stays and he, and, and, but he,
[03:26:54] he never stopped fighting that battle in 10 years later, saying and claimed him.
[03:27:00] And, and so, that's what got me on the road to PB about they, but it also, I was still
[03:27:15] very destructive in my tendencies, in my thoughts, in my actions and in my family was the casualties.
[03:27:26] And so I was still fighting the war myself in a lot of ways and being selfish and being
[03:27:32] harmful.
[03:27:34] And my family was the one suffering.
[03:27:38] And you know, I thought, I just push, push, push.
[03:27:46] That's how I deal with everything you push.
[03:27:48] And but you got to look at this as we know how if you are, if we do a really good job
[03:27:57] of teaching or Marines and sailors how to treat casualties physically, if you're, if
[03:28:02] you're routine, we know it's self-aid.
[03:28:04] If you're a priority, it's buddy aid.
[03:28:06] If you're urgent, it's got to get to higher echelon of care.
[03:28:10] And so if you've got us a sucking chest wound, we say we got to get you to the dock.
[03:28:16] We don't say just, Hey, you got a second chest wound.
[03:28:19] You probably just patch this up and be okay.
[03:28:21] No, we say we got it.
[03:28:22] But what we don't do is say these invisible wounds.
[03:28:26] Are you routine?
[03:28:27] Are you priority or you're urgent?
[03:28:28] And so, you know, if you're routine and you just having a bad day, that's normal.
[03:28:34] It has sad day, funky day, whatever, and you just whatever, whatever you got to do, put
[03:28:39] on the jockel podcast, go for a run, you know, you get out of it, you know, if you're priority,
[03:28:43] you need some buddy aid.
[03:28:44] Hey, I'm going through this thing, share it with your buddy, you know, your buddy can
[03:28:47] kind of fire, fireman carry you out of that thing.
[03:28:52] But sometime you got a sucking chest wound and talking to your buddy or or going for
[03:28:57] a run is those are helpful, but they're not going to heal that wound.
[03:29:02] And I've been bleeding for a long time, but I lacked the self awareness to be able to
[03:29:11] triage that when I also lacked the ability to.
[03:29:14] And so I needed to go to it just like if I had a suck chest when I want to go to a doctor,
[03:29:17] I needed to go to a doctor.
[03:29:18] And so, yeah, I, I, I finally went and and there's a CPT cognitive processing therapy.
[03:29:32] I think it's called and, and what it does is it brings you to the traumatic event over
[03:29:40] and over, which is a super dangerous thing to do by yourself.
[03:29:44] You know, you can't, you don't, those are all volatile and you need a trained professional
[03:29:49] to open up your sandbag and start to unpack and pull some of those things out.
[03:29:55] And, and through like that repeated exposure, you, you start to kind of be able to negotiate
[03:30:02] or navigate that.
[03:30:04] And so my wife says, and I had to distrust her judgment that that was what saved me in
[03:30:14] a lot of ways saved our marriage.
[03:30:16] And so yeah, I, that, that was kind of how I ended up there.
[03:30:21] And it was, it was, yeah, it was very helpful.
[03:30:23] How often do you go?
[03:30:26] Well I went for about nine months while I was at the Naval Academy.
[03:30:30] And you know, you're supposed to do, I don't know, 12, 15, 20 sessions of this CPT.
[03:30:37] And mine got a little truncated because I got orders to the Naval War College.
[03:30:42] And I haven't been back, but it's at least to a point where it's, I'm not, I don't think
[03:30:50] I'm an urgent couch to your right.
[03:30:52] So I think, so probably so benefit from it.
[03:30:55] But yeah.
[03:30:57] And it's, it's one of those things where it's the self-delusion where you just say, I don't
[03:31:01] have time for it.
[03:31:02] I don't have time for it.
[03:31:03] I got, I got Marine's lead.
[03:31:05] I got, it's like, man, if you don't get to the root cause of some of the stuff that you're
[03:31:11] doing, you're going to, so make it a priority.
[03:31:18] And also mostly by the way, you're just scared of dealing with it.
[03:31:23] And so you're making excuses cause you don't have the courage to deal with the tough stuff
[03:31:27] that's going on inside you.
[03:31:29] And so yeah, that's a, that was kind of my, my experience with all that.
[03:31:36] You mentioned really quickly that you established a charity organization called Patrol-Based
[03:31:44] Abate, PBabate.org.
[03:31:48] That was in November, 2020.
[03:31:51] What's the purpose behind that?
[03:31:52] Yeah.
[03:31:53] So I, I, I've always been like a person that if there's a problem, you should walk point.
[03:32:01] Like you should try to figure out how you can contribute.
[03:32:05] And I said, this suicide thing, whatever's, whatever we got going is, it seems to be not
[03:32:11] working.
[03:32:14] And so I said, let me go read all the VA suicide reports.
[03:32:17] So I pulled up, you know, 10 years of VA suicide reports.
[03:32:19] And what I kept coming back to is that the leading possible cause of veteran suicide
[03:32:22] were feelings of disconnectness and isolation.
[03:32:25] So that veterans who are disconnected or isolated are, are more vulnerable to, to suicide.
[03:32:33] Okay.
[03:32:34] And then there's a little stat that kept showing up that was really surprising and that there's
[03:32:40] no correlation between combat and suicide and veterans.
[03:32:45] And that people generally have a like, what really?
[03:32:49] And that was my same reaction.
[03:32:50] And, and, and, but as I thought and reflected on that, when you transition, the thing that
[03:32:56] you're missing is that tribe and that purpose.
[03:33:01] And you can find that in other ways, there's plenty of ways where you can find that tribe,
[03:33:06] find that purpose again.
[03:33:07] But it, not everybody's able to fall into or find that thing.
[03:33:12] And I think when I think of a, an aircrew on a, on a C17 or C130, when I think of a
[03:33:18] motor T crew or comp section, everybody in that unit has said, I'm willing to die for
[03:33:25] you.
[03:33:26] And everybody in that unit understands that, keep an aircraft flying is like, that's an
[03:33:32] important, keeping trucks rolling.
[03:33:34] Like that's important.
[03:33:35] The ability to communicate important.
[03:33:37] So everybody, when you look at a mission, a mission is a task and purpose.
[03:33:41] And so the military quite literally issues you, a tribe, here's your squad, you're in
[03:33:46] first squad.
[03:33:48] And then they, and then they give you a mission, which, which actually has a purpose built
[03:33:51] into the mission statement.
[03:33:54] And so then as you transition, there's this identity crisis because over your left heart,
[03:33:59] you've got a name tape that says Navy Marines, you know, and it's like, we just hand you
[03:34:04] a piece of paper and say, you're not that thing.
[03:34:06] You say, well, man, I still, I've been indoctrinated into this thing and there's not a process
[03:34:13] of indoctrination in out of it.
[03:34:18] And, and so I said, what is out there that is getting people, if, if isolation and disconnecting
[03:34:24] this are the two big risk factors here, what is out there that's getting all veterans in
[03:34:29] community and getting all veterans connected because it's, if it's not just a combat, a
[03:34:35] veteran problem.
[03:34:36] And what I found is that the overwhelming majority of veteran service organizations out there
[03:34:41] and there were many are dedicated to supporting our special operations, our wounded and our
[03:34:48] gold star families.
