Jocko Podcast 71 with Echo Charles: Heroes are Not Perfect. Never Judge. "A Helmet for my Pillow"

2017-04-19T16:18:22Z

Join the Conversation on Twitter: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:14 - "A Helmet for my Pillow" by Robert Leckie 0:07:49 - Stripped Down to Nothing in Boot Camp. Surrender and Discipline. 0:18:53 - Advanced Training. 0:28:48 - Guadalcanal: Time to Fight. 1:07:38 - After the Battle: R&R, Partying, and Getting in Trouble. 1:23:05 - Assault on New Britain. 1:39:46 - Physical Complications and Conditions. 1:52:03 - Medical treatment / Don't Judge The Intellect of a Man by his Job. 2:00:17 - Back to Fighting - Peleliu. 2:21:18 - Battle was Won, but with Great Sacrifice. 2:26:00 - Take-away: Who are we to Judge? 2:34:57 - Support, Cool Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid, and The Muster002 3:11:01 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

When it's time to lift like I could lift a lot, but like every day life on my kind of stiff, you know, like, I got to like get up after all, you know. If you were on Don't, you'd be like, you know, you'd be like, you know, you'd be like, on Don in Paris, Island, which is where I'm reading corporate bootcamp is, or one of them, there's also one here in Tandy, Eagle. And here's some of the things that they did back to the book, Dr. Gundryl and Norman Claycher, know your weapon, know it intimately, know it with almost the insight of its inventor, be able to take it apart blindfolded or in the dark to put it together, be able to recite mechanically a detailed description of the gun's operation, know the part played by every member of the squad from gunner down to the unfortunate who carried the water can or the machine gun boxes as well as their own rifles. I think that's, and of course, someone going to be like, hey, you know, and they'll say an idea, it might not be all that good, but if, or it may not seem like it's all that good. It helps like even like the onset of like osteoporosis, like all this stuff. They'd be like, you know, so it was like the more open and like whatever you were, the cooler it kind of was. And you know how like weights is a good kind of weights is cool because you know how strong you are kind of thing. But if another person says it, kind of unrelated, you know, not the kind of where some guys should say, but do this, you know, make this or create this and then someone just likes it or puts a like on it. When you see someone going through some trouble to be able to recognize like, hey, you know, echoes going through some issues right now. yeah, they did, but like the point is like it was kind of like the cool culture. Perfect example of people saying, you know, people were saying it so like like mad. Because like the more people, you know, they'll hit us on the pun Twitter or just like kind of knowing and knowing what year's talking about or submitting questions. It's just like, if you're shy, you know, or that kind of thing, like some guy didn't have stalls. Any kind of workout where you need, you know, like maximum mobility, but you still want to go with like a shirt on. Yeah, it seems like they can relate, you know, like echoes at level eight right now. And I remember some people were like kind of surprised because they're going to just to the army that just like Dr. Gentle here. And I was like, well, sometimes it seemed like the podcast was like, was me and echo sitting in a room alone. Like when I go on the road now, like I was just out with some firefighters and like we're all, everyone's telling the same jokes. So he's saying, look, you guys that are high-spirited go-getters, and they're going to get after it on the battlefield, and they're going to get after it on the liberty, and sometimes they're going to get rolled up unless they're super lucky, and that doesn't make them bad people. You know, like, when you know the guys on the story. That's not like you're like, let me think of this question that I think people have. Because it's the tournaments, you know, when you're winning around like, oh, and my up in my up, that's like, can be part of the chat. Well, I'll be like, oh, I'm just going to rest because I don't feel like I didn't get nine hours of sleep songs to it tomorrow. No, but I'm saying like, you know, you know, you don't care about my goal. And so when my buddy had this big incident that he did, which, you know, he was drunk and got crazy and, you know, got arrested and all that, all that bad stuff. I wish I would have been doing other things, you know, but if you're in a leadership position and you've got guys like this and you can demo instead of trying to help them, you're not helping them. Yeah, kind of like we'll talk about sometimes where you get a guy, like if you're watching a video As they said, but anyway, so it's like kind of I compare like the post krill oil and the pre-cruel oil situation. Kind of like that the week superficial assumption is that, oh, you're going to choose that kind of that hard thing. The speculative dread, just thinking about, okay, what's the next attack going to be like, are we going to be able to get through it? You're going to be on all of them and you've already seen X number of guys that you had killed and you're going to keep going until you're killed. And I think that forms such a tight bond that these guys had, you know, these guys had respect enough respect and enough mercy on each other to say, look, that goes out an hour and a time right now. I met some young Marine, not a young Marine, but you know, guys probably 25, 27 years old and he came into the gym and you know, some say, I use in the Marine Corps. It's like because you just kind of explain, like kind of the logic behind it. It formed a club or corporation, much as do those other common things upon which men for diverse reasons, play so great of value, like money, like charity. Yeah. nephew, like, actually actual nephew, like, his dad's brother or something. And the officer goes, hey, you guys are young warriors and things like this are going to happen. Because even now, man, people will send me, you know, whether it be funny videos, there's this sodium video that, you know, the guy skipping a piece of sodium across the lake. YouTube's good like that where if you listen to just the, like, an excerpt, we're just a clip two minute three minutes four minutes. You know all those little things that you have, all the little things that make you you, we are going to take them away. And, you know, that the, I think, you know, we kind of did some calculations. And YouTube is good like that where if there's a bunch of them, which, well, I think we're kind of coming up with, or collections kind of growing now. It was the one where the Marines like we would stay on the ship when we pulled an port and it would take like an hour to get off the ship because everyone would be waiting in line.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocco podcast number 71.
[00:00:05] With echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink.
[00:00:09] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:11] Good evening.
[00:00:17] A helmet for my pillow.
[00:00:19] A poncho for my bed.
[00:00:21] My rifle rests across my chest.
[00:00:24] The stars swing overhead.
[00:00:28] And to your holes and gun pits, kill them with rifles and knives.
[00:00:33] Feed them with lead until they are dead, and widowed are their wives.
[00:00:39] Sons of the mothers who gave you honor and gift a birth.
[00:00:44] Strike with the knife till blood and life run out upon the earth.
[00:00:50] Marines, keep faith with your glory.
[00:00:53] Keep to your trembling hole in true to your fuel of nip on steel can't penetrate your
[00:01:00] soul.
[00:01:02] Closing they charge all howling.
[00:01:05] Their breasts all targets large.
[00:01:08] The gun must shake.
[00:01:10] The bullets make a slaughter of their charge.
[00:01:16] Red are the flashing tracers.
[00:01:18] Yellow the bursting shells.
[00:01:21] Verses the cry of men who die.
[00:01:24] Shrill are the wounded's yells.
[00:01:28] God how the night real stricken.
[00:01:31] She streaks with orange spark.
[00:01:34] The mortars lash and the cannons crash.
[00:01:38] Have crucified the dark.
[00:01:42] St. Michael Angel of Battle.
[00:01:44] We praise you to God on high.
[00:01:47] The foe you gave was strong and brave and unafraid to die.
[00:01:54] Speak to the Lord for our comrades, killed when the battle seemed lost.
[00:01:59] They went to meet a bright defeat.
[00:02:03] The heroes holocaust.
[00:02:06] Falses the vault of the victor.
[00:02:09] Empty are living pride.
[00:02:11] For those who fell, there is no hell.
[00:02:16] For the brave who died.
[00:02:23] And that's a excerpt from a poem that opens a book called Helmet from My Pillow.
[00:02:33] Then the book was written by a guy named Robert Lecki.
[00:02:41] Otherwise known as Lucky.
[00:02:42] Everybody called him Lucky.
[00:02:45] And he was a machine gunner.
[00:02:48] And then a scout with the first Marine Division in World War II.
[00:02:54] And he's a decent part of the HBO series, the Pacific, which is if you haven't watched
[00:03:03] that, just buy it right now and watch it.
[00:03:07] It's awesome.
[00:03:09] It's based on a bunch of different books and a bunch of different events from the Pacific.
[00:03:13] And a lot of them Eugene Sledge.
[00:03:16] That's another one with the old breed.
[00:03:18] There's a lot that he plays a main role.
[00:03:20] John Basel, plays a large role in that series.
[00:03:26] There's other a bunch of other books.
[00:03:27] We've done a bunch of them on this podcast.
[00:03:31] And this one is another one.
[00:03:35] And I was thinking to myself, like, well, you know, should I do Helmet from my pillow?
[00:03:39] I'd read it a long time ago.
[00:03:41] And I thought to myself, you know, we've kind of covered the Pacific pretty well.
[00:03:47] And I'm just straight up wrong.
[00:03:49] So wrong.
[00:03:50] Because everyone's experience is different.
[00:03:52] There's things that are the same.
[00:03:53] And his viewpoint on things is just a different viewpoint.
[00:03:59] And equally important to understanding not only the war, not only what they experience in
[00:04:07] war, but also a whole other side of human nature that we need to learn about.
[00:04:14] And yeah, there's a lot to go over.
[00:04:18] So a little introduction here.
[00:04:20] And just to give you a little background on Lucky Lucky.
[00:04:25] He enlisted on January 5, 1942.
[00:04:27] He tried to join up the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but a surgically
[00:04:31] correctable condition disqualified him.
[00:04:35] Now he was back and acceptable.
[00:04:37] Just that tells us a lot.
[00:04:39] He was a civilian, not a professional fighting man.
[00:04:44] But he became a warrior.
[00:04:49] The author was one of those young men.
[00:04:52] Many not yet 20 who were gentle human beings that were transformed by training hardship and
[00:05:00] the war into fighting Marines.
[00:05:06] These were the boys who became men and stood against and then beat back to the world's
[00:05:12] most vicious fighting machines.
[00:05:16] They left behind them a heritage of decency.
[00:05:23] That hopefully will live forever.
[00:05:27] And then that's from the introduction.
[00:05:32] And so again, after World after Pearl Harbor, you've seen pictures.
[00:05:41] Using pictures of guys wrapped around the block, waiting to go to the recruiting office.
[00:05:45] He goes to recruiting office.
[00:05:47] He can't go in at first.
[00:05:48] Eventually he gets in.
[00:05:49] It takes him a month to get in and then he's off to boot camp.
[00:05:52] And we've seen all kinds of representations and books and movies of Marine Corps boot camp
[00:05:58] and in boot camp, in general.
[00:06:00] But I just had to hit on this one a little bit.
[00:06:03] Because it's just another perspective that shows you, shows you his view of it and gave
[00:06:09] me a, not even a better understanding, a clear understanding of what people are going through
[00:06:14] when they're going through boot camp.
[00:06:16] And I remember actually, I remember this about boot camp.
[00:06:20] I, they, they wrote, we had to write something when I was going through boot camp.
[00:06:26] And I don't know if I've talked about this before, but we were going through boot camp.
[00:06:29] They said, hey, write down, you know, the top three things you're learning.
[00:06:32] Right?
[00:06:33] You had to, we all had to.
[00:06:34] This is Navy boot camp.
[00:06:37] And I wrote down something along the lines of, I wrote something along lines of the
[00:06:44] brainwashing seems very effective.
[00:06:46] Right?
[00:06:47] I'll, I'll do it.
[00:06:48] I was 18, 18, I think I just turned 19.
[00:06:53] And that's, because I was a rebellious kid, right?
[00:06:55] And so I'm thinking they're brainwashing us.
[00:06:57] And I wasn't against it.
[00:06:59] Yeah.
[00:07:00] I, it was kind of one of those statements where I was saying, I was kind of being sarcastic,
[00:07:03] but I was also kind of being true.
[00:07:04] True.
[00:07:05] We call it cracking, but faking.
[00:07:07] Okay.
[00:07:08] We'll roll with that.
[00:07:10] So that's what I was doing.
[00:07:13] And, and I remember, they didn't say anything about anything anyone had written about what
[00:07:18] we were learning or whatever.
[00:07:19] They called that one out.
[00:07:21] The chiefs that were running my boot camp company, they were, you know what I said?
[00:07:25] And if you think you're getting brainwashed, you know what?
[00:07:28] This is what's going to save you and they went on a big thing.
[00:07:30] To counter my, my assessment.
[00:07:33] So there's a little bit of that here in what, what, what, what Lucky said.
[00:07:38] He says the same kind of thing and he gets the same kind of, he gets to the same place.
[00:07:42] But here we go, going to the book, they're at boot camp Marine Corps boot camp in dock.
[00:07:50] And here we go.
[00:07:51] Sergeant Bello marched us to the quarter masters.
[00:07:55] It was there.
[00:07:56] We stripped off all vestiges of personality.
[00:08:00] It is the quarter masters.
[00:08:01] So if you, if you don't know, a quarter master in the military is someone that basically
[00:08:05] runs supply, they give you gear.
[00:08:07] That's what they are.
[00:08:08] So it is the quarter masters who make soldiers, sailors and Marines in their presence
[00:08:14] one strips down with each divestment a trait is lost.
[00:08:20] The discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy.
[00:08:27] I take off my socks.
[00:08:29] Gone is a propensity for stripes or clocks or checks or even solids.
[00:08:36] And it is a tendency to combine purple socks with a brown tie.
[00:08:41] My socks, henceforth, will be tan.
[00:08:43] They will neither be soiled nor rolled nor gotty nor restrained nor holy.
[00:08:49] They will be tan.
[00:08:51] The only other thing they may be is clean.
[00:08:55] So it is with it all until one stands naked, struggling with an embarrassment that has
[00:09:02] entirely lost on the leconic shades who work in the quarter master sheds.
[00:09:08] Thus naked, thus quivering, a man is defenseless before the quarter master.
[00:09:14] Character clings to clothes that have gone into the discard as skin and hair stick to adhesive
[00:09:21] tape.
[00:09:22] It is torn from you.
[00:09:25] Then the quarter master shades swarm over you with measuring tape, a cascade of clothes falls
[00:09:29] upon you washing you clean of personality.
[00:09:34] When you have emerged from this, you are but a number.
[00:09:38] Three, five, one, tree, nine or one, United States Marine Corps.
[00:09:46] Twenty minutes before, there had stood in your place a human being surrounded by some 60 other
[00:09:54] human beings.
[00:09:56] And now there is stood one number among 60 others.
[00:10:00] The sum of all to be a training platoon.
[00:10:03] But the parts have no meaning except in the context of the whole.
[00:10:10] So there is little psychological reason why they do that, how they do it.
[00:10:13] And you can see it works.
[00:10:16] You know all those little things that you have, all the little things that make you you,
[00:10:19] we are going to take them away.
[00:10:20] That is what we are going to do.
[00:10:22] And there is so, there is this weird thing because when I went through boot camp, I wanted
[00:10:31] that.
[00:10:33] Take it away from me.
[00:10:34] And I have said this before on the podcast.
[00:10:37] It is a blank slate.
[00:10:38] When you go into boot camp, they shave your head, they take your clothes, they take all
[00:10:43] that personal stuff and you get a blank slate.
[00:10:46] They tell you like this, you need to do to succeed here.
[00:10:49] All that stuff you have done in the past, you are knucklehead, we do not care.
[00:10:52] These are what you got to do now.
[00:10:54] And it is awesome.
[00:10:56] And for a lot of people myself included, you are now, you are becoming part of something
[00:11:02] that is bigger than you.
[00:11:03] That is a good feeling.
[00:11:04] You know, it is a good feeling.
[00:11:07] I liked it.
[00:11:10] I go so far to say, I love it.
[00:11:15] And they do the same thing.
[00:11:16] By the way, they do the same thing to you.
[00:11:17] When you get to your seal training class, your Buds class, you get your head shaved
[00:11:22] again.
[00:11:23] You get another set of uniforms, you are all going to dress the same, you are all going
[00:11:26] to look the same.
[00:11:27] Yeah, I think that head shaving thing would really do it for a lot of people.
[00:11:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
[00:11:31] For sure.
[00:11:32] Just because that is some people's whole personality, you know, they are hair.
[00:11:35] It is like that.
[00:11:36] They like that hair.
[00:11:40] Now of course, fast-forwarding a little bit.
[00:11:44] But I found this interesting back to the book.
[00:11:47] In six weeks of training, they are seemed not to exist a single pattern, apart from meals.
[00:11:53] All seemed chaos, marching drilling in manual arms, listening to lectures on military courtesy,
[00:11:57] and saluting the right hand will strike the head at 45 degree angle midway from the right
[00:12:01] eye.
[00:12:02] Listening to lectures on Marine, jargon from now on, everything floor, street, ground, everything
[00:12:08] is the deck.
[00:12:10] Cleaning and polishing ones rifle until it is shown like an ornament, shaving daily,
[00:12:14] weather, hairy or beardless.
[00:12:16] It was all a jumble.
[00:12:18] What are we going to do?
[00:12:19] Salute the japs to death?
[00:12:21] No, we're going to blind them with spit and polish.
[00:12:23] Yeah, or barber the bastards.
[00:12:26] All the logic seemed to be on our side.
[00:12:29] The Marine Corps seemed a madness.
[00:12:31] So they're thinking, what are we getting out of this?
[00:12:33] You want us to polish?
[00:12:34] How many teachers ought to shoot the rifle?
[00:12:39] Continuing on, it was a madness.
[00:12:43] But it was disciplined.
[00:12:46] Part from us recruits, no one in Paris, island seemed to care for anything but discipline.
[00:12:52] There was absolutely no talk of war.
[00:12:54] We heard no fiery lectures about killing japs, such as we were to hear later on in new river,
[00:13:00] which is the place where they go to train.
[00:13:02] Everything, but discipline.
[00:13:04] Marine Corps discipline was steadfastly mocked and ridiculed.
[00:13:09] Be it holiness or high finance.
[00:13:14] These drill instructors were dedicated Martinets, like the sensualist who feels that if
[00:13:19] a thing cannot be eaten, drunk or taken a bed, it does not exist.
[00:13:25] So were these Martinets in their outlook.
[00:13:28] All was discipline.
[00:13:30] There you go.
[00:13:32] I actually, I thought that word struck me, Martinets.
[00:13:37] So I did a little, you know, I looked it up.
[00:13:40] And the etymology of it is there was a French general that created a certain type of drill,
[00:13:49] close order drill procedures.
[00:13:51] And his name was General Jean Martinette.
[00:13:54] Jean Martinette.
[00:13:55] So that's where he, that's where that word comes from.
[00:13:57] That it means that you're strict, disciplinary.
[00:14:00] Wouldn't it be Martinets?
[00:14:03] Martinets, I guess so, for those that speak French.
[00:14:06] French Canadian background.
[00:14:08] Did not know that was story.
[00:14:11] Oh, that's right, because you were friends with Jodie, you knew him.
[00:14:15] Bonded.
[00:14:16] We bonded over your Canadian roots.
[00:14:18] 100%.
[00:14:20] Nice.
[00:14:22] Another great example or great paragraph about what this feels like back to the book.
[00:14:28] It is a process of surrender.
[00:14:31] At every turn, at every hour, it seemed a habit or a preference.
[00:14:37] And it seemed a habit to be given up.
[00:14:38] And adjustment had to be made.
[00:14:41] Even in the mess hall, we learned that nothing mattered so little as a man's own likes
[00:14:47] or dislikes.
[00:14:49] And I think that's what it is.
[00:14:52] That that's what's so cool about.
[00:14:53] That's what I loved.
[00:14:55] Right, when you join the military, it's all stripped away.
[00:14:59] All these little comforts that you have, they stripped them away.
[00:15:03] And you're left with the raw self.
[00:15:05] That's what you're left with.
[00:15:08] And you start putting everything else above yourself.
[00:15:11] It's a very humbling process.
[00:15:15] Back to the book.
[00:15:16] Orst in all this process of surrender was the ruthless refusal to permit a man the slightest
[00:15:22] privacy.
[00:15:24] Everything was done in the open.
[00:15:25] Rising, waking, writing letters, receiving mails, receiving mail, making beds, washing,
[00:15:31] shaving, combing ones hair, emptying ones bowels, all was done in public and shaped to this
[00:15:38] style and structure of the sergeant.
[00:15:43] So that that one right there, going to the bathroom.
[00:15:48] And you get to like in Navy boot camp, the first time you go on the bathroom, there's just
[00:15:52] toilets.
[00:15:53] There's no doors.
[00:15:54] There's no walls.
[00:15:55] Just just 30 toilets in a row.
[00:15:58] A prison style.
[00:15:59] A prison style.
[00:16:00] And you're actually prisons have you only.
[00:16:01] And they're with your little roommate.
[00:16:02] Let even prison style.
[00:16:03] You sit down and by the way, you can't salmon a weight till no one else is in there because
[00:16:08] they give you, you have to go from this to this to this.
[00:16:11] And then okay, we're back in the barracks.
[00:16:12] You can go to the bathroom now.
[00:16:13] So there you go.
[00:16:14] You're going to sit down 18 inches from some other dude.
[00:16:19] That's going to the bathroom.
[00:16:21] That's emptying his bowels.
[00:16:24] And there's no privacy.
[00:16:26] And those, I mean, you may have never taken a crap in front of another human being.
[00:16:34] Most people haven't.
[00:16:35] Why would you?
[00:16:36] So you have this little sanctuary right?
[00:16:40] Where you going to get me private.
[00:16:42] Gone.
[00:16:43] It's gone.
[00:16:44] All exposed.
[00:16:46] Strip the way.
[00:16:47] Yeah.
[00:16:48] It's kind of football is.
[00:16:49] By the way, okay.
[00:16:50] But thing is football, that's kind of like it's cool to do that.
[00:16:53] The coaches don't make you do that.
[00:16:55] It's just like, if you're shy, you know, or that kind of thing, like some guy didn't have
[00:17:00] stalls.
[00:17:01] They did, but yeah, they did, but like the point is like it was kind of like the cool
[00:17:07] culture.
[00:17:08] So guys wouldn't close the stall.
[00:17:10] Oh, okay.
[00:17:11] If there was a shy guy who didn't want to shower, he'd go to his like room
[00:17:13] and shower.
[00:17:14] They'd be like, you know, so it was like the more open and like whatever you were,
[00:17:18] the cooler it kind of was.
[00:17:20] But that's what it did just because if you're shy.
[00:17:21] So if you're shy.
[00:17:22] Yeah.
[00:17:23] It came in shy is like you'd have that feeling, you know.
[00:17:26] Yeah.
[00:17:27] But man, I did it.
[00:17:28] I actually remember that because I had never, I was, whatever I was, 19 years old, sitting
[00:17:36] down next to a dude for the first time, taking a crap.
[00:17:40] I never done that before.
[00:17:41] Why would you do that?
[00:17:42] Yeah.
[00:17:43] No, you have your own little private, or real?
[00:17:44] Do you have your own private space?
[00:17:45] This is my little time.
[00:17:46] As you know, it's not.
[00:17:47] Not your private time.
[00:17:48] Back to the book.
[00:17:49] If you were on Don't, you'd be like, you know, you'd be like, you know, you'd be like,
[00:17:53] on Don in Paris, Island, which is where I'm reading corporate bootcamp is, or one of them,
[00:17:57] there's also one here in Tandy, Eagle.
[00:18:00] If you are on Don in Paris, Island, taking a part in those first few weeks is at the
[00:18:04] rifle range that they start to put you together again.
[00:18:08] So that's, and he goes into some pretty good.
[00:18:12] He talks about now that rebuilding.
[00:18:15] And finally, and again, it's great details, great information, very cool, read, very cool
[00:18:21] perspective.
[00:18:25] That's why you get the book and read it.
[00:18:27] Back to the book.
[00:18:28] In five weeks, they had made us over.
[00:18:32] Another week of training remained, but the desired change already had taken place.
