Jocko Podcast 87 w/ Echo Charles: How to Act as a Leader: "Clay Pigeons of St. Lo"

2017-08-10T16:28:44Z

Join the conversation on Twitter: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:09:22 - "The Clay Pigeons of St. Lo" by Glover Johns 2:08:50 - Take-aways and final thoughts on the book.  Warrior culture. 2:21:36 - Support, Cool Onnit, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. Origin Brand, Origin Jiu Jitsu Immersion Camp.  Origin Brand. Extreme Ownership Muster 004 in San Diego. 2:57:39 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

You know, like, you're, whatever the case may be, like, when everything's perfect, the little imperfections show themselves more, you know, like, if your life is like, everything's together, we're, you know, your job is good and your family's good or whatever, but meanwhile, like, you're, I don't know, your front lawn is going brown. So in jiu-jitsu when you first start, you know how like, like, guys, just going full speed the whole time, you know. You don't know if it's friendly, you don't know if it's a tank round being fired, you don't know if it's an ID going off, you don't know if it's a mortar round impact and you can't. We're going to get up, we're going to run as hard as we can, when we when we know we're going to get hit with the shell, we're going to get down and take cover. You can start supporting those, you know, kind of like, you know, when you throw sodium metal in water, you know? You know, you know, entering a situation where duty is going to be the most important thing to you, and you also know that the mission is the most important thing. You're like, my front lawn's going brown, you know, is like that kind of thing. And they watch like, you know, they watch like, Pippa pig or I don't know something. I think this is actually not a bad idea because, but you need to put, it's like when I do something else, you stuff on the minute, what makes me nervous about what you're saying is like, I like rest for about 30 seconds. You know, snipers know that, hey, this thing, they get it down to really, you know, how many meters it is, and same thing with a good mortarman. You know, when all things are going real good, it's easy to point out the things that are not going good. It will be surprised that the weight you can get, like, let's say, you know, you picked the right weight that you can, like I do this 10 times. You know how like you go from thing to thing and you're like, hey, I've been to go to one thing on me. This is kind of my thought, my thought process on it is I'm going to do a certain kind of work capacity, you know, like a five reps of this and five reps of this. This isn't a guy who's saying, look, hey, we're going to charge this machine gun nest and I'm going to lose it, you know, half my platoon. You know, when I see our jockel podcast on, you know, number, whatever, where it appears like between one and 10 in the business section, that is good. Because they were, it was like, because there were the mix between these big, kind of almost like, bullies, not bullies, like, ugly people. You know, even if you don't know, you're like, well, consider the source kind of thing. But they were like, you know, when you play video game, you come against the boss who you look at him, you're like, I can't beat this guy. And you know that that was very interesting in the, I don't know if you remember some of those police shootings where I remember there's one in New York City where something like 57 rounds were fired at somebody that was unarmed. As opposed to, you know, I don't know, fire at will or, you know, all these other things that you hear. They know the exact, because what you, what you have to, you know the distance, Yeah, you know the distance at the mortar shoots at a certain elevation. You know, instead of making movies about Saint Low, they make movies about the aliens attacking or whatever, you know, so we just, it's pretty easy to forget that the reason we're here and the reason we're not speaking German is when the reason we're not speaking Japanese is because of this warrior culture here, which kind of, it's right up there. You've got to put that at the top of your priorities, and you know you're going to sacrifice guys and it's going to be a nightmare. When you, when you can sit or, like, even, let's say the Spartans, and you consider all their things, stop, this is like hand to hand sword to neck battles, just like dang that's, that's savage. And there's he's standing in his new command post and these new guys, he sees like a position that needs to be taken to make sure that you know we have some security around the command post. The guys were, you know, somebody said, hey, somebody grabbed the person that shot, hey, that was an AD, okay, wrap it back down, wind it down, everyone calm, you know what I mean? I like reading the reviews, but yeah, if you feel like leaving one, apparently it's like it helps. All right, at this point and also just like some of the other books we've read about World War II where we've got, you know, it's basically a movement. Like when you say, I'm going to do a weight 20 times, what I can, you know, say for lack of a better turn. I'm like, guys down, I'm going, you know. I know the compulsion, like I know the feeling. And speaking of Hawaii, like Kay, you know, like the, And You guys are pushing forward on the attack, and you take away, you chip away at them a little bit, you give them ground, you give them ground, and then when they get spread out, they're low on ammunition, boom, then you hit them on a counter attack, on a ground that you already know. I guess if you do this like, you never know what's going to happen. You know, like how it'll work and who's going to, he is. So it's a continual series of attack, dig in, attack, dig in, attack, dig in and you can tell from the title of the book, what they're going for is this final, you know, city of St. Low in France. They realize John's realizes that look, we're going to be, and the title of the book is clay pigeons, you know what a clay pigeon is right? It's funny too because when we talk about Battalion staff, you talk about, I don't know, a Battalion staff can be pretty big when you're in a big Battalion, but this is not a big group, this small group. What he said afterwards, he's like, hey, next time you work out, can you let me know? And I'll tell you what happens is, you know, for some reason they think, if you think somebody has a weapon or a suspect or is going to do something bad. So it's like, when he kind of says he can't help but be like, ah, you're right. So that night, he has a little company little huddle with the company commanders and you know, just to just to kind of spell this out if you're wondering what this is all about.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 87.
[00:00:04] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:07] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:08] Good evening.
[00:00:12] I'd been away from infantry and from the army I'd grown up in for far too long.
[00:00:19] Walking through the gates of Coleman Barracks was stepping into the welcome past.
[00:00:24] The old army had not died after all.
[00:00:28] The 18th was military perfection.
[00:00:32] Men stepped smartly across meticulously kept grounds.
[00:00:36] Starched uniforms, blue infantry scarves, dazzling, shined brass and boots,
[00:00:43] snappy salutes, and cheerful, good afternoon, sirs, marked my journey to the HQ where I'd sign in.
[00:00:52] The spirit of this fine unit was already infecting me.
[00:00:56] The hot, stifling, windless day, the ragweed pollen that blew in from adjacent fields
[00:01:01] covering the camp and immediately activating my hay fever.
[00:01:06] The rundown, boring camp itself, none of it mattered.
[00:01:11] As inwardly I was transported to an island oasis, untouched by turbulence seas.
[00:01:19] And it was all thanks to one man, the battle group commanding officer who would forever be my model.
[00:01:26] Mentor and friend.
[00:01:29] Colonel Glover S. Johns was the finest senior infantry commander I'd ever seen, or ever would see again.
[00:01:40] We shared a mutual abiding respect almost from the moment we met.
[00:01:44] He was my kind of soldier and I was his.
[00:01:48] He was a warrior.
[00:01:50] Patons aid before World War II, then during the war he'd hit the beaches of Normandy as part of the 29th division
[00:01:57] and fought from those bloody shores all the way across Europe until victory was achieved.
[00:02:03] As a battalion commanding officer, he'd headed the task force that captured the critical French town of St. Low.
[00:02:12] In Korea he'd served as executive officer, then regimental commander in my own 40th division.
[00:02:19] His reputation there was awesome.
[00:02:22] One story that made its way through the division was that a wild new exo had come into the 2-2-4th
[00:02:29] gotten down on his belly and the mud to check the units machine guns, field of fire,
[00:02:34] and promptly moved two-thirds of the machine gun bunkers that had sat there for two years.
[00:02:40] Later when he took over as commanding officer the 2-2-24th
[00:02:44] and the unit moved to a new sector he'd outposted a spur about 200 yards in front of one of his companies so the North Koreans couldn't do it first.
[00:02:54] But this move was considered seizing ground and against the no-win rules of the war.
[00:03:01] And soon the X-core commanding general flew down to John's position to discuss the matter with him.
[00:03:08] After examining the situation general white told him he could keep the spur but was never to advance again even his outpost line without express permission from core.
[00:03:25] His blue eyes sparkle like those of a wise and truly tested man who long since realized that humor could be found in just about anything.
[00:03:35] He had seen his share of horror.
[00:03:38] His cheeks were rosy and the dueling scar that crossed one of them and no way detracted from his jen-rugged yet gentle old soldier face.
[00:03:48] Maybe the scar even enhanced it.
[00:03:51] I don't know but it sure gave him more character than provided a good yarn to boot.
[00:03:57] In any event Colonel Glover S. Johns was a 49 year old stud.
[00:04:07] Colonel Johns was a basics man and a total soldier.
[00:04:12] He taught and insisted that his company commanders teach things like terrain appreciation.
[00:04:18] The knowledge of which was a basic tool of a soldier's trade to be able to look at a piece of ground and appreciate the slightest differences in the contour.
[00:04:26] To notice how the ground unfolds and be able to think there's cover over there. Cover.
[00:04:32] The one essential providing protection from direct enemy fire.
[00:04:36] To recognize a streamlined, a gully or a tree-daria as an avenue of approach through which a unit could move unseen.
[00:04:44] To understand and identify the best ground from which to launch or repel an attack.
[00:04:50] Shoot, scoot and communicate.
[00:04:54] The morning battle drill began with fire and maneuver.
[00:04:57] One man firing while his buddy moved.
[00:05:00] A fire team moving while its counterpart fired.
[00:05:04] Colonel Johns likened it to a fighter's bobbing weaving and jabbing.
[00:05:08] We kept the mythical enemy pin down while we jabbed our way to close on his position.
[00:05:14] That's covered move by the way.
[00:05:17] The Colonel was right there with us to set the example and we did it until we got it right.
[00:05:25] We'd end up black and blue running, hitting the ground and rolling in defiring position with full field equipment on is not without pain.
[00:05:34] But no one bitched because Johns again and again reinforced the simple equation.
[00:05:39] The quicker you get to the ground and you get your weapon to position, the sooner you'll be delivering effective fire on the enemy and the longer you'll stay alive.
[00:05:46] Still, this trueism was just one part of the overall strife to better your best philosophy.
[00:05:56] That characterized the first 18 under Colonel Johns and deputy commanding officer, couch.
[00:06:05] In couches words, it was our policy to encourage excellence among the soldiers, particularly in bay and net training, unarmed combat.
[00:06:15] Shooting and total physical fitness.
[00:06:19] This is what really makes a soldier.
[00:06:21] If he masters these subjects, he'll fight.
[00:06:25] From my experience in Korea, I could not have agreed more.
[00:06:33] So, that's a little opener from a book called About Face.
[00:06:41] My favorite book by Carl David Hackworth and he's talking about a guy that was his commander in the early 1960s.
[00:06:51] Hackworth had gotten out of the army and then came back in after a couple years because he realized civil in life was not fun.
[00:07:01] So he came back in and he got stationed in Germany and this guy by the name of Colonel Gloveress Johns, who by the way, he dedicates to the book to impotry men and to some other soldiers that he worked with along the way.
[00:07:17] But to Glover Johns, he says,
[00:07:19] Dedicates his book to Glover Johns who showed us how to lead.
[00:07:33] Glover Johns, not only from what he passes through Hackworth in Hackworth's book, but also from his own book.
[00:07:49] Low about his push from Normandy and across France that Hackworth just referenced. Now it's interesting when we go into this book, the clay pigeons are saying low.
[00:08:03] He writes the book in the third person.
[00:08:09] And he says that it was just easier for him to write it that way.
[00:08:13] So in other words, he doesn't say, I did this and I did that. He says,
[00:08:15] he says, Major Johns did this and Major dog John said something else. But what's interesting is he said that one of the reasons he was able to do one of the reasons that he did that was because
[00:08:23] The guy that was commanding in combat was a battalion commander in combat was different from his normal self.
[00:08:31] And so he had this combat Johns combat Glover Johns. I was out there leading things and he had normal Johns that was the way he lived his normal life.
[00:08:41] But it was easier for him to write and more natural for him to write about this major Johns guy in the third person.
[00:08:47] And he also likes it because it gives him the ability to kind of detach from it and explain what was going on.
[00:08:55] So when you hear it, it's all about major Johns instead of being about me and about I.
[00:09:01] But it's it's him.
[00:09:03] And even though it's written from the third person, it is absolutely a first person account from a battalion commander in combat.
[00:09:15] Close intense combat.
[00:09:21] And let's pick it up going to the book, the clay pigeons of St. Low.
[00:09:31] Here we go. Sharpe ballistic cracks pounded as ear drum so rapidly they seemed like one impossibly prolonged rifle shot.
[00:09:41] He was instantly paralyzed with overwhelming fright.
[00:09:45] The radio operator Jimmy slump forward at his feet. Another man stumble past a fall into the ditch ahead.
[00:09:51] Then Nukeum cleared the eight foot headrow apparently with one jump.
[00:09:57] It was too shocked to move. His stomach nodded itself into a tight ball.
[00:10:01] It jammed against his pounding heart while his breath stopped completely for an instant.
[00:10:07] Then came in jerky gasps.
[00:10:09] The hair on his head felt as if it were rising like the hair on a cat's back. His skin prickled all over.
[00:10:17] But the most awful thing was the cold empty feeling in his guts.
[00:10:23] The burst of German machine gun fire lasted only seconds, but it seemed like a lifetime before he could reach up and snatch her grenade from his pistol belt.
[00:10:31] He never heard a bullet crack by, inches from his head. He didn't know they sounded like that.
[00:10:38] He thought there was a German with a burp pistol behind the nearest tree on top of the headrow.
[00:10:43] He grabbed the pin on the grenade, but before he could throw it something made him stop and yell anybody on the other side.
[00:10:49] He got a quick answer. Hell yes.
[00:10:52] Before he could lower his arm, the blast of a rifle, right in his lap made him flinch.
[00:10:58] He squirmed back even closer against the headrow as Martin and Grimsel went into action.
[00:11:04] They'd been at the front all eleven days since a continuous line had been established in Normandy.
[00:11:13] The crack of bullets was nothing new to them.
[00:11:16] Almost side by side, lying flat in the ditch, they fired methodically across him and over Jimmy's head.
[00:11:24] Mechanically, he checked the pin in the grenade, then still little dazed hooked it back onto his belt harness.
[00:11:33] He looked at the man who had fallen in the ditch and now was trying to weekly push himself up.
[00:11:39] It was Lieutenant Sadler, his face already greenish gray with shock. He had been hit five or six times in the head, chest and both arms.
[00:11:49] Major John's new instinctively that Sadler was as good as dead.
[00:11:53] He called to him to lie still and take it easy, but the Charlie Company commander was already beyond hearing.
[00:12:01] John's felt that he ought to do something constructive, something to get their minds off the tragedy that had just struck.
[00:12:08] But it was without inspiration.
[00:12:11] Nearly numb.
[00:12:13] Hey you guys, yelled Grimsel. Let's scram out of here.
[00:12:17] That brought the commander out of the days he'd been in ever since the deafening burst of enemy fire, perhaps two minutes before.
[00:12:24] He leaned forward and shook Jimmy's shoulder. Come on Jim, it's all over now. You can get up.
[00:12:30] But Jimmy didn't move. Major John's shook him again.
[00:12:35] Then he saw blood oozing slowly, thickly, brightly across his own shoe.
[00:12:41] Gently, he pulled a Jimmy's far shoulder. A neat, clean little bullet hole in the boys helmet came in to view, so the major knew that Jimmy was dead.
[00:12:53] Something impelled him to pull Jimmy over until he could look into his face.
[00:12:59] The eyes were closed and an odd little half smile made Jimmy look as if he were asleep, dreaming pleasant dreams.
[00:13:08] Slowly, the major lowered him back to the ground and for a fleeting instant watched Jimmy's life blood continue to flow across his shoe.
[00:13:30] So that's his first experience in combat.
[00:13:41] And you can see obviously it's a hell of a wake-up call.
[00:13:48] And the whole book is like this. It's an incredible book. The way he describes the battles and how they're laid out and the way he lays out his own thoughts and what's going on.
[00:14:06] It's just an outstanding book.
[00:14:09] It's one of these books where as I had to consciously say to myself, okay, Joko, you cannot read this whole book on the podcast. We need to, you know, people need to read it for themselves.
[00:14:20] But the book is the description of combat like that opening is phenomenal.