[03:34:50] And I am so grateful that as an American that we recognize that people who have made the
[03:34:56] most sacrifice are special or our Navy, our Navy Steel Foundation, our Green Beret Foundation.
[03:35:01] Like I'm so happy that we said, these people have paid the most cost.
[03:35:05] They've given a limb.
[03:35:06] They've deployed seven, 10, 12 times, but special forces.
[03:35:11] There are goals.
[03:35:12] I'm happy that that's where we've resourced and put an invested in because these, these
[03:35:15] people deserve it.
[03:35:18] But what the data tells us is that there's, there's more to this picture.
[03:35:23] And so I didn't find an organization at the time that I felt was inclusive or accessible
[03:35:30] to everybody that's raised the right hand.
[03:35:33] And I wanted, and there was always some kind of barrier to entry said, you know, you got
[03:35:37] it, you don't, you're not disabled enough to be eligible.
[03:35:41] You're not, you don't have enough of a disorder.
[03:35:43] You haven't been to combat enough.
[03:35:45] It's always this barrier or check this box, check this box.
[03:35:50] And then, or they were like very reactive.
[03:35:53] I've overdosed.
[03:35:54] I've had a suicide attempt.
[03:35:55] It was right of bang.
[03:35:56] Now, now that you're right of bang and that you're in your moment of crisis, now you're
[03:36:01] eligible.
[03:36:02] So let's, let's preemptive was proactive was left of being in this.
[03:36:06] And I didn't find a whole lot.
[03:36:08] And I said, let's create a space where your service is your price of admission that, that
[03:36:14] you don't, I can, I can check a lot of these boxes, by the way.
[03:36:18] I don't want to be defined by disorder or by my disability or by, you know, I just want
[03:36:24] to say, Hey, I'm Tom and I could use some community and I could use some connection.
[03:36:29] So we went and we got 350 acres up in Montana.
[03:36:34] And we said, we're going to do the things that you like to do veterans.
[03:36:38] So what are the things that you want to do?
[03:36:40] Well, let's build around a shared common interest.
[03:36:42] So we've got a fight club that does Jiu Jitsu.
[03:36:44] We've got a strength club that does powerlifting.
[03:36:46] We've got a music club that's been up there.
[03:36:49] We've got an art club that's been up there.
[03:36:50] We've got a book club that's been up there.
[03:36:51] We've got a hunting club that's been up there.
[03:36:53] And so a lot of these organizations are predicated around fishing, for example.
[03:36:58] And I think that's really good.
[03:37:00] A lot of healing could happen during that.
[03:37:03] Not everybody is into fishing, you know?
[03:37:06] And so like, and so we want to say, I want to say, Hey, if it was up to me, I'm a grunt
[03:37:12] who likes to read.
[03:37:13] So like, I like to hike and I like to read books.
[03:37:14] And so like, I would just have PBBate be like the hiking book club.
[03:37:18] But that's not everybody's thing.
[03:37:20] And so we want to say whatever you're into, if you're willing to walk point, we'll resource
[03:37:26] to you and we'll build a club or club around you.
[03:37:29] And so, and we're going to and we're going to fly you up to where our dojo is, it's on
[03:37:34] the side of a mountain in a Montana River Valley.
[03:37:37] There's no more beautiful dojo in the world to roll than on the side of that mountain,
[03:37:41] the PBBate.
[03:37:42] There's no better place to lift weights or and so and we fly you out for your cost.
[03:37:50] We pick you up, we feed you all for your cost because it's all this idea of so many veterans,
[03:37:55] especially GWOT veterans or post-911 veterans are conditioned this thing where, well, I
[03:37:59] was just a and they use this just and we've we've really, I think largely through social
[03:38:06] media constructed this hierarchy of what it means to serve.
[03:38:10] And if you weren't in Ramadi or if you weren't part of this organization or you like, and
[03:38:15] it's this weird competition of in this redefinition, redefining of what service means.
[03:38:20] It's like, no, service means you raise your right hand, you sworn out to the Constitution,
[03:38:24] you did that for four years and honorably.
[03:38:26] That is what services by definition.
[03:38:29] And so you serve something greater than yourself.
[03:38:33] And so we want the airmen, the sailor, the soldier, the Marine, the National Guard, the
[03:38:37] reservists, active duty PFC.
[03:38:40] If you raise your right hand, you're eligible and you're in no additional call.
[03:38:44] And like many people when we would say this, they'd be like, wait, me?
[03:38:48] I'm just an airman.
[03:38:51] I'm just a motor tease.
[03:38:52] Nope, we actually built this place for you.
[03:38:55] For me, well, I would go, but I can't afford it.
[03:38:57] It's like, oh, good, because it's free cost.
[03:38:59] Oh, I would go, but like, I don't do that.
[03:39:01] It's like, what do you do?
[03:39:02] Well, let's go do that thing.
[03:39:04] And so we've run two, we call it the return to base program.
[03:39:09] We've run two summers of it.
[03:39:12] And you know, the pillars are getting around the fire because I really think that connection
[03:39:17] forms around the fireside chats.
[03:39:21] Getting out in nature because I think I believe good things happen outside and then getting
[03:39:24] back into service.
[03:39:25] And so we do a service project around there.
[03:39:28] And then we sustain that through local chapters.
[03:39:31] And so we just say like, what sandbag do you want to fill?
[03:39:36] We need somebody to walk point and we created this space for you.
[03:39:41] And we got a big tent.
[03:39:42] We got to see if we get the table.
[03:39:43] Come on, get in community, get connected.
[03:39:46] And that's what we've been doing.
[03:39:47] And it's been pretty incredible to be a part of it.
[03:39:50] How many people have you put through in the two summers?
[03:39:53] About 150 people up to Montana.
[03:39:56] And then we're still running another program this fall.
[03:39:59] And you know, if we can't do the thing that you do on the side of a mountain, I'll find
[03:40:04] a way to support you.
[03:40:05] So somebody said, hey, I'm in the scuba diving.
[03:40:09] Can't scuba dive on the side of the mountain.
[03:40:11] So okay.
[03:40:12] So I found a partner down in the Bahamas and we're going to send 15 veterans out in October.
[03:40:16] And so about 150, but people who have been through our local chapter programs, I mean,
[03:40:22] thousands, right?
[03:40:23] And so every month all around this country, you've got PBBate, New York, Boston, Orange
[03:40:29] County, San Diego, Austin meeting and getting into community and getting connected.
[03:40:35] And so it's been pretty awesome to watch it grow.
[03:40:40] And yeah.
[03:40:42] Yeah, that sounds awesome.
[03:40:43] And if people want to support it, they go to PBBate.org to support it.
[03:40:48] That's the best way.
[03:40:50] So get trying to try to follow the book a little bit here by summer of 2021.
[03:40:56] Meanwhile, while this is going on, Zach and his world is falling apart in Afghanistan.
[03:41:05] The Taliban is taking over.
[03:41:09] Time is short.
[03:41:10] Again, you detail a lot of stuff in the book.
[03:41:12] And you go into like full combat mode, but administrative effort to get Zach and his
[03:41:21] family out of there.
[03:41:25] And you're going down.