[00:18:38] Most important in this transformation was not the hardening of my flesh, where the sharpening
[00:18:43] of my eyes, but the new attitude of mind, I was a Marine.
[00:18:55] Now that's the big transformation.
[00:18:59] And now like I said, they go, they go to start their advanced training.
[00:19:03] So in bootcamp, you don't, you're not learning, you learn some technical stuff, but you're
[00:19:07] basically just learning a new attitude, right?
[00:19:09] Learning to be a Marine, and then they go from there, they go to a place called New River,
[00:19:14] where they're going to do some more training, and they're going to start learning to
[00:19:18] be actual fighting Marines.
[00:19:21] So here we go back to the book and talk about New River.
[00:19:24] Here, the only talent was that of the foot soldier, the only tool, the handgun, here,
[00:19:33] cultivated the oblique and the delicate, soon-parished, like gardenias and desert.
[00:19:42] So we're starting to get into some hard-living, and they form up into companies and
[00:19:50] hands up in an age company, second battalion, first Marine regiment.
[00:19:56] And they get some other veterans that come to start help them prepare for combat.
[00:20:05] And here's what he says about that.
[00:20:07] The first, and this is the first Marine regiment, the first also received a vital leavening
[00:20:13] of veteran NCOs.
[00:20:15] That's not a commission officer.
[00:20:16] So these are like the mid-level enlisted guys that run the show.
[00:20:21] They would teach us.
[00:20:23] They would train us. They would turn us into fighting troops.
[00:20:27] From them, we would learn our weapons.
[00:20:30] From them, we would take our character and temper.
[00:20:35] They were the old breed.
[00:20:38] And we were the new, the volunteer youths who had come from the comfort of home to the
[00:20:44] hardship of war.
[00:20:47] The next three years, all of these would be my comrades, the men of the first Marine division.
[00:20:57] And that's true.
[00:20:58] They always try and take veterans and they shouldn't say always.
[00:21:05] Because actually in D-Day, they wanted a bunch of new guys.
[00:21:08] They wanted people that hadn't been in combat before.
[00:21:10] But in the SEAL teams, we do that.
[00:21:12] I got back from Ramadi with my task unit.
[00:21:15] We didn't, and they split them up all put them in all different task units.
[00:21:19] So we had all these guys with all the spirits going to these other task units.
[00:21:22] This is pretty normal.
[00:21:25] And that's where the true learning comes from.
[00:21:27] You're going to get that face to face, that hands on.
[00:21:31] And that true connection to what's going on overseas.
[00:21:34] And here's some of the things that they did back to the book, Dr. Gundryl and
[00:21:40] Norman Claycher, know your weapon, know it intimately, know it with almost the insight of
[00:21:46] its inventor, be able to take it apart blindfolded or in the dark to put it together,
[00:21:52] be able to recite mechanically a detailed description of the gun's operation, know the
[00:21:56] part played by every member of the squad from gunner down to the unfortunate who carried
[00:22:01] the water can or the machine gun boxes as well as their own rifles.
[00:22:07] So you're going to learn this weapon like better than better than the inventors what
[00:22:15] they're saying.
[00:22:16] That's how well you need to know it.
[00:22:17] And you know what?
[00:22:18] I believe that.
[00:22:19] That inventor doesn't do what these guys do with that machine gun.
[00:22:22] I'll tell you, if you like the guys that I, the pig gunners we call them, guys that
[00:22:26] carry the mark 48, which is our big heavy weapon, guys that carry that when you watch
[00:22:31] them, it's beautiful.
[00:22:33] It looks the most, it's beautiful.
[00:22:35] So how quick and how fast and how they combat load that thing and hit the ground and clear
[00:22:40] reloads, it was like magic.
[00:22:44] Magic.
[00:22:47] Love that.
[00:22:50] Now there's not just learning about weapons, right?
[00:22:54] There's other things you gotta do.
[00:22:56] You gotta get, you still gotta continue to live a hard life.
[00:22:58] You still gotta get mentally and physically conditioned for combat and what better way to
[00:23:03] do that than some road marches, some road marches, which we've talked about many times here.
[00:23:11] Back to the book, a whole battalion was on the march and my poor squad was tucked away somewhere
[00:23:16] at the center or center rear.
[00:23:19] Clouds have red dust settled upon us.
[00:23:21] My helmet banged irritably against the machine gun that was boring into my shoulder or
[00:23:26] else it was bumped forward, madingly, over my eyes by the movement of my pack.
[00:23:32] My eyes were so out, I dared not drink anymore from my canteen.
[00:23:36] I had no idea how far we had to go.
[00:23:40] My dung agrees were saturated with sweat, their light green darkened by perspiration.
[00:23:45] There had been joking and even some singing the first mile out.
[00:23:50] Now only the bird sang, but for us there was just the foot of feet, the clank of canteens,
[00:23:57] the creak of leather rifle slings, the occasional horse cracking of voice raised and breath
[00:24:03] wasted in a curse.
[00:24:05] Every hour we got a ten minute break, then came the command, often on.
[00:24:12] It means off your behind and on your feet, cursing, hating both command and commandant,
[00:24:19] straining, we rose to our feet and began again the dull plotting rhythm of the march.
[00:24:27] That's the old road march.
[00:24:33] And so they're doing this type of hard training and they're doing maneuvers, they're
[00:24:40] preparing, they're doing mock beach landings, they're doing all those things and they're
[00:24:45] also getting some occasional liberty.
[00:24:47] Do you guys know what you want to liberty is, is a civilian?
[00:24:50] See, it's in word that I throw out there sometimes, it means time off.
[00:24:55] It means time off.
[00:24:58] It's from the Navy, but the Marine Corps uses as well.
[00:25:02] It means time off.
[00:25:03] So these guys, even though they're working hard, when boot camp, you don't get any liberty.
[00:25:07] No, you just stay in boot camp for 13 weeks, you don't get any liberty.
[00:25:11] Once you're a fleet marine or you're in the regular Navy, you get liberty.
[00:25:15] So you can go and do some stuff.
[00:25:18] So these guys are going out and doing stuff.
[00:25:20] What do you think they're doing?
[00:25:21] 18 years old.
[00:25:23] And ready to go to war, they're going to go out and get after it.
[00:25:26] In the classic 18 year old sex of the word.
[00:25:31] Actually, that's when I got in that context is how I got turned on to the expression
[00:25:36] get after it.
[00:25:37] Oh, from the context of going out and partying.
[00:25:39] Yes, exactly.
[00:25:40] And I don't know that partying is what we're talking about.
[00:25:43] That's a term that it sounds pretty lame, but that's what we're talking about.
[00:25:46] I think everybody understands that term.
[00:25:48] Drinking, chasing girls, partying.
[00:25:51] That's what we're talking about.
[00:25:52] And I guess it's a commonly used term because you hear people say, like I remember
[00:25:56] seen an article about some school, some college being the number three ranked party school.
[00:26:03] So party implies party doesn't imply birthday cake.
[00:26:07] A party party party implies drinking getting crazy.
[00:26:12] Yeah.
[00:26:13] But which is different.
[00:26:15] Getting crazy is different from getting nuts, right?
[00:26:17] Not getting nuts is fighting.
[00:26:18] Yeah.
[00:26:19] Getting nuts is fighting.
[00:26:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:23] All right, so we're just talking about getting crazy and partying.
[00:26:27] And that's what these guys were doing.
[00:26:28] Getting after it.
[00:26:29] Yeah.
[00:26:30] So here we go back to the book.
[00:26:31] We were impatient.
[00:26:32] We were wound up.
[00:26:33] We could know more relaxed than we could think.
[00:26:36] In those days, there was not an introspective person among us.
[00:26:40] We seldom spoke of the war, except as it might relate to ourselves and an abstract
[00:26:46] way.
[00:26:47] The ethics of Hitler, the extermination of the Jews, the yellow peril, these were matters
[00:26:52] for the gentleman of the editorial pages to discuss.
[00:26:56] We lived for thrills.
[00:26:58] Not the thrills of the battlefield, but of the speeding auto, the dimly lighted cafe,
[00:27:04] the drink racing, the blood, the texture of a cheek, the sheen of a silk and calf.
[00:27:11] Nothing was permitted to last.
[00:27:14] All had to be fluid.
[00:27:15] We wanted not actuality, but possibility.
[00:27:21] That's pretty interesting statement.
[00:27:23] We all had to be fluid.
[00:27:24] We wanted not actually, they didn't actually want that.
[00:27:26] They wanted to chase that right.
[00:27:30] We could not be still.
[00:27:31] Always movement, everything changing.
[00:27:33] We were like shadows, fleeing, ever fleeing, condemned men, souls in hell.
[00:27:44] Soon the spate of 62 hour liberties was ended, mid May of 1942, saw me go home for the
[00:27:50] last time.
[00:27:51] My family would not set eyes on me again for nearly three years.
[00:28:02] And again, obviously there's some very important experiences in that section.
[00:28:11] That's why you read the book.
[00:28:15] It's great to hear his perspective.
[00:28:16] You're going to see Robert Lecky, he's a very intelligent.
[00:28:22] He became a writer.
[00:28:23] He became a writer.
[00:28:24] This isn't the only book.
[00:28:25] He wrote 40 plus books in his life.
[00:28:27] He worked for big newspapers.
[00:28:30] He's a writer.
[00:28:31] He's a very smart guy.
[00:28:34] He talks about that and we'll get to that point here.
[00:28:37] That's why his perspective is so interesting.
[00:28:40] He brings a lot of that in this book.
[00:28:45] But eventually, obviously they finished their training.
[00:28:48] No more partying.
[00:28:50] And now it's time to fight.
[00:28:54] Back to the book.
[00:28:55] Fires flickered on the shores of Guadalcanal Island when we came on the deck.
[00:29:02] They were not great flaming, leaping fires and we were disappointed.
[00:29:06] We'd expected to see the world a light when we emerged from the hatches.
[00:29:10] The bombardment had seemed fierce.
[00:29:12] Our modda for such we judged it to be seemed capable of blasting Guadalcanal into
[00:29:20] tradition.
[00:29:23] But in the dirty dawn of August 7th, 1942, there were only a few fires flickering like
[00:29:28] the city dumps to light our path to history.
[00:29:33] We were apprehensive, not frightened.
[00:29:37] So in case you haven't gathered, these guys are about to do the landing at Guadalcanal.
[00:29:46] And they get into the little Higgins boats, the landing craft.
[00:29:52] And here we go.
[00:29:53] The assault began.
[00:29:54] Now I was praying again.
[00:29:55] I had prayed much the night before, carefully, deliberately, in, in, in, in, in, in,
[00:30:00] perpetrating God and the virgin to care for my family and friends should I fall.
[00:30:06] In the vanity of youth, I was positive I would die.
[00:30:10] In the same vanity, I was turning my affairs over to the Almighty.
[00:30:17] And I think what he means by vanity that he was sure he would die, you'd think, oh, somebody
[00:30:22] that's vain, it would be like, hey, I can't be killed.
[00:30:25] But I think what he means by that is the vanity that there's some determined outcome that
[00:30:31] you can control or that there's that there's that there's some way it's going to go.
[00:30:37] Like he's going to die.
[00:30:38] No, you don't even know that.
[00:30:39] Right, right, it's that he knows, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:30:42] I know what's going to happen.
[00:30:43] I know I'm going to die.
[00:30:44] That's vanity and it's on right.
[00:30:45] That's what he said.
[00:30:49] So they hit the landing back to the book, but there was no fight.
[00:30:54] The Japanese had run from somewhere, came the command, move out.
[00:31:00] We formed staggered squads and slogged off.
[00:31:04] We left our innocence on red beach.
[00:31:08] It would never be the same.
[00:31:15] They spend a night.
[00:31:18] They're they're not patrolling in and in the night.
[00:31:22] They're in security positions and they hear a little gunfire and we're going to the book.
[00:31:27] At dawn, we learned the import of the gunfire.
[00:31:30] Medical corpsman had been killed.
[00:31:32] He had been shot by his own men.
[00:31:35] When the century had challenged him as he returned from relieving himself, he had boggled
[00:31:39] over the past word, little a fusion.
[00:31:43] And so met death.
[00:31:46] It turned to be at the mercy of a liquid continent.
[00:31:51] Now, little heads up, little a fusion is not a good challenge and reply password for everyone.
[00:31:58] You don't want to come up with something that's not totally obvious, but don't make
[00:32:03] a guy that's scared out in the middle of the jungle, remember the word, little a fusion.
[00:32:11] And you know, we talk about blue one blue.
[00:32:12] There you go.
[00:32:13] Like their first casualties, blue one blue.
[00:32:15] Their first casualty is blue one blue.
[00:32:17] Their first casualties are a medic, a corpsman being killed by centuries.
[00:32:21] That's a nightmare.
[00:32:25] And I wasn't going to read this but I'm going to.
[00:32:30] I peered at the captain.
[00:32:31] Anxiety was on his face as though carved there by the night's events.
[00:32:36] It startled me.
[00:32:38] Here was no warrior, no veteran of a hundred battles.
[00:32:41] Here was only a civilian like myself.
[00:32:44] He was a man hardly more confident than the trigger happy century who had killed the
[00:32:48] corpsman.
[00:32:49] He was much older than I, but the responsibility of his charge, the unknown face of war,
[00:32:55] had frightened him past trusting the evidence of his senses.
[00:33:00] So imagine you're going into combat.
[00:33:02] You're in charge.
[00:33:03] You're a civilian, but now you're in charge.
[00:33:05] And you're going out on your first combat patrol.
[00:33:06] You lay up and your first thing you do is you kill one of your own guys kills.
[00:33:09] One of your other guys.
[00:33:12] There's a nightmare and he can see it on his face.
[00:33:18] They spend the rest of the day out there still no heavy enemy contact back to the book.
[00:33:24] That day was a dull lost witness to the cycle of the sun of which I have neither memory,
[00:33:30] nor regret.
[00:33:32] The night I shall never forget.
[00:33:34] I awoke in the middle of it to see the sky on fire.
[00:33:38] So it seemed.
[00:33:39] It was like the red mist of my childhood dream when I imagined judgment to have come,
[00:33:43] while I played baseball on the castle grounds at home.
[00:33:47] We were bathed in red light as though fixed in the eye of Satan.
[00:33:52] Imagine a myriad of red traffic lights glowing in the rain and you will have a replica
[00:33:57] of the world in which I awoke.
[00:34:00] The lights were the flares of the enemy.
[00:34:03] They hung above the jungle roof, swaying gently on their parachutes, casting their red
[00:34:08] glow about.
[00:34:10] Motors throbbed above.
[00:34:11] They were those of Japanese sea planes we learned later.
[00:34:15] We thought they were hunting us.
[00:34:17] But they were actually the eyes of a mighty enemy naval armata that swept into sea
[00:34:23] Clark channel.
[00:34:25] Soon we heard the sound of cannons and the island trembled beneath us.
[00:34:31] There came flashes of light, white and red and great rocking explosions.
[00:34:36] The japs were hammering out one of their greatest naval victories.
[00:34:42] It was the Battle of Savo Island.
[00:34:44] What we learned to call more accurately the Battle of Forests sitting ducks.
[00:34:50] They were sinking three American cruisers.
[00:34:52] The Quincy, Vincent's and Astoria and one Australian cruiser, the Canberra.
[00:35:00] As well as damaging one other American cruiser and a US destroyer.
[00:35:08] And so they then during this they moved towards the beach.
[00:35:13] And here we go.
[00:35:14] It was dusk when we reached the beach.
[00:35:17] We saw wrecked and smoking ships, a clean, unshipped expanse of water between Guadalcanal
[00:35:23] and Florida Island.
[00:35:25] Our navy was gone.
[00:35:28] Gone.
[00:35:29] So, if you don't know anything about the Pacific campaign, you're taking down islands.
[00:35:38] And your lifeline is the navy.
[00:35:41] Because that's who's going to bring you ammunition, food, water, gun support, fire support.
[00:35:46] That's where you're going to take your casualties.
[00:35:49] So you have total reliance on the navy.
[00:35:52] And these guys wake up in the morning and the navy's gone.
[00:35:56] Other than sunken ships.
[00:35:59] And what can they do?
[00:36:04] There's no way to run to.
[00:36:06] You can't back, you can't, there's no way to go.
[00:36:08] The navy's gone.
[00:36:10] So they get ordered to take up position where they think an attack might come from.
[00:36:18] And here we go back to the book.
[00:36:20] We were ordered up from the beach to new positions on the west bank of the Teneru River.
[00:36:26] The orders commanded us to urgency.
[00:36:29] The enemy was expected.
[00:36:33] The Teneru River laid green and evil like a serpent across the pome coastal plain.
[00:36:40] It was called a river, but it was not a river like most of the streams of Oceana.
[00:36:44] It was a creek, not 30 yards wide.
[00:36:47] So they're placed there to set security.
[00:36:51] And they're there for a while.
[00:36:53] And finally, one night, here we go back to the book.
[00:36:58] A man says of the eruption of battle, all hell broke loose.
[00:37:03] The first time he says it, it is true, wonderfully descriptive.
[00:37:09] The millionth time it has said, it has been worn into meaninglessness.
[00:37:14] It has gone the way of all good phrasing.
[00:37:17] It has become cliche.
[00:37:21] But within five minutes of that first machine gun burst of the appearance of that first
[00:37:26] enemy flare that's infused the battlefield in unersely green, greenish light.
[00:37:31] And by its dying, accentuated the re-inveloping night, within five minutes of this, all
[00:37:38] hell broke loose.
[00:37:41] Everyone was firing, every weapon was sounding voice.
[00:37:44] But this was no orchestration, notably beautiful symphony of death, as decadent
[00:37:50] we're echelon observers right.
[00:37:52] Here was a cacophony.
[00:37:55] Here was a cacophony.
[00:37:56] Here was dissonance.
[00:37:58] Here was wildness.
[00:37:59] Here was the absence of rhythm, the loss of limit for fires.
[00:38:06] What when and where he chooses.
[00:38:11] Here was booming, sounding, shrinking, wailing, hissing, crashing, shaking, gibberish
[00:38:18] and noise.
[00:38:22] Here was hell.
[00:38:25] It is odd with what clarity the trained ear distinguishes each one and catalogs it, plucks
[00:38:31] it out of the general den, even though it is intermingled with coincidental with the voice
[00:38:37] of a dozen others.
[00:38:39] Even though one's own machine gun spits and coughs and dances and shakes in caloric fury.
[00:38:47] So it was that our ears prickled at strange new sounds.
[00:38:53] The lighter, shingle-snap and crack of the Japanese rifle, the gargle of their extremely
[00:38:59] fast machine guns, the hiccup of their light mortars.
[00:39:07] And by the way, the movie, the Pacific, or the series, the Pacific, shows the battle
[00:39:12] scenes of the tender we river and their phenomenal.
[00:39:15] They do a great job of representing what he's talking about right there.
[00:39:20] Back to the book, we dive for our holes and gun positions.
[00:39:23] I jump to the gun with which chocolate and eye had left standing on the bank.
[00:39:30] I unclamp the gun and fired, spraying my shots as though I are handling a hose.
[00:39:35] But one fell.
[00:39:36] The first fell, as though his under part had been cut from him by a scythe and the
[00:39:43] others fell tumbling, screaming.
[00:39:46] Once again, our gun collapsed and I grabbed a rifle.
[00:39:48] I remembered had no sling which had been left near the gun.
[00:39:53] The jab, who had survived, who had survived was deep in the coconuts by the time I found
[00:39:58] him in the rifle sites.
[00:40:00] There was his back, bobbing large and he seemed to be throwing his pack away.
[00:40:06] Then I fired and he wasn't there anymore.
[00:40:10] Perhaps it was not eye who shot him, but everyone had found their senses for not everyone
[00:40:15] had found their senses and their weapons by then.
[00:40:18] But I boasted that I had.
[00:40:20] Perhaps too, it was a merciful bullet that pounded him between the shoulder blades for
[00:40:26] he was fleeing to a certain and horrible end.
[00:40:30] Black knights, hunger and slow dissolution in the rain for us.
[00:40:37] But I had not thought of mercy then.
[00:40:40] Modern war went forward in the jungle.
[00:40:43] Men of the first battalion were cleaning up.
[00:40:45] Sometimes they drove a Japanese toward us.
[00:40:48] He would cower on the riverbank, hiding on a wear that opposite him were we.
[00:40:54] Already the victors, numerous heavily armed, lusting for more blood.
[00:41:01] We killed a few more this way.
[00:41:04] The fever was on us.
[00:41:11] Yet it's interesting that he's looking back and thinking to himself that when he kills
[00:41:16] this Japanese soldier, that was a merciful thing to do.
[00:41:21] Because he didn't suffer yet.
[00:41:23] They've been on the island for a few days, even though they're scared, even though
[00:41:26] they've received fire.
[00:41:27] They haven't gone to the full length of suffering that they're going to go through.
[00:41:32] So in the battles over, and leki gives everyone in the book, he just gives them these
[00:41:39] really kind of easy to understand nicknames based on their personality.
[00:41:46] So he talks about this guy here who he calls Lieutenant Ivy League, which doesn't take
[00:41:52] a lot of explanation to picture what that guy is like.
[00:41:55] So here we go back to the book.
[00:41:56] Lieutenant Ivy League strode up to our pits in the morning.
[00:42:00] So this is the battles over.
[00:42:01] He sat on a coconut log and told us what had happened.
[00:42:05] He smoked desperately and stared into the river as he talked.
[00:42:10] The skin around his eyes was drawn tight with strain and with shock.
[00:42:14] His eyes had already taken on that aspect peculiar to Guadalcanal, that constant stare of pupils
[00:42:22] that seemed darker, larger, rounder, more absolute.
[00:42:27] And he kind of gives him a debrief on what happened with the battle that where the Japanese
[00:42:33] had come from.
[00:42:34] And then he says, when he spoke again, it was to tell us who had been killed.
[00:42:40] There were more than a dozen from age company besides more than a score of wounded.
[00:42:47] Four or five of the dead were from our platoon.
[00:42:51] Two of them had been hacked to death.
[00:42:54] A Japanese scouting party had found them asleep in their hole on the riverbank and sliced
[00:43:00] them into pieces.
[00:43:04] Our regimen had killed something like 900 of them.
[00:43:09] Most of them lay in clusters or in heaps before the gun pits commanding the sand spit.
[00:43:16] As though they had not died singly, but in groups.
[00:43:22] One of them reeds went methodically among the dead armed with a pair of pliers.
[00:43:27] He had observed that the Japanese have a penchant for gold fillings in their teeth, often
[00:43:31] for solid gold teeth.
[00:43:34] He was looting their very mouths.
[00:43:37] He would kick their jaws a gap, peer into the mouth with all the solicitude of a park
[00:43:42] avenue dentist, careful, always careful not to contaminate himself by touch.
[00:43:49] And he ain't got all the glittered.
[00:43:52] He kept the gold teeth in an empty bull Durham tobacco sack, which he wore around his neck.
[00:44:00] Souvenirs.
[00:44:01] We called him.
[00:44:02] So that's another nickname he gave, they called this guy Souvenirs.
[00:44:09] Now they're suholing in that position.
[00:44:13] And for a few nights while they were holding this position on the river, they would see
[00:44:17] they didn't know what it was.
[00:44:19] They would see sort of a V in the calm water.
[00:44:23] They would see like a V, a disturbance in the water.
[00:44:25] And they couldn't figure out what it was.
[00:44:27] They were scared out of the couple times.
[00:44:28] They shot towards it.
[00:44:29] They didn't know what it was.
[00:44:30] They thought it was a spire or a scout trying to check them out.