[00:14:27] So let's go back to the book now where that first battles over and he's having some thoughts. Here we go back to the book. As he walked, he couldn't keep his thoughts away from the hot spot he'd been in a few minutes before and the lessons he learned so quickly, but it's such a price.
[00:14:47] A little more than an hour of his first fight, he lost two company commanders, two radio operators and three other men besides just escaping death himself.
[00:14:58] As he thought about the crack of those machine gun bullets, his stomach began to squirm again until by a conscious effort he forced it to behave.
[00:15:08] He couldn't understand why he hadn't been hit to.
[00:15:12] The company's head had been not more than two feet from his own. Newcome in the front and sather directly behind him had been hit.
[00:15:22] The whole burst must have missed him by scant inches he decided and he very seriously thanked God for his safety.
[00:15:31] At the same time, he promised never again to risk the lives of others if he could avoid it.
[00:15:38] The bitter lesson repeated every time the eyes of his mind focused on Jimmy's bright blood oozing over his shoe or on Sadler's sudden death.
[00:15:48] He looked down at the shoe, shuddered at the still red stain and tried to scuff it off on the grass.
[00:15:57] On his way to the regimental command post, the major passed a knocked-out Sherman tank.
[00:16:04] The distinguished this smoking brown Hulk from others he had seen that day was the single blackened claw-like hand in forearm that was thrust out of the turret toward the sky.
[00:16:17] The fingers were separate and more than half curled like the talent of a striking eagle.
[00:16:25] But this hand was not striking. It seemed rather to be calling down an implication on the fate that it let it die there in agony.
[00:16:40] So now he gets to the regimental commander well, boom the regimental commander, what's going on?
[00:16:45] I've just been trying to get to you. John saluted as he answered, sir, we're stuck at the second headrow.
[00:16:52] And I had to use my reserve to protect my flanks. It doesn't look as if we'll get to the forge today unless we have better luck later.
[00:17:00] Have many casualties? I don't know about the companies yet because I haven't had any reports from them except the yells about their flanks and counter attacks.
[00:17:09] But Nab was wounded early. Sadler is dead and I've lost two operators besides three other men out of my own CP group.
[00:17:19] He was still too full of his experience not to want to tell about it. The Colonel listened sympathetically.
[00:17:25] Well, he said when the major was through, we've got to keep going regardless.
[00:17:31] Division wants to get the forge tonight.
[00:17:37] So, yeah, you just had that rough day first day of combat. Guess what? We're still going.
[00:17:42] And you know, one of the things that in that opening paragraph that I pointed out was you could see his reaction when that first gunfight broke out.
[00:17:50] His reaction was sort of overwhelming overwhelmed by the whole scenario.
[00:17:55] But his two guys and what happened is, and you know, he talks about this in the book, but he had gone on to Normandy, but he wasn't in charge of a battalion yet.
[00:18:03] He was sort of back with the regimental command.
[00:18:07] And then one of the battalion commanders was out of the fight and I figured if the battalion commander was killed or wounded, but he went and took this battalion commanders job.
[00:18:17] So he wasn't on the real front lines until they were starting to push through France a little bit.
[00:18:23] Then it was only a matter of days.
[00:18:25] But these, well, I guess it was 11 days because these guys, he said that these other guys had been on the front lines for 11 days.
[00:18:31] So these guys, it's been 11 days, but guess what, they start getting shot at boom, they're in the mode, they're returning fire.
[00:18:38] And you could see the returning fire really so close that it scared him.
[00:18:43] Yeah.
[00:18:44] And that's one of the things that, you know, a lot of times I talk about simunition and training with simunition and how awesome it is.
[00:18:51] And that's totally true. And I love training with simunition and it really is very beneficial for your tactical skill level.
[00:18:59] But you also absolutely have to do live fire. And the reason you have to do live fire, I mean there's a bunch of reasons you have to do it.
[00:19:06] You have to learn to shoot real bullets and hit real targets or with your bullets.
[00:19:12] But also guns are loud.
[00:19:16] And you need to condition yourself to be used to having a Mark 48 machine gun for inches, maybe not for inches, but like 16 inches from your head.
[00:19:27] And your buddy is dumping rounds down range and you have to be able to think during that and not be overwhelmed by it.
[00:19:34] Yeah, the simunition, this one's an ass like, how what's the difference in loudness?
[00:19:39] It's not even comparable.
[00:19:40] So it's not even really like gun shot.
[00:19:42] No, it's not comparable.
[00:19:44] It's not comparable.
[00:19:45] The noise is not comparable.
[00:19:46] The noise is less than a cap gun.
[00:19:48] Oh, yeah, like an airsoft.
[00:19:51] A gun is loud.
[00:19:52] And a Mark 48 machine gun.
[00:19:54] It's really loud. And it's sending little shock waves.
[00:19:58] Yeah, every round is a little shock wave that you get.
[00:20:00] Little.
[00:20:01] And so that's why it is so important to train live fire.
[00:20:05] And it's also important to be comfortable.
[00:20:07] Not only yourself shooting in close proximity with other people, but also them shooting near you because you've got to trust the guys that around you.
[00:20:16] Now there's standard operating procedures that there's things that you don't do that keep it safe.
[00:20:23] But it's still, I mean, when somebody makes a bad, if somebody makes a really bad mistake, they can walk into your field of fire.
[00:20:29] And so you have to be heads up, but you still have to take shots with people that are really close to you.
[00:20:35] Yeah, in a firefight, by the way.
[00:20:37] Well, yeah, in a firefight, but if you haven't done it during training, your first minute in a firefight is going to be just overwhelmed.
[00:20:45] And you're not going to be overwhelmed by enemy fire.
[00:20:47] You're going to be overwhelmed by your own got shooting.
[00:20:51] And you're going to be hitting hitting hip by brass and and just it hurts.
[00:20:57] Yeah, hop brass and the links coming out of a Mark 48 are like little weapons themselves.
[00:21:04] And then hit your hip.
[00:21:06] Yeah, we had a one of our machine gunners was a lefty and he picked up and started shooting.
[00:21:11] He picked up a machine gun and started shooting left handed.
[00:21:14] And that dumps the brass basically right off to your right by step.
[00:21:18] And he had a he had a bruise on his on his right arm that looked like somebody beat him with a with a baseball bat in the arm.
[00:21:26] That's what a Mark 48 ejector port does to you doesn't play around.
[00:21:32] So again, going back to the situation he's in right now, he's he's had all these casualties and they're like the major says hey, yep.
[00:21:41] Regardless, we got to keep going, which is which is the way war actually is.
[00:21:50] So that night, he has a little company little huddle with the company commanders and you know, just to just to kind of spell this out if you're wondering what this is all about.
[00:22:01] So he's got the easy battalion commander.
[00:22:05] So and he's actually got this right now in the book, but a battalion battalion in 1944 was about 900 guys 900 men 28 officers.
[00:22:14] You got three companies the three companies are broken down into three platoons each one of those platoons has a platoon leader.
[00:22:21] Each one of the companies has a company commander using a captain.
[00:22:24] And so that's what he's talking about.
[00:22:27] So he so that those are your kind of your 150 man fighting elements are these companies with three platoons in them of 50 people each about.
[00:22:34] And it's weird because people always think that the military is everything's perfectly structured, but actually this this changes all the time.
[00:22:41] Not based on but based on your mission, you know, sometimes you you might have a platoon that needs to get plus stuff or a company that's short of people.
[00:22:48] So if there's no there's no consistent just all the time number.
[00:22:52] Let me see what he says the actual number that they were supposed to have in a company at this time was.
[00:22:59] The rifle company was made up of six officers and 186 men that's what they're supposed to have in them.
[00:23:06] Now you're going to find out real quick that they rarely have even close to 100, but that's what they're supposed to have.
[00:23:13] So at this point, he's bringing in these three company commanders to talk to them about kind of a plan and also to get a debrief.
[00:23:22] On on what happened during the day and what their plan to do had here we go back to the book.
[00:23:28] And then he got a moment and this is this is one of the company commander's name, Lieutenant Ryan and he's talking and he says he thought a moment and then added, we might make it across the road.
[00:23:37] If we pour a lot of smoke and mortars into them and then rush them, but it'll take but it's getting off.
[00:23:42] We wait to be beating around in this kind of country.
[00:23:45] So trying to figure out how to move forward and Lieutenant Ryan that was kind of lieutenant Ryan suggestion let's mortar them put a bunch of smoke out and then we can move but guess what, it's getting late.
[00:23:54] Once it gets dark, it's going to get scary.
[00:23:56] Ryan stopped and looked at Kenny.
[00:23:58] It was Kenny's turn.
[00:23:59] And Kenny, you're going to find out, is a legit badass.
[00:24:03] Sir, I only had a few minutes to look things over before Wendell came along and invited me
[00:24:08] back here to see you, but that orchard is a terrible place.
[00:24:11] No cover anywhere.
[00:24:12] Machine guns covering every inch of it.
[00:24:14] We lost a lot of men in there the first time.
[00:24:17] He paused.
[00:24:19] But we'll do the best we can.
[00:24:21] Well, rougher not, we're going ahead, the major stated flatly.
[00:24:30] By the way, Kenny just took over for one of the company commanders that had been Wendell
[00:24:35] killed.
[00:24:37] Now they start pushing and all of a sudden they're pushing forward and again, I have to
[00:24:43] skip through this book and I'm trying to highlight the leadership scenarios or the things
[00:24:48] that reveal the way human beings react in hard situations.
[00:24:57] But when you read this book yourself, you can really follow the tactical decision-making
[00:25:01] process and also how the battles went and what happened.
[00:25:05] Obviously I can't go through the whole thing right now.
[00:25:08] But at this point, they had started pressing and all of a sudden he sees guys running
[00:25:12] away, running.
[00:25:13] So as the company commander, and he talks about this where he positions himself, and
[00:25:16] obviously doesn't position himself right on the front with the platoons, he's back a little
[00:25:20] bit.
[00:25:21] At this point, guys start, he sees guys running back towards him.
[00:25:23] At first he thinks it might be Germans, he's no it's Americans, it's his guys.
[00:25:27] And here we go back to the book, the major got to his feet.
[00:25:29] He started a crouching run to the left.
[00:25:31] He had nearly reached the end of the field when four or five men yelling, don't shoot,
[00:25:35] don't shoot, piled over the hedgero that separated Charlie and Baker companies.
[00:25:40] He stopped carbine alert.
[00:25:43] As he lowered his gun, wondering what this was all about, a figure stepped out from the
[00:25:47] hedgero and voiced the same question.
[00:25:50] What's going on here anyway?
[00:25:52] Just what's this all about?
[00:25:54] It was Lieutenant Iperian, arms spread wide to catch the running men, carbine slung over
[00:25:59] his shoulder, the picture of calm.
[00:26:03] He caught the leading man by his jacket, which piled the others up in a tight little
[00:26:08] knot.
[00:26:09] The man panted crowds, paratroopers that right behind us run.
[00:26:14] Appearian glanced over the man's shoulder, unmoved.
[00:26:18] Well now, I don't see any crowds just look.
[00:26:23] The men looked back, all they could see were several Charlie company men standing quietly
[00:26:27] rifles ready.
[00:26:29] The leader of the runaways relaxed, then shuttered violently.
[00:26:33] Appearian went on.
[00:26:34] I don't think there's any crowds chasing you at all.
[00:26:37] Just go see about this.
[00:26:39] The man tried to pull away from him, but there were.
[00:26:41] He cried.
[00:26:42] There were.
[00:26:43] I tell you, they came right over the hedgero and shot down right down the whole squad.
[00:26:47] They got the sergeant and all the rest.
[00:26:49] Where the only one's left.
[00:26:50] They nearly got me.
[00:26:51] Look.
[00:26:52] He poked a finger through a hole in his jacket.
[00:26:55] But Iperian, unimpressed, moved in the direction of Baker Company even as the man protested,
[00:27:00] dragging him along while the others followed me clearly.
[00:27:04] Well, Iperian went on.
[00:27:06] Just go see what Captain Weddle has to say about the all this.
[00:27:10] He called softly to the men guarding the company flank.
[00:27:13] See anything?
[00:27:14] No sir.
[00:27:15] The answer came back quickly and calmly.
[00:27:17] The mortar observer in his little group of panic stricken men disappeared over the
[00:27:21] hedgero.
[00:27:23] The major new he had just seen a wonderful example of leadership at its very finest.
[00:27:29] Iperian quickly, calmly and efficiently had stopped what could have been around.
[00:27:36] So one leader steps out and really what he's doing, we think about it.
[00:27:43] He's detached because he wasn't in that situation where some Germans came over and obviously
[00:27:48] shot at him or close range, killed a couple of guys.
[00:27:51] You know, would have wounded this soldier who got shot through his jacket.
[00:27:57] And he just gets, he kind of gets the guy to attach.
[00:27:59] Hey, look, there's no one there.
[00:28:01] Calm down.
[00:28:02] Let's go have a look.
[00:28:03] Let's take a step back.
[00:28:05] And that kind of calmness prevented everyone because what can go in the other direction?
[00:28:10] Right?
[00:28:11] What can go in the other direction?
[00:28:12] You see people running?
[00:28:13] That's what happened.
[00:28:14] Do you see people running?
[00:28:15] You start running.
[00:28:16] And you know that that was very interesting in the, I don't know if you remember some of those
[00:28:20] police shootings where I remember there's one in New York City where something like
[00:28:26] 57 rounds were fired at somebody that was unarmed.
[00:28:31] And everyone's going, why?
[00:28:32] Why was everyone shooting?
[00:28:33] And I'll tell you what happens is, you know, for some reason they think, if you think
[00:28:38] somebody has a weapon or a suspect or is going to do something bad.
[00:28:42] And now you've got five or six people that are holding a gun on them.
[00:28:46] Well, when one's person starts shooting, when people are not detached and when people
[00:28:52] are caught up in the moment and everyone starts pulling the trigger.
[00:28:56] And it's, it can be really devastating.
[00:29:00] It can be really devastating.
[00:29:02] So when people are used to that kind of stress and they're calm and they're detached.
[00:29:08] One person takes a shot.
[00:29:09] You actually, instead of just firing yourself, you actually assess and say, okay, what is
[00:29:13] he shooting at?
[00:29:14] I need to get cover.
[00:29:15] So that's why that training is so important to get people at a high stress level.
[00:29:22] And still think through things and still be detached.
[00:29:25] The stress is going to be there, put it in a box, monitor it, don't get in it.
[00:29:29] Because you're going to make bad decisions.
[00:29:31] You might not make any decision.
[00:29:32] You might just go off your reactions, which I'm sitting here with a gun.
[00:29:36] People are shooting.
[00:29:37] I'm going to shoot too.
[00:29:38] Yeah, that's not, I mean, it's like, I'd say when you're not trained, you don't have
[00:29:42] experience in those types of situations like the shooting example.
[00:29:46] Yeah.
[00:29:47] It's one of those things where you see in jiu-jitsu when you start it's exactly the exact
[00:29:50] same thing.
[00:29:51] So in a shooting situation, one guy shoots, you hear the gun fire.
[00:29:55] Basically your brain just says, okay, it's on.
[00:29:58] Yeah.
[00:29:59] It's on 100%.
[00:30:00] Let's go.
[00:30:01] A full speed 100% it's on.
[00:30:02] You can't like, shots are being fired.
[00:30:04] It's not on.
[00:30:06] You've got to go 100%.
[00:30:07] So in jiu-jitsu when you first start, you know how like, like, guys, just going full speed
[00:30:11] the whole time, you know.
[00:30:12] You're going to spot where I was like, you can't move here.
[00:30:15] You can't, you're completely trapped right here.
[00:30:17] That's the mission necessarily.
[00:30:18] But you're trapped.
[00:30:19] And I got to go in crazy, you know?
[00:30:21] Because you don't know.
[00:30:22] It's on.
[00:30:23] It's on.
[00:30:24] It's not on.
[00:30:25] Yeah.
[00:30:26] So when you're saying the difference is though, what you're talking about is an individual
[00:30:29] individual moment, what I'm talking about is group.
[00:30:32] It's a group thinks scenario.
[00:30:33] Yeah.