[03:41:26] I mean, you're just you're taking everything you can possibly do to get this done.
[03:41:30] Social media fundraising, senior military leaders, politicians to try and get something
[03:41:38] going to get him out of there.
[03:41:41] And of course, this is no small task because at the time there's a tens of thousands of
[03:41:45] other people that are also trying to get out of Afghanistan as all of this stuff as it
[03:41:51] starts to fall apart.
[03:41:54] And just to give a little bit of Zach's perspective here.
[03:41:58] And again, I'm fast forward.
[03:42:00] There's so much, so much more detail in the book.
[03:42:02] Get the book.
[03:42:04] This is from Zach on July 16, 2021, when Tom told me I needed to get to Kabul and explained
[03:42:09] why I had to stop and sit for a moment.
[03:42:12] I was relieved that more people than just Tom and I cared about the survival of my family,
[03:42:17] but I knew chaos was coming.
[03:42:19] I just needed it to be still before it began.
[03:42:22] I just needed to be still before it began.
[03:42:25] Even when you've been planning for it, the thought of leaving your home forever is overwhelming.
[03:42:29] How do you say goodbye to your family members when you know you may never see them again?
[03:42:34] How do you kiss your mother for the last time?
[03:42:36] How do you keep from forgetting the smell of her hair after you do?
[03:42:40] I sat on the terrace of our home where so many of the simple things at the center of
[03:42:45] my life had happened.
[03:42:46] Childhood, marriage, my children taking their first steps.
[03:42:49] They were moments as tied to a place as I was.
[03:42:53] Now I was being forced to leave them behind with my home.
[03:42:58] For all my sadness, there was no hiding from the situation.
[03:43:02] Life for regular Afghans was bad and getting steadily worse.
[03:43:06] I was living in hiding.
[03:43:07] The Taliban's messages, which had long made it clear they were looking for me and would
[03:43:12] kill me for working with the Americans when they found me, were growing bolder and coming
[03:43:16] more often.
[03:43:17] I could not live in Kunar.
[03:43:19] I could not survive there.
[03:43:21] More importantly, my family could not.
[03:43:24] When I learned that the Americans left Bagram in the middle of the night on July 2nd, I
[03:43:30] thought about my own times flying in and out of there.
[03:43:32] I remembered how the air base felt like it could not contain all the planes and helicopters.
[03:43:37] It seemed like America's power was without end.
[03:43:41] I had placed my faith in that.
[03:43:44] I did not see then how the Americans and our government would ever let the Taliban come
[03:43:49] back.
[03:43:51] But here the Taliban were leaving me messages at my family's doorstep during the night.
[03:43:58] So, it was just awful for him.
[03:44:05] At this point, the book kind of turns into a suspense, espionage, spy political thriller.
[03:44:14] It's mayhem, but it's not a novel.
[03:44:16] It's what's really going on and what's really happening to this real person and this real
[03:44:22] family.
[03:44:25] Something that's cool is the way the book is set up, it's telling it both from your
[03:44:30] perspective and then you hear his perspective and then you hear his perspective and you
[03:44:34] hear your perspective as you're trying to coordinate this movement and link-ups and
[03:44:40] bona fides and messages and dying batteries on cell phones.
[03:44:48] Which you think, you know, when you're in a first world problem, you know, oh no, my
[03:44:52] cell phone died and I'm not going to be able to get a message until I get to my car and
[03:44:55] get it charged, right?
[03:44:59] You know, he's out there, his batteries low and he's literally standing at the wall trying
[03:45:04] to make comms.
[03:45:08] It's a crazy scene and again, we all, I mean, everybody watched this on the news, but to
[03:45:16] hear somebody that was on the ground, their perspective as they're trying to escape, this
[03:45:21] is Zach again at the airport wall.
[03:45:24] So he's at the wall trying to get into the airport.
[03:45:29] A Taliban fighter stood closer to the wall and was watching the crowd and AK-47 hanging
[03:45:33] across his chest.
[03:45:35] He saw us looking up at the American on the tower roof.
[03:45:38] He looked in the same direction and reached out to alert his friends.
[03:45:41] I saw him look up at the American again.
[03:45:44] I could tell they made eye contact with each other.
[03:45:47] The Taliban put his pistol, put his hand on his pistol grip of his AK.
[03:45:51] The American reached towards his hip, but another American standing on a half wall below
[03:45:56] him, reached out to grab his leg.
[03:45:57] He shook his head, no.
[03:46:00] And the one on the tower moved his hand away from his hip.
[03:46:03] The Taliban below made their hands into the shape of pistols and pointed them at the American
[03:46:08] as he carefully climbed down and stepped back over the wire.
[03:46:12] I kept my eyes focused on him.
[03:46:14] I could not see his face.
[03:46:16] I did not know if it was Major Jared LeFever.
[03:46:19] Is that right LeFever?
[03:46:20] Major Jared LeFever, but I felt in my heart that this was the moment.
[03:46:25] Then I saw him lift his hand to his mouth and speak into a phone.
[03:46:29] A message arrived on my own in the group chat with Tom and Jared.
[03:46:34] The text said, put your son on your shoulder.
[03:46:39] I lifted my son over his head, over the shouting, sweating, mass of people.
[03:46:44] He was wearing a bright blue shirt as John Shattuck had told me to have him do early
[03:46:49] that morning.
[03:46:51] The American waved me closer.
[03:46:52] I grabbed my family and we fought through the crowd to the base of the wall with our
[03:46:57] new friend following.
[03:46:59] As we pushed my countrymen aside, I was nodding at the man I knew now as Major LeFever.
[03:47:06] He shouted to me, do you have your family?
[03:47:07] Yes, I yelled back and one more.
[03:47:10] Major LeFever turned to the three Americans next to him, all large men and heavily armed.
[03:47:14] I could not hear them all talking, but from their gesture I could tell they were trying
[03:47:17] to decide how to pull seven people up and over the wall.
[03:47:21] They began to attract attention from more of the Taliban.
[03:47:25] Drowning people will reach for any hand they see.
[03:47:27] The crowd was beginning to move toward the base of the wall below where they stood.
[03:47:31] The Americans finished conferring and began to move.
[03:47:35] My eyes were locked on Major LeFever as he sent me a text.
[03:47:40] We have to figure out how to get you to us at the door to your left.
[03:47:51] That's the way this book goes.
[03:47:53] Reading through this, it's agonizing and you just don't know how this is going to end,
[03:48:02] other than the fact that the title of the book indicates that we have to keep the faith.
[03:48:10] We have to keep the faith.
[03:48:11] Zack keeps the faith and ultimately the servicemen and women on the ground remain faithful.
[03:48:19] And Zack does get through all kinds of gates and wickets to get him and his family out
[03:48:25] of there.
[03:48:28] Gets out before the attack at Abbey Gate, which happened a few days after he left where
[03:48:35] we lost one US Army soldier, one US Navy corpsman and 11 United States Marines.
[03:48:44] Perhaps the last to die for that particular cause and that particular nation by that particular
[03:48:50] enemy or perhaps not.
[03:48:55] Only time will tell.
[03:48:58] But Zack made it out and made it to America and I mean, it's very powerful.
[03:49:07] It's very powerful to hear his perspective.