[00:44:35] But they were crocodiles.
[00:44:39] Back to the book.
[00:44:40] I took the glasses from him and focused on the opposite shore where I saw crocodile eating the
[00:44:45] fat Japanese.
[00:44:48] I watched into based fascination, but when the crocodile began to tug at the intestines,
[00:44:53] I recalled my own presence in that very river hardly an hour ago.
[00:44:58] And my knees went weak and I relinquished the glasses.
[00:45:03] That night the V reappared in the river.
[00:45:05] So they could see the little ripple in the river.
[00:45:09] Everyone whooped and hollered.
[00:45:11] No one fired.
[00:45:12] We knew what it was.
[00:45:14] The crocodile.
[00:45:15] Three smaller Vs trailed afterwards.
[00:45:19] And there's even more crocodiles coming.
[00:45:23] They kept us awake, crunching.
[00:45:26] The smell kept us awake.
[00:45:28] Even though we lay with our head swath in a blanket, which was now, which was how we kept
[00:45:33] off the mosquitoes, the smell overpowered us.
[00:45:38] The sense which somehow seems a joke is the one most susceptible to outrage.
[00:45:45] It will give you no rest.
[00:45:48] One can close one's eyes to ugliness or shield the ears from sound, but from a powerful
[00:45:53] smell there is no recourse but flight.
[00:45:58] Then since we could not flee, we could not escape this smell and we could not sleep.
[00:46:05] We never fired at the crocodiles, though they returned to the repost day after day until
[00:46:10] the remains were removed to mass burning and burial, which served as a funeral pyre for
[00:46:16] the enemy.
[00:46:17] We had annihilated.
[00:46:26] Our victory in the fight, which we called the Battle of Hell's Point, was not so great
[00:46:31] as we had imagined it to be.
[00:46:35] It was to be one of the many fights for Guadalcanal, and in the end not the foremost of them.
[00:46:41] But being the first in our experience, we took it for total triumph.
[00:46:46] Like those who take the present for the best of all worlds, having no reference to the
[00:46:51] past, nor regard for the future.
[00:46:55] As a mistake, we all make something good happens and you think you're the victor.
[00:47:04] On the high plateau of triumph, we were about to descend into the depths of trial and
[00:47:10] tedium.
[00:47:11] The Japanese attack was to be redoubled and prolonged and varied.
[00:47:15] They would come from the sky, the sea, and the land.
[00:47:18] In between every trial, there would stretch out the tedium that sucks a man dry drawing
[00:47:24] off the juice from body and soul as a native removes the contents of a stick of sugarcane,
[00:47:31] giving it spent, cracked, good for nothing but the flames.
[00:47:38] And there is terror coming from the interaction of trial and tedium.
[00:47:45] The first shaking a man as the wind in the treetops, the second eroding him as the flood
[00:47:52] at the roots.
[00:47:53] So he's got these two things that are working on him.
[00:47:57] The trail, which is the actual fighting, the actual attacks and tedium, which is the boredom
[00:48:02] in the waiting.
[00:48:05] And again, if you watch the Pacific, it does a great job of showing this and one of the things
[00:48:11] that really got me when I watched that for the first time is it shows this landing and
[00:48:15] there's nothing happening.
[00:48:17] Then you're waiting for it to happen.
[00:48:19] Then you know it's going to happen and you're waiting for it.
[00:48:22] And that was a real, that, that, that, that, I remember that feeling.
[00:48:27] Of being in the streets and you're waiting for it to happen and you're just waiting.
[00:48:31] And it's a, you want it to happen.
[00:48:34] Because then you can go.
[00:48:35] Yeah.
[00:48:36] Let's get it over.
[00:48:37] Yeah.
[00:48:38] But here's, he's describing it as like a tree being eroded.
[00:48:41] So the first shaking a man as the wind in the treetops, the second.
[00:48:47] So that's, that's what, that's what the, the actual thing does to you, shakes you around.
[00:48:51] But the tedium, the second, that's the tedium eroding him as the flood.
[00:48:57] At the roots.
[00:48:58] Each fresh trial leaves a man more shaken than the last and each period of tedium with
[00:49:04] its time for speculative dread.
[00:49:09] Leaves his foundations worn lower, his roots less firm for the next trial.
[00:49:16] Sometimes there is a final shattering, a man crouching in a pit beneath the bombardment
[00:49:22] of a battleship might put a pistol to his head and deliver himself.
[00:49:30] Sometimes it is partial.
[00:49:32] Another man might break at the sound of a diving enemy plane and scream and shutter
[00:49:38] and ring his hands and rise to run.
[00:49:43] This is the terror I meant.
[00:49:45] This is the terror that strangles reason with the clawing hands of panic.
[00:49:52] I saw it twice.
[00:49:53] I felt it plucked at me twice, but it was rare.
[00:49:57] It claimed few victims.
[00:50:01] So that's a really, I think that's just a phenomenal way to understand what these guys were
[00:50:08] going through.
[00:50:10] The waiting and then the trial and then the waiting and then the trial.
[00:50:16] And that's a great description.
[00:50:18] The speculative dread, just thinking about, okay, what's the next attack going to be
[00:50:24] like, are we going to be able to get through it?
[00:50:28] And you know, he's talking about guys killing themselves.
[00:50:30] Being so, they just can't take it anymore.
[00:50:34] They can't take it anymore.
[00:50:37] And the only way out they can figure is to kill themselves, which is just a horrible, horrible
[00:50:45] thing.
[00:50:46] Sometimes criminals will do that.
[00:50:48] Like if they're on a budget if they're on the run.
[00:50:50] True.
[00:50:51] And they're like, when are they going to break down my door and find me and they get that speculative
[00:50:56] dread and they just turn themselves in?
[00:50:58] Right.
[00:50:59] Or I thought you were going to say that sometimes you know, guys want their surrounded
[00:51:03] by the SWAT team.
[00:51:04] Oh yeah, then they just know they just can't take anymore of the guilt themselves.
[00:51:07] Yeah, I feel like that's more of them.
[00:51:10] I'd rather dive and go to jail almost.
[00:51:11] True.
[00:51:12] But speculative dread.
[00:51:13] Are you talking about?
[00:51:14] Yeah.
[00:51:15] Because it's the tournaments, you know, when you're winning around like, oh, and my
[00:51:19] up in my up, that's like, can be part of the chat.
[00:51:21] I mean, waiting.
[00:51:22] Yeah, you're waiting.
[00:51:23] I mean, obviously, we're late harder than this.
[00:51:24] But this.
[00:51:26] And he, so he says this and he says it, it claimed few victims, meaning it didn't actually
[00:51:33] most guys sucked it up.
[00:51:35] And you're going to hear him.
[00:51:36] You know, because he says he felt it twice.
[00:51:39] It plucked at him twice.
[00:51:42] But it wasn't, it was rare.
[00:51:45] He says it, but it was rare.
[00:51:46] And then he says courage was commonplace.
[00:51:49] So that was what was normal.
[00:51:51] It was normal.
[00:51:52] It was courage.
[00:51:54] And this is just such a good paragraph or two here.
[00:51:59] Courage was a commonplace.
[00:52:01] It formed a club or corporation, much as do those other common things upon which men
[00:52:08] for diverse reasons, play so great of value, like money, like charity.
[00:52:15] Courage is in the common on which the exclusive rests.
[00:52:21] Our muddy machine gun pits were transformed into courage clubs.
[00:52:27] When bombs fell or Japanese worships pounded us from the sea.
[00:52:32] It was protocol to be observed too.
[00:52:34] And it was natural that the poor fellow who might break into momentary terror should cause
[00:52:41] pain, silences and embarrassed coughs.
[00:52:45] Everyone looked the other way, like millionaires confronted by the horrifying sight of
[00:52:51] a club member borrowing $5 from the waiter.
[00:52:56] And then he says this, but there was a bit more charity in our clubs, I think.
[00:53:02] We were not quite so puffed up that we could not recognize the ugly thing on our
[00:53:08] friends face as the elder brother of the thing fluttering within our own inwards.
[00:53:19] You today, me tomorrow.
[00:53:24] And that's such a powerful thing to think about.
[00:53:28] When you see someone going through some trouble to be able to recognize like, hey, you
[00:53:33] know, echoes going through some issues right now.
[00:53:36] And I'm not looking down at you.
[00:53:39] I'm not judging you.
[00:53:40] I'm recognizing that what you're going through today could be what I go through tomorrow.
[00:53:45] And they all felt, he felt that, you know, I see echo losing it and curling into a ball
[00:53:50] and not wanting to fight.
[00:53:52] And I recognize that as the older brother of the thing that I actually feel too.
[00:53:57] But I've got it under control today.
[00:54:00] Tomorrow I'm not patrera.
[00:54:01] I got it under control.
[00:54:02] That's why I'm not looking down my nose at you.
[00:54:05] And that's why I'm not judging you.
[00:54:06] And I think that forms such a tight bond that these guys had, you know, these guys had
[00:54:14] respect enough respect and enough mercy on each other to say, look, that goes out
[00:54:20] an hour and a time right now.
[00:54:21] It's okay.
[00:54:22] We're going to get him through today.
[00:54:24] I'm not going to look down on him.
[00:54:27] And tomorrow it might be me.
[00:54:28] And he's not going to look down on me.
[00:54:31] Powerful stuff.
[00:54:32] We tend to judge.
[00:54:34] Yeah, especially.
[00:54:35] Yeah, it seems like they can relate, you know, like echoes at level eight right now.
[00:54:40] He's losing it.
[00:54:41] I'm over at level two.
[00:54:43] And luckily I can keep the two inside, you know.
[00:54:46] But I don't even know when two's going to come out.
[00:54:48] Yes, it was at one.
[00:54:49] So I could very well be it, you know, but that idea that when you're dealing with other
[00:54:54] people, you try and have their perspective.
[00:54:58] You try and take their perspective and understand what they're going through and have
[00:55:01] empathy for what's happening to them.
[00:55:03] Oh, powerful.
[00:55:04] Yeah.
[00:55:05] Instead, we tend so often just to want a judge.
[00:55:10] Yeah.
[00:55:12] Judge.
[00:55:17] Back to the book.
[00:55:18] At night, washing machine Charlie picked up the slack.
[00:55:22] Washing machine Charlie, so named for the sound of his motors, was the nocturnal
[00:55:28] morerger who prowled our skies.
[00:55:31] So these are Japanese bombers.
[00:55:36] Like the dog whose bark is worse than it's bite, the throb of Charlie's motors was more
[00:55:40] fearsome than thump of his bombs.
[00:55:44] Charlie did not kill many people, but like McBeth, he murdered sleep.
[00:55:52] To these trials was added the worst ordeal, shelling from the sea.
[00:55:57] Many warships usually cruisers, sometimes battleships stand off your coast.
[00:56:03] It is night and you cannot see them nor could you if it were day as their miles and miles
[00:56:09] away.
[00:56:11] We could see the flashes of the guns far out to sea.
[00:56:14] We heard the soft papoon, papoon of their salvos.
[00:56:20] And rushing through the night, straining like an airy box car came the huge projectiles.
[00:56:28] The earth rocks and shakes upon the terrifying crash of the detonation.
[00:56:32] Though it would be hundreds of yards away, your stomach is squeezed as though a monster
[00:56:38] a monster hand were needing it into dough.
[00:56:43] You grab gas for breath like a football player who falls heavily and has the wind knocked
[00:56:47] out of him.
[00:56:49] Flash, papoon.
[00:56:53] They are loing their sights.
[00:56:54] It is coming closer.
[00:56:55] Oh, that one is close.
[00:56:56] The sandbags are falling.
[00:56:58] I can't hear it.
[00:56:59] I can't hear the shell.
[00:57:00] It is the one you don't hear, they say.
[00:57:01] The one you don't hear.
[00:57:03] Where is it?
[00:57:04] Where is it?
[00:57:05] Flash, papoon.
[00:57:06] Thank God.
[00:57:08] It is lifted.
[00:57:09] It is going the other way.
[00:57:13] This day light now and they are only the bombings to worry about and the heat and the mosquitoes.
[00:57:19] And the rice lying in our bellies like stones.
[00:57:28] So again, the unknown and uncontrollable experience of getting hit with mortars or artillery
[00:57:36] in this case, naval gunfire.
[00:57:39] And again, there is no US Navy out there.
[00:57:41] They are just having their way.
[00:57:42] It is a nightmare.
[00:57:47] They continue to press on, but things are not looking good back to the book.
[00:57:52] Everyone kept saying, hopefully, that the Army was coming in next week to relieve us.
[00:57:58] Everyone was in despair.
[00:58:00] We heard that the Army relief force had been destroyed at sea.
[00:58:05] Chocolate and I visited the cemetery.
[00:58:08] It lay to the south off the coastal road that ran from east to west through the coconuts.
[00:58:14] We knelt to prey before the graves of the men we had known.
[00:58:18] Only palm fronds marked the place where they were buried, although here and there were
[00:58:23] rude crosses on which were nailed the men's identification tags.
[00:58:31] Some of the crosses bore mess, gear tins, a fixed to the wood like rude medallions and
[00:58:38] on those the marines had lovingly carved their epitaphs.
[00:58:43] He died fighting.
[00:58:47] A real marine, a big guy with a bigger heart, our buddy.
[00:58:57] The harder the going, the more cheerful he was.
[00:59:04] There was also this verse which I had seen countless times before and since the direct
[00:59:10] and unpolished cry of a marine, sardonic heart.
[00:59:15] When he gets to heaven, so same Peter he will tell one more marine reporting, sir, I've
[00:59:23] served my time in hell.
[00:59:31] Now part of that despair that they felt came from the fact that they began to feel
[00:59:45] expendable.
[00:59:48] Then he goes into that here.
[00:59:50] All armies have expendable items.
[00:59:53] That is a part or unit, the destruction of which will not be fatal to the whole.
[00:59:58] And some more deals a man might consider his finger expendable, but not his hand, or an
[01:00:03] extremity his arm, but not his heart.
[01:00:07] There are expendable items which may be lost or destroyed in the field either in war or
[01:00:12] in peace without their owner being required to replace them.
[01:00:17] A rifle is so expendable or a cartridge belt.
[01:00:22] So are men, men are the most expendable of all hunger, the jungle, the Japanese, not one,
[01:00:32] nor all of these could be quite as corrosive as the feeling of expendability.
[01:00:40] This was no feeling of dedication because it was absolutely involuntary.
[01:00:46] I do not doubt that if Marines had asked for volunteers for an impossible campaign such as
[01:00:52] Grotto Canal, almost everyone now fighting would have stepped forward.
[01:00:57] But that is sacrifice, that is voluntary.
[01:01:01] Being expended robs you of that exaltation, the self-abnegation, the absolute freedom of self-sacrifice,
[01:01:14] being expended puts one in the role of victim rather than sacrificeer.
[01:01:21] And there is always something begrudging in this.
[01:01:29] So luckily they do end up getting some help, getting relieved.
[01:01:39] The army shows up to help them out and here we go.
[01:01:43] So we were glad to see the soldiers when they came, trudging up to our pits.
[01:01:48] They came after another air raid, a very close one, but the thing had not infected them yet.
[01:01:55] War was still a lurk.
[01:01:57] Their faces were still heavy with flesh, their ribs padded, their eyes innocent.
[01:02:04] They were older than we, and averaged 25 to our average 20.
[01:02:10] Yet we treated them like children.
[01:02:17] Now even though they get relieved, they're still working and still fighting.
[01:02:23] And they're still suffering.
[01:02:25] Back to the book we were growing irritable.
[01:02:28] Our strength was being steadily sapped and a sort of physical depression afflicted many
[01:02:33] of us.
[01:02:35] The reign, the rainy season was upon us.
[01:02:38] On our exposed ridge, it fell upon us in torrents.
[01:02:42] The man was drenched in seconds, his teeth chattering at his hands darting swiftly to his precious
[01:02:47] cigarettes, transferring them to the safety of his helmet liner, cursing bitterly if he had
[01:02:51] waited too long before becoming conscious of their peril.
[01:02:56] After cigarettes, we were concerned about our ammunition.
[01:03:00] On the downward slope of the hill, the rain water ran into our pits and holes, as though
[01:03:04] they were sewer receivers.
[01:03:06] We had to dash for the pits and lift the boxes of machine gun belts out of the water's
[01:03:10] way, piling them atop on another on the earth and gun platform.
[01:03:16] Any dry place in the pit was reserved for ammunition.
[01:03:20] He who sought refuge from the rain had to sit on the water cans.
[01:03:26] There were whole days of downpour where I lay drenched in shivering, glazing, blankly out
[01:03:31] of my whole, watching as the sheeded gray rain whipped and the undulated over the ridge.
[01:03:40] That such times a man's brain seems to cease to function.
[01:03:45] It seems to retreat into a depth, much as the red core puzzles retreat from the surface
[01:03:50] of the body and times of excitement.
[01:03:53] One ceases to be rational, one becomes only sedentant, like a barnacle, clinging onto
[01:04:00] a ship.
[01:04:02] One is aware only of life, of wetness, of the cold gray rain.
[01:04:09] But without this automatic retreat of reasons, a man can go only one way.
[01:04:17] He can only go mad.
[01:04:23] Sort of level of detachment there.
[01:04:25] Just checking out.
[01:04:27] Just checking out.
[01:04:28] You're just there, but you're not there.
[01:04:31] Good place to visit sometimes.
[01:04:35] You know, I don't think you want to live there.
[01:04:37] You certainly don't want to live there, but it's a good place to visit.
[01:04:41] Why?
[01:04:42] I just think it's important to get to a point where you're just attaching from your physical
[01:04:48] suffering and your physical pain.
[01:04:49] And you just say, you know what?
[01:04:51] I'm just turned off.
[01:04:52] And you just retreat, like he said, you just retreat into almost like nothingness.
[01:04:57] I think it's important.
[01:04:59] I think to gain clarity or something.
[01:05:01] Yeah, I think you gain some clarity.
[01:05:03] And I think it's a very important defense mechanism to have.
[01:05:06] Oh, yeah.
[01:05:07] You know, sometimes when you're doing stuff, you just have to do it.
[01:05:12] Like you can't think about anymore.
[01:05:13] You just have to turn your brain off and go.
[01:05:16] And I think that's what he's talking about right there.
[01:05:19] He's not participating in it.
[01:05:21] He's just attaching from it and doing what he's got to do.
[01:05:24] His body is doing what he's got to do.
[01:05:29] Now, they're this whole time they're expecting to be relieved.
[01:05:39] They're expecting to get pulled off the island.
[01:05:43] And one of the sergeants comes out and makes an announcement to them.
[01:05:48] Stand by to move out in the morning.
[01:05:50] Yeah, we move it out into a new offensive.
[01:05:56] Get all your foul weather gear ready and be sure your guns is oiled.
[01:05:59] Up in the ammunition belts dry.
[01:06:02] Eight Marines will be up to relieve us in the morning.
[01:06:07] So they think they're going to get relieved and go to a ship and relax and get, get into,
[01:06:14] get some relief.
[01:06:15] That's what relieve is, right?
[01:06:17] But they get told, no, you're going on a new offensive.
[01:06:21] So they're in, well, here, going back to the book.
[01:06:24] After nearly five months.
[01:06:27] By the way, a lot of times you think of the island campaigns Japan.
[01:06:29] These are little islands.
[01:06:30] You know, 10 miles long.
[01:06:32] You think all that probably took a week, two weeks, five months.
[01:06:37] After nearly five months, this runner and he's going to name all the different guys
[01:06:43] a different nickname you can hear.
[01:06:45] Runner had malaria.
[01:06:47] Brick barely stirred from the pit except at night.
[01:06:50] Who's your an oak stump or subject to long periods of depression?
[01:06:54] Head and long since left us, I had dysentery, chocolate was irritable.
[01:06:59] All of us were initiated and weakened beyond measure.
[01:07:04] But we were to move out on the attack.
[01:07:07] We could not move the chow without gasping for breath, but we were to move on the enemy.
[01:07:15] We disperseed.
[01:07:17] In the morning, we crouched by our guns and waited for the order to dismantle them and
[01:07:21] move out.
[01:07:24] It did not come.
[01:07:26] Norded to come the next day or the next and hope came creeping back blushing, ashamed
[01:07:31] of her loyal, disloyal flight, but commending herself to us once more with the promise
[01:07:37] never again to desert the ramparts.
[01:07:42] Then one morning, the word came to move out.
[01:07:46] Sergeant Dandy gave it to us.
[01:07:49] Heaf the guns behind, he said, take only your rifles and foul weather geared.
[01:07:55] He grinned.
[01:07:56] We're being relieved.
[01:07:58] He was December 14, 1942.
[01:08:02] We had been on the lines without relief since August 7th.
[01:08:08] My battalion, the second battalion, first regiment, was the last of those in the first
[01:08:13] marine division to come out of the lines.
[01:08:18] The battle canal was over.
[01:08:21] We had won.
[01:08:25] And next, they get pulled back off the island now and he's climbing aboard the ship of the
[01:08:34] board cargo nets.
[01:08:37] He's exhausted.
[01:08:38] I was able to reach the top of the net but go no further.
[01:08:41] I could not muster the strength to swing over the gunnel and I hung there breathing heavily.
[01:08:47] The ship's hot side swaying away from me in the swells.
[01:08:50] The very predition, lapping beneath me until two sailors grabbed me out of the armpits
[01:08:55] and pulled me over.
[01:08:57] I fell with a clatter among the others who had been so brought aboard and I lay with
[01:09:01] my cheek pressed against the warm, grimy deck, my heart beating rapidly, not from this
[01:09:07] exercise.
[01:09:10] But from happiness.
[01:09:14] He ends up having a sailor, a conversation, him and his buddy Chockler, who's like one of his
[01:09:20] best friends, they are end up having a conversation with one of the sailors.
[01:09:28] And he says the soldier seems to be surprised.
[01:09:30] He says, you mean Guadalcanal.
[01:09:32] He says, was it rough?
[01:09:35] How was it?
[01:09:36] Rough?
[01:09:38] Rough we answered mechanically.
[01:09:40] Then Chockler spoke up.
[01:09:41] You mean Guadalcanal?
[01:09:44] The soldier seemed surprised.
[01:09:46] The conversation with the soldier that was on the ship that hadn't been in Guadalcanal.
[01:09:51] The soldier seemed surprised.
[01:09:52] Of course I do.
[01:09:53] Chockler hastened to explain.
[01:09:55] I wasn't being wise.
[01:09:56] I meant, had you ever heard of the place before you got here?
[01:10:00] He's astonishment startled us.
[01:10:03] An idea was dawning.
[01:10:05] You mean, how, yes, Guadalcanal, the first Marines, everybody's hurt.
[01:10:11] You guys are famous.
[01:10:14] You guys are heroes back home.
[01:10:17] We did not see him leave for we had both looked away quickly.
[01:10:21] Each embarrassed by the quick tears.
[01:10:25] They had not forgotten.
[01:10:29] And again, I kind of breeze through that park in the book.
[01:10:35] But a lot of times when they were in those moments of despair, they'd be thinking, no
[01:10:38] one knows what's going on here.
[01:10:40] They don't know how bad it is.
[01:10:41] But the reality was this war, this battle that lasted five months.
[01:10:45] There was all kinds of reporting in the glory of the Marines and what they were doing.
[01:10:51] And so they were, I guess, you know, they were just overwhelmed with the fact that this
[01:10:56] soldier said, you guys, are you kidding me?
[01:10:58] Guadalcanal, this is it.
[01:11:02] Now after they leave Guadalcanal, they get some much needed R&R.
[01:11:12] Rest in relaxation, they get to go to Australia, you did do this.