[00:30:34] Where, you know, just like, it happens when there's a gun shot and everyone starts
[00:30:39] running.
[00:30:40] People, the people in the background don't even know what they're running.
[00:30:43] Gotcha.
[00:30:44] They see people running.
[00:30:45] Yeah.
[00:30:46] Yeah.
[00:30:47] Yeah.
[00:30:48] Yeah.
[00:30:49] Yeah.
[00:30:50] And before you're police partners, or you're, or your, you're military partners,
[00:30:55] you're looking down now.
[00:30:56] You think there's an insurgent there and all of a sudden around cracks off.
[00:31:00] You're lucky.
[00:31:01] And there's a situation that happened where there was an Iraqi soldier that had an accidental
[00:31:07] discharge.
[00:31:08] You know what that is?
[00:31:09] Like, it was latin and latin.
[00:31:11] And latin latin was taken down a building.
[00:31:15] And I was actually outside the building, because we were taking down multiple the buildings.
[00:31:19] but they were in one building and all of a sudden,
[00:31:23] ack, ack, a couple rounds get shot off.
[00:31:26] And you know what, it was actually,
[00:31:28] I'm pretty sure that it was a pretty sure Andrew Paul.
[00:31:33] This is a whole cast of characters.
[00:31:34] I'm pretty sure Andrew Paul is at like the head
[00:31:36] of the train or close to the front of the train
[00:31:38] in inside that they were inside this building,
[00:31:40] rounds get fired and Andrew Paul's thinking,
[00:31:43] okay, I think I remember Andrew Paul telling me this.
[00:31:46] Andrew Paul's like, okay, well,
[00:31:47] we're gonna grenade these.
[00:31:48] We're gonna throw frag grenades into this next room
[00:31:50] because people are shooting at us.
[00:31:51] And it was a guy, another heads up guy,
[00:31:53] a couple feet back that knew where the gunfire came from
[00:31:57] and where it came from was an Iraqi soldier.
[00:31:59] Friendly Iraqi soldier had cracked off rounds
[00:32:03] and accidentally.
[00:32:04] Accidentally and you know, luckily that guy
[00:32:08] was a great guy of really heads up guy,
[00:32:10] grabbed him almost, almost,
[00:32:12] just choked the shit out of him right there.
[00:32:15] But can you imagine you're clearing a house
[00:32:17] where there's suspected insurgents
[00:32:19] and all of a sudden rounds are fired?
[00:32:21] Well, now you're, but this is the discipline.
[00:32:24] And the guys knew, okay, the guys didn't all just
[00:32:27] freak out and started shooting.
[00:32:28] The guys were, you know, somebody said,
[00:32:30] hey, somebody grabbed the person that shot,
[00:32:32] hey, that was an AD, okay, wrap it back down,
[00:32:35] wind it down, everyone calm, you know what I mean?
[00:32:37] So there's the difference between guys
[00:32:39] that have been trained really well.
[00:32:41] And when you haven't been through that country
[00:32:42] and also luckily that didn't happen
[00:32:44] on the second night of deployment.
[00:32:46] We were, you know, further into the deployment
[00:32:49] where guys had been through,
[00:32:51] it's just like we just talked about.
[00:32:52] Guys had been through plenty of fire fights at this point
[00:32:55] so they weren't freaked out that there was gunshots.
[00:32:58] They were like, okay, wait a second,
[00:32:59] where is this gunshots coming from?
[00:33:01] But that could have gone really, really nasty.
[00:33:05] So trained, trained realistically.
[00:33:09] All right, at this point
[00:33:10] and also just like some of the other books
[00:33:12] we've read about World War II
[00:33:14] where we've got, you know, it's basically a movement.
[00:33:18] It's basically continually moving,
[00:33:19] trying to take down targets, trying to move forward,
[00:33:21] trying to get through France, trying to get to Berlin.
[00:33:24] That's the situation and it's the same thing here.
[00:33:27] These guys, these battains in this regimen
[00:33:29] and they basically, the whole task force
[00:33:31] is trying to move from city to city
[00:33:34] or town to town through France.
[00:33:36] And that's what's going on here.
[00:33:37] So it's a continual series of attack,
[00:33:41] dig in, attack, dig in, attack, dig in
[00:33:45] and you can tell from the title of the book,
[00:33:47] what they're going for is this final,
[00:33:50] you know, city of St. Low in France.
[00:33:53] So at this point, there's an attack
[00:33:55] that they were getting ready to go on
[00:33:57] and he's trying to figure out why it got canceled
[00:34:00] and he's talking to the commander.
[00:34:05] And he says, I think you got farther
[00:34:07] from where you started than anyone else.
[00:34:09] So he's telling these gentlemen, Major Jones,
[00:34:11] your battalion went further than anyone else.
[00:34:13] Back to the book, in fact, I believe that's why
[00:34:16] division canceled your attack.
[00:34:18] If you'd made La Forge, you would have been way out
[00:34:21] on a limb and stood a chance of being cut off.
[00:34:24] Major Jones, a lady that their comparative success,
[00:34:27] was thankful that he had not renewed the attack
[00:34:30] and perhaps made another 500 or 1,000 yards.
[00:34:34] They would have been out front like clay pigeons
[00:34:37] for anyone to knock down.
[00:34:39] It was the first time he had seen a practical application
[00:34:42] of what was popularly known as the big picture.
[00:34:46] Supposedly concocted for edification of high brass
[00:34:49] and war correspondence yet sufficiently vague
[00:34:52] to cover a certain amount of error on the ground.
[00:34:56] So the reason I wanted to call that out
[00:34:58] is he's admitting that from his perspective
[00:35:03] like why are you stopping my attack?
[00:35:05] And at this point, they had gotten bogged down
[00:35:07] and then they were ready to go again
[00:35:08] and they got bogged down and now they were ready to go
[00:35:10] and they get told stop.
[00:35:12] And so his first reaction is kind of,
[00:35:13] what do you wait?
[00:35:14] Why are we stopping?
[00:35:15] We've actually got some momentum right now.
[00:35:16] And then he finds out that from the big picture,
[00:35:20] the reason you're not attacking is because you're too far
[00:35:22] out ahead of everyone, if you get going further,
[00:35:24] you might get surrounded and cut off.
[00:35:26] Now, this is a situation where understanding why?
[00:35:32] Why is so helpful?
[00:35:34] And especially if you push that all the way down
[00:35:37] to the front line troops and to the front line leadership,
[00:35:40] that's out there thinking, hey,
[00:35:41] we finally made some offensive progress
[00:35:45] and we can move and we can really take it to the enemy.
[00:35:49] And now you're telling us to stop,
[00:35:50] what is going on?
[00:35:51] The headquarters is stupid, they don't get it,
[00:35:53] they don't understand.
[00:35:54] Actually, they do understand,
[00:35:56] but they need to do a better job of explaining why,
[00:35:58] so that the people know.
[00:35:59] All right, moving on to this next section.
[00:36:09] Here he's checking out his line,
[00:36:14] now that they're dug in a little bit,
[00:36:16] he'd gone to Regiment.
[00:36:18] It's really easy to forget that these guys,
[00:36:20] and I talk about this a bit,
[00:36:21] but the best type of communications that they have
[00:36:25] is when they actually run wires
[00:36:27] between different between regiment,
[00:36:29] between battalions, between the companies,
[00:36:31] they try and run wires because the radio is our
[00:36:34] fairly temperamental on whether they work or not.
[00:36:37] So they use radio as a backup,
[00:36:38] but the primary communication is running a wire,
[00:36:42] and he had just gone back to Regiment to meet face to face,
[00:36:46] because meeting face to face is very important.
[00:36:48] And he just comes back up and he asks one of the company
[00:36:53] to commit, actually I think it was his ops officer,
[00:36:56] Newcome, he says, hey, any news,
[00:37:01] and Newcome, his ops officer says,
[00:37:03] nope, everything's quiet as a church.
[00:37:05] The S3 looks at the battalion commander
[00:37:07] in the Starlight and Grind as he went on.
[00:37:10] Now major, you don't have to concern yourself
[00:37:12] with everything up here.
[00:37:13] You just leave the details to us,
[00:37:15] where you used to looking after them.
[00:37:17] So a little bit of decentralized command,
[00:37:19] don't worry about a boss.
[00:37:20] We got this, we're gonna be all right.
[00:37:22] Now next day rolls around, and here we go,
[00:37:26] back to the book around 1000,
[00:37:28] the Germans sheld the battalion heavily,
[00:37:30] but they didn't follow up.
[00:37:32] Follow this up with an attack.
[00:37:34] By 1100, the wounded had all been evacuated,
[00:37:36] and the wire lines had been relayed to the Regiment.
[00:37:40] The major instructed Grimzel
[00:37:42] to collect all five company commanders
[00:37:44] and meet him as soon as possible
[00:37:46] at the crossroads of the edge of the woods
[00:37:47] from which they had first attacked.
[00:37:49] It was only a little way from the Regimental command post
[00:37:53] to the edge of the woods.
[00:37:55] He got there well before the others.
[00:37:58] When they came up a few minutes later,
[00:38:00] he missed Newcomb before he caught the meaning
[00:38:04] of their odd manner.
[00:38:05] Grimzel's set face should have given him a hint
[00:38:09] as the S2 step forward, saluted very stiffly
[00:38:12] and said with visible effort to keep his emotions under control,
[00:38:15] Sir, I must report that Captain Newcomb is dead.
[00:38:20] The others look silently at the ground
[00:38:22] and tears begin to stream down the gentle Grimzel's face.
[00:38:27] The news struck the major with the force of a physical blow.
[00:38:32] Of all the fine men, he had met since taken command
[00:38:37] of the battalion, Newcomb had been one of the very best.
[00:38:40] He was quick, willing, and intelligent.
[00:38:43] Wise far beyond his 24, 25 years.
[00:38:47] He also stared at the ground for a moment
[00:38:51] and then asked quietly how did it happen?
[00:38:53] Ryan spoke up, same sniper, same place as the dock.
[00:38:58] So a dock had been killed earlier by a sniper.
[00:39:01] One of my men wore a nuke to stay out of that gap
[00:39:04] in the headrow, but he took the steel part of his helmet off
[00:39:07] and sat down on it right square in the gap itself.
[00:39:10] The sergeant who thought the captain must have gone nuts all
[00:39:13] of a sudden was coming after him to drag him away, but too late.
[00:39:19] The sniper got him right in the temple.
[00:39:22] John's felt numb inside, but to dwell on his sorrow
[00:39:27] wouldn't help.
[00:39:29] Notting solemnly, he leveled his finger at Captain Weddle.
[00:39:33] You are now a legoon red-three, but you will retain command
[00:39:36] of your company until we complete the move into these woods.
[00:39:40] Weddle equally grave, replied, yes sir.
[00:39:44] I have a little news too.
[00:39:45] Lieutenant Chadwick got half his helmet knocked off by a burp gun
[00:39:48] during all that shooting a while ago.
[00:39:51] He caught either a part of his helmet or some of the slugs in his arm.
[00:39:54] He's out, but he isn't hurt badly.
[00:39:56] He'll be back.
[00:39:58] Major John's who'd never met Chadwick merely not again.
[00:40:03] It didn't hurt so much when you didn't know the man.
[00:40:06] Furthermore, a wound regardless of its severity,
[00:40:10] lacked the awful finality of death.
[00:40:14] Chadwick's temporary loss meant one less officer
[00:40:17] when as new comes death left a hole in his heart.
[00:40:22] Although he knew Weddle would probably be a good S3-2
[00:40:26] new come in the foreshore days he had known him
[00:40:29] had become a friend.
[00:40:32] Grimso had moved a little away from the others.
[00:40:35] He was leaning against a tree, his head down in the curve of his arms,
[00:40:38] sob's shaking his body.
[00:40:41] He and newcomed become close friends for years
[00:40:46] and had worked together daily.
[00:40:48] The major spoke to Captain Menzer, the headquarters company commander,
[00:40:53] see the lieutenant Grimso was pulled off somewhere,
[00:40:57] where it's quiet and given a chance to lie down and get some rest.
[00:41:01] If he objects tell him it's an order,
[00:41:03] I don't want to see him around anymore today.
[00:41:06] Menzer, small and dapper, saluted sharply.
[00:41:10] Yes, sir.
[00:41:11] I'll look after George Allwright.
[00:41:19] These guys are taking casualties
[00:41:21] at just an incredible amount.
[00:41:25] And you see a couple of things in here
[00:41:29] that we've heard before.
[00:41:32] You see the major realizing that Grimso is done.
[00:41:37] He needs to break.
[00:41:38] And he says, get him off the line,
[00:41:42] get him somewhere you can take a break.
[00:41:45] And you also see these guys filling billets
[00:41:50] and just getting promoted, battle field promoted.
[00:41:53] The guy was one of the company commanders,
[00:41:55] weddle, he becomes the operations officer boom on the spot.
[00:42:00] It's really, you can see why this book is one hack
[00:42:10] where it's favorite books.
[00:42:14] So now they're, they're hold up for a while.
[00:42:17] And here we go back to the book.
[00:42:18] 10 days drag by while the battalion sat in Boyd to Breddle.
[00:42:23] If the days were sometimes dull,
[00:42:24] they were rarely unaventful.
[00:42:26] Men were wounded or killed nearly every day
[00:42:29] by artillery, mortars, or the fire from self-proped,
[00:42:32] propelled 808s that could move unseen
[00:42:35] into positions from which they could fire into the tops
[00:42:37] of trees of the bla, and then pull back
[00:42:41] before the artillery men could bring fire on them.
[00:42:45] Those casualties were bad enough,
[00:42:47] but they were to be expected.
[00:42:49] There was one incident that the battalion commander thought
[00:42:52] they could have got along very nicely without.
[00:42:56] Regiment and directed that.
[00:42:57] The battalion's erect barbed wire along their whole front,
[00:43:00] which they did cheerfully.
[00:43:02] But when a truckload of anti-personnel mines
[00:43:04] came down, the major looked at them with misgivings.
[00:43:08] Those things were as dangerous to the people who laid them
[00:43:11] as they were to the enemy, he thought.
[00:43:15] So he supervised the mind-lane carefully,
[00:43:17] meticulously noting the location of each mine
[00:43:20] on a large scale sketch of the area being mined.
[00:43:24] The day after all the mines were laid,
[00:43:26] he heard the flat mulfled roar of a landmine.
[00:43:31] At once he ran toward the sound,
[00:43:33] he got there with the aid men to watch with sorrow and anger
[00:43:37] while they evacuated three men
[00:43:39] from the middle of their own minefield.
[00:43:42] One of them was dead.
[00:43:44] The last litter carried Iperian, who badly hit
[00:43:48] in the legs with several fragments,
[00:43:50] did not know how severely he was hurt.
[00:43:53] The other wounded men unconscious was being placed
[00:43:57] on the medical Jeep,
[00:43:58] and still another litter came around the corner
[00:44:00] of the little farmhouse that stood on the edge of the woods.
[00:44:03] The man on this litter had his eyes closed,
[00:44:06] his face twisting horribly.
[00:44:08] He jerked over, he jerked all over,
[00:44:12] bringing his legs up so hard the aid men
[00:44:14] had to hold him down on the litter.
[00:44:16] The major, looking at the man in wonder,
[00:44:19] asked, what's the matter with him?
[00:44:21] The aid men were contemptuous.
[00:44:25] Ah, said one, this guy never got hit by nothing.
[00:44:30] He was in a whole 50 yards from where it happened,
[00:44:32] but he started screaming and yelling and carrying
[00:44:34] on something awful.
[00:44:36] We thought he was hit, but he ain't got a whole in him.
[00:44:39] He was like this when we got to him.
[00:44:42] John's realized he had just seen his first case
[00:44:46] of neuropsychosis commonly called combat exhaustion
[00:44:50] or CE.
[00:44:53] It wasn't the only one he was to see.
[00:45:00] So you got,
[00:45:02] for me, why I guess that's that friendly fire?
[00:45:05] That's friendly fire when you hit one of your own landmines,
[00:45:11] nightmare.