[03:49:13] Let me just give you a little bit of that.
[03:49:17] This is when he's back.
[03:49:18] I was willing to risk my life.
[03:49:22] Thousands of my fellow Afghans lost theirs.
[03:49:24] I worked for my people and country in pursuit of a better future for all of us.
[03:49:30] But I also worked with and for the Americans because they came to help us build a better
[03:49:35] Afghanistan.
[03:49:37] I would do it again.
[03:49:38] I would still sacrifice myself for my country, for my people and for America, the country
[03:49:44] that saved and welcomed me and my family.
[03:49:48] Too many good people died for a dream for me to ignore the obligation to pay it back.
[03:49:55] The Taliban were not our only problem.
[03:49:58] The corruption in our own national government was a chain around our collective necks.
[03:50:05] Leaders must earn their positions by deserving the trust of the people.
[03:50:10] A government with anything less will never survive and the governed will never thrive.
[03:50:15] Too many of our leaders bought their way into power as a means of enriching themselves.
[03:50:19] Too many warlords held on to power by force, placing themselves ahead of the people they
[03:50:24] were supposed to protect.
[03:50:26] It was a frail system that fell when the foreign support holding it up ceased to exist.
[03:50:34] For now, the Taliban own Afghanistan.
[03:50:36] The Afghan people are again living in a nightmare.
[03:50:41] People I love who are still there are suffering.
[03:50:44] They are starving with no food and no money with which to buy it.
[03:50:49] Modern medical care is already only a memory.
[03:50:53] Security and freedom are a dream.
[03:50:55] When they seize the nation, the Taliban claim that former members of the security forces
[03:51:00] and people who worked with the Americans would be safe in a Taliban regime.
[03:51:05] It was a lie then and it is a lie now.
[03:51:10] The executions and torture have already begun.
[03:51:14] I knew that was coming.
[03:51:17] The Taliban told me themselves.
[03:51:31] And you know those statements about Afghanistan and the leadership really apply anywhere and
[03:51:36] corruption and nepotism and arrogance and power.
[03:51:39] Where hungry leaders are the downfall of any organization, any team, any company, and any
[03:51:47] country.
[03:51:50] And we have to definitely be aware of that ourselves and pay attention.
[03:52:00] When was the first time you saw Zach when he got to America?
[03:52:04] I flew out to Minnesota to see him.
[03:52:07] He had been in a refugee camp in Virginia, I think it was Fort Pickett for a while.
[03:52:12] And kind of tough to get down there and get into the camp.
[03:52:15] And so he had been maintaining all along that he wanted to go to Texas because his cousins
[03:52:20] were there and important to assimilate with family.
[03:52:23] His cousins had also been interpreter and got here a couple of years ago.
[03:52:25] And so he was under the impression that he would get to Texas until about 24 hours.
[03:52:30] Because you go to Minnesota tomorrow in January and Minneapolis in January is not Texas.
[03:52:39] And so he was in a kind of bad spot.
[03:52:42] And so I flew up there, got to see him, got to see his family.
[03:52:45] And then he had been waiting for like a work permit.
[03:52:50] And it's better if you stay within the resettlement process because if you pull out of the resettlement
[03:52:56] process you kind of get reset back to zero.
[03:52:59] And he had just received that work permit about the day or two before I showed up to
[03:53:03] Minnesota and he told me, I got my work permit.
[03:53:06] I said, do you need to be in Minnesota?
[03:53:08] He said, no.
[03:53:09] And I said, let's go to Texas.
[03:53:12] So the next day we were on a flight.
[03:53:14] What was it?
[03:53:16] Seven passengers, eight bags, four car seats with a layover in Denver.
[03:53:20] But we landed in San Antonio that night.
[03:53:24] And it was good to see the mission through.
[03:53:29] And what's he up to right now?
[03:53:32] He works construction, hanging drywall at a cancer hospital six days a week, 12 hours
[03:53:37] a day.
[03:53:38] And he just, but he just had a son while we were in New York together.
[03:53:42] So two weeks ago he had a son.
[03:53:43] And so now Sejaad is his fifth kid and American by birth.
[03:53:51] I've been having some great conversations with the Vietnam guys and some Vietnamese
[03:54:00] that came over, you know, after the war and just their work ethic and what they instilled
[03:54:09] in their kids is just amazing.
[03:54:13] And you know, when you even hear about Zach like hanging drywall 12 hours a day, it's
[03:54:19] like this guy's going to make something happen.
[03:54:23] He is going to make something happen.
[03:54:26] Just an awesome story of, you know, just the unceasing faith that you two had in each other
[03:54:37] to make this happen.
[03:54:41] So where are you at now?
[03:54:44] I'm back at three five.
[03:54:46] Get some.
[03:54:47] Get some is their legit model, right?
[03:54:49] I tried to research where that came from when they start saying that in Iraq is where it
[03:54:54] check.
[03:54:55] So they were they were in Phantom Fury, Al-Fajr.
[03:55:00] And and so yeah, I'm dark horse three and I'm the operations officer for three five.
[03:55:07] So we're training and getting ready to deploy next summer.
[03:55:13] You deploy next summer.
[03:55:14] Any idea where you guys are going?
[03:55:15] Pacific A.O.
[03:55:17] Pacific A.O.
[03:55:18] Get some.
[03:55:19] I guess that kind of brings us up to present day, right?
[03:55:26] Probably a pretty good place to wrap it up.
[03:55:27] I know you got some Marines to go lead.
[03:55:30] What do we miss?
[03:55:31] No, I think we got it for people to for people to find you.
[03:55:35] First of all, the book, always faithful.
[03:55:40] It's available anywhere.
[03:55:42] Order it will put a link to it.
[03:55:43] Right?
[03:55:44] Echo Charles.
[03:55:45] Yes, sir.
[03:55:46] We will.
[03:55:47] We collectively will do that.
[03:55:48] Get it and get it.
[03:55:53] Patrol base of Botte.
[03:55:55] That's your your organization.
[03:56:00] Go and check that out.
[03:56:01] PbBotte.org.
[03:56:03] I found like a kick ass a little video of Sergeant Abate to it's like 30 seconds long.
[03:56:10] I don't know if there's any more video if there is, please let me know.
[03:56:14] You could just tell he's just like like whatever percentage of charisma or whatever percentage
[03:56:21] of just being a bad ass.
[03:56:24] It's freaking legit.
[03:56:27] You're on Instagram.
[03:56:29] You are at kill dot zone, but it's spelled funny.
[03:56:35] Z zero.
[03:56:36] So it's Z and then a zero and then an N and then a three.
[03:56:42] So at kill zone is where you're at on Instagram.
[03:56:48] Echo Charles, you got any questions?
[03:56:49] Yeah.
[03:56:50] How'd you crash your motorcycle back in the day?
[03:56:53] I crashed it twice.
[03:56:56] Your mom really hates it because I try to go too fast too soon.
[03:57:01] And so I lost my thumb and that's when I kind of retired from just sort of randomly or was
[03:57:07] it like a very specific incident where you made some wrong decisions.
[03:57:13] Too fast at a turn and laid it down.
[03:57:16] Everyone that I know that has a motorcycle or had a motorcycle has crashed in varying
[03:57:20] levels of injury or whatever.