[01:11:16] And they, they go into the book.
[01:11:21] Of all the regiments ours, the first was in the most advantageous position for the great
[01:11:27] debauch.
[01:11:29] Discipline.
[01:11:30] Already dissolved in the delicious squeals of the girls all but disappeared that night.
[01:11:38] We received part of our six months of Rears of Spain in Australian pounds.
[01:11:43] But we were issued no clothing.
[01:11:45] We still wore our disheveled dungaries.
[01:11:48] So you can imagine these guys are coming off of Guadalcanal, hell.
[01:11:53] And now they're rolling into Australia.
[01:11:55] And they describe it here.
[01:11:56] Girls are waiting for them.
[01:11:58] These are the heroes of Guadalcanal.
[01:12:00] So they roll in and they get after it in the way that we talked about earlier.
[01:12:06] They start just, they're going crazy.
[01:12:12] And this is one of the things I loved about this book is that Robert Lecky is so real.
[01:12:21] He's so real.
[01:12:22] He's just a, he's just real.
[01:12:25] And guess what he likes to do?
[01:12:27] He likes to get after it.
[01:12:28] He goes out.
[01:12:29] He drinks.
[01:12:30] They drink.
[01:12:31] They chase women.
[01:12:32] He goes hard.
[01:12:34] And he ends up getting into some trouble.
[01:12:40] And he talks about brig rats.
[01:12:44] Basically, guys that have been thrown in the brig, which is, which is the military jail.
[01:12:48] And on a ship, they actually have a little brig, you know, a little jail room.
[01:12:52] And you can get thrown in there.
[01:12:54] And so we talked a little bit about that.
[01:12:59] It is most especially a marine sediment sentiment.
[01:13:03] And when analyzed, it turns out to be not shameless or shocking, but merely this.
[01:13:10] A man who lands in the brig is apt to be a man of bold spirit and independent mind who
[01:13:16] must occasionally rebel against the harsh and unrelenting discipline of the camp.
[01:13:22] I am not attempting to exalt what should be condemned.
[01:13:26] I'm not suggesting that because of their boldness or independence, the brig rats be
[01:13:31] forgiven and escape punishment.
[01:13:34] Brig'd they must be, and brig'd they were.
[01:13:38] Nor am I speaking of the habitual brig rat.
[01:13:43] The steady maligner, who, the good for nothing, who is more often in the brig than out of
[01:13:49] it, and who seeks to avoid every consequence of his uniform, even fighting.
[01:13:55] I speak of the young, high-hearted soldier whose very nature is bound to bring him into conflict
[01:14:01] with military discipline and to land him, unless he is exceptionally lucky in the brig.
[01:14:07] I speak of chocolate and chicken and oak stump and a dozen others.
[01:14:13] And of course of myself.
[01:14:16] So he's saying, look, you guys that are high-spirited go-getters, and they're going to get
[01:14:22] after it on the battlefield, and they're going to get after it on the liberty, and sometimes
[01:14:26] they're going to get rolled up unless they're super lucky, and that doesn't make
[01:14:29] them bad people.
[01:14:30] And I had one of my buddies getting really big trouble.
[01:14:34] This is when we were young guys.
[01:14:38] Back in the day, back in the day, one of my bros.
[01:14:41] He got in big trouble, and I thought that our officer, who's one of the best officers
[01:14:47] I ever worked for, I thought he was going to really, you know, just crush him and I thought
[01:14:52] he's going to be really disappointed in all these horrible things.
[01:14:55] And this is a guy.
[01:14:56] The officers of the guy that we all loved and wanted to always impress, and we wanted
[01:14:59] to do a good job for him.
[01:15:00] And so when my buddy had this big incident that he did, which, you know, he was drunk and
[01:15:05] got crazy and, you know, got arrested and all that, all that bad stuff.
[01:15:10] And I talked to our OIC about it in a today's, or you know, is, I mean, what's going to
[01:15:16] happen with my buddy.
[01:15:20] And the officer goes, hey, you guys are young warriors and things like this are going
[01:15:25] to happen.
[01:15:26] Don't let him happen much, but they're going to happen.
[01:15:29] And we'll deal with it.
[01:15:30] And I'll send myself.
[01:15:31] I don't know why I love this guy so much, but that's exactly it.
[01:15:35] You know, he was he knew that that, you know, you had young, ram-bunks, just guys full
[01:15:42] of testosterone and then you add alcohol into the equation and you add chaos into the
[01:15:48] equation, because some guys might control again.
[01:15:51] I hate to, to give that credence to this type of stuff.
[01:15:56] Because when I look back, I wish I would have been a better leader.
[01:15:58] I wish I would have been doing other things, you know, but if you're in a leadership position
[01:16:03] and you've got guys like this and you can demo instead of trying to help them, you're
[01:16:07] not helping them.
[01:16:08] It's goes back to this judgment thing that we talked about earlier.
[01:16:10] If I'm looking at you saying, oh, you don't, you don't, you got in trouble.
[01:16:16] You're a bad person.
[01:16:18] I don't want you on this team.
[01:16:19] Instead of saying, hey, look, we got to get you on a control.
[01:16:23] You got the right attitude.
[01:16:24] You got the lot of energy.
[01:16:25] Let's focus it on somewhere.
[01:16:26] Correct.
[01:16:27] Let's focus it on something good.
[01:16:29] Let's get you doing something positive instead of doing something negative.
[01:16:33] Instead, sometimes guys go into the judgmental mode.
[01:16:36] You know, I'm just going to judge you and oh, you got in trouble.
[01:16:39] So you're bad.
[01:16:40] That's the wrong attitude, Dave.
[01:16:42] How about you got in trouble?
[01:16:43] How about me is the leader.
[01:16:44] I let you down.
[01:16:46] I didn't show you the right way to expend your energy.
[01:16:48] I didn't give you the opportunity to give you an outlet for this, this aggression that
[01:16:54] you have.
[01:16:55] Because you, aggression you're going to have.
[01:16:57] That means fighting.
[01:16:59] You don't think you get up.
[01:17:00] You get a guy that are in the military.
[01:17:02] Do you want someone in your platoon?
[01:17:04] Do you want them to be not aggressive?
[01:17:06] Of course you want.
[01:17:07] I want the most aggressive bastard you can imagine.
[01:17:10] And guess what?
[01:17:11] If you don't give them to something to do with that aggression, they're going to find something
[01:17:14] to do with it.
[01:17:15] And it's not going to be good.
[01:17:16] So as a leader, let's find something positive that they can do with their aggression.
[01:17:20] Yeah, it's not like he's out there.
[01:17:22] Not like it's known.
[01:17:24] Like in your case, you thought he was going to get severely punished.
[01:17:29] Correct.
[01:17:30] It's not like he's out there publicly saying,
[01:17:32] hey, that's cool.
[01:17:33] Dude, what you got to do?
[01:17:34] Play.
[01:17:35] You're right.
[01:17:36] But when it happened, yeah, it's like.
[01:17:38] And I think truly that officer who is a great guy, he truly probably felt exactly what
[01:17:44] I just said, I should have given them a better outlet for this aggression.
[01:17:48] You know, I should have let I should have figured something better out for them to do.
[01:17:52] We got to do something.
[01:17:54] You give us idle hands and pockets full of money.
[01:17:57] Can you imagine these guys are getting six months pay and they were the richest guys
[01:18:01] in the world.
[01:18:02] I guarantee it.
[01:18:03] You know, especially rolling into wartime Australia.
[01:18:06] I mean, you know how stringent they were with with the restricting the money that people
[01:18:12] were using and spending all over the world to save money for the war.
[01:18:15] And here come these guys in.
[01:18:16] Richest guys ever.
[01:18:17] Heroes of Wall of Canal.
[01:18:19] I think they're going to get after it.
[01:18:22] They're going to get after it.
[01:18:24] So as leaders, what we need to do is give them a proper outlet.
[01:18:27] Right.
[01:18:28] Because those guys want to get after it.
[01:18:29] But you've got to give them the right way.
[01:18:30] Yeah.
[01:18:31] You know, you've got to give them something positive that they can work on.
[01:18:33] And if you're going to let them do something negative, then let's put some barriers around
[01:18:37] them so they don't get into trouble.
[01:18:42] Wish I would have known this when I was a when I was coming up.
[01:18:46] I would have done more positive stuff and said a more negative stuff.
[01:18:50] So now we get into the trouble piece.
[01:18:55] And these, he's got so many great stories about how these guys, what these guys were going
[01:18:58] through.
[01:19:00] And this, so they're out.
[01:19:02] He's out drinking.
[01:19:04] And one of his buddies, guy that I mentioned before, his name is Chuckler, Chuckler is actually
[01:19:09] on duty.
[01:19:10] So he's standing duty, which means he's uniform.
[01:19:12] He's not allowed to drink.
[01:19:13] He's watching and he's being, you know, he's on duty.
[01:19:19] And so here we go.
[01:19:20] I found Chuckler standing glumly outside the Slop Shoot entrance.
[01:19:25] He'd hope for the interior guard where he might sneak a beer or two.
[01:19:31] I'll get you one, I promised.
[01:19:33] I returned with a big glass out of which Chuckler might take a surpetitious sip.
[01:19:40] There were more side elves.
[01:19:42] Until Chuckler said, I got to go to the head.
[01:19:45] Here cover for me.
[01:19:47] He gave me his pistol belt and helmet and made off.
[01:19:50] So now, let these drunk right now.
[01:19:52] Okay, so.
[01:19:58] But Chuckler says, hey man, I'm going to take a piss here, take my helmet, take my pistol,
[01:20:03] cover for me.
[01:20:05] For a century to be drunk and then to desert as post and surrender as a weapon is to
[01:20:10] combine Cardinal Sin with unforgivable offense.
[01:20:15] I was anxiously hoping that he would hurry back.
[01:20:19] But then an unfortunate thing happened.
[01:20:22] Lieutenant Ivy League came striding down the corridor.
[01:20:26] I say it was unfortunate because Ivy League was the officer of the day.
[01:20:31] More than that, he was still the man who had philched my cigars, the enlisted men's cigars
[01:20:36] if he will.
[01:20:37] So at one point he had gotten hold of some cigars and this officer had taken him.
[01:20:44] And by the way, also Robert Lecky, he's an Irishman and I'm not going to make a generalization.
[01:20:54] Okay, yes, he's a hot tempered Irishman.
[01:20:59] And so he sees this guy and then he's drunk.
[01:21:03] He just got off the gullalacanel and here's what happens.
[01:21:06] Back to the book.
[01:21:07] My anger was nourished by the alcohol within me and I drew Chuckler's pistol and pointed
[01:21:12] at him and said, stop where you are.
[01:21:15] You lousy cigar stealing son of a bitch or I'll blow your gentleman's ass off.
[01:21:25] So not, not good.
[01:21:28] And he ends up getting in pretty significant trouble.
[01:21:37] And he actually gets bread and water.
[01:21:39] Which they still do that in the military.
[01:21:40] They get bread and water.
[01:21:42] You can get he gets bread and water for five days.
[01:21:44] So in the break, bread and water for five days.
[01:21:46] That's the punishment that he gets and he gets docked pay and he gets busted down and
[01:21:50] wreck.
[01:21:52] One time I was on a ship deployed, broken a jury and we were in a seal platoon.
[01:22:00] And I think I've told this story before.
[01:22:03] It was the one where the Marines like we would stay on the ship when we pulled an
[01:22:08] port and it would take like an hour to get off the ship because everyone would be waiting
[01:22:14] in line.
[01:22:15] And so what we would do is we would just work out for that hour hour and a half and
[01:22:19] it would go up.
[01:22:20] We could just walk right off the ship.
[01:22:21] Well, in that hour and a half the Marine, this young Marine had gone off the ship and was
[01:22:26] getting carried back onto the ship like passed out drunk covered in puke and an hour and a half.
[01:22:31] So that's what I think of when I figured these poor guys, can you come out and come
[01:22:33] off a bottle canal?
[01:22:34] You haven't even had water for six months.
[01:22:36] Never mind alcohol to the nightmare.
[01:22:41] But and of course they don't punish him too bad.
[01:22:45] Well, they they punish him, but they gotta keep him.
[01:22:48] You know, I mean, he's an able body Marine.
[01:22:50] They're not gonna, they're not gonna waste an able body Marine.
[01:22:53] And hopefully the Colonel in the back of his mind was thinking of himself, you know what?
[01:22:56] I want this guy and my, I want this guy with me.
[01:22:59] You know, this guy that's just gonna, you stole cigars from me?
[01:23:02] Cool.
[01:23:03] I'm gonna, I'm not threatening your life.
[01:23:04] Yeah, I'm just getting nuts.
[01:23:07] So they, but now Australia ends, they roll back out and it's time for them to start
[01:23:14] getting prepared to, they go to, they go to New Guinea.
[01:23:17] And if you remember New Guinea, that's another hard battle was fought there primarily by
[01:23:22] the Australians.
[01:23:23] It don't know just primarily, but the Australians definitely fought because I read that letter
[01:23:31] from the Australian soldier to his two year old daughter.
[01:23:33] That's where he died was a New Guinea, but now New Guinea is owned by the Allies and they
[01:23:41] go there to train to start to prepare for their next big push.
[01:23:45] And here we go back to the book.
[01:23:46] The truck climbed a series of small hills and finally deposited us in the middle of
[01:23:52] a field of Kuhnai grass, our new home.
[01:23:56] This is how the Marines train their men.
[01:23:59] Keep the mean and nasty like starving beasts says the core and they will fight better.
[01:24:06] When men are being moved from one place to another, spare no effort to make it painful.
[01:24:11] And before they've arrived at their destination, dispatch a man ahead to survey the
[01:24:16] ground with an eye toward diff discomfort.
[01:24:19] So you hear this all the time that that's the Marine Corps.
[01:24:22] The Marine Corps is gonna make you so pissed off.
[01:24:25] By the time you go into battle, you're just gonna kill everybody.
[01:24:28] Because you're so sick of living in the dirt.
[01:24:32] Now they do a decent amount of training and now they're preparing to assault another island
[01:24:41] called New Britain.
[01:24:42] This is I found this very interesting.
[01:24:44] So back to the book.
[01:24:46] The commander called us together that night delivered an eve of battle speech.
[01:24:52] He spoke in deliberate but angry tones.
[01:24:55] He spoke like a man who hated the Japanese as though he had suffered a personal affront
[01:25:01] at their hands and was bent on personal vengeance.
[01:25:06] As though this were a personal, not mechanical war.
[01:25:12] His harang seemed unreal.
[01:25:14] It was unreal because it could never produce the desired effect.
[01:25:19] Kill the Japs.
[01:25:20] The commander was saying, I want you to kill Japs and I want you to remember that you're
[01:25:25] the Marines.
[01:25:26] We've got a tough job where we're going and where we're going, you won't have much
[01:25:31] room for ammunition.
[01:25:32] So you'd better be sure you see something before you shoot.
[01:25:38] Don't squeeze the trigger until you've got meat in your sights.
[01:25:42] And when you do spill blood, spill yellow blood.
[01:25:49] That was all.
[01:25:51] We walked back to the tents.
[01:25:54] It was Christmas Eve.
[01:25:57] And I find this.
[01:25:58] It's Christmas Eve.
[01:25:59] He gets this speech and you can see like he's sitting here.
[01:26:02] There's thinking, okay, this guy's trying to get him all riled up and it's not having any
[01:26:06] impact.
[01:26:09] And this is what I found to be the real dichotomy here at the tents.
[01:26:15] Father's straight was preparing to say midnight mass.
[01:26:18] So they have a japan there, Catholic japan father's straight.
[01:26:23] And here's what he says, Father's straight spoke gently.
[01:26:29] He reminded us that not all of us would live to see another Christmas that perhaps some
[01:26:34] of us might die this very day.
[01:26:38] He told us to be sorry for our sins to ask the forgiveness of God, to forgive those who
[01:26:44] had wronged us, to prepare our souls for death.
[01:26:51] We sang hymns, nineteen hundred and forty odd years ago, the babe had been born and Bethlehem
[01:26:59] and we celebrated him this night in a dark and misty forest that his father had wrought.
[01:27:08] We sang hymns to him, silent night and hark the herald angel sing, mild the he lays his glory
[01:27:19] by born that man no more may die.
[01:27:27] And tomorrow our hands would be stained with the blood of our brothers.
[01:27:34] But we sang on half-heartedly, half hopingly, sometimes mechanically, sometimes with a desperate
[01:27:41] driving poignancy one hand on the heart, the other on the hilt of a bayonet in the morning,
[01:27:56] we marched down to the ships.
[01:28:03] So much more impactful on him was what father straight and much more than the fiery kernel
[01:28:10] that said we're going to go kill japs here.
[01:28:13] These guys are, I mean can you imagine you go in for comfort to midnight mass, Christmas
[01:28:21] Eve and you get told that many people, many of you may die this very day and to prepare
[01:28:31] your soul for death.
[01:28:33] That's what these guys are facing.
[01:28:35] That's what they're most trusted, the most trusted person in their lives, right?
[01:28:40] Their spiritual counselor is telling them prepare for death.
[01:28:43] Yeah, kind of like we'll talk about sometimes where you get a guy, like if you're watching
[01:28:51] a video and it's a guy getting you fired up, he's getting fired up to get you fired
[01:28:55] up, sometimes they can work but a lot of times that won't really work because you kind
[01:28:59] of feel like he's trying to sell you something.
[01:29:02] But then if you hear someone maybe even talking to someone else or talking about something
[01:29:06] else and you just kind of extrapolate certain things that get you fired up because it's
[01:29:12] so authentic.
[01:29:13] It's basically the indirect approach on your own mind.
[01:29:16] Yeah, and right, from mind.
[01:29:18] Yes.
[01:29:18] Back to the book on the sunless shores of New Britain where the rainforest crowded steeply
[01:29:27] down to the sea, we of the first Marine Division came back to the assault and it was here
[01:29:33] that we cut the Japanese to pieces literally when that devouring jungle did not dissolve
[01:29:39] them.
[01:29:40] And it was here that we pitted them.
[01:29:45] Now to pity the enemy is either madness or is it a sign or it is a sign of strength.
[01:29:53] I think that with the first Marine Division on New Britain, it was a sign of strength.
[01:30:00] He pitted him in the end this fleeing foe disorganized, demoralized crawling on hands
[01:30:08] and knees even in that dissolving downpour.
[01:30:14] For in the end it was we.
[01:30:20] The soft of feet Americans who had learned to get along in the jungle and who bore up
[01:30:28] the best beneath the ordeal of the monsoon and in these things lay our strength.
[01:30:40] And I'll tell you what I think that boils down to.
[01:30:43] So what they're saying here is these, you know, the Americans, what do people around
[01:30:46] the world think of the Americans?
[01:30:48] Even in 1943, Americans are soft.
[01:30:51] Americans are lazy Americans.
[01:30:53] They have too much comfort.
[01:30:55] And you think the exact opposite of the Japanese, especially in World War II, the Imperial
[01:30:58] Japanese Army, it was highly disciplined, it was extremely strict, it was a Spartan lifestyle.
[01:31:05] But look at what happened here and why is that?
[01:31:09] And I'll tell you why.
[01:31:11] In my opinion, I will tell you why.
[01:31:13] Because you have men that are fighting for freedom.
[01:31:18] They're fighting for freedom.
[01:31:20] And that makes all the difference in the world fighting for individual freedom, fighting for
[01:31:25] their personal freedom and fighting for their nations freedom and fighting for their nations
[01:31:30] freedom and its nation that is based upon freedom.
[01:31:34] That right there is stronger than any tyrannical government or any fanatical idea.
[01:31:49] The idea of freedom is stronger than the most.
[01:31:52] And that is why these quote, soft Americans, that is why they were able to conquer and
[01:32:02] defeat this enemy.
[01:32:03] This hardened enemy, this well-trained enemy.
[01:32:12] And this talks a little bit about what we were facing.
[01:32:19] To the north one patrol discovered the body of an e-companies scout who had been reported
[01:32:23] missing.
[01:32:25] The area bore the marks of a struggle as though we had fought hand to hand.
[01:32:30] His body bore dozens of bayonet wounds, they had used him for bayonet practice.
[01:32:38] In his mouth, they had stuffed flesh, they had cut from his arm.
[01:32:43] His buddy said he had a tattoo there.
[01:32:46] The marine emblem, the fouled anchor, and the globe.
[01:32:52] The japs cut it off and stuffed it in his mouth.
[01:32:57] The commander was angry.
[01:33:01] Again to the north, two Japanese officers had been caught snooping around our positions
[01:33:06] and had been killed.
[01:33:09] An e-companie outpost scouting the terrain at their front and discovered a Japanese force
[01:33:13] in platoon strength, sleeping, sleeping on the ground, sleeping.
[01:33:19] They fired into them into these sleeping supermen of the jungle with drawing upon the approach
[01:33:27] of another enemy platoon.
[01:33:35] And after this, after the bulk of the battle takes place and it was fair.
[01:33:42] It was not a fair fight and you're about to find out why.
[01:33:47] Back to the book, four Japanese soldiers and one officer had been taken alive and had been
[01:33:52] brought down to the CP, their arms bound behind them knives at their throats and from them
[01:33:57] we learned that the third company, 53rd Regiment of the Japanese 17th Division, had been
[01:34:03] dispatched from the main body at Cape Clouster to defend against our landing.
[01:34:10] The passage had been through near imprenetrable jungle and they had not arrived on the scene
[01:34:15] until two days after our own coming.
[01:34:20] Nevertheless, they attacked us.
[01:34:23] They attacked us, some 100 of them against our force of some 1200 and but for the prisoners
[01:34:30] we had annihilated them.
[01:34:33] Were they brave or fanatical?
[01:34:35] What had they hoped to gain?
[01:34:37] Did their commander really believe that a company of Japanese soldiers could conquer a battalion
[01:34:41] of American Marines experienced confident, better armed and placed on higher ground?
[01:34:47] Why did not turn around and march his men home again?
[01:34:51] Was it because no Japanese soldier can report failure?
[01:34:54] Cannot lose face?
[01:34:58] I cannot answer.
[01:35:01] Our dead were six men among them the stubby and trepured OB, whom I'd last seen in Melbourne
[01:35:07] and so drunk he could barely stand, whose gun pit had been overrun when the japs overwhelmed
[01:35:12] the section of the lines and their first silent rush up the hillside.
[01:35:17] OB, who had helped to drive them out in the counter attack and who had been alternatingly
[01:35:23] firing and hurling implications at them until one of their bullets took him squarely in the
[01:35:29] forehead.
[01:35:32] May he rest in peace.
[01:35:35] The Japanese dead lay in heaps on the hillside and they filled the trench where OB's
[01:35:40] gun had been located.
[01:35:48] So that shows the will of the Japanese fighters no doubt about it.
[01:35:54] They were hard core and they got told to attack with a hundred eyes against nine hundred
[01:36:00] or twelve hundred and they said, alright, let's do this.
[01:36:05] Now, the life, the existence in this jungle was harsh back to the book.
[01:36:15] The puffing of my lips and eyes symbolized the mystery and poison of this terrible island.
[01:36:20] Mysterious, perhaps I mean to say new Britain was evil, darkly and secretly evil, a
[01:36:26] malifactor and enemy of humankind.
[01:36:30] An adversary really dissolving, corroding, poisoning, chilling, sucking, drenching, coming
[01:36:36] at a man with its rolling, mist, green mold and ceaseless downpour, tripping him with his
[01:36:42] numberless roots and vines, poisoning him with green insects and bugs and treacherous
[01:36:48] tree bark, turning the sun from his bones and cheer from his heart dissolving him.