[00:45:14] Now,
[00:45:17] and also, you start seeing some psychological
[00:45:20] damage to guys on the front line.
[00:45:23] And that guy's not gonna be any good.
[00:45:26] He can't fight.
[00:45:27] He's literally screaming and jerking around.
[00:45:30] They have to hold him down.
[00:45:37] All right, now the battalion is gonna move
[00:45:39] and take over a whole area.
[00:45:44] From the third arm of division,
[00:45:46] and it's moving into this area,
[00:45:48] it's got 300 replacements coming in.
[00:45:50] So think about that.
[00:45:52] Battalion supposed to be 900 people
[00:45:54] and they're getting 300 replacements.
[00:45:56] So that tells you,
[00:45:57] and again, I am breezing, I'm skipping,
[00:46:00] I'm not even breezing, I'm not breezing through,
[00:46:01] I'm skipping so much of the fighting and combat
[00:46:05] in this book, but it's just going on continuously.
[00:46:09] And at this point, they're going in,
[00:46:11] they already have 300 replacements.
[00:46:13] So they've had 300 people taken out
[00:46:18] or either either wounded or killed.
[00:46:22] So at this point, Lieutenant Ryan's company
[00:46:26] is on a patrol and they're gonna go set up an outpost
[00:46:31] into some pretty rough area.
[00:46:37] And as the patrols out there, here we go,
[00:46:40] then came the first shots from the patrol.
[00:46:42] They were going in well, and it looked for a few seconds
[00:46:45] as if Ryan was gonna get to his outpost.
[00:46:47] But a flare of three red star clusters floated up
[00:46:50] from the German lines and all hell broke loose again.
[00:46:55] Every crowd gun that had been used to help stop the third
[00:46:58] armored plus probably a few that had come in late
[00:47:01] opened up on about 150 yards of the Abel company front.
[00:47:07] It was concentrated, thunderous, murder,
[00:47:10] such as no one in the battalion had ever seen before.
[00:47:14] Ryan's line was a mass of seething, leaping flame
[00:47:18] that looked as if it were fed from below,
[00:47:21] rather than from an inconceivable torrent of shells
[00:47:25] that came on and on and on.
[00:47:30] The brush switched suddenly from the company
[00:47:32] to the battalion, command post area itself.
[00:47:35] The battalion commander in his staff
[00:47:37] hearing the first wine of the shells
[00:47:39] dived for the new command post hall
[00:47:41] where they huddled while the walls shuddered
[00:47:44] and dirt rained down from the roof.
[00:47:47] Conclusion blew out the candles, but nobody was hurt.
[00:47:51] The German gunners switched to seet company for a few rounds.
[00:47:55] Then right went right back to their prime target, Abel company.
[00:48:01] While they were pounding Kenny's company,
[00:48:03] a single short call came in over the 300, which is their radio.
[00:48:08] Abel six is clipped.
[00:48:10] That meant Ryan had been hit, but there were no details.
[00:48:14] 20 minutes after that pretty red star cluster
[00:48:17] went up, all was quiet again,
[00:48:19] except for some moans and cries for medics
[00:48:21] that floated back from Abel company.
[00:48:24] But at least no Germany infantry had come in under fire.
[00:48:28] In the 20, in that 20 minutes,
[00:48:31] the company lost 54 men, plus its company commander.
[00:48:35] Almost every man in the patrol had been caught above ground
[00:48:39] and was killed or wounded, while most of the other casualties
[00:48:41] came from tree and hedgerow bursts
[00:48:44] that sent fragments down into the holes.
[00:48:48] The men of the command post group gathered around the hole
[00:48:51] silently watched the parade of walking wounded
[00:48:53] that filed slowly by on the way to the aid station.
[00:48:58] Occasionally, a man would stumble or waver
[00:49:01] where upon a messenger or wire man would jump to help him.
[00:49:05] Every aid man and litter in the battalion
[00:49:07] was already up at the Abel line,
[00:49:09] and the first litters were not far behind the walking wounded.
[00:49:14] Some of the victims moaned and a few cried out,
[00:49:17] a little now and then, but most were very quiet.
[00:49:24] John's was glad he could not see their faces in the dark.
[00:49:28] The last litter went by with no word from Ryan.
[00:49:32] John's was beginning to hope he hadn't been hurt badly.
[00:49:35] When four men loomed out of the darkness,
[00:49:37] each carrying a corner of a blanket.
[00:49:41] Ryan was half sitting, half lying in the makeshift litter,
[00:49:44] gritting his teeth at the pain of the wounds in an arm and a leg.
[00:49:50] They laid the blanket down gently in front of the major
[00:49:52] who stripped off his coat and laid it over the company commander.
[00:49:57] Ryan managed to work up a feeble grin.
[00:50:00] It didn't work too good, did it boss.
[00:50:15] That's...
[00:50:20] When you're the battalion commander and you come up on the plan
[00:50:24] with a company commander and you think you've got everything right.
[00:50:27] And you lose 54 guys in the company in 20 minutes.
[00:50:36] And your company commander comes back
[00:50:39] and says it didn't go too good, did it boss.
[00:50:42] To have you wait.
[00:50:47] Now, they do end up pushing forward,
[00:50:50] they get some ground and he's out checking and you're gonna,
[00:50:55] you're gonna find this out and he talks about it.
[00:50:58] But he goes forward to find out what's going on
[00:51:01] and make sure the guy's seeing.
[00:51:02] And at one point he's checking and out post a little out post
[00:51:06] where they're guarding this certain area.
[00:51:08] And all the guys in the group are focused on a tank
[00:51:12] on an old burned out tank.
[00:51:14] That's out there in front of them.
[00:51:16] And he comes up to them and here we go back to the book.
[00:51:19] John's pointed to the corner.
[00:51:21] Does it take all three of you to watch that tank
[00:51:23] while the whole German army could crawl up to within 10 feet
[00:51:26] of you without knowing it?
[00:51:30] The sergeants mouth dropped open.
[00:51:31] God made you, I never even thought about it.
[00:51:34] After they shot at us from the tank last time.
[00:51:37] Well, you better damn straight start thinking about your flanks
[00:51:42] if you want it, if you want to end up being able to think at all.
[00:51:47] I wouldn't give a damn if they knocked all three
[00:51:50] you stupid bastards out.
[00:51:53] But if they got you, they'd have a good chance of getting into the middle of your company.
[00:51:57] And I wouldn't like that.
[00:51:59] Now damn you start thinking.
[00:52:05] Again, you know what?
[00:52:07] He's detached.
[00:52:08] Those guys just got shot at from those tanks.
[00:52:11] They're not worried about their flank.
[00:52:13] They're worried about that tank.
[00:52:14] Another sniper being in another machine gun
[00:52:15] or sneaking up into it.
[00:52:17] So he's detached.
[00:52:18] He rolls up and sees, hey, I see that you're focused on the tank,
[00:52:22] but you can't, you've got to keep thinking.
[00:52:28] Going back to the book orders came down during the night
[00:52:30] directing Lagoon Red, Major John's first patowning
[00:52:33] of the 115th Infantry Regiment,
[00:52:35] would relieve lemon red by midnight of the following day.
[00:52:39] Lemon was codenamed for the 116th,
[00:52:42] whose red first patowning was holding the line
[00:52:45] to the left of where Lagoon Red had hopped off nearly three weeks before.
[00:52:50] So they're going up to relieve and hold the line.
[00:52:54] They're going up to take positions and hold them.
[00:52:58] Meeting the commander of this group,
[00:53:01] they're taking the place of back to the book,
[00:53:04] the big commander introducing himself,
[00:53:06] shook hands all around.
[00:53:07] They need to take a deep breath and started in
[00:53:10] on a careful detail briefing.
[00:53:12] He said, this is a hot spot.
[00:53:15] I know you've all been in hot lots of them before,
[00:53:18] but please take my word for it.
[00:53:20] This one is really hot.
[00:53:22] He paused and looked at the officers as if to make sure
[00:53:25] they were going to take his word for it.
[00:53:27] Then he went on.
[00:53:28] We've got Nazi paratroopers on the other side of the headdroes.
[00:53:31] They're the best that Hitler has and they know it.
[00:53:34] They don't give us much rest.
[00:53:37] We don't give them any.
[00:53:43] We have casualties every day,
[00:53:45] so please do your best not to cause any more than we have
[00:53:48] to take anyway.
[00:53:51] My boys have been here for two weeks now
[00:53:54] and they're getting right touchy.
[00:53:56] So if any of you get snapped at, don't pay attention to it.
[00:54:00] Just go on and they'll get over it.
[00:54:03] So this guy's guys are pretty burn out at this point.
[00:54:10] And they do this turnover.
[00:54:15] And he goes out and again, the turnover happens.
[00:54:18] There's more combat.
[00:54:19] There's more casualties.
[00:54:22] And then he's going out.
[00:54:24] But they'd think settled down and he's going out.
[00:54:26] They check the line.
[00:54:27] And here we go back to the book.
[00:54:28] As usual, Major John asks a number of men how they were getting along.
[00:54:32] He got a warning answer that surprised him.
[00:54:34] A sergeant said, well sir, everything's okay.
[00:54:36] It's a tough spot, but I figure where his good is any other out.
[00:54:38] Fit to hold it down and somebody's got to do it.
[00:54:41] But I sure wish the Major would get around and see us more often.
[00:54:45] Does the men a world of good to see you down here in the lines?
[00:54:48] The Major who had fought he was getting around about as often as any
[00:54:52] batained commander should was seriously concerned because this sergeant didn't seem to think so.
[00:54:57] Instead of being annoyed,
[00:54:59] he was pleased that the men had the uncommon guts to say what he thought,
[00:55:03] whether or not he was right.
[00:55:05] So there you go.
[00:55:06] But that ain't commander.
[00:55:07] Instead of getting all mad, this sergeant says something, he's actually thankful.
[00:55:12] He answered, okay, serge, you'll see me around a lot more in the future.
[00:55:17] The sergeant salute Charlie, where upon stone, this is a new company commander.
[00:55:21] Stone and the Major went on.
[00:55:23] Stone trying to stammer out an apology for the brash sergeant.
[00:55:26] John's cut him off, but not before Stone had volunteered the statement that he himself thought the Major got around more than any other batained commander he'd ever seen.
[00:55:35] The fact that Stone had not seen many batained commanders did not escape John's,
[00:55:40] whose smile to himself as the company commander lapsed into an embarrassed silence.
[00:55:46] On the way back to battalion,
[00:55:49] you reviewed his own approach to the problem of leadership.
[00:55:52] He knew that he must prove himself, especially his courage to every man in the outfit,
[00:55:57] if he expected to get the maximum from them.
[00:56:01] He felt that he had done so fairly effectively as far as sea company was concerned,
[00:56:07] because he stayed with them that night for the counterattack that had threatened their left flank.
[00:56:13] Also, his personal intelligence service told him that a company had approved the little battle he and Grimsel and Martin had had with the machine.
[00:56:21] He had a machine gun that had killed Jimmy and Sadler.
[00:56:25] So he's got his personal intelligence service.
[00:56:29] I've talked about this before.
[00:56:31] You got your own guys that are telling you what's going on.
[00:56:33] His own little guys had told them that a company,
[00:56:37] they respected him.
[00:56:38] They knew he was going to get after it.
[00:56:41] Back to the book, but it was apparent that this is going to be a company by company proposition.
[00:56:45] Baker company didn't seem to be impressed.
[00:56:48] He'd have to do something about that.
[00:56:55] Now, this is just another thing about leadership.
[00:56:59] He's on a field phone, and again, I talked about how they put these wires in, and he's on a field phone.
[00:57:04] And he gets done making something happen on the field phone,
[00:57:08] and puts down the phone on the table.
[00:57:10] The phone rang before anyone could say anything.
[00:57:13] John's picked it up barking red six.
[00:57:15] That's his call sign.
[00:57:16] The operators' voice came through clearly.
[00:57:18] Are you finished?
[00:57:20] Yes, I am.
[00:57:21] He slammed it back on the table.
[00:57:23] Weddle shook his head.
[00:57:24] You forgot to ring off, Major.
[00:57:26] Sergeant Wilson gives the operators hell if they don't make sure the lines are clear.
[00:57:29] Sergeant Wilson was the acting communications officer.
[00:57:32] The original man had been killed, and Wilson was doing a fine job.
[00:57:35] He'd been in for a commission for quite a while.
[00:57:37] John's picked up the phone and twisted the crank on the leather case.
[00:57:41] The operator answered instantly.
[00:57:43] Yes, sir?
[00:57:44] What's your name, operator?
[00:57:46] Private Henderson, sir.
[00:57:48] The voice was a little uncertain.
[00:57:50] Okay, private Henderson.
[00:57:52] You keep doing your job the way you're supposed to.
[00:57:54] Don't mind me if I snap at you once and a while.
[00:57:56] I'm sorry.
[00:57:57] He finished.
[00:57:59] He started to lay the phone down.
[00:58:01] Smiled, picked it up, and added.
[00:58:03] Finished.
[00:58:04] So again, you can see he's a guy that doesn't get all crazy when, you know, when people come to him and say, hey, you're supposed to be
[00:58:14] fine off the line.
[00:58:15] I got to keep these lines open.
[00:58:16] You're not sign off the line.
[00:58:17] Are you done?
[00:58:19] You see ego maniac leaders do that.
[00:58:23] Get crazy on stupid stuff.
[00:58:25] They're not following their own rules.
[00:58:31] Now talking about this network, talking about these communications.
[00:58:34] Here we go back to the book.
[00:58:35] This network of communications enabled three men to keep accurate minute by minute track of all that was going over on the entire front, covered by nearly 600 men.
[00:58:43] From this one spot, they could direct the lives of all those men, actors in the most thrilling and awful drama of all time.
[00:58:51] So the way that they're doing this, and I should have explained this earlier, is you have the battalion commander and he has a small staff of people that stay with him most of the time.
[00:59:02] His operations officer, his communications officer, his intelligence officer.
[00:59:07] And what they do is when they get to certain positions, they find a command post, a CP.
[00:59:12] And when they're in the field, what they do is they dig a big giant foxhole.
[00:59:17] And they make it as good as they can.
[00:59:19] They put logs over the top of it.
[00:59:21] They put dirt on top of that or sandbags or something.
[00:59:23] So they're pretty, they're trying to get pretty secure in there from overhead artillery attacks.
[00:59:29] And then they run wires out to set up communications with all these, all the company commanders who have their own little command posts.
[00:59:39] And obviously this thing isn't permanent because it has to be mobile because tomorrow night, the next night we might move another thousand yards or 500 yards.
[00:59:46] And then that foxhole that we'd dug isn't doing us any good anymore.
[00:59:52] But from this little command post that they set up, they're running this whole show.
[00:59:58] Now he talks about his decision making here.
[01:00:00] Back to the book, if he made a wrong decision, he could cause men to lose their lives needlessly.
[01:00:05] Or if he was clever or lucky, he might by moving a single squatter, puttune or calling for fire support, defeat the enemy and gain additional glory for the unit.
[01:00:15] All without moving from his communications when in a defensive position such as this.
[01:00:22] Then he's talking here about like some of that drama that happens.
[01:00:26] Back to the book, a single rifle shot could mean the death of a company commander or it could mean nothing.
[01:00:32] A mortar round might wipe out an outpost and lay a company open to a surprise attack or it might only kick up a little dust and scar a few trees.
[01:00:43] A volley of artillery fire could come through the roof over their heads or it could burst harmlessly in the fields outside.
[01:00:52] A burst of fire from the orchard could mean another pig, because they had killed some pigs that they fought with enemy.
[01:00:59] Or a full-scale German attack.
[01:01:03] Each sound built up a certain amount of suspense to greater or lesser degree.
[01:01:08] The ring of the phone itself built the tension higher and higher until the first words that came in would perhaps screw it even tighter or dispeel it entirely.
[01:01:18] So that's the life that they're living.
[01:01:22] And just high pressure all the time, but you hear a massive explosion. And this is the same thing I think Laf is talking about on the podcast.
[01:01:31] You know, you do your explosion? You have no idea what it is. You don't know if it's friendly, you don't know if it's a tank round being fired, you don't know if it's an ID going off, you don't know if it's a mortar round impact and you can't.