[03:57:22] So that's kind of the thing.
[03:57:24] Yes.
[03:57:25] I like, you know, I mentioned Mark Lee like the gamble.
[03:57:27] I like to gamble.
[03:57:29] And man, the odds when you're riding a motorcycle, the odds are just not your favor for being
[03:57:36] okay when, when whatever happens happens and it's happening.
[03:57:40] Oh yeah.
[03:57:41] That's what it, I mean, I don't know every single person in the world with a motorcycle,
[03:57:45] but every single person that I know that had a motorcycle crash, including myself, by the
[03:57:50] way.
[03:57:51] And I didn't even own the motorcycle.
[03:57:52] I had my friend's motorcycle for the summer.
[03:57:55] I laid it down.
[03:57:56] So it's like, but you didn't get injured.
[03:57:58] When was that college?
[03:58:00] But you didn't get injured.
[03:58:01] No, I handled, but I still understood.
[03:58:04] What kind of bike did you have?
[03:58:05] Did you have a super bike?
[03:58:06] If you have a Harley?
[03:58:07] I had a, my first bike was a victory.
[03:58:09] And then my second bike was a Ducati.
[03:58:11] Okay.
[03:58:12] Yeah.
[03:58:13] That Ducati gets way tempting, doesn't it?
[03:58:14] I mean, that thing just wants you to roll.
[03:58:16] Yeah.
[03:58:17] It's almost like one of those inevitable slippery slopes.
[03:58:20] Well, crack me.
[03:58:21] I don't know.
[03:58:22] Everybody's different to a degree where you go fast and you're like, you kind of feel
[03:58:27] the power a little bit, but you don't want to push it.
[03:58:30] And then you kind of get coming.
[03:58:31] You're like, I can't go faster.
[03:58:32] I can't go fast.
[03:58:33] And it just never stops.
[03:58:34] Right?
[03:58:35] And then I move through that progression very rapidly.
[03:58:39] Well, we're going to, um, we're going to support your mom on the anti-motorcycle cake
[03:58:45] here.
[03:58:46] Fair enough.
[03:58:47] Tom, any final thoughts?
[03:58:48] No, sir.
[03:58:50] Well, thanks for joining us today.
[03:58:53] Thanks for sharing your lessons.
[03:58:55] Thanks for your continued service with the Marine Corps.
[03:59:00] And thanks for keeping the faith with your interpreter, Zach, who never let you down
[03:59:04] in the field and you did not let down when he and his family needed you.
[03:59:10] And, uh, to everyone out there right now that's still holding the line, I recommend we remember
[03:59:18] the guidance from Sergeant Matt Abbate.
[03:59:22] In any situation, thou shall blaze.
[03:59:28] Nothing matters more than thy brethren to thy left and right.
[03:59:33] Thou shall protect no matter what until the body runs dry of blood.
[03:59:43] Thanks Tom.
[03:59:44] Thank you.
[03:59:46] And with that, Tom Schumann has left the building.
[03:59:49] Echo.
[03:59:50] Hmm.
[03:59:51] I would say, you know, when you, when you reflect on just talking about Tom's first
[03:59:57] deployment, you know, he's a platoon commander, it's just so much responsibility.
[04:00:02] And that's what's, that's what's good.
[04:00:04] If you know, if you, if you've been in the military, you've, you've, you've had so much
[04:00:09] responsibility that for people in the civilian sector out there, you hire someone to run
[04:00:14] a branch or run a manufacturing facility and they've had this much weight.
[04:00:19] Um, there's a really good chance that they're going to have some good lessons learned and
[04:00:24] being able to do a good job.
[04:00:26] It's just a lot of weight is on the shoulders of these young, young soldiers, sailors, airmen
[04:00:33] and Marines out there, a lot of weight, a lot of burden on these young guys.
[04:00:37] And it's, it's, it's, look, this is, this highlights the story of an officer, but the
[04:00:41] young, the young corpals, the sergeants, it just really is an incredible thing that we
[04:00:48] send these young men and women to do out there on the battlefield.
[04:00:52] I'm glad we were able to capture some of these lessons and share them.
[04:00:58] And um, yeah, so there we go.
[04:01:00] So thanks again to Tom for coming down here and to three five for letting them come down
[04:01:06] for the day.
[04:01:07] Uh, appreciate everyone's support for the podcast.
[04:01:10] Um, if you want to support the podcast and you want to support yourself, you know, get
[04:01:13] yourself some of that jocofuel, get yourself some of that jocofuel.com.
[04:01:17] Have you tried pink mist yet?
[04:01:18] Yes.
[04:01:19] How do you like it?
[04:01:20] I like it.
[04:01:21] It reminds me of, it doesn't remind me, but it's similar to like the orange where it's
[04:01:26] like you, I'm not saying you can't go wrong cause of course you can go wrong, but it's
[04:01:31] one of those ones where it's like, it was good, but I just wasn't surprised that it's
[04:01:35] good.
[04:01:36] You know, it's like that kind.
[04:01:37] Uh, yeah.
[04:01:38] So we're talking about new flavor of discipline go.
[04:01:40] It's called pink mist.
[04:01:41] It's like a pink lemonade scenario.
[04:01:45] It's kind of hard to make the word pink sound cool, but when you put pink mass Friday, it
[04:01:50] might be the only way to make pink sound cool.
[04:01:52] Pink mist.
[04:01:54] So there you go.
[04:01:55] That's our, our energy drink.
[04:01:57] Here's the thing.
[04:02:00] This is not normal energy drink.
[04:02:02] There's no chemicals in there.
[04:02:04] There's no sugar in there.
[04:02:06] It's literally good for you.
[04:02:08] So go get some chocolate discipline go and it'll really help you out in life.
[04:02:11] I think it was you doing a speech to a group of people might have been live.
[04:02:16] I don't know, might have been at origin at the camp.
[04:02:20] Maybe I don't know either way, but here was the point.
[04:02:24] Here was one of the many points where there's like a, there's companies where they'll be
[04:02:28] like, Hey, let's make an energy drink.
[04:02:30] And they'll be like, okay, so what are we going to put in this energy drink?
[04:02:32] Cause we got to sell it.
[04:02:33] Yeah.
[04:02:34] I'll tell you what they're going to put in whatever the consumer will want right now.
[04:02:38] Yeah.
[04:02:39] So it was and what's cheapest.
[04:02:41] Yeah.
[04:02:42] So you, and you made, you said this more eloquently than me, but I'm going to, I'm going to say
[04:02:46] what I really gathered from it.
[04:02:47] And it was kind of like, it kind of haunted me a little bit where you have a company
[04:02:52] that's like, okay, let me make an energy drink.
[04:02:53] What are we going to put in it?
[04:02:54] Okay.
[04:02:55] Let's put some caffeine in it for the energy.
[04:02:56] Right.
[04:02:57] So okay, cool caffeine.
[04:02:58] We'll put this much in however much, right?
[04:03:00] It goes, okay, but we got to preserve it or we got to make it taste good.
[04:03:03] And we got to, you know, cause they, we got to get them to drink it.
[04:03:06] Right.
[04:03:07] Seems, seems, seems like, oh, of course you got to get them to drink it.