[01:36:54] The rain, the mold, the damp steadily pucking each, plucking each cell apart like tiny hands
[01:37:01] tearing at the petals of a flower, dissolving him.
[01:37:05] I say into a mindless, formless fluid like the sop of mud into which his feet forever fall
[01:37:12] in a monotonous, slopsuck, slopsuck, that is the sound of nothingness, the song of the jungle
[01:37:19] wherein everything falls apart in hollow harmony with the rain.
[01:37:26] Nothing could stand against it.
[01:37:28] A letter home had to be read and re-read and memorized for a fell apart in your pocket
[01:37:32] in less than a week.
[01:37:33] A pair of socks lasted no longer.
[01:37:35] A pack of cigarettes became sodden and worthless unless smoked that day.
[01:37:41] Pocket knife blades rusted together, watches recorded the period of their own decay.
[01:37:45] Rain made garbage of the food, pencil swelled and burst apart, fountain pens clogged and
[01:37:51] their points separated.
[01:37:52] Rifle barrels turned blue with mold and had to be slung upside down to keep out the
[01:37:56] rain.
[01:37:57] Bullets stuck together in rifle magazines and machine gunners had to go over their belts
[01:38:01] daily, extracting and oiling and reinserting the bullets to prevent them from sticking
[01:38:06] to the cloth loops.
[01:38:08] And everything lay, damp and sodden and squashed to the touch, exuding that steady musty
[01:38:13] weak that is the jungle's own, that individual odor of decay rising from vegetable life
[01:38:19] so luxurious and growing so swiftly that it seems to hasten the decomposition from the
[01:38:25] moment of birth.
[01:38:28] It was into this green hell that we were inserted a day or two after the march.
[01:38:33] And here was fought that battle with the rain forest.
[01:38:37] Here the jungle and the men were locked in conflict far more basic than our shooting
[01:38:43] war the Japanese for here.
[01:38:45] The struggle was for existence itself.
[01:38:51] The war was forgotten who could comprehend it.
[01:38:56] Who cared.
[01:39:02] And what do you say?
[01:39:07] And I have not spent that much time in the jungle.
[01:39:09] I spent some, I think the longs I've been in the jungle is maybe a month and it wasn't
[01:39:15] as bad as this.
[01:39:16] It wasn't raining as that much.
[01:39:19] But I can't even imagine just that constant.
[01:39:24] There's no escape from it.
[01:39:26] There's no escape from it.
[01:39:27] And it's even worse for leki and I'll tell you why.
[01:39:31] Back to the book.
[01:39:33] I would be wet not only from the rain.
[01:39:37] There's sometimes it stopped and at other times it did not fall so fast that a jungle
[01:39:41] hammock could not repel it.
[01:39:43] But because an affliction which I had begun, which had begun the moment I left Australia,
[01:39:49] was now again active.
[01:39:52] It had begun during the discomforts of grotto can now had disappeared in the civilized
[01:39:57] living of Melbourne and had reappeared.
[01:40:02] On good enough island, New Guinea and now on New Britain.
[01:40:09] I learned later from doctors to call it an e-reases.
[01:40:15] Winnersleep, the bladder empties.
[01:40:18] And that is that.
[01:40:22] So he puts that really nicely.
[01:40:26] But here's what's going on.
[01:40:28] This is the stress that he's under when he goes to bed.
[01:40:33] He pisses in his pants.
[01:40:36] And it's just he can't stop it.
[01:40:41] There's nothing he can do about it.
[01:40:44] And it won't go away.
[01:40:48] In fact, it went away.
[01:40:50] It will go away when the stress stops.
[01:40:52] When he went to Melbourne, it's all good.
[01:40:54] It stops.
[01:40:55] It's going to go away when he gets back out there in the stress of combat, the stress of the environment.
[01:40:59] And when he goes to bed, he pisses himself.
[01:41:04] And certainly he made a decision to put that in this book for a reason.
[01:41:15] And there is, it does fall into the story a little bit.
[01:41:18] But the reason I love that he put it in there is because it's just another thing.
[01:41:24] He's dealing with.
[01:41:26] And he's not even ashamed of it.
[01:41:27] He said, yeah, I'm stressed out.
[01:41:32] Scared.
[01:41:34] And I'm pissing myself.
[01:41:35] But guess what?
[01:41:36] I'm still going on patrol.
[01:41:41] Back to the book.
[01:41:42] The last patrol was a prolonged one of several days.
[01:41:45] We were taken by landing boat down the east coast to a place called Old Notamo.
[01:41:52] And there deposited.
[01:41:54] The place had once been inhabited by the Japs, but all their emplacements were now empty.
[01:42:02] Those of the enemy who were discovered were in the last extremities of Ordeal.
[01:42:08] Some were overtaken, crawling on their hands and knees.
[01:42:12] Some so badly decomposed it was as though their feet were rotting off.
[01:42:18] Some weighing perhaps no more than 80 pounds.
[01:42:21] Some were not weapons, all without food and all possessed of that indelentible fighting spirit.
[01:42:28] That was the Japanese Imperial Army's greatest asset.
[01:42:33] The one single factor that made a poorly equipped soldier a first-rate foe.
[01:42:40] They all resisted.
[01:42:43] And they were all destroyed, bayoneted for the most part.
[01:42:47] It was file for it was folly to fire on patrol in unfriendly unknown territory.
[01:42:55] One of these stragglers was strangled and cold blood by the kid, a youngster who, although
[01:43:00] already a veteran of gullal can now, was hardly acquainted with a razor.
[01:43:07] He would go mad two months later.
[01:43:11] So they come up across these Japanese, total 80 pounds malnourished.
[01:43:19] Some of them didn't even have weapons and they're just trying to fight anyways.
[01:43:27] He ends up with a hernia.
[01:43:30] It's a leaky, ends up with a hernia.
[01:43:34] And he gets pulled off to go take a look at his hernia.
[01:43:40] And they say, yeah, you got a bad hernia.
[01:43:42] But it's not bad enough.
[01:43:43] You're going back to the front.
[01:43:47] Then the army comes and replaces them there.
[01:43:50] And next thing, next move is they go to train at a place called Pavuvo.
[01:43:57] Pavu Islander doing another training to get ready for another island campaign.
[01:44:04] And here we go back to the book.
[01:44:05] The food was bad too.
[01:44:07] And the tents were rotten and punctured with holes.
[01:44:09] There was no water, except for what was caught in her helmets during the night.
[01:44:13] We bathed by dashing naked into the rain, soaping ourselves, madly in a race against the
[01:44:17] probability of the rain ceasing and being left streaked with sticky stope soap.
[01:44:23] And we washed our clothes by boiling them in cans of rain water.
[01:44:28] Our jungle rot had become so bad, so persistent that there was an appointed time each
[01:44:33] afternoon for the men to take off their shoes and socks and to lie out on their sacks with
[01:44:38] corrosive feet thrust out into the sun.
[01:44:42] But we had borne all this before.
[01:44:45] And we could bear it again.
[01:44:47] Nor could mere bad food or leaky tents press upon the ardor of my comrades.
[01:44:54] It was the death of hope that bore us down.
[01:44:58] There had always been hope, hope of relief, hope of the sun, hope of victory, hope of survival.
[01:45:05] But when they came and told us that none of us were going home on rotation, we strangled
[01:45:11] hope and turned into wooden soldiers.
[01:45:15] The future looked to innumerable enemy held islands and innumerable assaults and we had already
[01:45:23] noticed how the ranks of the new river originals were dwindling with every action.
[01:45:28] There were even a few suicides to suggest how to spare some could find the situation.
[01:45:35] Then the thing changed.
[01:45:41] They came and said half of the originals could go home.
[01:45:45] So these guys get to word.
[01:45:47] Hey look, we're praying for another salt, but half of you originals are going to go home.
[01:45:53] There was joy and then once the method of selection for the state side bound became known,
[01:46:01] there was anger.
[01:46:03] There would be a drawing, a state side lottery, in which men's names were repold from a hat.
[01:46:10] But only the names of those who had never been in trouble.
[01:46:15] I was among those whose name did not go into the hat, and so was runner and housher and
[01:46:20] chicken and souvenirs and a host of others.
[01:46:24] It seemed that the originals of the second battalion first marines had been neatly divided
[01:46:29] into good guys and bad guys.
[01:46:33] Among us they raged a profane anger.
[01:46:37] I know now how a convict must feel upon being turned down a job after being turned
[01:46:43] down a job after job because of its past.
[01:46:47] That was what disqualified us our past.
[01:46:50] It made no difference that we had been punished.
[01:46:53] Yes, punished again and again for to become customary to solve all problems of selection
[01:46:58] this way by marking brig rats for dirty duty and excluding them from special benefits.
[01:47:07] Nor did it matter that we had good war records.
[01:47:16] In retrospect, it's easy to forgive my commanders this, but then it was hard.
[01:47:22] It was too much like being unfairly condemned to death.
[01:47:28] The injustice of it overwhelmed me and I burned with a resentment that was dangerous to carry
[01:47:33] around.
[01:47:37] So what a one.
[01:47:39] What a nightmare.
[01:47:41] They say look we're going to have a little lottery.
[01:47:43] Some of you guys are going to get a home everyone's happy and say by the way if you've
[01:47:46] been in any trouble you don't get on the list.
[01:47:49] That's a death sentence.
[01:47:51] The way he's seen it.
[01:47:52] There's a death sentence.
[01:47:53] I'm going to keep doing this island hopping campaign.
[01:47:56] We're going to keep going.
[01:47:57] There's all these innumerable islands that need to be taken down.
[01:48:01] You're going to be on all of them and you've already seen X number of guys that you had
[01:48:05] killed and you're going to keep going until you're killed.
[01:48:08] So this was like a death sentence.
[01:48:10] Meanwhile the guys who might be able to go there just they're right there.
[01:48:14] And you're right next to you.
[01:48:18] And those guys probably did a lot of the same crap.
[01:48:22] Yeah, yeah, so the back to the book, my and your recess was more noticeable than before.
[01:48:32] Perhaps to the agitation of the moment aggravated it.
[01:48:36] I know that the men in my tent had been urging me to report it to sick bay.
[01:48:41] I did the doctor who knew of my case ordered me to banika.
[01:48:47] I was leaving in the morning.
[01:48:47] So with that, he basically says, okay, you know what, I'm pissing on myself.
[01:48:54] The guys have been telling me to go see the doctor about it.
[01:48:57] I haven't done that.
[01:48:58] I have a hernia.
[01:49:00] I'm going to go to medical.
[01:49:01] So he goes to medical and the doctor says, okay, you're going to go to banika.
[01:49:04] And banika is a is a island where they just are set up to handle wounded.
[01:49:12] And when he gets to banika, it's it's kind of shocking back to the book.
[01:49:19] Banika was a flesh pot.
[01:49:21] Banika was the big town.
[01:49:22] Banika was Broadway.
[01:49:25] Banika had women.
[01:49:26] It had buildings of steel and wood.
[01:49:28] It had roads.
[01:49:29] It had thousands of sailors as sleek as campans.
[01:49:35] It had movie amphitheaters.
[01:49:37] It had electric lights.
[01:49:42] It had canteens overflowing with candy and comforts.
[01:49:47] Banika had beer.
[01:49:49] Walking with the others from the beach to the navy hospital, I felt like a hick on his first
[01:49:52] visit to New York.
[01:49:54] Jeeps and trucks and staff cars swept over the islands, roads, raising a busy cloud of dust,
[01:50:00] cranes, croaked and cranked on the beach, loading and unloading the boats.
[01:50:04] And peas patrol the stockade of pointed sticks behind which, to well, the women.
[01:50:10] The navy nurses and red crossworkers.
[01:50:14] Everyone was well fed and unwured.
[01:50:17] The seat of every pair of pants was filled and happy.
[01:50:23] We, the lean ones, who wore our discontent on our faces and carried our nervous impatience
[01:50:30] in our hands, must have been a disturbing presence in that pouring island incubator.
[01:50:36] Yet as I walked along, I was filled with the uneasy suspicion that it would be the image
[01:50:44] of Banika and not pervue that would be presented to America as the Pacific War.
[01:50:53] They do that pretty good job of this in the series.
[01:50:57] That is good as they could have done because they show the guys coming on to a beach and
[01:51:03] there's nurses and they're dressed in like a beautiful clean white and they're literally
[01:51:06] handing out lemonade and it's such a contradiction to what they've been living.
[01:51:11] So you get that, but this image is even crazier in my mind of coming on this island.
[01:51:16] You become an off-pavu voo voo, you're living in the hell.
[01:51:20] And here these guys are whatever a quick flight away and they've got movie theaters and
[01:51:24] they've got beer and they've got women running around.
[01:51:27] It's just totally, totally different.
[01:51:29] And I've talked about that a bunch of times in here.
[01:51:31] You could be, you could be in World War II.
[01:51:35] But if you were on the island of Banika, wasn't that much of a sacrifice as it was compared
[01:51:39] to somebody that was on the island-happened campaign?
[01:51:41] It's not.
[01:51:42] And it's the same thing.
[01:51:43] There's places I wasn't Iraq where I would say, God, this is crazy.
[01:51:47] How nice this is.
[01:51:48] They got a swimming pool.
[01:51:50] The baits some of the baits said swimming pools.
[01:51:53] They got a nice gym.
[01:51:54] They got a nice childhood.
[01:51:55] Then you go out to some outstation in the middle of some forward operating base.
[01:52:01] And these dudes would be living hard, totally different for different people.
[01:52:09] Now leki gets put basically into a psych ward.
[01:52:15] They want to look at him.
[01:52:16] And he starts having this conversation with a psychologist.
[01:52:23] And I think this is a very important conversation.
[01:52:27] Back to the book.
[01:52:28] He began to question me about my experiences in war.
[01:52:31] And as I told them to him, he shook his head from side to side as though to indicate that
[01:52:35] my whole division not only myself ought to be psychoanalyzed.
[01:52:41] Then we talked of books for he was well read and philosophy.
[01:52:45] Suddenly he broke it off and said, what did you say you were?
[01:52:50] Meaning what did you say you did in the Marine Corps?
[01:52:52] A scout I said, Bradley, I used to be a machine gunner.
[01:52:58] And the doctor says back, but that's no place for a man of your caliber.
[01:53:04] Now I was shocked.
[01:53:07] The old Shibaleth intelligence had not our government been culpable enough in pampering
[01:53:15] the high IQ drafties as though they were too intelligent to fight for their country.
[01:53:22] Could not doctor gentle see that I was proud to be a scout and before that a machine gunner
[01:53:31] intelligence intelligence intelligence.
[01:53:35] Keep it up America.
[01:53:37] Keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs.
[01:53:44] Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice that America must be defended
[01:53:50] by the low brow.
[01:53:52] Keep in mind that the high brow keep fawning head over heart and soon the head will arrive
[01:54:01] at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meetly surrender the treasure to the first
[01:54:08] bandit with enough heart to demand it.
[01:54:15] Be careful.
[01:54:19] I think that we do a really good job now in America.
[01:54:25] You get kids that are, you know, there will be enlisted kids with bachelor's degrees
[01:54:31] and master's degrees in the army and the Marine Corps and the Seal teams.
[01:54:37] I don't think we have that as much, but it's definitely something that you need to
[01:54:41] watch out for.
[01:54:42] I think especially this goes back to judgment.
[01:54:46] I posted that earlier today.
[01:54:48] I met some young Marine, not a young Marine, but you know, guys probably 25, 27 years old
[01:54:54] and he came into the gym and you know, some say, I use in the Marine Corps.
[01:54:58] That's awesome man.
[01:54:59] What's doing the Marine Corps?
[01:55:00] He was like, I was a machine gunner.
[01:55:03] Like yes, like yes, that's awesome.
[01:55:07] But to have somebody think, oh, you were just a machine gunner, you must know.
[01:55:12] Be the machine gunner should be a faunted and elevated position in the world.
[01:55:25] Bless the machine gunner is not there.
[01:55:30] You want to talk about a person that can get stuff done.
[01:55:32] Go talk to a machine gunner.
[01:55:34] They'll make some stuff happen.
[01:55:36] They're carrying a big peg of gun around.
[01:55:39] They're laying down fire under pressure, put him off.
[01:55:44] I'll put the machine gunner up against one of these intellectuals.
[01:55:46] Eddie, day the week, bring it.
[01:55:49] But the machine gunner can be an intellectual.
[01:55:51] Absolutely.
[01:55:52] Absolutely.
[01:55:53] That's the point.
[01:55:54] Yeah.
[01:55:55] That's the point.
[01:55:56] Just because someone chooses to do something that's hard doesn't mean that they're
[01:56:00] not smart.
[01:56:01] Right.
[01:56:02] In fact, I go so as far as to say they are searching for.
[01:56:09] And discovering and becoming something that takes a level of mind power to do.
[01:56:19] Yeah.
[01:56:20] Kind of like that the week superficial assumption is that, oh, you're going to choose that
[01:56:27] kind of that hard thing.
[01:56:28] Because it's not really intuitive to just, I'm going to go for the hardest thing.
[01:56:32] It's intuitive to be like, I want to get this easy thing to do because it's easier.
[01:56:37] So when someone chooses the hard thing to do, the kind of assumption is that, oh, you
[01:56:42] had no other choice.
[01:56:43] Oh, yeah.
[01:56:44] Yes.
[01:56:45] Perfect.
[01:56:46] But, yes.
[01:56:47] No, man.
[01:56:48] I think that's a guy in high school where he's a year old in us.
[01:56:50] And he was like a smart guy and had all his stuff to get a good family and he went
[01:56:55] into the army.
[01:56:56] And I remember some people were like kind of surprised because they're going to just
[01:57:00] to the army that just like Dr. Gentle here.
[01:57:03] Oh, what are you doing that for?
[01:57:05] Because I want to be a machine gunner.
[01:57:06] Yeah, that's why.
[01:57:07] Yeah.
[01:57:08] Props to the machine gunners.
[01:57:13] Now out on the silent, he's there.
[01:57:16] He spends like a month and they're sitting down to watch a movie at the theater.
[01:57:24] I'll play that.
[01:57:25] Remember one time we had the awesome C-B's that worked for Winner Maudi with us.
[01:57:30] And so they're building bunkers.
[01:57:33] I'm not kidding.
[01:57:34] What were their priority builds when they were in the body with me on our little camp,
[01:57:37] camp, Mark Lee?
[01:57:39] The priorities that they were working on were bunkers were security walls on the river,
[01:57:47] getting barbed wire.
[01:57:48] Those are the priorities they were working on.
[01:57:50] And my lead CB, my CB chief.
[01:57:53] He had to go to our headquarters for a couple days to get money and get equipment and
[01:57:59] whatever.
[01:58:00] And when he came back, he was great dude.
[01:58:04] His nickname was Biggie.
[01:58:07] And he was big.
[01:58:09] Another one of those things.
[01:58:11] Yeah, yeah.
[01:58:12] No, he would, he would, like his warm-up sets on bench, we're in three 15.
[01:58:18] He was big.
[01:58:19] Big strong.
[01:58:20] Yeah.
[01:58:21] He was strong.
[01:58:22] And he came back and, you know, he says, he says, hey sir, come back from Fouloujia.
[01:58:27] And I was like, oh, everything cool out there.
[01:58:29] He goes, let me tell you something.
[01:58:30] I was like, what's that, Biggie?
[01:58:32] He says, you know what they're building out there?
[01:58:34] I said, no, I have no idea.
[01:58:36] I don't care what they're building out there.
[01:58:37] Because they're building the theater.
[01:58:40] I said, what?
[01:58:41] He said, they're building the theater.
[01:58:43] I said, you mean a movie theater?
[01:58:45] He goes, yes, off the theater.
[01:58:48] And he was just beside himself.
[01:58:51] Because here we were trying to build bunkers and security walls, they were building
[01:58:56] the theater.
[01:58:57] We didn't make it in like that.
[01:58:59] But those CVs man, they kept us, they kept everything wrong and wrong.
[01:59:03] And props, once you were props to the machine gunners, props to the CVs.
[01:59:08] Oh, for sure.
[01:59:09] So they're an a theater that had been built out here.
[01:59:14] And the movie began, there was an interruption over a public-adjust system of voice announced
[01:59:19] allied troops have just invaded northern France.
[01:59:23] The second front has been opened.
[01:59:26] The fears and shouts rose into the soft night to be followed by a buzz of excitement.
[01:59:31] But then the film began, and silence was restored.
[01:59:36] I arose and left the amphitheater.
[01:59:39] My heart throbbing and excitement.
[01:59:41] It was difficult to comprehend this excitement.
[01:59:44] It was a mix of thrill and pride.
[01:59:47] But predominating was the heartbeat of anxiety.
[01:59:50] For suddenly, it had been born in upon me that great events were happening.
[01:59:56] That the war was now rushing downhill to victory.
[02:00:00] And here I was, clad and pallid pajamas and robe lounging around the hospital.
[02:00:07] Yarning came upon me in a rush, and I wept herring along the dark road back to the hospital.
[02:00:13] I wanted to rejoin my comrades.
[02:00:17] Where he goes into the doctor, gentle, goes into his office.
[02:00:21] And basically they work it out.
[02:00:25] Back to the book.
[02:00:26] There's not much we can do for this trouble of yours.
[02:00:28] The hospital commander told me there's no carrying it out here.
[02:00:31] What you need is a change of climate and a less nerve-racking assignment.
[02:00:36] You're shipping me back to the state, sir.
[02:00:38] I asked he smiled wainly, ordinarily yes.
[02:00:42] Unfortunately, you Marines can't go home unless you're carried home.
[02:00:46] So we are sending you back to duty with the suggestion that you're commanding officer,
[02:00:51] have the century wake you during the night.
[02:00:54] I laughed and he laughed and Dr. Gentle laughed.
[02:01:01] Because they knew that's not something that's feasible.
[02:01:03] What they're basically saying is you're going to go back and you're just going to piss yourself
[02:01:06] and you're going to fight.
[02:01:07] And that's exactly what he wanted.
[02:01:10] Let's back there and now back to the book we left Pavu Vu.
[02:01:18] Victor's of Guadalcanal, new Britain, we went out to fight again marching into the open
[02:01:23] John landing craft, driven up on the beach.
[02:01:27] Never before where we so confident of victory never again would its price be so high.
[02:01:36] Galileo was already a Holocaust.
[02:01:41] The island flat and almost featureless was an altar being prepared for the emulation of
[02:01:49] 17,000 men.
[02:01:51] So they're going on to Pella Lu.
[02:01:58] And here we go right into it.
[02:02:00] They're in their landing craft.
[02:02:01] The water began to erupt in little geysers and the air became populated with exploding
[02:02:05] steel.
[02:02:06] And me was saluting us.
[02:02:07] They were receiving us with mortar and artillery fire.
[02:02:10] 10,000 Japanese awaited on the island of Pella Lu.
[02:02:13] 10,000 men is brave and determined and skillful.
[02:02:17] As ever a garrison was since the art of warfare began.
[02:02:21] Skillful.
[02:02:22] Yes, it was a terrible rain and it did terrible work among us before we reached the beach.
[02:02:30] Our amtrak was among the first assault waves.
[02:02:33] The beach was already a litter of burning blackened and phyby and trackers of dead and wounded.
[02:02:40] A morda garden of exploding mortar shells.
[02:02:44] Holes had beer scooped in the white sand or had been blasted out by the shells.
[02:02:51] The beach was poked with holes all filled with green clad, helmeted marines.
[02:02:57] We were pinned down.
[02:02:59] We were pinned down but not by mortars alone.