[01:01:42] Maybe these guys got to a point where they could tell the difference, but I'll tell you what, you're getting an urban combat and the sound is refracting off all the buildings.
[01:01:50] It's hard to tell where it came from and it's definitely hard to tell what it is. And by the way, the artillery rounds that hit our waters being used as IDs.
[01:02:02] So you don't know what it is. It's really hard to tell.
[01:02:07] But it was weird too in Ramadi. There was constant gunfire.
[01:02:12] Like, when you were outside, you just hear,
[01:02:15] it was always out there. Even if it was even if it was on the other side of the city, I mean, you can,
[01:02:23] maybe on the other side of the city. But if it was in downtown Ramadi and we were back at our base,
[01:02:27] you know, we'd go up on the rooftop of my building and sit there and you could just traceers all night.
[01:02:32] You know, the Marines down in the government center were getting attacked for the 14th night in a row.
[01:02:38] You know, the outpost, the army soldiers are camped, correct? Or was getting mortar done? I mean, it was just constantly happening.
[01:02:46] So what was it? Where you, if it's closer, that's when it's the concern or if it's just context in general.
[01:02:53] No, just yeah, this the overall context for us, for me, it was like, okay, you know, when you just knew that there was constant fighting on the water.
[01:03:02] And yeah, I mean, obviously, if it was closer, then the louder it is and the closer it is, the more of a concern it becomes.
[01:03:10] Certainly.
[01:03:14] Yeah, he talks about, again, this is a subject we hear about all the time.
[01:03:19] The German mortars and gunners must have registered to because they had the exact range of every foot of hydro held by the battalion.
[01:03:26] On the 10th of July, they covered almost every foot of the hydro.
[01:03:30] That sort of gunnery was rough on the men.
[01:03:33] They never knew in the first round would fall, but once it had splattered with its flat crash, they all knew that six or maybe it doesn't more were coming.
[01:03:43] Each one a little further up or down the hedgero.
[01:03:47] When you heard that first one, you pulled the bottom of your foxhole right up to your belly and prayed.
[01:03:54] When you heard the second one, you knew whether or not they were coming your way.
[01:03:59] If they were coming towards you, it got right rough.
[01:04:03] Each round was a little closer and they were so damn deliberate about it that the waiting was worth worse than the crash of the shell itself.
[01:04:11] You laid there and counted the seconds between the shells until you knew that the next one was yours.
[01:04:18] The 20 seconds or so was the longest one in the world.
[01:04:22] Because you never knew if you were safe until the shell hit, it could hit anywhere outside your hole, even a matter of inches and you were okay.
[01:04:32] If it hit in the hole with you, you'd never know it, of course.
[01:04:37] Actually, only a few shells ever made direct hits on foxholes, but some did and nearly every man had seen a foxhole that had been hit.
[01:04:47] There was always the little tail fin section left on the surface and after the litter bearers had come and gone, there was only a pool of dark muck to show that somebody had been in the hole.
[01:05:00] It happened twice that day.
[01:05:03] So this one, you can, I don't know if you quite followed what's happening, these guys are in a hedgero.
[01:05:11] So when they're in a linear position, and the way you work mortgars is you make small adjustments on them.
[01:05:19] And the way that you fire at targets when you don't know what the distance is, you put the first one's going to be long.
[01:05:26] And then you adjust a lot shorter so then you come back and it's called bracketing.
[01:05:32] So you might come back five clicks.
[01:05:35] And then that was now you're, now you're hitting front of the target. Now you go back, now you go forward again four clicks, it hits a little behind the target, now you come back three, two, one, and then boom you hit your target.
[01:05:44] So on the mortar thing, there's like the actual tool that kind of, you're adjusting the elevation.
[01:05:51] Yeah, so it's like, it's like a little sky up and down.
[01:05:54] It's going up and down to, to fire at what angle you want to fire at.
[01:06:01] You do is when you shoot a mortar, you, you, the first one you go long, the second one you estimate short, and then you basically can split the difference between those two, you're going to be pretty close.
[01:06:10] And like you work with a legit mortar team and the third round is going to be pretty damn spot on.
[01:06:17] But what you're saying here is the Germans, they already knew the exact settings for where to put.
[01:06:24] Oh, like, oh, we see movement at this point of the head drill. They don't need to take, they just go there pre-designated settings.
[01:06:29] Yeah, they can put around right on that. So they kind of figured it out before.
[01:06:32] Yeah, they figured it out before hand. They know the exact, because what you, what you have to, you know the distance,
[01:06:36] Yeah, you know the distance at the mortar shoots at a certain elevation.
[01:06:39] But what they don't know is, if you're trying to shoot at something that you don't know exactly where it is,
[01:06:44] well, then you have to estimate the distance, which is a little bit challenging to do.
[01:06:47] Now, a good sniper or a good mortar, but not going to be pretty close.
[01:06:51] You know, snipers know that, hey, this thing, they get it down to really, you know, how many meters it is, and same thing with a good mortarman.
[01:06:58] But even that, you know, when you're talking about a far distance of 800,000 meters, you might be off by 50 meters.
[01:07:04] And that's, you know, being off by 50 meters with a mortar is a big distance, not going to kill the target that you're trying to hit.
[01:07:11] But with these Germans at this point, they already have everything measured and dialed. They have a range card as what we call it.
[01:07:17] A range card means like, I know, because when you set up in a position, you could out your range grinder and you find out what the range and distance of everything that you're looking at.
[01:07:24] So you know exactly how far this is. You can dial in your scope boom. Oh, I see somebody over at that corner that building. That's 832 meters boom.
[01:07:30] Crack. Remember that game battleship? Remember that? I do remember that.
[01:07:34] I do remember that. It's like you can't see it, but you can try to figure it out a little bit.
[01:07:39] It is, you're basically your first round's going to be a little bit. If you hit something, then you got a, adjusts.
[01:07:45] Yeah.
[01:07:46] So what the Germans like I said, the Germans had these things pre-registered and then what they would do is they would just drop. They would just hit the whole headrow.
[01:07:56] They go right down the line.
[01:07:58] And these guys knew that once the first round goes, it's either going to be moving away from me on the headrow or toward me.
[01:08:05] Oh, yeah.
[01:08:06] And so can you imagine the damn pressure when you're sitting there that first round goes and now the next round,
[01:08:12] where's it going to be further away from me? Meaning the Germans are going to, are dialing away from me or they dialing towards me.
[01:08:18] And then how many rounds are they going to go? Because if they do enough rounds, you're going to be alright.
[01:08:24] Yeah, that's better.
[01:08:25] Yeah, that's better.
[01:08:25] Yeah, that's better.
[01:08:26] Yeah, that's better.
[01:08:26] Yeah, that's better.
[01:08:27] Yeah, that's better.
[01:08:28] And what's interesting is those, like you said, if the, if the mortar hits outside of your foxhole by an inch,
[01:08:34] you're probably going to be okay because the mortar blast goes up and out when it hits the ground.
[01:08:41] If it hits in your foxhole, you're dead.
[01:08:43] And so there's this, this kind of randomness that you're dealing with.
[01:08:48] Alright.
[01:08:52] Going back to the book a little after this after 1700, General Gearhart came striding through the trees behind the company post hole.
[01:09:01] He came on serious business that of giving orders for an attack.
[01:09:07] If he carried them by himself, they were important.
[01:09:10] Generalman, he said, with the edge to his voice that was impressive, the Division attacks tomorrow at 0600 all along the line.
[01:09:19] This is the drive for St. Low.
[01:09:22] There were few details.
[01:09:24] The Italians would attack as the general said at 0600.
[01:09:28] The first Battalion would advance in a south-western lead direction with the village of Bel Fontaine as its initial objective.
[01:09:36] That was about all of them was to it except for the usual information concerning artillery support, supplies, location of regimental command post and that sort of thing.
[01:09:44] So pretty broad orders.
[01:09:48] Like hey, this is what we're going to do.
[01:09:49] We're going to attack tomorrow at 0600.
[01:09:51] The mission is to get St. Low.
[01:09:57] Back to the book by the time the order got down to the platoon leaders and their part, their part was pretty simple.
[01:10:02] All they in turn had to say was, all right gang, let's take the next headrow.
[01:10:06] When the company commanders had gone, the staff discussed the plan of attack.
[01:10:10] The question bothering John's most of all was where to put the advanced command post group.
[01:10:16] He wanted to hold casualties to the barest minimum, yet he wanted to be as far forward as possible.
[01:10:21] So he's talking about where should he actually position himself and his small team of Battalion staff.
[01:10:28] Where should they position himself?
[01:10:30] It's funny too because when we talk about Battalion staff, you talk about, I don't know, a Battalion staff can be pretty big when you're in a big Battalion, but this is not a big group, this small group.
[01:10:42] Especially because they've taken so many casualties.
[01:10:44] Back to the book, there were a number of good reasons for this.
[01:10:47] In the first place, keeping the command group close to the companies made a lot of difference in communications, particularly in this close wooded country.
[01:10:54] A clump of heavy trees or a high-headrow could spell the margin between having contact and not having it.
[01:11:00] That was of supreme importance.
[01:11:03] Second, if you had, and this is why I was talking about keeping the plan simple.
[01:11:08] Because when you start getting split up from people and you can't maintain communications with them, the difference between not having communications and having communications is night and day.
[01:11:19] It's disaster and success.
[01:11:21] It's victory in defeat.
[01:11:23] Back to the book, second, if you had to move a bog, if you had to move to a bog down company or to any trouble spot, he wanted to have the shortest possible distance to go.
[01:11:34] So, he wants to be close enough to have good communications. He also wants to be close enough that if something's going wrong, he can get there and make things happen.
[01:11:41] Third, the group couldn't afford to stay far behind in any event because they fully expected the German baritrapers to close in around them as soon as they started to advance.
[01:11:50] If the command post group were too far from the rifle companies, it would have a good chance of getting caught off and destroyed or captured.
[01:11:57] Then there was always the consideration that the men liked to know that the old man was not far behind, and to see him once in a while when the stuff was flying around.
[01:12:08] So, these are things he's considering. They're getting ready. You know, it's now getting closer to the attack.
[01:12:15] Back to the book, the staff was uneasy. They didn't want to turn in. They couldn't say why. There had been other nights like this. They all sense that everyone shared their own nameless fears.
[01:12:30] Now they start their movement. Suddenly a terrific firing broke out. Every German cannon, morgur, rifle, and machine gun that had fired around that day, cut loose simultaneously. The sound of mortars coughing on the German side blended with the scream of incoming shells.
[01:12:46] Grimsel and Hoffman slid down the steps of the hole before the first round's hit.
[01:12:52] The phone rang. Major John's grabbed it. Red six.
[01:12:55] Charlie sixer were catching held down here with mortars and artillery. I think that I think there's enemy infantry coming in under the fire.
[01:13:04] So, the idea is, cover and move. You do this as an infantry platoon or company or battalion. You put suppressive fire.
[01:13:13] So you start launching mortars at your enemy. And then while they're all taking cover, you advance.
[01:13:19] And so that's what he's talking about. He says, I think there's enemy infantry coming in under the fire.
[01:13:26] Stone broke in.
[01:13:29] The operator having wisely sensed a crisis and cut him into the circuit. So the other company commander now turns in. Same here, Major. Only I know there's infantry coming in.
[01:13:38] They're already in the road with us. So there's about to get some.
[01:13:42] His voice in manner were normally extremely quiet and easy going. Now his tone was strident with urgency.
[01:13:49] Had it been anyone but Julian Stoen, the major might have fought. It showed near panic.
[01:13:55] Okay, the both of you, he answered as calmly as he could. Stuff's coming in here too.
[01:14:00] Fight him and keep me informed.
[01:14:05] Major John's doesn't get excited about stuff. Very often. He says, Oh, you're getting attacked.
[01:14:11] He's got to fight him. Keep me informed.
[01:14:14] That's how you eat.
[01:14:19] Yeah.
[01:14:21] Now, at some point, all the wires that I talked about that were so important for communication.
[01:14:29] The crowd back at the aid station. They had a cat in the capture to guide.
[01:14:32] Cried Weddle suddenly. He must have been part of patrol that came through and caught all our wires.
[01:14:38] They're having been enough shells to finally falling to cut them all. The smart bastards.
[01:14:43] They even knew when we checked radio as well. So these guys,
[01:14:47] we sent a small group of Germans went through the lines.
[01:14:51] We're probably right after a radio check called the wires.
[01:14:56] Yeah.
[01:15:01] That's how you kick off an attack.
[01:15:05] But you screw up their communications.
[01:15:09] Now, at this point, they are, this is turning bad real bad.
[01:15:15] And this is, again, there's so much great information in here.
[01:15:20] And so it's such good documentation of the way this combat takes place.
[01:15:25] But at the suffice it to say at this point, I'm skipping forward.
[01:15:29] They are getting really crushed. They got mass casualties.
[01:15:33] They are, when they advance.
[01:15:37] So imagine this. Remember I talked about the Germans,
[01:15:40] no exactly where their mortars are going to hit?
[01:15:43] Well, the Americans will storm forward and fight hard and get to another headrow.
[01:15:51] When they get to this new headrow, where the Germans were,
[01:15:55] where they just beat the Germans out of there, the Germans have that headrow dialed as well.
[01:16:00] So, so now as soon as they get positioned, they start getting immediate,
[01:16:04] effective fire from mortars. So this is a total nightmare. And that's what's happening.
[01:16:08] And at this point, they're completely bogged down.
[01:16:13] And this might be, you don't get to hear a story like this very often.
[01:16:18] So the regimental executive Colonel Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, shows up.
[01:16:25] So above the chain of command of the battalion is the regiment.
[01:16:30] And the senior person in the regiment is the Colonel, the regimental commander.
[01:16:37] And this is his executive. The person one down from the regimental commander is this guy Lieutenant Colonel Smith.
[01:16:44] And he shows up. And he hears what he says.
[01:16:47] What's the matter, John? Why aren't you getting anywhere? Smith gasped.
[01:16:52] And he's gasped because he's running into this position. The major point to the bloody trail,
[01:16:57] to the dead men, to the shells that were savaging the trees.
[01:17:01] And finally in the direction of the nearby front from which came the plotting sound of mortar fire.
[01:17:06] His eyes were lacking their usual snap. And he answered Dully, their two tough.
[01:17:13] Smith blinked several times. He was obviously trying to think of something to say,
[01:17:18] something that would inspire this listless battalion commander to New effort.
[01:17:22] Well, he finally brought out. You got to get going right away.
[01:17:26] Regiment has got to move. You just got to get going.
[01:17:29] John's shook his head. He wasn't having any.
[01:17:34] Not today was all he would say.
[01:17:37] So we're talking mentally defeated at this point.
[01:17:41] And even the regimental commander coming in are the regimental executive commander coming in.
[01:17:49] Telling him, hey, you got to move. You just got to go.
[01:17:52] Which that encouragement, this reminds me of of.
[01:17:56] In just a turnance, you ever seen a coach saying, like, you got to get on top.
[01:18:00] You got to do something. Got to get out of there.
[01:18:02] Yeah. That doesn't help me. So that's what he's saying. Hey, you just got to go.
[01:18:06] I'm getting morgered. My guys are getting mowed down. I'm not. I can't do it.
[01:18:11] So back to the book then for some reason, both men looked up the headrow toward the rear.
[01:18:16] Colonel McDaniel, the new division chief of staff was striding toward them, a bliviest of the fire.
[01:18:23] Just as he reached the command post of volley of four rounds screamed in the field just beyond the headrow.
[01:18:28] The concussion tumbled him into the hole with the major and Smith.
[01:18:33] But McDaniel did not lose his natural dignity and he was smiling, as he said.
[01:18:38] Hello, John Smith, how are we doing?
[01:18:41] Now we got a leader coming in, that's very calm and very cool and just got blasted into their hole, by the way.
[01:18:48] And he looks up smiles and says how are we doing?
[01:18:51] John's made an effort to perk up a bit, but his voice lacked conviction or force as he told McDaniel about the situation.