[04:03:10] Add sugar.
[04:03:11] But so let's put sugar.
[04:03:12] Okay.
[04:03:13] So sugar.
[04:03:14] We want it to be really good though.
[04:03:16] More sugar.
[04:03:17] More sugar.
[04:03:18] And, you know, okay.
[04:03:19] So I, and even at this point, sugar is like, cool.
[04:03:23] Like that's nothing new, you know?
[04:03:25] Oh, no, no, no.
[04:03:26] Let's put like some other stuff, some chemicals, some preservatives in here, some stuff that,
[04:03:31] and then after a while, these things start to add enough, right?
[04:03:34] All these little ingredients.
[04:03:35] And it's like, okay, has anyone ever thought of like, wow, what this is going to do to like
[04:03:38] a, you know, 17 year old kid or a person or whatever, if they drink one of these every
[04:03:43] day, which is kind of the goal.
[04:03:45] Man, if they, if everyone drank one every day, that'd be freaking awesome.
[04:03:48] Right.
[04:03:49] As far as, okay.
[04:03:50] So has anyone taken, taken account for like, what if these people are drinking one of these,
[04:03:55] two of these every single day?
[04:03:56] Like what's going to happen to them?
[04:03:57] Oh yeah, we did that.
[04:03:59] But like, we don't care about that.
[04:04:00] We just want them to drink them every day.
[04:04:02] Oh, what if, what if like, what if it's really bad for them?
[04:04:06] And what if it causes maybe some death?
[04:04:07] Oh, well, we don't care about that.
[04:04:09] You know, as long as they're drinking them every day, kind of a thing.
[04:04:12] And that's kind of the picture that was kind of painted there where it's like, bro, that's
[04:04:16] true.
[04:04:17] That's true.
[04:04:18] It's 100% true.
[04:04:19] And they can, they cut the corners on the costs.
[04:04:23] Our drinks like three times more to make.
[04:04:26] Well if they cut the corners.
[04:04:27] Some cases four times more than some of the, than what's the, what some of these other
[04:04:30] companies are putting in their drinks.
[04:04:31] Yeah.
[04:04:32] And if they cut costs, that means they pay less for it.
[04:04:34] That means they get more money when you, you know, like, so it makes, it's weird because
[04:04:38] it makes sense on one hand, but on the other hand, it's so like sinister, you know.
[04:04:42] So nothing sinister on our side.
[04:04:44] Only goodness, only the goodness, the goodness of monk fruit.
[04:04:48] Yeah.
[04:04:49] Put some caffeine in there.
[04:04:50] Not too much though.
[04:04:51] Yeah, but just 95 milligrams.
[04:04:52] But we got some new tropics in there.
[04:04:54] Make sure you get all the energy that you're going to need.
[04:04:56] So there you go.
[04:04:57] Get some jocque de ful, get some moque.
[04:04:58] I've been on the moque train lately.
[04:05:01] Peanut butter, be honest with you.
[04:05:03] Ben is going hard in the paint with peanut butter.
[04:05:06] It's so good.
[04:05:08] It's so good.
[04:05:09] It's ridiculous.
[04:05:10] Agreed.
[04:05:11] So jocquefuel.com, you can also go to the vitamin shop.
[04:05:14] Vitamin shop has pink mess, by the way, little exclusive scenario going on with them right
[04:05:18] now.
[04:05:19] And also you can get the stuff at wah-wah.
[04:05:20] Hey, by the way, RTD's ready to drink.
[04:05:24] Moque.
[04:05:25] Moque.
[04:05:26] It's out there.
[04:05:27] It's a protein meal.
[04:05:28] It's a protein dessert.
[04:05:30] It's a protein provider of goodness to you.
[04:05:34] And it's ready to drink.
[04:05:36] It's so funny how like we had like a little stockpile, like a pre-sale stockpile.
[04:05:40] We were like, oh, we'll have enough just for the campers.
[04:05:44] And you know, just not enough.
[04:05:45] No, what we thought was we will reserve multiple pallets.
[04:05:50] It'll be more than enough to last one week.
[04:05:54] Dude, people went ham.
[04:05:56] Because once you taste one, you're like, I'm going to have one for breakfast, one for lunch,
[04:05:59] one for dinner.
[04:06:00] I'll put them in my cereal.
[04:06:01] Put them in my cereal.
[04:06:02] It's all good.
[04:06:03] We're freaking drinking this stuff 24 hours.
[04:06:04] And it lasts like two days.
[04:06:05] It lasts like two days.
[04:06:06] Yeah.
[04:06:07] Like two days, and that was it.
[04:06:08] Yeah.
[04:06:09] So we are on the path of just trying to produce as much of the ready to drink moque as we
[04:06:15] possibly can right now to get it out there because it's delicious and it's freaking good
[04:06:20] for you.
[04:06:21] Yeah.
[04:06:22] So good.
[04:06:23] So good.
[04:06:24] Drink as many as you want.
[04:06:25] Yeah.
[04:06:26] That's alljagofuel.com.
[04:06:27] Speaking of Jiu-Jitsu, originusa.com.
[04:06:30] We're making Jiu-Jitsu Gis.
[04:06:32] We're making jeans.
[04:06:34] We're making boots.
[04:06:35] We're making Hunt gear.
[04:06:37] Hey, the Delta 68 has new colors or something like this.
[04:06:41] Yeah.
[04:06:42] I saw like a picture, little thing.
[04:06:44] Yeah.
[04:06:45] Yeah.
[04:06:46] Oh, interesting.
[04:06:47] One of the wash houses, which is like a giant machine, a series of machines that can
[04:06:54] wash things at a high rate so they get like worn.
[04:06:59] They get broken in.
[04:07:00] Yeah.
[04:07:01] Is that the traditional way?
[04:07:03] Because you know how you have a lighter color jean, then you have the freaking dark, dark
[04:07:06] color.
[04:07:07] It's called a wash house.
[04:07:08] Yeah.
[04:07:09] Now wash houses are really hard to build and we have one.
[04:07:14] But ours wasn't working, but you know, the team down there in North Carolina has been
[04:07:18] busting their ass, getting the wash house back up and running.
[04:07:21] We had to get new machines, had to get them installed, put in there.
[04:07:26] And now we have like the original wash house from the golden era of American textile is
[04:07:32] back up and running.
[04:07:33] Are you going to do that?
[04:07:34] You think we're playing, bro?
[04:07:35] We're not playing.
[04:07:36] I don't think we're playing.
[04:07:37] I know you're not.
[04:07:38] Are you going to do acid wash?
[04:07:39] Remember acid wash?
[04:07:40] I don't think so.
[04:07:42] I feel like acid wash.
[04:07:43] That's 80s.
[04:07:44] That right there is up there with like hair metal to me.
[04:07:46] I don't like it.
[04:07:47] Right?
[04:07:48] Yeah.
[04:07:49] It's weird how acid wash at the time was freaking awesome, by the way.
[04:07:51] Not me.
[04:07:52] I never liked it.
[04:07:53] It was awesome in the time.
[04:07:54] I'm happy I don't have any pictures of me wearing acid wash jeans or affliction t-shirts.
[04:08:01] Interesting.