[02:03:01] The machine gun fire came from an invincible outpost which the Japanese had blasted out
[02:03:06] of a coral jutting into the bay.
[02:03:09] We found an opening in it and even then we were filling it with all manners of small
[02:03:14] armed fire grenades.
[02:03:15] Sticks of dynamite hurled by men who had crept up to it or billowing fire from the flame
[02:03:20] floors who had also gained the hole but the answering fire continued to break are deadly
[02:03:31] picnic ground.
[02:03:34] And the reason for that is here for the Japanese had possessed a pebble for two decades
[02:03:40] and had blasted into the coral a network of mutually supporting caves so that so these
[02:03:47] they'd been there for twenty years preparing for this and so they've got this massive cave
[02:03:53] network and even to every time they hit one of these locations.
[02:03:57] The more guys were just pop up and they also the Japanese also had tanks on Pelaloo
[02:04:03] back to the book.
[02:04:04] Their tanks swooped in suddenly upon us.
[02:04:07] They came tearing across the airfield a dozen or so of them.
[02:04:10] It was startling.
[02:04:11] They'd come out of nowhere and here were only riflemen and machine gunners to oppose
[02:04:16] them.
[02:04:17] It was a violent outburst of gunfire.
[02:04:19] I poked my head above the crater through the lacy branch work of the scrub trees.
[02:04:24] I saw an enemy tank streaking along with snipers and camouflage hanging onto the rear.
[02:04:30] It was but a moment's glance but at the time my eye caught sight of a marine from F company
[02:04:36] a veteran running bowl leg into the rear his face writhing shouting tanks tanks and officer
[02:04:42] grabbed him and spun him around and kicked him and propelled him back to his post.
[02:04:48] In the crater we'd prepared for defense like a caravan attacked by Indians.
[02:04:54] The enemy tanks whist past their little wheels whirling within the tracks.
[02:04:59] Machine guns clattered bazookas whambed our airplanes came screeching down from heaven and
[02:05:05] they rose the detonation of their bombs and the roar of exploding tanks.
[02:05:11] To my right I saw a line of our tanks advancing firing as they came seem to stop each
[02:05:16] time their guns stuttered.
[02:05:19] Then it was over the jab tanks had been destroyed.
[02:05:26] I turned to go and as I did nearly stepped on someone's hand.
[02:05:33] Excuse me I began to say but then I saw that it was an unattached hand or rather a detached
[02:05:40] one it lay there alone open palm upwards clean capable solitary.
[02:05:48] I could not tear my eyes from it the hand is the artisan of the soul.
[02:05:53] It is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart.
[02:06:00] Man has no faculty more human than his hand.
[02:06:04] More beautiful, more expressive, nor productive to see this hand lying alone as though contempt
[02:06:13] usually cast aside no longer a part of man no longer his help was to see war in all its
[02:06:21] wantiness.
[02:06:23] It was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending.
[02:06:31] And it was to see men at their eternal worst turning upon one another tearing one another
[02:06:38] clawing at their own innards with the maniacal fury of the pride possessed.
[02:06:47] Not much I can comment on that one.
[02:06:52] Back to the book our casualties were extremely heavy.
[02:06:56] More the day was done they were total 500 in the first regiment something like 20% this on the
[02:07:02] first day.
[02:07:05] We were advancing again our objective with bloody nose ridge.
[02:07:09] This was the high ground visible from across the airfield it gave the enemy perfect observation.
[02:07:17] Advancing across the flat table of crushed coral on which there was hardly a single
[02:07:22] depression as we were easily cited as clay ducks in a shooting gallery.
[02:07:29] But there was no other route and we had to take it.
[02:07:33] Grass cutting machine gun fire swept the airfield mortars mortarshells fell with the
[02:07:38] com regularity of automation.
[02:07:42] Marines fell.
[02:07:44] They crumpled.
[02:07:45] They staggered.
[02:07:47] They pitched forward.
[02:07:48] They sank to their knees.
[02:07:53] They fell backwards.
[02:07:55] They kept advancing.
[02:08:04] The mortars had stopped.
[02:08:08] The first F company wave was advancing across the air strip running low with ranks scattered,
[02:08:13] resting a withering machine gun fire that had been going to break the runway.
[02:08:19] They were falling.
[02:08:20] It seemed unreal.
[02:08:22] It seemed a tabloat like a scene from a motion picture.
[02:08:28] It required an effort of mine to recall that these were flesh and blood Marines men who
[02:08:34] my new, whose lives were linked with mine.
[02:08:39] The bill mort was required in facing up to the fact that my turn was next.
[02:08:47] Here is the point in battle where one needs the rallying cry.
[02:08:52] Here where the banner must be unfurled or the song song where the name of the cause
[02:08:56] flung at the enemy like a challenge.
[02:08:58] Here is the mounted charge.
[02:09:01] The thing is old as warfare itself that either overwhelms the defense and wins the battle
[02:09:07] or is broken and brings on defeat.
[02:09:11] How much less for bidding might have been that avenue of death that I was about to cross
[02:09:16] had there been some holy irrational shout like Viva Lampur or the Marine Corps forever
[02:09:25] rather than that educated voice which in a saying Freud that was at all odds with the event
[02:09:36] said well it's art or now.
[02:09:42] So you're going to get.
[02:09:44] That's all you're going to get.
[02:09:45] These Marines are getting teleport by machine gun fire by morgur.
[02:09:49] They're getting teleport Marines are falling left and right.
[02:09:51] They're continuing to advance.
[02:09:55] They're continuing to advance and he's watching this group go across this airfield getting
[02:10:01] mode down he wants some kind of motivation and what does he get?
[02:10:12] Well it's our turn now.
[02:10:15] Crazy.
[02:10:17] I bade goodbye to the artist.
[02:10:19] He looked at me sadly from beneath his helmet.
[02:10:22] His face made darker and more angular by its shadow.
[02:10:26] He cast a roof or a glance in the direction of the air strip and the still falling
[02:10:31] men.
[02:10:33] Good luck kid.
[02:10:35] He said and turned away.
[02:10:38] I began to run.
[02:10:40] The heat rose and stifling waves.
[02:10:42] The bullet whispered at times at other times they were not audible.
[02:10:45] I ran with my head low my helmet bumping crazily to obscure my view like waves rising
[02:10:50] around a small ship.
[02:10:54] In a moment I could not see Lieutenant Deep Chest or filthy Fred.
[02:11:00] I was alone in running.
[02:11:01] There were men to my left still falling.
[02:11:05] I ran and threw myself down caught my breath rose again and ran again suddenly I ran
[02:11:10] into a shell crater full of men and I stopped running.
[02:11:15] So the only cover that they have is a shell crater and he dives into this shell crater and
[02:11:21] there are 10 guys are so in there.
[02:11:25] And one of them he's called this one guy walkie talkie back to the book walkie talkie
[02:11:30] sat below me on the crater floor.
[02:11:32] He hunched his shoulders toward me and asked me to twirl certain giles.
[02:11:35] I did but he could not seem to get through.
[02:11:39] That came the screech of a shell.
[02:11:41] I braised my back for it even though I knew that the ones you hear are not the ones
[02:11:45] to be feared.
[02:11:48] That how fear the one that gets you, the one you do not hear.
[02:11:56] Another voice was audible now.
[02:11:59] The fifth Marines lieutenant who was wounded, who was in fact dying as I learned later
[02:12:05] was speaking by walkie talkie to his regimental commander.
[02:12:11] The glorious fifth Marines have gone through sir.
[02:12:15] You were saying and have achieved the objective.
[02:12:19] We are now in contact with the first regiment.
[02:12:31] Now there's 10 guys in there and finally one of the captains speaks up.
[02:12:41] How many men here from the first Marines he asked?
[02:12:44] We raised our hands.
[02:12:46] Six A, that ought to be enough.
[02:12:49] We better take that blockhouse over there.
[02:12:51] That's where all the machine gun fire seems to be coming from.
[02:12:54] As soon as this shell fire stops, we'll move out against it.
[02:12:58] Just like that.
[02:13:00] The blockhouse had resisted even naval gunfire.
[02:13:04] It had taken bombs, point blank, and remained standing.
[02:13:08] It was obviously covered by a maze of pill boxes.
[02:13:12] We six of us were to take it.
[02:13:16] The captain might be stupid, but no one could say that he was not gallant.
[02:13:22] I felt disgusted and resigned myself to an unprofitable death.
[02:13:29] I looked at the men from the fifth who were regarding us with wonder and envy them for having
[02:13:35] retained diplomatic relations with the state of sanity.
[02:13:42] Their commander was hardly conscious now, but he had heard.
[02:13:47] He waved a hand weekly in our direction and grinned as though to say, you'll never make
[02:13:53] it, but there's no harm in trying.
[02:13:57] And of course to a dying man, I suppose there was no harm.
[02:14:03] So, do you think they're going to do it?
[02:14:10] Yep, they're going to do it.
[02:14:11] They're going to charge this blockhouse.
[02:14:12] Six guys, this blockhouse.
[02:14:13] There's just concrete blockhouse, massive machine gunfire coming from it.
[02:14:17] They're going to charge this thing.
[02:14:19] That took bombs, straight up.
[02:14:21] That took direct hits from bombs.
[02:14:25] They make a run for it.
[02:14:27] Back to the book.
[02:14:28] The shells drove us back to our crater.
[02:14:30] Once again, walkie-talkie had difficulty with the apparatus.
[02:14:33] He could receive, but not send, but Italian was asking for positions.
[02:14:37] You better report back to command post.
[02:14:39] Captain said to me, but come back out.
[02:14:42] So lucky wants to go tell command post what's going on.
[02:14:48] He, imagine.
[02:14:49] There's just machine gunfire.
[02:14:51] Mortar's going off everywhere.
[02:14:52] He runs back.
[02:14:53] He gets back to the major.
[02:14:56] At the command post.
[02:14:57] How is it out there, Lucky?
[02:14:59] The major asked.
[02:15:00] Bad sir, I said, adding nothing.
[02:15:03] For my notion of this battle, we'll still confuse jumble of men and movement and explosions
[02:15:08] in which blistering hot, when which a blistering hot airfield was somehow involved.
[02:15:13] Then I rose and said, I better get back out.
[02:15:17] The major nodded and waved.
[02:15:19] Good luck.
[02:15:20] I took firm hold of my Tommy gun and adjusted my pack secured my map case and circle the
[02:15:28] pile of shell casings to return to the shell greater.
[02:15:32] It was my last warlike act.
[02:15:34] For the last time, I set my face toward the enemy.
[02:15:39] About a hundred yards out, a shell exploded in front of me.
[02:15:42] I veered to the right.
[02:15:43] Another shell exploded in front of me.
[02:15:45] I veered more.
[02:15:46] Another shell.
[02:15:47] Another, but closer.
[02:15:48] Four more.
[02:15:49] Another closer still.
[02:15:50] I halted.
[02:15:52] A horrifying fact became clear.
[02:15:54] I had inserted myself between the enemy artillery and their target.
[02:15:58] They were hunting something, perhaps the ammunition dumped behind me and were walking their
[02:16:03] fire in its direction.
[02:16:07] There was no cover.
[02:16:08] To go forward was the die.
[02:16:09] I could only run away from this approaching death, hoping to get out of the target area
[02:16:14] before it caught me.
[02:16:15] I turned and ran.
[02:16:18] I ran with the heat shimmering in waves of, from the coral, with the sweat oiling
[02:16:22] my joints and the fear drying my mouth, with the shells exploding behind me, closer
[02:16:27] ever closer, the airfield, the air filled with the angry voices of shrapnel demanding
[02:16:33] my life.
[02:16:35] I ran with an image in my mind of the Japanese gunner atop his ridge, bringing each
[02:16:40] burst, carefully closer to my flying rear.
[02:16:44] Chasing me across that baking table in a monstrous game of cat and mouse, gleeful at each
[02:16:50] greater burst of speed called forth by a closer explosion.
[02:16:54] And then tiring of sport lifting the gun and dropping one before me.
[02:17:00] A shell landed alongside me, perhaps five feet away, but it did not explode or at least
[02:17:06] I do not think it did, one cannot be certain at such time.
[02:17:11] There is a different space in time with fear.
[02:17:15] But there was a shell at two foot blob of burning red, which struck the coral with a thunder
[02:17:19] flap and seemed to glance off into the air and go wailing away into the bay, with that
[02:17:25] I called upon my remaining strength, and also then the Japanese gunner hit his target.
[02:17:31] The ammunition dump was hit.
[02:17:34] The war ended for me, I had been shattered, no good, a dry husk.
[02:17:41] Modern war had had me, a giant lemon squeezer had crushed me dry, concussion, heat,
[02:17:48] thirst, tension, all had had their way with me.
[02:17:54] I must have stumbled about, unable to speak until at last I sank my knees beside two
[02:17:59] men scratching a foxhole in the sand.
[02:18:02] They were startled.
[02:18:04] As no from afar I could hear them discussing me.
[02:18:08] He can't think what he thinks the matter with him.
[02:18:11] Search me, he don't look wounded, maybe he got a near miss.
[02:18:14] Hey, fella, what's wrong with you?
[02:18:16] Can't you say something?
[02:18:18] What do you think we ought to do with him?
[02:18:22] They rose and pulled me erect, got a shoulder a piece beneath my armpits and dragged me
[02:18:27] like a dummy through the sand.
[02:18:29] Like a life-sized doll in whom the spring had been broken, they dragged me to the doctor.
[02:18:37] A corpsman laid me on the blanket, tied a ticket to me.
[02:18:39] He thrust a needle into my arm, which was attached, a running hose to a bottle of liquid
[02:18:44] suspended upside down on a fray on a wire frame.
[02:18:49] The pair who had brought me, crouched beside me, what's wrong with him, Doc?
[02:18:52] One of the masked.
[02:18:53] I don't know the corpsman answered.
[02:18:55] He's pretty beat up though, blast concussion.
[02:18:58] I'm sending him back to the hospital ship.
[02:19:01] One of the pair looked longingly at the Tommy gun beside me.
[02:19:05] His glance seemed to say you won't need that anymore.
[02:19:07] I told him with my eyes to take it.
[02:19:10] And he slung it over his shoulder with immense satisfaction.
[02:19:13] And they left.
[02:19:14] They had their reward.
[02:19:17] Mortars were falling as they carried me onto the beach with about a half a dozen other casualties.
[02:19:21] We lay there and I wonder, dolly, if the jab gunners were to catch me after all.
[02:19:27] At last, the landing boat took a subordinate reward off for the ship.
[02:19:32] I began to feel shame.
[02:19:35] The others were badly wounded, some put out of pain by morphine and hear I lay in a corner
[02:19:41] quietly wretched like a frightened kitten intact my face on blemished my bones unbroken.
[02:19:50] The war was ending.
[02:19:52] I was ashamed.
[02:19:55] My spirit crept away from the eyes staring, from the staring eyes that fast, fastened
[02:20:01] upon us as the boat was drawn up out of the water to the deck.
[02:20:05] People in white coats throng the rail and two of these at the center gazed with authority
[02:20:10] into the boat searching for the wounded most in need of aid.
[02:20:15] I shrank from that expert stare when suddenly one of them pointed at me and said, him, get
[02:20:22] him downstairs right away.
[02:20:25] They grasped me, stripping me naked as they did and hurried me down a ladder, laying
[02:20:29] me on a table and again frusting a needle into my arm.
[02:20:34] With the liquid flowing into my body came the warm flood of returning self-respect, the
[02:20:39] dull, disperting shame had have disappeared the moment that pointing finger singled me out.
[02:20:46] I had been hurt.
[02:20:47] I wasn't need of aid.
[02:20:50] With a healing power of which he had no inkling, the doctor had restored my spirit to
[02:20:55] me.
[02:20:58] So the war ended for me.
[02:21:01] Each day for a week I ascended the ladder to the deck and gazed in more bed fascination
[02:21:06] that pellu and myel are so away.
[02:21:10] They were still fighting.
[02:21:12] One could hear the sound of the firing.
[02:21:16] Each day the news was bad.
[02:21:19] We were winning.
[02:21:22] But at a fearful price.
[02:21:27] And then the battle had been won.
[02:21:31] The nation had come to the Japanese 10,000 on pellu and my regimen, the first was licking
[02:21:37] its wound wounds on the beach.
[02:21:40] Of my battalion, a force of some 1500 men, the remained but 28 affectives when the command
[02:21:48] came for the last assault on that honeycomb of caves and pillboxes which the Japanese had
[02:21:54] carved into bloody nose ridge.
[02:21:57] In men and blood and agony, the most costly spit of land in the wide Pacific.
[02:22:07] When the command came, they rose from their holes like shades from sepultures and advanced.
[02:22:18] They could not run.
[02:22:20] They could barely walk and they dragged their weapons.
[02:22:24] They obeyed and they attacked.
[02:22:31] They were taken from the line on the brink of collapse.
[02:22:40] Ruffaford was killed.
[02:22:43] He'd been hit by a mortar shell and blown a bit white man had been killed.
[02:22:49] In the artist, the artist was dead, a brave man may he rest in peace.
[02:22:59] Captain Dreadnaut fell dead of a sniper's bullet.
[02:23:06] It had become a hall cost in the fullest sense.
[02:23:13] Scores of others in the battalion sparrished.
[02:23:19] Over those that have not been mentioned in this book, friends who did not fit the narrative,
[02:23:24] men whose faces I have not forgotten and whose bravery and sacrifice has deposited a vast
[02:23:31] spiritual credit for our nation to draw upon.
[02:23:37] These two fell wrestling that island rock from the grasp of its most tenacious defender.
[02:23:49] May they rest in peace.
[02:24:00] Sacrifice says, not the blood of your brother, my friend.
[02:24:09] Your blood.
[02:24:14] That is why women weep when their men go off to war.
[02:24:18] They do not weep for their victims.
[02:24:22] They weep for them as victim.
[02:24:28] That is why with the immemorial insight of mankind, there are gay songs and colorful bands
[02:24:39] to send them off to fortify their failing hearts, not to quicken their lust for blood.
[02:24:52] That is why there are no glorious living.
[02:24:57] That only glorious dead heroes turn traitor warriors age and gross soft, but a victim
[02:25:10] has changed less.
[02:25:28] Sacrifice is eternal.
[02:25:43] And I'll close with the book there.
[02:25:49] Obviously it's an incredible book about incredible men.
[02:25:58] And their eternal sacrifice.
[02:26:10] And it's so humbling to hear of their sacrifice.
[02:26:15] And I say it over and over and over again.
[02:26:18] And I will continue to say that we must live lives worthy of their sacrifice.
[02:26:23] The 7D-100 killed at Guadalcanal, the 2,336 killed at Pelaloo.
[02:26:41] And all the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who as Robert Lecky said later in his life
[02:26:50] who fought or who foremost fighting.
[02:26:57] Phil.
[02:27:05] And I think it's also important to remember the example of Robert Lecky who by his own admission
[02:27:13] was no angel.
[02:27:17] So plaster saint, but who is truly a hero.
[02:27:27] And remember that that people all people have good and bad qualities.
[02:27:33] And people make mistakes and they do dumb things and get those very people are capable
[02:27:41] of so much.
[02:27:48] And yet so often we judge, we judge and we judge and we judge and we cast stones.
[02:28:07] But who are we to judge?
[02:28:13] Who are we to judge when a man like Robert Lecky?
[02:28:19] Lecky Lecky.
[02:28:23] Who not only drank to access and chase girls and pulled up pistol on his superior officer
[02:28:31] and who got so nervous.
[02:28:35] So scared.
[02:28:36] Yes, I'm going to call it scared who got so scared that he would lose control of his
[02:28:43] bladder every time he went to sleep.
[02:28:48] And yet he overcame that fear with more bravery in his heart than most of us can even
[02:28:56] fathom.
[02:29:06] So who are we to judge?
[02:29:09] We shouldn't judge people, we should help them.
[02:29:16] Then there's probably nothing more we can do to live a worthwhile life than to help people.
[02:29:26] To help other people and in helping other people I promise you will be rewarded and you
[02:29:37] will be helping yourself too.
[02:29:46] And one more thing that we see in this book once again is the strength of human will.
[02:29:52] We see men tested beyond anything we can imagine.
[02:30:06] And then when they pass that test one time they get given that test again and then again
[02:30:17] and still they overcome.
[02:30:22] Overcome the pain and the suffering and the fear.
[02:30:31] And yet we can't get ourselves out of bed in the morning.
[02:30:34] We can't move toward a goal we've set for ourselves.
[02:30:39] Don't allow that.
[02:30:48] Remember the tender who river remember the airfield at Guadalcanal remember the discipline
[02:30:56] instilled in every marine at Paris Island.
[02:31:04] And remember what you remember what you are capable of if you mobilize your will.
[02:31:17] And if you keep moving forward you keep advancing.
[02:31:24] Remember what you are capable of if you keep attacking and keeping attacking and keep attacking
[02:31:33] and don't stop.
[02:31:41] Don't stop moving forward and don't stop attacking and don't succumb to the suffering
[02:31:58] and the pain and the fear don't succumb.
[02:32:03] But instead move forward and attack.
[02:32:17] And I think that's all I've got for tonight.
[02:32:25] So echo Charles.
[02:32:27] Yes.
[02:32:28] I'm over here doing a little decompression.
[02:32:33] Maybe you could mobilize your will to let people know how to support this podcast or
[02:32:42] stuff.
[02:32:43] I will make the disclaimer it doesn't take much will to do this.
[02:32:47] But I do see it as a time to decompress a little bit.
[02:32:51] Bro, seriously.
[02:32:53] Yeah.
[02:32:54] Can you even imagine?
[02:32:56] Again, getting tested over and over again.
[02:32:58] You're going through the hardest possible tests with dysentery and a hernia.
[02:33:03] With dysentery, a hernia, you're pissing yourself, your friends are getting killed.
[02:33:08] You pass that test through some miracle.
[02:33:11] And then like, yeah, you got another test.
[02:33:13] Right.
[02:33:14] Yeah.
[02:33:15] But to prepare you for the test we're going to make you suffer more.
[02:33:18] And then you get tested again.
[02:33:20] That's cool.
[02:33:21] But does not doesn't matter.
[02:33:22] It's not the final exam.
[02:33:23] You're going to do it again.
[02:33:26] And again, I say this all the time.
[02:33:28] This is thousands and thousands and thousands of people did this.
[02:33:34] That's what's important to remember.
[02:33:37] This isn't this is a civilian.
[02:33:39] This guy was a civilian.
[02:33:40] Yeah.
[02:33:41] It sounds like this crazy extreme.
[02:33:43] No.
[02:33:44] This is all the cases.
[02:33:45] Yes.
[02:33:46] This is all the cases.
[02:33:47] This is all the cases.
[02:33:48] He talks about he says, look, courage was common.
[02:33:51] There was a rare case where we'd get touched by this fear and it would overtake guys
[02:33:55] and we'd.
[02:33:56] All storm back up the best we could.
[02:33:57] But this isn't an anomaly.
[02:33:59] This isn't the story of the singular hero.
[02:34:03] Right.
[02:34:04] This is the story of thousands and thousands of heroes.
[02:34:07] And this is the story of what people are capable of.
[02:34:09] People are capable of this.
[02:34:11] It's proven.
[02:34:12] And when you think you can't take any more guess what you can.
[02:34:17] Amazing.
[02:34:18] Amazing.
[02:34:19] You know.
[02:34:22] Well, if I got disinterested,
[02:34:26] I wouldn't get out of bed straight up.
[02:34:28] Don't let alone all this other stuff.
[02:34:31] Yeah, I mean, bed.
[02:34:32] Maybe I'd go to the hospital or something like that.