[01:18:59] The chief of staff surveyed the scene, weighing it all very carefully before he answered.
[01:19:04] When he did, his tone was serious and he was not smiling.
[01:19:09] John's, when you were on maneuvers in Louisiana or at VMI, and while you were studying at Leavenworth,
[01:19:17] you saw situations where units had to be sacrificed knowingly in order to get a job done.
[01:19:22] Didn't you? The battalion commander nodded.
[01:19:26] When you saw those things, you probably never fought very much about them, just accepted them as a matter of course and war didn't you?
[01:19:34] The major nodded again.
[01:19:37] You never stopped to think, probably, that there might come a time when you and your unit would be the one that had to be sacrificed to enable the parent unit to accomplish its mission.
[01:19:49] The major's eyes were opening wider as he shook his head.
[01:19:53] Well, I don't know for sure, but maybe this is that time.
[01:19:57] I do know that this is the highest ground on the core front, and the key to the entire defense is the same low.
[01:20:04] Core expects us to break it, and we think you are the man to do the job at whatever cost.
[01:20:12] Now don't let us down.
[01:20:15] Without another word, he got to his feet and walked back the way he'd come. The regimental executive tagged after him.
[01:20:24] John's watched them go, suddenly he remembered that the general, what the general had said to him the day before, I'm counting on you.
[01:20:33] He turned a weddle, who had watched this little drama with detached interest.
[01:20:39] Lee Roy, the major said, is he square to shoulders and pointed to the sinking sun. Take a damn good look at that sun old boy, because it's probably the last time any of us will ever see it.
[01:20:49] Let's go.
[01:20:52] John's never knew later just what he did the rest of that afternoon and early evening.
[01:20:58] He remembered moving around the command post forward again, and he knew that he had needleed the company commanders unmercifully, threatening them with relief of their command.
[01:21:08] Begging, pleading, anything he could think of that would work with that individual at that moment.
[01:21:16] He found that there was a comparatively weak spot in the German lines opposite Baker again.
[01:21:21] He badgered Martin into persuading the artillery to give him all the fire that he could hit that spot at one time.
[01:21:27] That meant a lot of guns.
[01:21:29] When they all fired three rounds as fast as the gunners could load them, a hundred yards of German held headrow went up and flamed and smoke and dust.
[01:21:37] Again, most of Baker companies streamed across the field and into the gap blasted by the artillery.
[01:21:43] That took the heart out of the pair of troopers and the pair troopers. He's talking about our German pair troopers, who began to fall back all along the line.
[01:21:51] It was no route. The Germans retired from their flanking threat Baker posed, having gained a place in their main line.
[01:21:59] But they fell back slowly, fighting every foot of the way.
[01:22:03] That's a nation's parachute or slow, the weak and battalion again, but they could not stop it entirely.
[01:22:10] The company commanders and the platoon leaders together with Matayan CEO had thrown off their apathy, taken a second wind and were not to be denied.
[01:22:20] At dark, thanks to the inspired leadership that had been provided in a few short minutes by Colonel McDaniel, the German line was broken beyond repair.
[01:22:31] The battered American battalion had made 500 bloody yards.
[01:22:38] As dusk faded into darkness, the firing began to diminish, only to flare briefly again on the left, then it died away into silence.
[01:22:48] Kenny called in to say there had been a light counter attack on the left flank, he had easily kicked it off.
[01:22:55] The major did not ask for permission to halt the advance. He gave orders to dig in for the night after he was sure the companies had close contact on their flanks.
[01:23:08] So, there you go.
[01:23:12] That's just an amazing account of not only of leadership, but of what leadership was capable of.
[01:23:24] I mean, John's was pretty much done. He's literally saying not today, they're too tough.
[01:23:31] In the way that McDaniel convinces him and explains to him that you know those times, those times when you were doing exercises and they'd sacrifice a unit to that they can accomplish the mission.
[01:23:46] I'm not sure, but I think you're that unit right now, and we're counting on you to get it done.
[01:23:55] Unbelievable.
[01:24:05] You know, that's one of those things too, where that's where you know from a leadership perspective.
[01:24:15] You know, you know, entering a situation where duty is going to be the most important thing to you, and you also know that the mission is the most important thing.
[01:24:32] You've got to put that at the top of your priorities, and you know you're going to sacrifice guys and it's going to be a nightmare.
[01:24:38] But the alternative is you're not going to win. You're going to you're not going to win.
[01:24:47] That's the alternative is that your team is not going to be able to achieve this.
[01:24:54] And, and you know, at this point in the war, this war was not settled yet by any stretch.
[01:25:01] This war was not settled, and so to give up ground and start to let the Germans reorganize and let them start to gain high ground, which is what they were fighting for here.
[01:25:12] That's not just going to affect your mind. It's going to affect everybody.
[01:25:16] And so I've said this on the podcast before the definition of a team is when the members of the team think the team is more important than themselves.
[01:25:26] And that's what you see right here. They realize John's realizes that look, we're going to be, and the title of the book is clay pigeons, you know what a clay pigeon is right?
[01:25:39] Yes, yes.
[01:25:40] What you throw up in the air and shoot that and it's just, it's a sacrificial piece of clay.
[01:25:45] And that's why the name of the book is the clay pigeons, the same low, because that's in many cases the situation that they're in.
[01:25:54] So this is different than when Napoleon says, hey, if you get told to do something and it's not smart and you do it anyways, you're culpable.
[01:26:09] Yeah. John's, he can't say, look, no, this isn't smart. He knows it's the right thing to do. He, that's, that's the big difference that I'm trying to get out here. This isn't a guy who's saying, look, hey, we're going to charge this machine gun nest and I'm going to lose it, you know, half my platoon.
[01:26:27] But it's not going to make any big deal. And I'm a little bad leader because I sacrificed my platoon for a meaningless machine gun nest.
[01:26:34] This is a guy that knows that this objective is important, knows that this high ground is needed, knows that the success of this, not just this mission, but the success of this whole, a, a salt on France and thereby Germany is writing on what they're doing.
[01:26:55] So you could break it down and say, well, you know, that made, they could hold back and they could wait. Well, what happens when you hold back and wait? Do the Germans have more reinforcements that they're sending their way? You know, what's, what does that actually mean?
[01:27:07] And so he is calculated in his mind, you know what? We need to do this for the good of everyone we need to do this.
[01:27:22] One point now, fast forwarding, pass some more of that flighting. They do a good job of kind of, they've, they've knocked out some of the through through some fierce fighting.
[01:27:35] They've knocked out and they've moved forward and they've hold up and now they start advancing again.
[01:27:40] Here we go back to the book, one, one well placed stubborn hostile machine gun, stopped that flank attack, called so they're attacking and they get stopped by one well placed machine gun. The German gunner got off got half of the small squad that tried to rush him through the smoke.
[01:27:55] And the attackers had to withdraw, dragging their wounded with them.
[01:27:59] Mortars and artillery left the German undamaged. Rifle grenades couldn't quite hit the narrow slit through which he was firing. Two grandadiers trying to take extra careful aim had also been hit by concealed German snipers.
[01:28:14] When the major arrived it looked as though progress had stopped.
[01:28:19] Using the battalion radio to the rear command post and the artillery phoned from there, he adjusted 18 successive rounds from one gun of the 110th field artillery battalion in a vain attempt to sharp shoot the machine gun out of existence.
[01:28:34] But he couldn't hit it.
[01:28:36] And after each round burst on or near the headrow, the enemy would reply with a derice of verb burst.
[01:28:44] There was only one answer, a tank.
[01:28:48] And he was miraculously a tank appeared.
[01:28:52] So that's what I'm talking about. He tries with, there's one machine gun that's holding up the situation.
[01:28:59] He gets on the radio and cars all to artillery, which is similar to mortars, they're bigger and more powerful.
[01:29:06] But it's the same thing. It's indirect fire. You're putting rounds far up in the air and they're through a big arc.
[01:29:12] And when he's going 1000s and 1000s of feet in some cases in the air and then coming basically straight down on a target.
[01:29:18] And it's, when I say it's hard to hit a target, he's fires 18 rounds to try and hit this machine gun, bunker to machine gun, can't stop it.
[01:29:27] Can't help it.
[01:29:30] So he needs a tank and then miraculously, and if you don't know anything about my incredible affection for tanks and for tankers,
[01:29:40] because of what they were able to do in the battle or body to not only for themselves, but to support and save my guys time and time again.
[01:29:51] I'm a big fan of tanks.
[01:29:53] In fact, I love tanks and tankers. Let's straight up.
[01:29:56] Yeah.
[01:29:57] That's the way it is. And this is why, this is why right here.
[01:30:00] Back to the book, one steel monster, monster lumbered up behind John's who yelled instructions to the tank commander.
[01:30:07] The gunner watched carefully while an infantry squad leader fired a clip of Tracer bullets at the slit that hid the machine gun.
[01:30:15] And then swung his shortboard, barreled little 75 into line.
[01:30:20] It crashed once and almost simultaneously with the muzzle blast came the crack of white phosphorus shell as it hit the slit.
[01:30:28] The smoke blossomed up from behind the headrow indicating a direct hit.
[01:30:33] With that, a single paratrooper came running toward them.
[01:30:37] A few moments later, everything on the front cut loose, the enemy and the company charged,
[01:30:43] and another hundred yards of French real estate had changed hands.
[01:30:49] Then in the major, the major wished every machine gunner in his outfit could have seen that position as an illustration of what skill,
[01:30:57] to nasty and guts could do to build and defend one machine gun position.
[01:31:03] So, machine gunners, tanks.
[01:31:09] Yeah.
[01:31:11] It's incredible what a machine gunner is.
[01:31:14] A normal, like a Mark 48 machine gunner, the old M60 Roger Hayden talk about carrying the 60.
[01:31:22] Right. And our boys last to point my last to point into the body, you can get guys are carrying Mark 48s.
[01:31:27] Or Mark 46s which is a smaller round of 556 round.
[01:31:31] M60, that's what Rambo had, right?
[01:31:34] That is in the front.
[01:31:35] Yes, yes.
[01:31:36] And command it by the way.
[01:31:37] Okay, I'll take your words.
[01:31:39] John Matrix to be exact.
[01:31:41] No, that was his knee.
[01:31:43] Okay.
[01:31:44] The M60, the Belphead machine gun.
[01:31:48] They're not that big of a weapon. I mean, it's big and bleached. Believe me when you're carrying 800,
[01:31:53] 2000 rounds, it's big enough.
[01:31:55] But if you think about a whole, you know, a battalion worth the guys are getting stopped by a guy in a machine gun.
[01:32:01] Yeah.
[01:32:02] Eating good position.
[01:32:03] Now, he had snipers, snipers covering him.
[01:32:05] Two snipers apparently were covering him, but that's not many people.
[01:32:09] That's why when you're on the offense, you need more people than being in a defense position.
[01:32:16] You know, when you're in a defense position, and you're allowed that you have time to set up, that's why when you go back to, well, when you look at normally, when you look at this whole,
[01:32:25] if you look at World War II, it's a whole.
[01:32:28] The both, the allies and what we did in Normandy taking the beaches and what you did every time in a Pacific, taking the beaches,
[01:32:38] you're going against bunker positions like this.
[01:32:41] Yeah, fully. And it's just incredible the tenacity that it takes to make this happen.
[01:32:47] Yeah, isn't that the whole, in a way, the whole idea behind Gorilla Warfare, where it's like, we're just, we're kind of,
[01:32:53] if we're not fighting, we're not fighting in, then all of a sudden.
[01:32:55] We're fighting in the West.
[01:32:56] That is, that is behind Gorilla Warfare, but this isn't Gorilla Warfare, even without, even without sneaking around.
[01:33:04] Right. Right.
[01:33:05] You're in a uniformed soldier, German, and you go, okay, I'm going to set up a bunker position.
[01:33:10] On this high ground, it where I have the enemy channelized in this area, and I have good spread on them, and the only weak spots I've got, I'm going to cover them with snipers.
[01:33:19] Yeah.
[01:33:20] Three people holding up a battalion.
[01:33:22] And just think, you know, if, if, then once you get that position, we have mortars already dialed in when you get there.
[01:33:28] That are going to start hitting you.
[01:33:30] And then the next thing you do is you got to move again.
[01:33:33] Well, guess what, we got another three, four, five guys in machine gun positions, mutually supporting each other.
[01:33:38] That's why this, this, these American Allied fighting forces, and the Americans here in the American specific going against burdened, bunker positions is incredible.
[01:33:52] It's incredible.
[01:33:53] Yeah.
[01:33:54] Now, he's given kind of an overview of war and, and here we go.
[01:34:03] Thus goes battle. A rush, a pause, some creeping, a few isolated shots here and there, some artillery fire, some mortars, some smoke, more creeping, another pause, dead silence, more firing, a great concentration of fire, followed by a concerted rush, then the whole process starts all over again.
[01:34:23] The defender, this is good information.
[01:34:26] The defender, will almost always hold out some reserve, even though his front line is being torn to bits, at least he should.
[01:34:34] He may inflict all the damage on the attacker that he can while giving ground slowly.
[01:34:40] Then, when he thinks the attacker is weakening, or when the defense has reached a certain piece of ground that the defender has chosen for the purpose, he launches a counter attack with his reserves.
[01:34:52] The attacker has used much of his strength, his men are tired, probably short of ammunition, and are almost inevitably somewhat disorganized.
[01:35:02] Then the defender throws fresh troops into a counter attack, overgrounded, his men know.
[01:35:09] Unless the attackers are very strong, they must inevitably suffer.
[01:35:14] Often, they are defeated, and thrown back, or destroyed. So, there you go. I mean, this happens in mixed martial arts, it happens in sports, it happens on the battlefield.
[01:35:24] You guys are pushing forward on the attack, and you take away, you chip away at them a little bit, you give them ground, you give them ground, and then when they get spread out, they're low on ammunition, boom, then you hit them on a counter attack, on a ground that you already know.
[01:35:36] Back to the book, such counter attack tactics have been standard, almost as long as they've been organized armies.
[01:35:43] The Germans employed them so regularly that they were never a surprise.
[01:35:47] But the enemy could never muster, seem to muster the strength necessary to make their counter attack stick.
[01:35:53] Their efforts often halted in advance, as they had the night before, but they rarely gained back any ground, and were almost always costly to the counter attackers.
[01:36:04] Even the best and most proven tactics still require judgment, and the force to do the job.
[01:36:10] The Germans rarely had enough of either.
[01:36:14] So, there's a little breakdown on what's happening with the Germans. First of all, the night using good judgment, they're just like standard operating procedure.
[01:36:20] We're going to counter attack every single time. And when you counter attack, you're taking losses, especially if you're not gaining ground.
[01:36:25] So, they're standard operating procedure, we're going to counter attack, and they're not gaining ground, and so what are they doing? They're losing guys.
[01:36:33] And the more guys you lose, the less guys you have to counter attack with the next time.
[01:36:39] Now, they had a group here that was working in the battalion.
[01:36:49] They were called the commandos.
[01:36:52] And it was just like a little elite group that they were using.
[01:36:55] They would guard the command post, but then they would also win something that's going down. They'd get out there and get after it's super aggressive.
[01:37:01] But they were running so low on people that they needed to put the commandos team back out into the companies, the regular companies.
[01:37:10] So, there had been a little commando, a little special unit within the battalion, and then they had to take those guys and put them back out with the regular companies.
[01:37:19] Now, here we go back to the book. In the middle of the afternoon, the CEO moved up close behind a company to watch their contingent of former battalion commandos going to the line.
[01:37:29] Sergeant Turner, who had been in charge of the platoon of the commandal platoon, was with them.
[01:37:36] Seeing the major, he fell behind long enough to say, Sir, we're going in there to help our buddies from old A company.
[01:37:43] Lick the hell out of those bastards, but when we get through this, I'd sure like to come back and get into the bunch of commandos for the battalion.
[01:37:50] His cool voice ended on a rising note.
[01:37:53] All right, Sergeant, you go to send a Saint-Low, and I'll promise you you get another platoon of your hellrazers just as soon as we can spare them from the companies.