[04:08:02] Remember when affliction was all wild and all the companies had all the weird designs?
[04:08:05] I have a few pictures of us and you have, it's not affliction, but it's like in that
[04:08:10] direction, but it was like throw down.
[04:08:12] Because a lot of people were following suit.
[04:08:14] They had one that was a little bit.
[04:08:16] And also, you know what my caveat here is?
[04:08:19] I did wear some walkout shirts for a specific fight or for a specific camp, for a specific
[04:08:25] fight, which I can't remember may or may not have been straight up just like cheesy affliction.
[04:08:32] But luckily for me, I didn't own one.
[04:08:35] They don't have pictures of me at the club.
[04:08:38] Remember the affliction jeans, too?
[04:08:40] They had like the weird...
[04:08:42] They go hard, man.
[04:08:43] They go hard, those affliction.
[04:08:45] You take something.
[04:08:46] I think the jeans were acid wash.
[04:08:48] Yeah, they were.
[04:08:49] But you know the book, The Diacotomy of Leadership?
[04:08:51] Yeah, I know that one.
[04:08:52] If you take anything and you make it an extreme, it can become bad.
[04:08:55] So if you take like jeans and there's like thread on them, but then you start going crazy
[04:08:59] with it, it turns bad.
[04:09:01] If you put a pair of jeans in a wash house and they become like comfortable and a little
[04:09:04] bit faded, that's cool.
[04:09:07] But then you put like acid on them and they look all weird.
[04:09:09] That's not cool.
[04:09:10] You can't take stuff to an extreme.
[04:09:11] I understand.
[04:09:13] And that's why they kind of stuck in the 80s where you went hard and it was like, freak
[04:09:16] out, they jumped on that trend hard.
[04:09:17] You know the 80s is coming back, right?
[04:09:19] Apparently.
[04:09:20] Yeah, because there's a show called Stranger Things, which I have not watched, but my
[04:09:23] daughter's watch or yeah, one of my daughters is into it.
[04:09:26] But and do you think...
[04:09:27] It's the 80s, bro.
[04:09:28] Okay, and even me just starting to say, ask this question, I feel like you're probably
[04:09:34] one of the last people to ask about this or maybe one of the first.
[04:09:37] I don't know.
[04:09:38] But do you think that like, you know, things always come back, right?
[04:09:40] The retro and it comes back and you know, all this and fashion is one of those ones.
[04:09:44] But isn't there always like one, two, three things that are like, that's too hardcore
[04:09:49] 80s that that'll never come back.
[04:09:51] Yeah, that's true.
[04:09:52] But here's an interesting thing.
[04:09:53] First of all, the 80s in my mind, it seems like it was a few years ago, but it's like
[04:09:58] 35 years ago.
[04:10:01] So when I was a kid, 60s stuff, right?
[04:10:04] 60s and 70s, like things were like hype.
[04:10:07] But that was only, I mean, this is in the 80s for me.
[04:10:10] So they only like 15 years old and they were still hype.
[04:10:13] You know what I'm saying?
[04:10:15] So it's weird that we're talking about things that are coming back, but it's been 40 years
[04:10:19] since the 80s.
[04:10:22] Just straight Miami Vice activity going down.
[04:10:25] Yeah.
[04:10:26] Did you like Miami Vice?
[04:10:27] Yeah, here and there.
[04:10:29] But I guess that was kind of a big thing.
[04:10:31] I used to work with at the valet used to say like, oh, you're Tubbs from Miami Vice.
[04:10:36] Oh, somebody did a Photoshop of you and me and it's clubs and clubs and crock and it
[04:10:41] looked legit.
[04:10:42] Yeah.
[04:10:43] They did a good job.
[04:10:44] They did a good job of that.
[04:10:47] That made me laugh.
[04:10:48] And you kind of, I will say you kind of get a little bit of Tubbs going on.
[04:10:52] That's what they said.
[04:10:53] I didn't gather that at the time, but hey, cool, man.
[04:10:57] If more than one percent, I, you know, lend it some weight.
[04:11:00] All right.
[04:11:01] So there you go.
[04:11:02] So no acid wash.
[04:11:03] No acid wash.
[04:11:04] We'll prevent that from happening.
[04:11:06] Right on.
[04:11:07] Also, jockel store, jockel store.
[04:11:08] Discipline equals freedom.
[04:11:09] If you want to represent with a shirt, a hoodie, what winter, what fall, right?
[04:11:15] Is it fall right now?
[04:11:16] We're getting there.
[04:11:17] And winter, you know, we've got some hoodies on there.
[04:11:19] Discipline equals freedom.
[04:11:21] Standard issue shirt is on.
[04:11:23] It's rolling.
[04:11:24] Oh, the standard issue speaking of which layers, layers, but people are representing
[04:11:28] currently as we speak.
[04:11:30] So yeah, look out for that.
[04:11:31] Also we got the short locker, which is the subscription.
[04:11:34] People are representing that hardcore.
[04:11:36] I'll just see random people.
[04:11:37] Oh, that's our show.
[04:11:38] That's the locker.
[04:11:39] In the game for all on supporting.
[04:11:40] Yep.
[04:11:41] We get a new design every month.
[04:11:43] They're new.
[04:11:44] They're creative.
[04:11:45] See if you can recognize them.
[04:11:46] Yeah.
[04:11:47] Supporting.
[04:11:48] Appreciate the support and subscribe to the podcast.
[04:11:49] Also, also, we have Jaco on the ground.
[04:11:51] We just recorded a couple of those what yesterday.
[04:11:54] So that's where we answer your questions directly.
[04:11:57] We also cover some, some subjects that I have been coming up with.
[04:12:02] I, you always give me some subjects.
[04:12:06] I feel a little bit bad because so far I think we've done one of your subjects out of 50.
[04:12:13] So I got to open my mind a little bit more, you know, except what you're putting down.
[04:12:19] Maybe also I'm not seeing the vision.
[04:12:21] Like you're putting some, you know, we should talk about this thing.
[04:12:25] And I'm not really, I'm like thinking, what the fuck?
[04:12:27] What is this going to get us?
[04:12:28] I mean, yeah.
[04:12:29] And I have to figure that out about you.
[04:12:32] Like what is it exactly that goes through your mind that says, okay, I could talk about
[04:12:36] this versus I won't.
[04:12:39] Because here's, here's all think of something or I'll come across them or something will
[04:12:42] be presented to me.
[04:12:43] And then I'll be like, hey, that's interesting.
[04:12:46] I wonder what Jaco would think about this.
[04:12:48] So then I'm like, oh, I'll like write it down or whatever.
[04:12:50] I've never gotten that vibe from your suggestions.
[04:12:52] For I've only gotten like, what is this?
[04:12:56] Interesting.
[04:12:57] I've only gotten like, why is this interesting?
[04:12:59] Yeah.
[04:13:00] You'll be like, talk about something.
[04:13:03] And I'm like, I don't understand how that's good.
[04:13:06] So we'll do one of my subjects.
[04:13:07] Okay.
[04:13:08] So this is what I'm going to do.
[04:13:10] Are you disappointed when you get the notes and you're like, oh, he didn't pick my subject
[04:13:13] again.
[04:13:14] You feel like you're spinning your wheels and wasting your time?