[02:34:33] But then I'd go to hospital.
[02:34:35] Even echo Charles could employ the will in carry on with this entry.
[02:34:42] Yeah.
[02:34:43] I even say you got malaria too, by the way.
[02:34:44] You know, just think of my foot as a friend.
[02:34:47] He got it too.
[02:34:48] This friend got malaria, but he got malaria too.
[02:34:50] Got it.
[02:34:51] That's when they went to look at his hernia.
[02:34:52] They're like, hey, you got to go back to front.
[02:34:54] Oh, but you got malaria.
[02:34:55] Just suffer through that for whatever it is.
[02:34:57] Yeah.
[02:34:58] And that's four days.
[02:34:59] Okay, now you can go back.
[02:35:00] Okay.
[02:35:01] Okay, you're good now.
[02:35:02] Okay.
[02:35:03] Guys, you're just unbelievable.
[02:35:05] I'm trying.
[02:35:06] All right.
[02:35:07] Well, I feel like we should talk about on it then.
[02:35:10] No, that sounds like a great thing to talk about.
[02:35:14] I'll let you talk about it.
[02:35:15] I'm going to sit over here and decompress.
[02:35:17] Well, okay.
[02:35:19] So I'm really glad I'm just kind of goes without saying, but I'm going to say it.
[02:35:23] So I'm glad that we kind of got aligned.
[02:35:27] Well, I mean, I already took shrimp tech before this, but actually, I get technically
[02:35:31] it was you who really made me take krill oil.
[02:35:34] I didn't make you.
[02:35:36] Yeah, but you let's say you influenced me enough to actually take action.
[02:35:41] As they said, but anyway, so it's like kind of I compare like the post krill oil and
[02:35:49] the pre-cruel oil situation.
[02:35:52] So I was, you know, I was into lifting weights and stuff.
[02:35:55] And you know how like weights is a good kind of weights is cool because you know how strong
[02:36:00] you are kind of thing.
[02:36:01] You know, there's a lot of it.
[02:36:02] Yeah, it's pretty black and white.
[02:36:04] There's the number.
[02:36:05] So you can kind of judge like, yeah, this guy's strong or I'm stronger.
[02:36:09] I'm not strong or whatever.
[02:36:10] Right?
[02:36:11] So I considered myself pretty strong in the weight room.
[02:36:13] But, okay, this one time one of our friends came into town, we have, you know, we have
[02:36:18] the weights at the outside and stuff.
[02:36:20] And they're like, oh yeah, you got the weights.
[02:36:23] So he gets under there and he grabs away not heavy, but he grabs them and I'm thinking
[02:36:28] in my head, like, I can do way more than that.
[02:36:31] But then I was like, I can, but I have to warm up a lot first.
[02:36:35] You know, because it's really how strong am I?
[02:36:37] You know, really?
[02:36:38] Anyway, the point there is that was pre-cruel oil.
[02:36:44] I'm not saying I could jump underneath my max.
[02:36:46] No, I'm not saying that.
[02:36:48] I'm saying like my actual strength is closer to my no, non-warm-up strength.
[02:36:55] No.
[02:36:56] That's a good thing.
[02:36:57] You ever seen those videos?
[02:36:59] Where?
[02:37:00] Probably not.
[02:37:01] But go ahead.
[02:37:02] I don't know.
[02:37:03] You remember when they dress up the young professional basketball player or something?
[02:37:09] Oh, it's like under.
[02:37:11] And there's no an old man.
[02:37:12] Oh, yeah.
[02:37:13] Yeah.
[02:37:14] So there's this one.
[02:37:15] I think he's like a pro-crossfit guy or a pro-weight little Olympic lifter or something.
[02:37:19] So he goes to his beaches this whole man.
[02:37:22] And he says, hey, you guys are strong and stuff like that.
[02:37:24] I think he kind of overduzz it in my opinion with acting, but whatever.
[02:37:27] And everyone's believing like, oh, this old man, you know, he probably used to be a weight lifter.
[02:37:31] And he, and he gets under the weight and he's just killing.
[02:37:35] He's in Barry.
[02:37:36] He's just showing up all the guys.
[02:37:38] Beating them.
[02:37:39] You know, lifting them always.
[02:37:40] Then them and whatnot.
[02:37:41] So then he kind of like does his old man walk away.
[02:37:44] That's how I felt before the cruel oil.
[02:37:48] When it's time to lift like I could lift a lot, but like every day life on my kind of stiff, you know, like, I got to like get up after all, you know.
[02:37:57] That's it.
[02:37:58] That's the cruel, cruel oil comparison speech.
[02:38:02] And where would you recommend people get the cruel oil that you speak of so highly?
[02:38:05] Anyway, on it.
[02:38:07] But he, and I looked into that.
[02:38:10] And I'm like, all my prompts lead towards closure.
[02:38:14] Yeah, my goal.
[02:38:15] Yeah, sure.
[02:38:16] No, but I'm saying like, you know, you know, you don't care about my goal.
[02:38:20] You get your own goal.
[02:38:21] Yes, stories to tell.
[02:38:22] Yeah, thanks people want to hear about.
[02:38:24] But I think when I saw those videos, I was like, that was me before a crew.
[02:38:29] Or I really thought that like, well, that's how it feels.
[02:38:31] You know, kind of find it's a funny video to funny thought even really.
[02:38:34] But that's kind of how it feels.
[02:38:35] But I have that problem meeting more.
[02:38:37] You know, I don't feel like that anymore.
[02:38:38] So if someone has seen that video and they might be feeling that that way,
[02:38:43] maybe I can solve it.
[02:38:44] I wish I knew that long time ago.
[02:38:46] Anyway, looked into strong bone.
[02:38:49] Remember we were talking about it last week or whatever.
[02:38:52] And I was like, hey, does it make your bones?
[02:38:54] I gave you a strong moment.
[02:38:55] We had kind of did it.
[02:38:56] I mean, like, when I'm there on it, very resourceful.
[02:38:58] I'm a resourceful person on his very good resource.
[02:39:01] The website.
[02:39:03] And the answer is yes, it does.
[02:39:06] It helps like even like the onset of like osteoporosis, like all this stuff.
[02:39:10] It's like that's that's what it's like.
[02:39:12] I didn't memorize all the terms, but I know the point, but it's,
[02:39:16] oh, yeah, strong team.
[02:39:19] I like the name it after.
[02:39:21] Yes, because strong team calcium, all these things like make it.
[02:39:23] So when you get older and you know, degeneration, you lose that.
[02:39:26] Yeah, I'll in your natural deal, you know,
[02:39:30] maybe and you get the strong bone.
[02:39:32] Strong bone, strong to jump back in your bones easy money.
[02:39:36] So you take the crew away.
[02:39:37] Back in your bones or back in your joints.
[02:39:39] Well, your joints are made up of your bones, tendons, ligaments.
[02:39:43] Does it go into everything?
[02:39:45] It goes into your bones.
[02:39:47] Okay.
[02:39:48] So you figure the tendon connection to your bone.
[02:39:50] That's that's the part that's what you're trying to do up.
[02:39:52] Yeah, that can jam me up.
[02:39:53] That's what you heard right in your bicep.
[02:39:55] Yeah, that's what I heard.
[02:39:57] Yeah, I heard it one day.
[02:39:58] It ripped off my bone, my bicep ripped off my bone.
[02:40:01] Anyway, if I had some strong bone, that one happened.
[02:40:04] Maybe it would have gone up.
[02:40:05] But nonetheless, that is what strong bone helps.
[02:40:08] So guess what I did got some.
[02:40:10] No worries.
[02:40:13] But yeah, there's not just that.
[02:40:16] There's all kinds of cool stuff.
[02:40:18] Warrior bars, that's not how I got more of those.
[02:40:20] Shroom tech for performance and the program.
[02:40:24] Here's the thing, I think sometimes people will kind of mistake the
[02:40:28] Shroom tech when you know, because it helps your oxygen.
[02:40:31] They think that like, I'm going to when I breathe, it has something to do with your breathing.
[02:40:36] You know, it's not your breathing or your lungs.
[02:40:38] It's the amount of oxygen you take up when you breathe.
[02:40:42] So they can go to your muscle.
[02:40:44] That's what it helps.
[02:40:45] So if you go hard, like, super hard or grappling long way called wads.
[02:40:52] Right?
[02:40:53] Where's the day?
[02:40:54] Yeah, yeah.
[02:40:55] It helps.
[02:40:56] Keep to the other red.
[02:40:57] But yeah, go on there.
[02:40:59] For whatever you do, you know, they even work out stuff and whatnot.
[02:41:03] It's actually kind of a fun website.
[02:41:04] You're beyond there for a while looking at the cool stuff.
[02:41:07] That's my opinion.
[02:41:08] And my experience.
[02:41:10] You know, subscribe to the podcast.
[02:41:13] Actually, you know what we'll talk about Amazon first.
[02:41:16] So Amazon click through.
[02:41:17] This is a good way to support podcasts.
[02:41:20] What you do.
[02:41:21] If you don't know already.
[02:41:24] Before you do your Amazon shopping.
[02:41:26] Go to jocopotcast.com.
[02:41:28] Either on the tab on the top left and green or on the top menu.
[02:41:35] Or on the side kind of towards the bottom.
[02:41:39] This is a place to click on.
[02:41:40] Just support through either support.
[02:41:42] Jocopotcast or Amazon click through.
[02:41:44] Anyway, before you do your Amazon shopping, click through there.
[02:41:46] Then do your shopping.
[02:41:49] I actually did that the other day.
[02:41:51] And I don't know if you're watching this on YouTube.
[02:41:54] But if you are, this is what I bought.
[02:41:57] Google just took towing.
[02:42:00] And also, also, if you totally missed this book.
[02:42:05] I didn't, I don't know if I made it clear enough.
[02:42:07] The book that we read today is called Hellment for my pillow.
[02:42:11] By Robert Lecky.
[02:42:13] You can get that Amazon.
[02:42:15] You're going to put it echo.
[02:42:16] We'll have it on the website.
[02:42:17] And we'll click that.
[02:42:18] And you buy it.
[02:42:19] Boom.
[02:42:20] You'll be good to go.
[02:42:21] Yeah.
[02:42:22] You will support the podcast.
[02:42:23] And it's a family.
[02:42:24] And some way, because there'll be somehow being supported.
[02:42:28] Right?
[02:42:29] Because they're owned.
[02:42:30] I'm sure of this book.
[02:42:31] So it's a good way to support this hero, this hero's family.
[02:42:35] And also get the Pacific.
[02:42:38] I don't know if we could put that.
[02:42:40] I don't know.
[02:42:41] But anyways, what?
[02:42:42] Like if you could put it on.
[02:42:44] Click through.
[02:42:45] Unless maybe someone bought the DVDs.
[02:42:47] But watch that.
[02:42:49] And you know what?
[02:42:50] When you watch it.
[02:42:51] And you wrap yourself mentally.
[02:42:53] And don't watch it.
[02:42:54] While there's other things going on.
[02:42:55] Sit down.
[02:42:56] Right.
[02:42:57] On a nice situation, you know, logistically with a good TV set.
[02:43:02] And a good speaker system.
[02:43:04] Throne.
[02:43:05] Yeah.
[02:43:06] And then watch the Pacific.
[02:43:07] And you only.
[02:43:08] Well, they're like, maybe you can watch two at a time.
[02:43:11] Maybe.
[02:43:12] What?
[02:43:13] Two episodes.
[02:43:14] But watch them close together too.
[02:43:15] So you kind of maintain the continuity of the situation.
[02:43:17] Right.
[02:43:18] Because that's good too.
[02:43:19] You see it.
[02:43:20] Man, it's just incredibly well done.
[02:43:22] The thing.
[02:43:23] Yeah.
[02:43:24] It's awesome.
[02:43:25] And then when you have the background of the podcast of the books.
[02:43:28] And you read the books, man.
[02:43:29] It's really.
[02:43:30] Yeah.
[02:43:31] Totally powerful.
[02:43:32] Like, come to me.
[02:43:33] You actually get more into it.
[02:43:34] Oh, for sure.
[02:43:35] You know, like, when you know the guys on the story.
[02:43:36] Yeah.
[02:43:37] For sure.
[02:43:38] You're more invested in the characters.
[02:43:39] Yeah.
[02:43:40] And you realize that when you see lucky lucky in the thing, you have his whole
[02:43:44] backstory.
[02:43:45] It was whole life when you've read the book.
[02:43:47] And it's awesome.
[02:43:48] You know, um, there's a, by the way, that is on the podcast website.
[02:43:53] There's a whole section, whole page with all the books of all the podcast.
[02:43:58] Make it easy for the book situation.
[02:44:01] But yeah.
[02:44:02] So yeah, before you do your Amazon shopping, click through this, the click through the Amazon
[02:44:06] link.
[02:44:07] And then do your shopping.
[02:44:08] And yes, I did buy this item, which I'm showing.
[02:44:11] So if you look on YouTube, you can see it.
[02:44:14] It's to add to our little collection on the table.
[02:44:16] Yeah.
[02:44:19] So yeah, speaking of YouTube, we have a YouTube channel.
[02:44:22] It's good.
[02:44:24] People have been telling me.
[02:44:29] For real, people have been telling me, not just one person, but they say, hey, you should take
[02:44:33] because, okay, on YouTube channel, we have the podcast, of course, the video format.
[02:44:37] Exerps, just like, you know, excerpts from the podcast.
[02:44:40] So you can, like, share them and stuff like that.
[02:44:43] And then there's like, well, what do you call them? What artistic pieces?
[02:44:47] Stuff that I put some like time into, put some track of soundtrack.
[02:44:51] Echo Charles videos.
[02:44:53] Sure. I just called it.
[02:44:54] I forget what I called it.
[02:44:56] Like discipline, something.
[02:44:58] I don't know.
[02:44:59] So you made three categories or two to play.
[02:45:02] So basically, people have been asked me, hey, you should separate them and make them into playlists.
[02:45:07] Which kind of new about, but I'm not deep into the YouTube thing.
[02:45:11] Well, we know that.
[02:45:13] Well, no, as far as the customization and all that, which, which I kind of looked into.
[02:45:17] So this is good.
[02:45:18] What?
[02:45:18] I like about this is people gave you a suggestion, which I saw too.
[02:45:21] You, you looked at it, you explored it, and now you executed on it.
[02:45:25] Yeah, totally did.
[02:45:26] So if there's any other good ideas that people have, they should post them.
[02:45:30] And so that way you can improve even more and we can improve and serve for them better.
[02:45:34] Yeah, I think so. I think that's, and of course, someone going to be like, hey,
[02:45:39] you know, and they'll say an idea, it might not be all that good, but if, or it may not seem like it's all that good.
[02:45:45] But if another person says it, kind of unrelated, you know, not the kind of where some guys should say,
[02:45:50] but do this, you know, make this or create this and then someone just likes it or puts a like on it.
[02:45:56] Or says, yeah.
[02:45:57] So you're asking for multiple.
[02:45:59] Well, not the split hairs, but I'm not asking for anything.
[02:46:03] Oh, I'm saying that's where the actor.
[02:46:05] Yeah, so if someone says a suggestion, maybe the next day, two days, three days later,
[02:46:10] another person says same suggestion, suggestion unrelated.
[02:46:13] And that, ten, the end of the tendency, I see a tendency coming up.
[02:46:17] Then that's when I'd start taking action.
[02:46:19] What about the 14,000 people that told you to make more videos?
[02:46:23] I think in more videos, yes, that's what I thought.
[02:46:25] Yeah, those are, no, because I was watching, I realized I was watching so many,
[02:46:28] I can't remember who was, but I was watching chunks of someone speak the other night, someone that I was, I don't know who was.
[02:46:35] And I was so happy that they were in short clips.
[02:46:38] I was like, this is why we need more short clips.
[02:46:40] Yeah.
[02:46:41] Because it's really convenient to go.
[02:46:43] What's this idea here?
[02:46:44] Boom.
[02:46:45] Yeah.
[02:46:46] You see the name of the video you go.
[02:46:46] Here's the idea.
[02:46:47] I want to think about that idea, boom.
[02:46:48] Yeah.
[02:46:49] You can go.
[02:46:49] And YouTube is good like that where if there's a bunch of them, which, well, I think we're kind of coming up with,
[02:46:54] or collections kind of growing now.
[02:46:55] There's a bud, I'd say there's a bunch of them.
[02:46:57] How well did you execute when people said make when people like episode 42 make a video from this to this?
[02:47:04] How, how did you do any of that?
[02:47:05] Or did you blow everyone off?
[02:47:06] No, no, no.
[02:47:07] Yeah, that's mainly what I've based it on.
[02:47:09] Oh, okay.
[02:47:10] So, but those are, they're everywhere, you know.
[02:47:14] So some of them don't quite translate.
[02:47:17] Some of them, I just, I mean, I don't want to upload like five in one day.
[02:47:21] And I've read some stuff that it's like, no, no, it's not good to do that, but, no, no, that's all, that's all, that's all long story.
[02:47:26] I bet I don't know.
[02:47:28] Let's not just, let's not think about what's good to do and what's not good to do.
[02:47:31] You just gotta get to see what you're trying to get.
[02:47:33] So yeah, you're trying to, yeah, I dig it, man.
[02:47:36] But yeah, YouTube's good like that where if you listen to just the, like, an excerpt,
[02:47:40] we're just a clip two minute three minutes four minutes.
[02:47:42] And you're like, dang, I want to, I want to listen to some more.
[02:47:45] They, not only are they there to listen if you want, but they'll suggest, so you'll have a bit of continuity there.
[02:47:51] Instead of like, oh, I'm locked into this three hour thing right now.
[02:47:54] Right. Well, that's, and that's one thing that's a little bit tricky about this is that when I, when I'm thinking, when I'm talking,
[02:48:01] I'm thinking in the context of this giant two hour thing.
[02:48:04] So sometimes it's hard to snip out something and you lose a little bit in my opinion.
[02:48:09] Yeah, but you also gain a lot because you can get it quick.
[02:48:13] Right. And you can share it with the next guy who's more likely or the next person to more likely, listen to it.
[02:48:20] Yeah. Because even now, man, people will send me, you know, whether it be funny videos, there's this sodium video that,
[02:48:27] you know, the guy skipping a piece of sodium across the lake.
[02:48:31] Yeah. You saw that, it's been going around. I don't know if people look for it and then send it to me or it's been going around.
[02:48:37] So now more people are sending it to me because the last like two weeks, everyone's been sending it to me.
[02:48:43] And I want to actually do that. I want to get the sodium metal.
[02:48:46] And I want to throw it into the water.
[02:48:48] Yeah, we're doing it at some point. Yeah. You're house. I do. If we can find it, I want to do it in film and then just see what I see what up.
[02:48:56] I got to start looking to get some sodium metal.
[02:49:00] But yeah, that's, you know, the, these are good things. These, these YouTube situation made the playlist there on there.
[02:49:10] Exerps, I'm putting more on there.
[02:49:13] There it is.
[02:49:15] Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play and all the podcast platforms.
[02:49:22] You know, that's a good way to support because you're essentially just kind of in the game in general.
[02:49:28] You know, and that's really the thing.
[02:49:31] Because like the more people, you know, they'll hit us on the pun Twitter or just like kind of knowing and knowing what year's talking about or submitting questions.
[02:49:40] This kind of stuff. It does make that circle of like, it's not just juggle telling us what to do.
[02:49:45] It's kind of like we're all in this group, you know.
[02:49:48] Well, yeah, it's like hanging out with your friends basically.
[02:49:54] Like when I go on the road now, like I was just out with some firefighters and like we're all, everyone's telling the same jokes.
[02:50:02] But they're all, you know, we all get it.
[02:50:05] Yeah, exactly.
[02:50:06] So it's cool right now with them because it's like as if they were here. And I was actually talking to them about them.
[02:50:11] Like, well, you know, when it first happened, it would be a little bit strange to me.
[02:50:15] Right.
[02:50:16] Because you don't remember them sitting there because no one was sitting there actually.
[02:50:19] And I was like, well, sometimes it seemed like the podcast was like, was me and echo sitting in a room alone.
[02:50:24] Right.
[02:50:25] But then you realize, no, there's a lot of people sitting in here with us.
[02:50:27] And they have their own spins.
[02:50:30] This is what's funny is people have their own variations on the jokes and on the inside things.
[02:50:35] And I'm like, well, we're talking about so it's all, and you know, they've already taken stuff and spun it out somewhere.
[02:50:40] And now they're bringing it back to me. So I'm part of there.
[02:50:43] Right.
[02:50:44] I get in and get inside their game. So it's pretty funny.
[02:50:47] Yeah.
[02:50:47] And that's not to mention the questions that you answer.
[02:50:50] It's all everyone's questions for sure.
[02:50:52] Yeah, for sure.
[02:50:52] That's not like you're like, let me think of this question that I think people have.
[02:50:56] No, you got it from certain people and you know, answer them there.
[02:51:00] Yeah.
[02:51:01] You know, it's like a two, three way street.
[02:51:04] You do something better.
[02:51:06] Anyway, so yeah, when you're, when you're subscribed, you're, you know, you're kind of in the group.
[02:51:11] Good way to support.
[02:51:13] Also, jacquoise store called jacquoise store.
[02:51:16] Good store.
[02:51:17] Isn't more like the podcast has a store because I don't actually have a store.
[02:51:21] It's the podcast has a store.
[02:51:24] Yeah, yes, technically.
[02:51:26] But you always make it sound like I have a store.
[02:51:28] Yeah, because it's called jacquoise store.
[02:51:30] We have a store.
[02:51:31] Yeah.
[02:51:32] It's not jacquoise store.
[02:51:35] It's jacquoise store.
[02:51:36] Okay.
[02:51:37] Seems same.
[02:51:38] I'm going to concede to the point.
[02:51:40] There it is.
[02:51:41] Boom.
[02:51:42] I have a store.
[02:51:43] That's what I don't like about it.
[02:51:44] I don't know.
[02:51:45] But when I say it, I think it sounds cool.
[02:51:48] Sure.
[02:51:49] It's on there.
[02:51:50] If you want to wear T shirts and represent.
[02:51:53] Got a new design out there.
[02:51:55] Well, kind of new two weeks, three weeks, maybe.
[02:51:58] Yeah.
[02:51:59] And actually it's a new T shirt design.
[02:52:01] It could be found in other places.
[02:52:04] Oh, yeah.
[02:52:05] Right.
[02:52:06] Sure.
[02:52:07] What do you mean?
[02:52:08] I mean.
[02:52:09] All right.
[02:52:10] Great.
[02:52:11] We found in other places.
[02:52:12] Yeah, man.
[02:52:13] It's good.
[02:52:14] But hey, look.
[02:52:15] Like on the get after it.
[02:52:16] That's where it could be found straight up.
[02:52:17] I don't want to try.
[02:52:18] It's a little game here.
[02:52:19] Like I wasn't going to say anything.
[02:52:20] It's the get after it.
[02:52:21] We got to shirt this as get after it.
[02:52:23] And now one came highly recommended.
[02:52:25] Perfect.
[02:52:26] Perfect example of people saying, you know,
[02:52:28] people were saying it so like like mad.
[02:52:31] It's the fact is yeah, where it was to the point where they were like,
[02:52:35] Hey, you should you should do it.
[02:52:37] Get after it.
[02:52:38] Sure.
[02:52:38] They weren't saying that anymore.
[02:52:39] They were saying when the get after it.
[02:52:41] Sure.
[02:52:41] Come out when do they come out?
[02:52:42] I didn't know we were doing that yet.
[02:52:44] But apparently we are so boom.