[01:38:02] John's returned to the sergeants. John's returned to Sergeant Slutes, and watched the man as he ran to catch up with the others.
[01:38:10] An hour later, a weasel, which is a small, purpose-tracked vehicle, flying a red cross flag, clattered out of the woods, carrying a load of wounded on litters.
[01:38:22] The battalion commander, who is passing the spot, stopped when he saw the wounded.
[01:38:27] The little commando sergeant lay on the litter on the near side, seeing the major he yelled for the driver to stop.
[01:38:35] John's went over to him, and the boy, both his legs wrapped in dirty, bloody bandages, grabbed his commander's shirt, and pulled himself up on the litter.
[01:38:46] He was crying openly and unassimedly as he burst out with the flood of invective.
[01:38:54] They got all my boys major.
[01:38:56] We didn't get off the LD, which is the line of departure.
[01:39:00] I let you down major. I let you down.
[01:39:03] He stopped and sobbed bitterly before he could go on.
[01:39:07] Major John's could feel his own throat constricting as he held the tightly gripping hands that shook him again and again, as the sergeant poured out his grief and rage.
[01:39:15] We had to get that gun.
[01:39:19] Damn the dirty bastards.
[01:39:21] God damn.
[01:39:23] I let him get me with a fucking machine gun, and they got all my boys to.
[01:39:27] God damn.
[01:39:29] He sobbed uncontrollably.
[01:39:31] While the weasel driver began to let his clutch take hold, but I'll be back, major, sir.
[01:39:37] I'll be back.
[01:39:38] I'll be back.
[01:39:40] Sure boy.
[01:39:42] And I'll have your old job for you anytime. You just take it easy and get those legs fixed.
[01:39:47] The major was walking slowly beside the litter, trying to gently disengage the grip on his shirt.
[01:39:53] The sergeant let go and fell back on the litter exhausted.
[01:39:58] John's looked up at the aid man who slowly shook his head.
[01:40:03] The sergeant would not be back.
[01:40:17] Now they are finally pushing into St. Low and they have to go down this or the direction of attack that they're taking is down this.
[01:40:31] Down this single road that heads into St. Low and the Germans have it dialed.
[01:40:39] They have it dialed with ranged, you know, with artillery ready to hit it.
[01:40:44] And here we go. They have hit it. They're starting to hit it with big rounds.
[01:40:49] Back the book, John's noted that the German fire was coming in slowly.
[01:40:53] There couldn't have been more than two or three guns firing.
[01:40:56] As they were all big ones, they didn't fire rapidly.
[01:41:00] That was a break. But just one of those big shells in the wrong place.
[01:41:04] As the next one began to howl the men began to look for deeper spots in the ditches.
[01:41:10] John's yelled, keep going damn it. It's not here yet.
[01:41:13] The men kept going forward for several more seconds running hard now.
[01:41:18] The shell was nearly on the ground before the major yelled again.
[01:41:21] Down.
[01:41:23] Although the men hit the ditches, John was too excited to remember he was in the middle of the road.
[01:41:29] He went down on one knee. The shell burst 100 yards ahead.
[01:41:33] Again, nobody was hit.
[01:41:35] The instant burst, the major was up yelling, let's go running as he yelled.
[01:41:39] His men got up and ran too.
[01:41:42] Hoffman and Grismel are grim cell.
[01:41:45] Catching the idea, moved further back down the line of men to relay commands and call signals on the shells.
[01:41:53] When the next one hit, all three officers did the same.
[01:41:57] None of them got off the road.
[01:41:59] Here and there, non-combs without orders began to fill in the gaps, staying on the road themselves.
[01:42:05] By the time the third shell hit, the whole column was working as smoothly as if it had been on a parade ground drill.
[01:42:11] And they were losing no time. They kept going. A few men were hit but not many.
[01:42:16] Oddly, oddly enough, not an officer or non-com was knocked out of the middle of the road.
[01:42:20] Though each leader only went down on one knee.
[01:42:23] One shell burst, not 24, five yards ahead of the major, but it hit just around a small bend in the road and he was sheltered by the bank.
[01:42:33] He ran forward through the smoke and dust, nearly falling over a man who is rolling crazily half in and half out of the ditch.
[01:42:41] John's grabbed him by the arm to help him to his feet crying, come on boy, let's go.
[01:42:46] The man tried to get up but stumbled awkwardly forward.
[01:42:50] Only then did John's look down and see that the soldier had no feet.
[01:42:55] He was trying violently to stand on the stumps of his two legs, where his feet had been sliced cleanly off just at the ankles.
[01:43:04] John's laid him back gently into the ditch and changed his tone.
[01:43:08] Maybe you better take it easy while son. You stay here until one of your buddies gets here. There'll be a long, in a minute.
[01:43:15] The man himself was an aid man and not another was in sight, but the Italian commander had no time for one man.
[01:43:22] So after a quick look to see that the stumps were not bleeding profusely, he patted the man on the back saying, see you later, but then he ran to catch up to his place in the column.
[01:43:34] A little further down the road after another burst, he saw another man lying in the ditch, not making any move to get up and go, although he didn't seem to be hurt.
[01:43:43] John stopped, grabbed him by the arm and yelled again, come on, let's get going.
[01:43:50] Looking blankly up at him, the soldier pushed a camera forward, saying plaintively, I'm a cameraman.
[01:43:58] This rocked the major for a moment, then he said, well you can't take any pictures in that ditch, get going.
[01:44:06] So again, you see leadership in action. You see him having to actually lead and set the example and his other, the company commanders, and eventually the the senior enlisted guys all follow his lead of what he's doing.
[01:44:28] We got time to run. We got a minute of whatever it is, 30 seconds. We're going to get up, we're going to run as hard as we can, when we when we know we're going to get hit with the shell, we're going to get down and take cover.
[01:44:39] Pure leadership.
[01:44:44] Now once they get kind of into St. Lowe, there's a kernel shows up, starts getting told what to do.
[01:44:51] Back to the book, the kernel is giving orders again. I want you to clear this town as quickly as you can. There aren't many Germans in it,
[01:44:56] but there are a few and I want it all clear. Your battalion is the only infantry we have with the task force, as you are the ranking officer, you will be in command of all the troops in town.
[01:45:05] He looked closely at the major who not had tried to contain the elation he felt knowing that he would have command on the ground of what would undoubtedly be his historical action.
[01:45:14] The kernel thrust a map at him. Here's a large scale map of the town itself now, get going.
[01:45:20] Major John's turn to look for Wendell, Weddle and Grimsel.
[01:45:25] His two staff officers turned to company commanders. Both were almost at his elbow. He drew them to one side and divided the town between them.
[01:45:34] So now they're kind of on the outskirts of St. Lowe and they're starting to clear the town.
[01:45:39] And we have, so the companies go out and start clearing the town and they've set up a little makeshift command post for major John's.
[01:45:48] And he's standing there with his gott. He's got a bunch of new guys with him too. He's got all these replacements. Because remember, an hour and a half ago when I said hey these guys have already had 300 replacements. Well that has kept up the whole time.
[01:46:03] They're getting all these replacements. So at this point, this is an interesting leadership story. He's got some new guys that show up.
[01:46:10] And there's he's standing in his new command post and these new guys, he sees like a position that needs to be taken to make sure that you know we have some security around the command post.
[01:46:24] And so here we go. He motion to the PFC and three other men standing nearby. They came forward rifles ready. So these are three new guys. Just replacements just showed up.
[01:46:34] And again, the probably the most fire they've seen was running into the town with St. Louis avoiding big giant howlits or shells that are hitting them.
[01:46:41] Back to the book. See that alley there said John's pointing. I want you to take these three men and go down to the end of it. Looks like about 100 yards where you will set up an outpost. Lieutenant Lickory.
[01:46:51] We'll come around later to see how you're doing. The PFC squinted down the alley, nodded at a trifle uncertainly and started toward it. The others followed, but the major was too preoccupied to note that there had been no briefing and no assignment of positions or duties.
[01:47:07] They just trooped off down the alley together like a bunch of men going to the post exchange.
[01:47:13] Two minutes after they left, the sound of German machine gun fire came from the direction of the narrow passageway. John's turned to look out of the alley, pelted the foremen. Straight toward him. The private first class-panted sir. There's a machine gun down there.
[01:47:29] The Battalion commander didn't know whether to be amused or angry. There was no telling what the new men were apt to do if they didn't have leadership of an experienced or well-trained non-comer officer.
[01:47:41] He decided to be gentle. Yes, I heard it. Now, tell you what to do. You take these three men again, assign one to take a place where he can shoot at the gun or where you think the gun is, then take the other two and see if you can't come around behind it and get it for me.
[01:47:59] So, they'll cover the move. They'll be a little simple. They'll cover the move. You get where you can shoot the gun, have that guy get where you can shoot the gun, and then you guys maneuver behind it. Cover the move. Beautiful. The PFC took that in, noted somewhat less uncertainly.
[01:48:17] Motion to the men to follow him and started purposefully back down the alley. In not more than five minutes there came in rapid succession, the sound of the machine gun, a few rifle shots, two grenades and running feet.
[01:48:29] Once had moved across the street looking for the best place for a temporary command post, he turned toward the mouth of the alley wondering what would come out this time. Two Germans showed first running toward him at full speed. Before the major could bring a submachine gun up, he saw the PFC in one other man prodding the Germans from behind with bay and nets.
[01:48:49] He spotted him and poked the prisoner in his direction. They stopped in front of him before he noticed the MG 34, the PFC was dragging behind him, so they actually had the German machine gun.
[01:49:03] The man dropped the gun in front of him saying, here's the gun you wanted major, but this is all that's left of the crew. We had to kill two of them, sir.
[01:49:12] Major John's gulped, nodded, and motion to gay was another one of the guys to come to get the prisoners. The private first class in his helpers jog back toward their new outpost.
[01:49:23] The major looked after them wondering just what sort of training or indoctrination they must have had, first to run away from an enemy without trying to fight back and then to apologize for having killed two.
[01:49:34] He looked down at the German, that the battered German machine gun kicked it idly and reminded himself to be more careful in issuing orders to new men.
[01:49:44] They were apt to take things a bit on the literal side. He was sure that the PFC had actually thought that the seal himself had a personal desire for the machine gun they had knocked out.
[01:49:57] He would have gone to any ends to retrieve the gun itself in order to bring it back just because the major had added that for me when he ordered them to get the gun.
[01:50:10] That's a common thing to add. Back when he worked at the nightclub, you hear that all the time. Especially when you're managing big crowds. You say, hey, can you slide over on the side here for me and they'd always add the for me.
[01:50:26] I mean, it's so common. But when you really think about it, it's kind of a strange thing to add, but I think it adds like this personal touch.
[01:50:41] All right. Now he's in the command post, Wettelhoes, one of the company commanders. These guys are out clearing the city and he hears some commotion comes back into one of the rooms and Wettels in there with one of the other officers or one of the other officers they're working on them.
[01:50:59] Back to the book, Brooks sobbing was carefully cutting away the officer's field jacket and shirt exposing a wide deep gas just below the shoulder. John Stomach turned over quickly when he saw the wound.
[01:51:11] The bone was shattered with sharp splintered ends sticking through the bloody pulpy massive torn flesh.
[01:51:18] That's this is Wettelhoes talking about. Wettelhoes damn near right. They'd almost blow his arm plumb off. The S3 moaned closed his eyes as he leaned back to let Brooks doody could with the nasty wound.
[01:51:32] But he pulled himself together in a moment or two and open his eyes to look at the seal. So here he is. Wettelhoes just in agony, but he gets gets a grip. Then he looks at the seal.
[01:51:44] Squeezes eyes together harder than looks at the seal and says, I would just come back to tell you he'd ground out between clenched teeth that we have our side of the town all clear with the man out on the edge when the artillery caught me in the middle of the street.
[01:51:59] He flinched his face twisted in pain when the aid man who had taken over from Brooks inadvertently twisted his arm as he sprinkled sulfal powder into the wound. Then he went on. Chadwick is back. Didn't know it until I saw him. Came up just came just before we pulled out out of the little road back up the hill.
[01:52:18] You can put him in command. He's good. He was gasping at the words now. Major, can you get me out of here? I don't want to lose this arm. Sure boy, we'll get you out. Just try to relax now. Don't worry about it. Take it easy. We'll have you back to where they can fix it up in no time.
[01:52:36] Weddle leaned heavily on Brooks who was still sobbing from the shock of seeing his captain so badly wounded. Weddle and Brooks had been together a long time and made your new the sergeant would be no good around the command post for a while. So he motioned him to go along and look after the wounded S3.
[01:52:58] So again, you know, major Jones realizes that somebody's at their capacity for handling the horrors of war and says hey, you take this guy back to the aid station.
[01:53:09] Now there's a German counterattacks. So they're in St. Louis, the got things decently handled, but all of a sudden they start seeing it and there's a guy in the field named Barnes and he's starting to report back.
[01:53:21] They're they're forming up a big counterattack and also their field phones are been lost wires. So they don't have good communications. They see this thing forming up. There's going to be overwhelmed. They're really underman. St. Louis is a pretty big city. It's all kind of destroyed, but it's still too big for the amount of people that they have.
[01:53:42] And so they're really scared that there's going to be a big counterattack in the terms. Gonna take the city back. So they finally get through. They don't even know who they're talking to. They're just trying to get through to somebody that can pass word to get the artillery to start dropping bombs.
[01:53:55] And Henderson is one of the guys on the on the radio. And he says, damn it man. This is the Goon Red and St. Louis. We've need our deliveries worse than the ever needed anything in all our lives. And we need it right now. All our lines are rear.
[01:54:09] All our lines to the rear are out and our wire people spliced one and got you. Now quit asking damn fool questions and tell me if you can shoot for us and say hello.
[01:54:17] So this is going back and forth. They start dropping bombs and all of a sudden they start adjusting the bombing closer and closer to them to their own lines.
[01:54:26] Back to the book Angel Fire Direction Center was questioning the adjustment. The correction would bring the shells inside the no fire line maybe on friendly troops.
[01:54:37] Hell yes, we got do's on the edge of town. Who do you think wants this stuff anyways? The artillery man was frantic afraid of the safety rules. The big guns would make them stop them just when they needed the most.
[01:54:50] Please sir, he pleaded. Just put it out there. The infantry battalion commander is standing right beside me praying for more of it. The last volley was right in there, but the Germans are still coming.
[01:55:01] They stand. They get them to drop more bombs and barrens the guys out in the field, calls back in again. That was marvelous. Do it again some more.
[01:55:11] And then the guys transfer in that repeat range. Fire for effect. Give us all you have and give it quick. You're breaking up the attack and you're all we have.
[01:55:22] And that's enough. They bomb the Jesus out of the Germans and that pretty much breaks the attack.
[01:55:34] And again, I'm summing up like seven pages of extended combat.
[01:55:42] And finally, though, the battle is for the most part over. And they've got stabilized. They kind of set some security and here we go back to the book. Major John's his face in his hands as he sat down for the first time in hours.
[01:55:58] He couldn't help thinking of the death and agony to so many men so needlessly.
[01:56:03] It hurt, damnably. Deep inside.
[01:56:10] And then a liaison officer from Regiment came in with a lieutenant Colonel, his staff, and all of his company commanders.
[01:56:18] They were from the 134th Regiment of the 35th Division, which was to relieve the first battalion at once.
[01:56:25] John's could hardly believe it. Even when he saw his replacement standing there looking fresh and confident he was beginning to think that clay pigeons were supposed to go on forever fighting all alone except for the artillery.
[01:56:38] The new battalion commander wondered about Major John's staff, so he's got a guy coming in to take over. They're getting relieved.
[01:56:51] And the guy says, you know, hey, what's up? Where's your battalion staff? Back to the book, John's explained.
[01:56:57] And as he did, he reviewed in his mind all that had happened in the short 30 days since the first attack in the boy to Bretel.
[01:57:06] His whole forward staff was gone.
[01:57:10] Newcome, Sadler, Carter, and McCarthy dead. Weddle and Hoffman wounded.
[01:57:18] Grimsel, out-commanding a company, Nab, Ryan, Todd, Stoen, Cordiac, Kenny, and Dettman all wounded.