[04:13:15] No, I never do.
[04:13:16] I never do.
[04:13:17] But disappointed sometime, you know, maybe here and there because sometimes, especially
[04:13:21] the list that I just sent you, some of those were just like a thought that popped in my,
[04:13:25] and I just wrote it down.
[04:13:26] So, and I just, which one is the best one?
[04:13:29] Best one.
[04:13:30] The best idea that you have had.
[04:13:31] Oh, I don't know.
[04:13:32] I'd have to look at it.
[04:13:33] But they can't be that good of ideas if you don't even remember them.
[04:13:36] I think they're all pretty good.
[04:13:37] I thought they're all pretty good.
[04:13:39] Oh, here's one.
[04:13:40] I don't know if it's the best one, but like the difference between like pain and suffering.
[04:13:46] So it's more like the, it's like the concept.
[04:13:48] I mean, and maybe I won't put into words as good, but the idea that like, you know how
[04:13:52] when you feel pain, the natural instinct is to be like, oh, it's pain.
[04:13:54] So avoid it.
[04:13:55] But then every once in a while, you have a certain type of pain that you know is not
[04:13:59] like damage.
[04:14:00] It's not damage.
[04:14:01] You know, it's like, whether it be for a good cause or it's more for like constructions,
[04:14:04] just like, like if you, you know, when you lift weights now.
[04:14:08] So when I was a little kid, I used to like do pushups or whatever.
[04:14:10] And then the next day, my arms and chest would be sore and I used to hate it because I didn't
[04:14:13] know what it was.
[04:14:14] I mean, oh, I don't want that feeling.
[04:14:15] I don't.
[04:14:16] But then when you realize what part of the process it is, you kind of like now as an
[04:14:21] adult and we talked about this before offline or whatever where when you have doms, you
[04:14:26] kind of have like, whether it be from Jiu-Jitsu or lifting, you kind of have a better feeling
[04:14:30] because you know you're sort of in the game.
[04:14:32] So it's like, you won't avoid that anymore.
[04:14:35] In fact, it's kind of like, so what's the difference?
[04:14:37] Like, where's the difference, you know?
[04:14:39] And can you just flip it over mentally?
[04:14:42] See what I'm saying?
[04:14:43] Cause certain pain, you can be like, oh, this sucks.
[04:14:45] Wait a second.
[04:14:46] Wait a second.
[04:14:47] You know what I'm saying?
[04:14:48] I'm starting to recognize why these subjects are again Jiu-Jitsu.
[04:14:52] So I pick the subjects most of the time.
[04:14:54] We're waiting on some good ones.
[04:14:55] Echo Charles, I may open mine, you know?
[04:14:58] I'm going to put out a list of subjects that I thought of and I'm going to see if people
[04:15:03] want to vote on them.
[04:15:04] And then I'm going to open the bottom of the list for suggestions.
[04:15:07] Do that.
[04:15:08] That's good.
[04:15:09] I like it.
[04:15:10] Yeah, that's kind of a good idea.
[04:15:11] Yeah, so you can, that's jocke1derground.com.
[04:15:12] It costs $8.18 a month.
[04:15:13] If you can't afford it, just email assistance.
[04:15:15] Instead of underground at jocke1derground.com because we got to have a place that we control
[04:15:19] because right now we don't control the platforms.
[04:15:21] We're good with the platforms.
[04:15:22] We get along.
[04:15:23] It's fine.
[04:15:24] But you never know when things might go sideways.
[04:15:25] So we have a YouTube channel as well.
[04:15:27] We got psychological warfare.
[04:15:28] We got flip side canvas, bunch of books.
[04:15:30] Hey, check out the books.
[04:15:32] Check out the book, Always Faithful by Tom Schumann and Zanula Zaki.
[04:15:38] Available.
[04:15:39] We'll have it linked in the thing.
[04:15:43] Only Cry for the Living by Holly McKay.
[04:15:45] Check that book out.
[04:15:46] You want to hear about the war in Iraq up close and personal.
[04:15:48] That's a great way to do it.
[04:15:50] And then I've written a bunch of books, of course.
[04:15:52] Also have Escalon Front Leadership Consultancy where we solve problems through leadership.
[04:15:56] So many problems.
[04:15:58] Let me rephrase that.
[04:15:59] All your problems in your organization are leadership problems.
[04:16:02] That's what they are.
[04:16:03] So if you're having issues inside your organization, it's because you have issues with your leadership.
[04:16:09] You want to fix them?
[04:16:10] Go to escalonfront.com.
[04:16:12] And check out what we offer, all kinds of different things from leadership consulting
[04:16:16] to events that we put on all through that.
[04:16:19] We also have an online training platform because just like trying to get in shape, you can't
[04:16:29] just go one time to the gym and think you're going to get in shape.
[04:16:31] You got to train every day.
[04:16:32] So extremownership.com, if you want to come and check out our online academy.
[04:16:38] If you want to support Patrol Base Abate, go to pbabate.org.
[04:16:45] So support what Tom's got going on there for veterans.
[04:16:51] And if you want to help service members act and retire their families, Gold Star family,
[04:16:54] check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.
[04:16:56] She's got an incredible charity organization.
[04:16:59] If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to americasmightywarriors.org.
[04:17:03] And heroes and horses.
[04:17:05] Micah Fank up there.
[04:17:06] He's in the wilderness right now.
[04:17:08] I'm on a horse with 40 other guys and they are finding themselves in the wilderness.
[04:17:15] If you want to check us out on social media, Tom Schumann is at Killzone Z zero N three.
[04:17:26] And for us on the Twitter, on the gram on Facebook, Echoes at Echo Draws.
[04:17:29] I am a chocolate willing.
[04:17:31] Watch out for the algorithm that's trying to get you.
[04:17:35] And thanks once again to Major Tom Schumann for his service in the Marine Corps, his continued
[04:17:41] service in the Marine Corps.
[04:17:42] Thanks for sharing some of those lessons here.
[04:17:44] Appreciate you coming down.
[04:17:45] Thanks to three five for cutting them loose for the day to come down here and share some
[04:17:49] of those lessons and to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that have given their lives
[04:17:56] so that we can live in freedom.
[04:18:00] We are forever indebted to you.
[04:18:03] And we will not squander this gift.
[04:18:07] And also to our police and law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers,
[04:18:13] correction officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders.
[04:18:19] Thank you for your sacrifice to keep us safe here at home.
[04:18:24] And everyone else out there.
[04:18:27] Just one more thing in the book and Tom mentioned it briefly today.
[04:18:35] It's something that Sergeant Matt Abbate scrawled on the wall of his patrol base in Afghanistan.
[04:18:43] It said simply, someone must walk the point.
[04:18:53] That means someone has to be out in front.
[04:18:54] Someone has to take risks.
[04:18:56] Someone has to make things happen.
[04:18:58] Someone has to look out for threats.
[04:19:00] Someone has to guide the way.
[04:19:05] Someone has to move forward.
[04:19:07] And it seems like Sergeant Abbate was talking to all of us.
[04:19:14] And he wasn't just talking about war.
[04:19:16] He was talking about life.
[04:19:18] So go out there and take point.
[04:19:24] And until next time, this is Echo and Jaco out.