[02:52:46] They're out.
[02:52:47] They got you.
[02:52:48] They got you with psychological work.
[02:52:49] Man, I'm glad they did.
[02:52:50] Because I think they turned out good.
[02:52:52] I'm real simple.
[02:52:53] Like most things.
[02:52:54] You know, these shirts are cool.
[02:52:55] I think.
[02:52:56] But go to jockelstore.com and look at them.
[02:52:59] You think they're cool.
[02:53:00] You think you want to wear one represent in the wild.
[02:53:03] Go ahead.
[02:53:04] Get one support one now.
[02:53:06] I also some, you know, some women stuff out there.
[02:53:10] Women might be underrepresented overall.
[02:53:13] But I think that the women that are kind of in the game that listen.
[02:53:19] They get after it.
[02:53:20] They get after it hard to make up for the numbers.
[02:53:23] You know, you seem saying like the quality.
[02:53:25] It's greater than the quantity.
[02:53:27] Anyway, I got some patches on there too.
[02:53:29] The rash guards, of course.
[02:53:30] I'm going to put a new one out.
[02:53:31] It's in the works.
[02:53:32] It's like ready to be pushed out in a few days.
[02:53:36] I think maybe a week.
[02:53:38] So yeah, if you're into jiu-jitsu, that's why I think that's the primary reason I made them.
[02:53:44] But they're actually for surfing.
[02:53:47] Body boarding.
[02:53:49] What jockels?
[02:53:50] Spunging.
[02:53:51] Spud.
[02:53:52] Cycling.
[02:53:53] Crossfit.
[02:53:54] Any kind of workout where you need, you know, like maximum mobility, but you still want to go with like a shirt on.
[02:54:00] Sometimes you just go no shirt.
[02:54:03] But yeah.
[02:54:04] If you go no shirt, you're not supported in the podcast.
[02:54:07] Correct.
[02:54:08] Correct.
[02:54:09] And, you know, that the, I think, you know, we kind of did some calculations.
[02:54:14] I think the new rash guard might, I'm not saying it will because we don't know yet.
[02:54:17] They're not here.
[02:54:18] They might yield.
[02:54:19] Was it 24?
[02:54:21] Oh, so echo did.
[02:54:23] He's got the sample one.
[02:54:25] You'll want some.
[02:54:26] And the sample one, you said, give you like 27%
[02:54:30] I thought I'm a bandage.
[02:54:32] 24.
[02:54:33] But you know what, now that you mentioned it, I think it was 27.
[02:54:35] Yeah.
[02:54:36] Yes.
[02:54:37] Up from 19.
[02:54:38] Yeah, which is a lot.
[02:54:39] But that's only one case study.
[02:54:41] So that's what I'm saying.
[02:54:42] We're really good at, um, double blind.
[02:54:44] Ten.
[02:54:45] This is actually true where I went and I practiced.
[02:54:47] I did some rounds.
[02:54:48] And you look like when you're done rounds and you're kind of talking with the boys afterwards.
[02:54:51] Yeah.
[02:54:52] And girls in our case because Kaylee was there too.
[02:54:54] We're talking.
[02:54:55] And I thought we were done.
[02:54:56] We were done.
[02:54:57] Somebody called.
[02:54:58] You're like, hey guys, co.
[02:54:59] And then David,
[02:55:01] Sesame's bulia.
[02:55:03] He's like, oh, hold the holdings.
[02:55:05] Yeah.
[02:55:06] nephew, like, actually actual nephew, like,
[02:55:09] his dad's brother or something.
[02:55:11] I might get that part wrong.
[02:55:12] But it's yeah, anyway.
[02:55:13] That's a side note.
[02:55:14] He called you out.
[02:55:15] Yeah.
[02:55:16] Well, he asks.
[02:55:17] He wants to roll in and go.
[02:55:18] He goes, what?
[02:55:22] It's to the rounds left.
[02:55:23] Shrimp tech.
[02:55:24] Rashguard.
[02:55:25] That's it.
[02:55:26] Yeah.
[02:55:26] We've got it wrong with the lead.
[02:55:27] Anyway, yeah.
[02:55:28] Good.
[02:55:28] Good deal.
[02:55:29] Good experience.
[02:55:30] But that's got a good deep half guard.
[02:55:32] Yeah.
[02:55:33] He has good.
[02:55:34] Yeah.
[02:55:34] Yeah.
[02:55:34] But he's deep half guard.
[02:55:35] He's got because he's, he's a bigger dude.
[02:55:37] But he got the depth of the guard.
[02:55:39] Yeah.
[02:55:39] He's bigger than Jeff.
[02:55:40] He's got a good.
[02:55:41] He's trimmed up a little bit.
[02:55:42] But nonetheless, yeah, good.
[02:55:44] Good training.
[02:55:45] Also.
[02:55:46] Psychological work.
[02:55:47] Psychological warfare.
[02:55:48] So if you know what that is, it's an album with tracks, juggle talking.
[02:55:54] But he's not just talking.
[02:55:56] He's talking with the intent of getting you through any moments of weakness that you might
[02:56:01] have in your getting after it journey.
[02:56:05] Isn't it goes beyond might have?
[02:56:07] Right.
[02:56:08] It goes into actual moments of weakness.
[02:56:09] Not that you are in a moment of weakness.
[02:56:11] You're looking at actual donuts.
[02:56:13] They're in front of you.
[02:56:14] Right.
[02:56:15] They're breaking you down mentally.
[02:56:16] Right.
[02:56:17] Don't click that.
[02:56:18] No.
[02:56:19] Hit play.
[02:56:20] Hit play.
[02:56:21] Get the track in there.
[02:56:22] The actual monotopotential moment of weakness.
[02:56:23] They're the moment of weakness is upon us.
[02:56:24] We're going to feed it.
[02:56:26] Yeah.
[02:56:27] Psychological warfare.
[02:56:28] Yeah.
[02:56:29] And we're getting requests now for the second one.
[02:56:31] Yeah.
[02:56:32] So I'm going to start thinking about that.
[02:56:34] What that's going to be like.
[02:56:35] Yeah.
[02:56:36] And if you want recommendations of what particular moments of weakness that you might have that
[02:56:39] need to be overcome.
[02:56:40] And there's a common theme as echo referred to.
[02:56:43] And if it's got to be something that I've dealt with before.
[02:56:47] Right.
[02:56:48] Because I can't just make up some way of overcoming a weakness that I've never experienced.
[02:56:54] Now I've experienced a lot of weaknesses.
[02:56:56] But if you come up with something that I've never experienced, then we're going to have to just
[02:57:00] forgo that one.
[02:57:01] Because I'm not going to make it up for go.
[02:57:03] I'm not going to make up with the brand might not work.
[02:57:05] Right.
[02:57:06] It's hard to manufacture.
[02:57:07] You can manufacture in Sparado.
[02:57:08] That's the great.
[02:57:10] Yeah.
[02:57:13] Yeah.
[02:57:14] I got some.
[02:57:15] Oh, talk about that.
[02:57:16] It's from a quiet dude.
[02:57:17] That's where it's going to come from.
[02:57:19] Sure.
[02:57:20] A still one.
[02:57:21] That's a quiet dude.
[02:57:22] That's a good on psychological warfare.
[02:57:25] Joccal wheeling.
[02:57:26] iTunes, Amazon music.
[02:57:28] All those good.
[02:57:29] It's probably any music outlet.
[02:57:30] A bunch of music outlets here.
[02:57:32] Yeah.
[02:57:33] Yeah.
[02:57:34] Just jump on that.
[02:57:34] It helps.
[02:57:35] And I use it.
[02:57:36] I don't recommend this.
[02:57:37] But I used it.
[02:57:39] I don't feel like working out.
[02:57:40] This is a big thing for me because I kind of had it like that.
[02:57:42] Well, I'll be like, oh, I'm just going to rest because I don't feel like I didn't get nine hours of sleep songs to it tomorrow.
[02:57:48] No.
[02:57:49] Yeah.
[02:57:50] Man, and it really worked with that.
[02:57:52] The workout one.
[02:57:53] A guy, you know, you said it works 100% of the time.
[02:57:56] Yes.
[02:57:57] Like the wake up one.
[02:57:58] Yeah.
[02:57:59] Because there's three wake up tracks.
[02:58:00] A guy on Twitter said a number of wake up track didn't work.
[02:58:04] It failed.
[02:58:05] Interesting.
[02:58:06] And then he said, but I made it to the number two.
[02:58:08] Wake up track, which is the way they're set.
[02:58:10] They're set like you listen to one.
[02:58:12] That's going to get you up.
[02:58:13] But if it doesn't number two is waiting.
[02:58:14] Right.
[02:58:15] And you got the number two and then he woke up.
[02:58:16] So we're still batting a thousand.
[02:58:19] Overall.
[02:58:20] Yeah.
[02:58:21] The overall campaign, right?
[02:58:22] Yeah.
[02:58:22] The campaign is a win.
[02:58:23] But we did take a bigger from one dude that just didn't get out of bed after listening to psychological warfare.
[02:58:29] Get out of bed track for one.
[02:58:31] He had to go to track to.
[02:58:32] But we're there.
[02:58:33] Yeah.
[02:58:34] He had some reserves.
[02:58:35] Got some backup.
[02:58:36] That's what we had for that.
[02:58:37] But I don't think anyone's made it to three yet.
[02:58:39] No one's made it to the wake up track for you.
[02:58:41] And then they're, yeah.
[02:58:42] That must to make it even to make it to two.
[02:58:44] You must be one tired dude.
[02:58:45] You must have had like a hard night.
[02:58:48] Night.
[02:58:48] And then before.
[02:58:49] And you must have hard workout waiting for your son on it on something.
[02:58:52] But yeah.
[02:58:53] I mean, my experience hundred percent success rate.
[02:58:55] But I don't.
[02:58:56] And then I started doing it just because just because I want to get fired up.
[02:59:01] Yeah.
[02:59:02] And it's weird because it's not.
[02:59:03] It's not that.
[02:59:07] It's almost like this.
[02:59:08] Yeah.
[02:59:09] Some people say to me, Hey, can you do one of you yelling?
[02:59:11] I'm like, Why don't we yell a lot, man?
[02:59:13] Like I didn't get on my yeller.
[02:59:15] Yeah.
[02:59:16] Now, let me see the me present.
[02:59:17] If we're in the gym and like I'm pushing someone like a MMA fighter.
[02:59:21] That's in a workout.
[02:59:22] I'm going to come on.
[02:59:23] You know, I might raise my voice a little bit.
[02:59:24] But I'm not going to yell at you.
[02:59:26] You know, the drone structure type thing.
[02:59:29] It's not this not.
[02:59:30] Yeah.
[02:59:31] What I do and I could see maybe like how that could be effective.
[02:59:34] But in these cases, that's not the mood you're in anywhere.
[02:59:37] You know what?
[02:59:38] It could be effective for certain instances.
[02:59:40] Yes.
[02:59:41] And actually, like I've been doing some little videos in the morning.
[02:59:44] Oh, and and and I realize when I watch them,
[02:59:48] that I'm getting a little bit aggressive with the way I'm talking.
[02:59:51] And it's not.
[02:59:52] It's not like I'm saying, Okay, I could.
[02:59:53] No, I'm just starting to talk and then I start getting naturally.
[02:59:56] I start escalating my own situation because I'm starting to think about when I'm
[03:00:00] saying it means something to me.
[03:00:03] Right.
[03:00:04] So when I'm saying hey, you know, you're wasting your life right now.
[03:00:06] I start thinking, I feel in that way because I know that there's someone that's actually
[03:00:10] wasting their life right now.
[03:00:11] And so it starts, you know, getting a little bit escalated.
[03:00:15] And so maybe on psychological warfare too, there'll be some situation that
[03:00:20] that I personally escalate on.
[03:00:23] Yeah.
[03:00:24] What does it be natural, right?
[03:00:25] Kind of thing.
[03:00:26] Yeah.
[03:00:27] Because you can have manufacturer in Sparato.
[03:00:28] Yeah.
[03:00:29] There he go.
[03:00:30] But yeah, it's good.
[03:00:31] It's like because you just kind of explain, like kind of the logic behind it.
[03:00:35] Like see what you're doing right now.
[03:00:37] But do you see that?
[03:00:38] Yeah.
[03:00:38] Well, I guess now I do shoot.
[03:00:40] Then you get up.
[03:00:41] You know, yeah, I use it when it's now.
[03:00:44] Sometimes I abuse it.
[03:00:45] Well, I don't know.
[03:00:46] I'm feeling fired up and just put it in.
[03:00:47] Get more fired up.
[03:00:48] Get talked into feeling even better.
[03:00:51] That's how dangerous things are.
[03:00:53] It's like a lot of work.
[03:00:54] It's good one.
[03:00:55] Also when you're clicking through Amazon, you can also get
[03:00:57] a good chocolate tea, which it may not seem like a big deal.
[03:01:02] And maybe it isn't, but maybe it is.
[03:01:05] I tell you, judging from some of the, some of the reviews on Amazon, I'm really doing.
[03:01:13] After drinking, jacquawait tea, I found I was overcome with the insurmountable urge to get after it.
[03:01:20] So much so that I was able to defeat all my foes in a short amount of time on a side
[03:01:26] note, I found that jacquawait tea is best served over ice and consumed from the skulls of dead enemies.
[03:01:32] Now, you know, I don't know what situation this individual is in, right?
[03:01:37] But obviously he's in combat situation.
[03:01:39] He's got foes that need to be killed and he's drinking from their skulls.
[03:01:43] And even in that really stressful environment, you know, the tea's helping him, which is cool.
[03:01:48] I'm glad that it's helping him doing positive things against the enemies of good in the world.
[03:01:54] Also, good evening, echo in jacquaw, I woke up weighing 115 pounds the day the white tea arrives.
[03:02:01] Two cups later I re-weight myself and I was now roughly 250 pounds.
[03:02:05] So he more than doubled his body weight after two cups of jacquawait tea.
[03:02:11] I think my tea was a little loaded and obviously gave me more than the 20% increase in gains that was promised.
[03:02:18] And I don't think we actually promised anything. I didn't promise that, but I think it kind of speaks for itself.
[03:02:23] And this is the important. This is why I wanted to make this one very important.
[03:02:28] Also, cruising went up roughly 200%. So there's that as well.
[03:02:34] So yeah, it's very bad for everybody.
[03:02:36] Well, you know, and there you go. Scientific cruising is up 200% which is positive.
[03:02:43] Also, way of the warrior kid, I got the first hard coffee.
[03:02:48] I got it in my hands. They sent me one. They're sending me more.
[03:02:53] But, you know, how dang it's three hours right now.
[03:02:57] We've been talking for three hours.
[03:02:59] That's my fault.
[03:03:01] Oh, man, that's a long time.
[03:03:03] And I was going to read a little excerpt.
[03:03:06] And I think I'm going to do this.
[03:03:08] It's already been three hours.
[03:03:09] But, but so, young Mark is, he's going to jump off this bridge.
[03:03:17] He couldn't swim in the beginning of the book.
[03:03:19] Now he knows how to swim.
[03:03:20] But his goal is to jump off the bridge into the river.
[03:03:22] And he goes up there to do it.
[03:03:24] And he's scared. He gets scared. He's not going to just, he just can't jump.
[03:03:28] So Uncle Jake, who used to be a seal?
[03:03:32] Who's now with his young nephew trying to show him the warrior way.
[03:03:35] Goes up on the bridge.
[03:03:37] And he said, what's going on, buddy?
[03:03:38] He said in a calm voice, I don't know.
[03:03:40] I said, I'm just, I'm just, you're afraid, aren't you?
[03:03:44] Uncle Jake asked.
[03:03:46] But he wasn't even asking.
[03:03:48] He knew. He knew I was scared.
[03:03:51] There was no point denying it.
[03:03:54] Uncle Jake knew it as plain as day.
[03:03:57] Yes.
[03:03:59] I finally said in a quiet tone, two embarrassed that I was afraid.
[03:04:03] Then, to my surprise, Uncle Jake said, that's normal.
[03:04:07] What? I responded?
[03:04:10] Shocked at Uncle Jake statement.
[03:04:12] I said, that's normal.
[03:04:14] You're doing something you've never done before, so it's normal to be a little hesitant.
[03:04:18] It's called fear.
[03:04:20] It's a normal emotion, and it's okay.
[03:04:24] Then he added, well, it's okay as long as you can control it.
[03:04:29] This made no sense to me.
[03:04:31] How am I supposed to control fear?
[03:04:33] And how would you know? You're not afraid of anything.
[03:04:37] Uncle Jake sat quietly for a minute.
[03:04:40] Then he said, I wish that were true.
[03:04:45] What do you mean? I asked him.
[03:04:48] Well, you said, I'm not afraid of anything.
[03:04:51] And that is just not true.
[03:04:53] Fear is normal.
[03:04:54] In fact, fear is good.
[03:04:57] Fear is what warns you and things are dangerous.
[03:05:00] Fear is what makes you prepare.
[03:05:02] Fear keeps us out of a lot of trouble.
[03:05:05] So there's nothing wrong with fear.
[03:05:08] But fear can also be overwhelming.
[03:05:11] It can be unreasonable.
[03:05:13] It can cause you to freeze up and make bad decisions or hesitate when you need to act.
[03:05:20] So you have to learn to control fear,
[03:05:24] and that's what you need to do right now.
[03:05:28] Okay, that sounds great, and I would really love to make you happy and overcome my fear,
[03:05:33] but I don't know how.
[03:05:35] Uncle Jake thought about that.
[03:05:38] About what I just said for a few seconds, and then he said, okay, well,
[03:05:44] the first part of controlling fear you've already done.
[03:05:47] And that is preparation.
[03:05:49] You've done plenty of preparation to be ready for this moment to face this fear.
[03:05:55] Starting with dunking your head,
[03:05:57] all the way up to swimming all around and back and forth across this river,
[03:06:00] you've done little jumps off the riverbank.
[03:06:04] All of the last several weeks have been preparing you for this, this jump.
[03:06:09] And all that preparation works to help overcome the fear.
[03:06:14] Imagine how scared you would be if you still didn't know how to swim.
[03:06:18] You would be horrified, but you have prepared.
[03:06:22] Then why am I still scared?
[03:06:24] I asked Uncle Jake simple, he said,
[03:06:27] because there's still an element of the unknown.
[03:06:30] You've never jumped off anything this high before, so you don't know what it feels like.
[03:06:35] People are afraid of what they don't know or what they don't understand,
[03:06:40] but you have prepared.
[03:06:42] You know it is safe, you know you are ready.
[03:06:46] It's just this last little bit of fear that has to be overcome.
[03:06:50] And you know how you do that?
[03:06:52] I have no idea, I told him, you go.
[03:06:57] Just go, I asked Uncle Jake,
[03:07:00] now partly thinking he was just joking, yes, you just go.
[03:07:04] You see fear lives in the moment,
[03:07:06] that powerful moment between when you decide you are going to do something
[03:07:10] and when you do it.
[03:07:12] Once you go, once you start, you won't be afraid anymore.
[03:07:16] You overcome fear by going.
[03:07:19] And it is the same in many aspects of life,
[03:07:22] parachuting, talking in front of a crowd,
[03:07:24] taking a test, running a race, competing in jujitsu.
[03:07:28] The fear is in the waiting.
[03:07:31] So, once you have planned,
[03:07:34] once you have prepared and trained and studied,
[03:07:38] there is only one thing left to do.
[03:07:41] Go.
[03:07:43] And that's it?
[03:07:44] Yes, that's it.
[03:07:47] As soon as Uncle Jake finished those words,
[03:07:49] he stood up, looked at me, yelled out,
[03:07:52] who y'all jumped off the bridge.
[03:07:55] Just go, I fought to myself.
[03:07:58] I stood up, stepped up onto the edge of the wall
[03:08:01] and looked down at Uncle Jake,
[03:08:03] who had just come back to the surface
[03:08:04] and was looking up at me with a big smile on his face.
[03:08:07] With all my heart and lungs, I yelled out,
[03:08:10] who y'all, and stepped off the bridge,
[03:08:13] passed my fear and into the unknown.
[03:08:16] I felt myself falling for a while
[03:08:19] and didn't wish I was in the water.
[03:08:22] I came to the surface and had a big smile on my face.
[03:08:26] I can fly, I yelled, I can fly.
[03:08:31] So, little excerpt.
[03:08:35] Dang, that was good, man.
[03:08:37] On the way of the warrior kid, it comes out May 2nd.
[03:08:40] So, go and go order the book for you,
[03:08:46] for your kid, for your neighbor, for your nephew,
[03:08:49] for your niece, for the school of library, whatever.
[03:08:53] Order them so the publisher, that's making this book.
[03:08:57] We want them to know that they need to print a bunch of these.
[03:09:01] They don't know that right now.
[03:09:03] They don't know how many kids want to get after it.
[03:09:06] They don't know that.
[03:09:09] They don't know that.
[03:09:11] And they're not going to print enough.
[03:09:13] It's the same thing that happened with Jockel White Team, right?
[03:09:16] You remember that?
[03:09:17] That's shortage.
[03:09:18] The anger of the frustration, the nation-wide-19% drop-in performance across the board.
[03:09:23] You remember that?
[03:09:24] Don't let it happen here, same thing.
[03:09:26] In order that, you can also pre-order,
[03:09:29] discipline equals freedom, field manual,
[03:09:31] comes out October 17th, 1717.
[03:09:35] Hmm, that's the book that you asked for.
[03:09:42] So you can order that one too, and of course,
[03:09:44] extreme ownership.
[03:09:46] You can get that one, people buy it,
[03:09:48] and then they buy it for their team, and it spreads.
[03:09:50] So pick that up for you and your team up and down the chain of command,
[03:09:53] extreme ownership.
[03:09:55] Beyond that, if you want some direct action and interaction with your company that you work out,
[03:10:02] you can contact our company,
[03:10:05] Eshelon Front, Me, Lave Babin,
[03:10:08] JP D'Nel, Dave Burke.
[03:10:11] We can get in the game with you info at Eshelonfront.com.
[03:10:16] Lastly, if you don't know, we have Mr. 002 coming up at the Marriott Grand Marquis in New York City, May 4th and 5th.
[03:10:24] Leadership, strategy, tactics, again, me, Lave, JP, Dave Burke.
[03:10:30] And of course, probably most important echo Charles, he's going to be there.
[03:10:36] And he might try and hide, but he can't.
[03:10:40] Because none of us can, because there's no green room, there's no backstage,
[03:10:43] there's just all of us together, getting after it.
[03:10:48] And of course, before the monster, you can find us.
[03:10:53] What are you cruising?
[03:10:55] Kind of hard on the Interwebs on Twitter, on Instagram,
[03:11:01] and in the face, the book.
[03:11:05] Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jockawilling.
[03:11:12] And finally, thanks to all the service men and women out there who,
[03:11:18] in this uncertain world, and it certainly is an uncertain world today,
[03:11:25] filled with evil, all of you that walk away from the comforts of home, and into the unknown,
[03:11:34] to face our enemies.
[03:11:38] Thank you, to the firefighters, police and law enforcement, EMTs, and the first responders here at home.
[03:11:46] Thank you for what you do day in and day out, putting yourself at risk for us,
[03:11:54] and to everyone else out there, facing what you're facing.
[03:12:01] Challenges that work and challenges with family and challenges with yourself and challenges in your head and challenges with life.
[03:12:14] Remember what you, as a human being, are capable of remember what your will is capable of.
[03:12:27] And then keep moving forward, keep attacking, and keep getting after it.
[03:12:41] So, until next time, this is Echo and Jockaw.
[03:12:47] Out.