[01:57:27] Besides, God knew how many other officers he had never even known by name.
[01:57:33] The company commanders from four companies killed or wounded mostly in the space of seven short action packed days.
[01:57:42] He stopped talking a while. He fought for a moment of all those fine people.
[01:57:48] When he glanced up, catching himself, he thought he was looking at a ghost.
[01:57:53] There stood Kenny. The shadow on his face wavering as the candle flickered in the faint breeze of his entry, so Kenny had been wounded and now he's back.
[01:58:01] In an instant, his troubles, his preoccupation with the relieving officers, or forgotten.
[01:58:07] Kenny, he cried. When in God's name are you doing here?
[01:58:10] Well, Major, I heard you got into town all right, but we're sort of short-a-comedy commanders.
[01:58:16] I saw Todd, Dettman, and Cordiac back there, so I thought I'd better get on up here and see if I could do anything.
[01:58:23] The docs will let you go these days if you can stand up straight for two minutes without falling down.
[01:58:30] The major saw that Kenny was exhausted and spite of his cheerful attitude.
[01:58:34] He found out later that he had walked alone in the dark all the way from the division clearing station, several miles to the rear, in order to get back to the battalion.
[01:58:44] His legs and back were covered with bandages under his new shirt and pants.
[01:58:50] He said, well, old man, there is anything you can do right now.
[01:58:55] These nice people have just come in, so we're going to be out of this rat trap in a little while.
[01:59:01] You just go back behind.
[01:59:03] Mrs. Blanchette here and lie down and get some rest.
[01:59:07] You need it.
[01:59:08] Kenny did as he was told.
[01:59:11] The strain had begun to bend even his indelimentable will.
[01:59:18] At 0-440, the major reported to regimen that the 134th Infantry had taken over.
[01:59:28] The wiremen took out the phone, the major shook hands and said goodbye and good luck to the new arrivals.
[01:59:36] Then he and Kenny followed the company's down the hill.
[01:59:41] Just seven days ago, they had numbered 800. They were now only 450 proud, tired men, the clay pigeons who had taken the core objective.
[01:59:56] The clay pigeons and from Omaha Beach to the Elb, the first battalion in 115th Infantry 29th Division, had
[02:00:23] 2,384 casualties, including 454 men, killed in action.
[02:00:35] That's hard to even fathom.
[02:00:39] Again, think about the fact that at this time, a battalion was about 900 men and they'd taken 2,384 casualties.
[02:00:51] All the replacements that came and kept getting wounded.
[02:00:56] Unbelievable.
[02:00:59] You got to read this book and get the lessons learned.
[02:01:07] You get lessons learned from that book.
[02:01:12] You can also get some of major John's lessons learned from Colonel David Hacworth in his book,
[02:01:20] about face and what you want to talk about some layers, some historical layers, check this out.
[02:01:29] In about face, Hacworth talks about what happens in August 13th, 1961.
[02:01:40] The communist in Berlin started stringing Bard wire and they were now going to build a wall between East and West Berlin.
[02:01:48] They were the candidate who was president wanted to do something like, you can't just, we need to make some kind of a statement here.
[02:01:58] He sent 1500 soldiers from the first battle group of the 8th Infantry Division.
[02:02:06] They were selected apparently by Kennedy, by name.
[02:02:12] So Kennedy said, I want these guys in the recent is because their commander was a guy named Glover S. Johns.
[02:02:20] And he wanted them to go and reinforce the British French and American troops who were on the ground in Berlin.
[02:02:27] And then, layers, Colonel Johns, in his position, appointed D company.
[02:02:37] In his battle group, he appointed D company to be the battle group's reaction force.
[02:02:46] And who was the commander of D company?
[02:02:49] It was a young, Korean war veteran who had come back into the army named Captain at the time, David Hacworth.
[02:03:03] And as I said, Hacworth points to Glover Johns as his primary source for leadership lessons learned.
[02:03:13] And he captured them coming succinctly from Glover Johns himself in about face.
[02:03:21] So let's take it back to that book for a minute here.
[02:03:30] From about face.
[02:03:33] All too soon, Colonel Johns received orders back to Berlin as chief of intelligence.
[02:03:39] So now this whole thing that they'd gone through with sending this force to reinforce the French British and American troops on the ground in Berlin.
[02:03:48] This is pretty much done.
[02:03:50] All too soon, Colonel Johns received orders back to Berlin as chief of intelligence.
[02:03:55] Most of us had known the magic couldn't last forever.
[02:03:59] But it didn't change the fact that we were incredibly sad to see him go.
[02:04:02] On 15 January 1962, the battle group fell out smartly for its final review before our favorite soldier.
[02:04:10] The weather was bitterly cold, but no one noticed.
[02:04:15] We were all too busy standing tall and greedily soaking in the Colonel's farewell address.
[02:04:22] Johns was a leader who taught by example, so most of the points he made weren't exactly new to us.
[02:04:28] But to hear it in a single speech, this great man's basic philosophy of soldiering was like being led on letting in on the secret ingredients of some magical formula.
[02:04:42] To wit.
[02:04:45] Strive to do small things as well.
[02:04:50] Be a doer and a self-starter.
[02:04:53] Aggressiveness and initiative are two most admired qualities in a leader, but you also must put your feet up and think.
[02:05:03] So there's a little dichotomy he's hitting on.
[02:05:06] Yeah, you got to be aggressive, but you got to think.
[02:05:09] Strive for self-improvement through constant self-avaluation.
[02:05:16] Got to be humble.
[02:05:20] Never be satisfied.
[02:05:22] Ask of any project how can it be done better.
[02:05:28] Don't over-inspect or over-supervised.
[02:05:32] Allow your leaders to make mistakes in training so they can profit from the errors and not make them in combat.
[02:05:38] Descentualized command. Keep the troops informed. Telling them what, how and why builds their confidence.
[02:05:52] The harder the training, the more the troops will brag.
[02:05:56] Remember that guy that asked last podcast? How do I improve them around of a group?
[02:06:01] Get them to have pride?
[02:06:04] Train hard.
[02:06:06] Next, enthusiasm, fairness, and moral and physical courage for of the most important aspects of leadership.
[02:06:18] enthusiasm, fairness, and moral and physical courage.
[02:06:22] Next, showmanship, a vital technique of leadership.
[02:06:28] That's interesting.
[02:06:30] Once you've, in about face hackworth, he specifies some of these things that he would that that
[02:06:40] Glover Johns would do, showmanship wise. He'd walked down the range and he was a really good shot with a rifle.
[02:06:46] And apparently he would have a guy throw a quarter.
[02:06:50] Like a coin up in the air and he'd shoot it.
[02:06:54] Because he was such a good shot.
[02:06:56] And another thing he did, he's about to give a speech somewhere.
[02:07:00] And in sort of a mixed audience, but a bunch of German sort of political people.
[02:07:08] Glover Johns gets up and just gives the speech in German.
[02:07:14] All right, next, the ability to speak and write well to essential tools of leadership.
[02:07:24] Boom.
[02:07:28] Next, there is a salient difference between profanity and obscenity.
[02:07:32] While a leader employees profanity tempered with discretion, he never uses obscenities.
[02:07:40] Next, have consideration for others.
[02:07:46] Hmm.
[02:07:48] Next, yelling detracts from your dignity.
[02:07:52] Take your men aside and counsel them.
[02:07:56] Next, understand and use judgment.
[02:08:00] No when to stop fighting for something you believe is right.
[02:08:04] Discuss and argue your point of view until a decision is made, and then support the decision wholeheartedly.
[02:08:14] Last, stay ahead of your boss.
[02:08:18] When Johns had finished Colonel Cowch gave the order to pass in review, and company by company we marched by with just that little extra precision.
[02:08:28] Our shoes, uniforms, and brass earlier attended to to provide just that little extra sparkle.
[02:08:36] As was the custom of the company commanders peeled off after their units passed in the review stand, and congregated for final goodbye.
[02:08:46] Johns had watched the parade with tears in his eyes.
[02:08:50] The tears remained as he stood at attention.
[02:08:56] So tears in his eyes.
[02:09:10] That is major, Glover Johns. That is the clay pigeons.
[02:09:16] That is the first Battalion, 115th Infantry, 29th Division.
[02:09:20] And obviously he is an example of leadership.
[02:09:30] And the men of his battalion, the clay pigeons, they are yet another example.
[02:09:38] Yet another example of the indelminible warrior spirit and culture.
[02:09:50] That is the very core of this nation.
[02:09:58] Don't forget that.
[02:10:02] Don't forget that culture. Don't ever forget it.
[02:10:08] And for those of you out there right now defending our nation, that spirit and that culture, it can work to hold you up.
[02:10:30] And having it in your brain can keep you strong in trying times, but there is also a dichotomy there,
[02:10:42] because not only does that warrior spirit and warrior culture hold you up.
[02:10:50] You also have to hold it up.
[02:10:56] You have to maintain that warrior culture in the way you think and in the way you act.
[02:11:14] And if you ever start to forget how you are supposed to think and how you are supposed to act,
[02:11:24] remember Colonel Glover Johns and the clay pigeons of St. Lowe.
[02:11:42] And I think that is a lot of got for tonight echo Charles.
[02:11:48] So I guess speaking of maintaining, yes, maybe you could tell us how we could maintain support of this podcast, if you, if you want.
[02:12:10] And for ourselves, it would fire for effect.
[02:12:20] And you're watching your calling, your artillery, your calling, naval gunfire, or your calling air support.
[02:12:28] And you're trying to get them to hit this target, whatever that target might be.
[02:12:32] That's trying to get them to hit a building where there's moose.
[02:12:36] And they get a direct hit. Now you say fire for effect.
[02:12:40] Yeah. That means you're needing to make any more adjustments. You can just start hammering that thing.
[02:12:44] Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
[02:12:46] So when somebody does something on target, you like you have fire for it.
[02:12:50] I got you. Oh, thank you. Okay. I think that's one of those ones that you know, I, I hear all you, you and life always say it.
[02:12:56] And you know, certain, do we say that much? No, not that much, but that's where we're here.
[02:13:02] Kind of come out. And you know, certain terms, if you're not familiar with them, you can kind of gather what it means.
[02:13:08] Yeah, you know, in the context of the original words and stuff like that. But that one I never could really figure out exactly what that means.
[02:13:14] As opposed to, you know, I don't know, fire at will or, you know, all these other things that you hear.
[02:13:20] Yeah, fire for effect.
[02:13:22] Fire for effect. Because it could, it kind of sounds like it could mean like to distract them or something.
[02:13:26] To have some effect other than hitting the target or something like that.
[02:13:30] Yeah, apparently not after it apparently it's the opposite and you know, so good.
[02:13:36] Yeah, it's amazing. You show them up at least these guys, man. Yeah.
[02:13:40] Yeah. And, and I'm telling you, like, and I've said this before, that thread of,
[02:13:46] and I actually don't like using the word or your culture, because it's so overused.
[02:13:56] And it's, it's, it's, it's been so degraded by this horrible meaningless things.
[02:14:04] Oh, that guy's a warrior. You know what I mean? Because he, you know,
[02:14:08] you know, dex and what he made it a crime and actually survived his prison term.
[02:14:12] Yeah, because we were warrior. No, actually you're not. Yeah.
[02:14:16] You know, different. But, but there's no other word that I can put on it.
[02:14:22] But, at least that I could think of right now when you talk about the American culture.
[02:14:28] And it's so easy because America's a big place.
[02:14:31] And America's got a lot of good things going for it.
[02:14:34] And a lot like, you know, the culture of art in America's massive, the culture of music is,
[02:14:42] is unbelievably powerful here. The culture of education and academia.
[02:14:50] All these things are massive in America. Right? And, and it's really easy to forget the culture,
[02:15:00] this, the most, in my mind, the most powerful culture that we have.
[02:15:05] Wow, I could be wrong. Oh, I mean, what about our entrepreneurial spirit and culture? Right?
[02:15:10] That's huge here.
[02:15:11] Very strong.
[02:15:12] Our capitalist culture.
[02:15:14] We want to make money.
[02:15:16] We want to grow. We want to do things, right?
[02:15:18] Those are all really, really powerful.
[02:15:20] And I think we tend to forget.
[02:15:24] We tend to forget.
[02:15:26] We want to say that, you know, the Japanese Beshido culture is this thing.
[02:15:30] We should look up to guess what?
[02:15:32] Guess what?
[02:15:33] That Beshido culture versus the US Marines.
[02:15:37] You know, storming beaches in heavily defended beaches.
[02:15:43] And that, that guess what?
[02:15:44] Yeah.
[02:15:45] The American warrior culture?
[02:15:47] That's, that's the real deal.
[02:15:49] Yeah.
[02:15:50] That's the real deal.
[02:15:51] The Nazis? Oh, the stormtroopers? Oh, yeah.
[02:15:54] Those who are such a warrior culture. Guess what?
[02:15:57] Compare them to these guys?
[02:15:59] Yeah.
[02:16:00] No, not happening.
[02:16:01] Sorry.
[02:16:02] Yeah.
[02:16:04] Yeah, these, and you hear this a lot like that.
[02:16:07] There is a little part in the book where the guy got his legs blown off.
[02:16:10] Or something like that.
[02:16:11] And he was like, I'll be back.
[02:16:13] Yeah.
[02:16:13] I'll be back.
[02:16:14] He's like, and it, it really seemed like he was,
[02:16:16] you wasn't pissed about his legs.
[02:16:17] He used piss that he's out of the game.
[02:16:19] I'm like, guys down, I'm going, you know.
[02:16:22] Yeah.
[02:16:23] I think a lot of times in, you know, America is kind of one, in example, where.
[02:16:28] You know, when all things are going real good, it's easy to point out the things that are not going good.
[02:16:32] You know, like, you're, whatever the case may be, like, when everything's perfect,
[02:16:38] the little imperfections show themselves more, you know, like, if your life is like,
[02:16:43] everything's together, we're,
[02:16:45] you know, your job is good and your family's good or whatever,
[02:16:48] but meanwhile, like, you're, I don't know, your front lawn is going brown.
[02:16:51] You're like, my front lawn's going brown, you know, is like that kind of thing.
[02:16:54] I think that's what we have in the US.
[02:16:57] It's kind of like, we, things are really good.
[02:17:01] I think it's, I think it's more just a matter of percentage.
[02:17:05] I mean, I think in America right now, it's like,
[02:17:07] one percent of the population is actually in the military.
[02:17:10] I mean, all these world war two veterans,
[02:17:13] not many of them left, the Vietnam veterans are getting older,
[02:17:16] Korean veterans are very, very rare at this point.
[02:17:20] So, and what are our movies about?
[02:17:22] You know, instead of making movies about Saint Low,
[02:17:25] they make movies about the aliens attacking or whatever, you know,
[02:17:29] so we just, it's pretty easy to forget that the reason we're here
[02:17:34] and the reason we're not speaking German is when the reason we're not speaking Japanese
[02:17:39] is because of this warrior culture here, which kind of,
[02:17:45] it's right up there.
[02:17:47] It's right up.
[02:17:48] These show me any warrior culture that has the same,
[02:17:50] that, you know, I know there's a equivalent.
[02:17:52] I know that there's other, I know there's other military units in the world.
[02:17:55] And other countries that have a proud military tradition as well.
[02:17:58] But, you know, obviously I'm biased towards mine.
[02:18:01] But, we're, you tell me any historical unit that you say,
[02:18:07] oh, these guys were Spartans and they were the real warriors.
[02:18:10] You know, you haven't really spent much time with a 19-year-old Marine.
[02:18:15] Yeah.
[02:18:16] You haven't spent much time with a, with a, with a soldier from an airborne division.
[02:18:22] You just, you just, you gotta meet those guys.
[02:18:24] Yeah.
[02:18:25] I'm telling you.
[02:18:26] They're the real deal.
[02:18:28] Yeah.
[02:18:29] And no matter what kind of, you know, historical warrior,
[02:18:33] you want to throw out there.
[02:18:35] I'll put my Americans against the head to head.
[02:18:38] It just in terms of just straight up warrior culture and spirit.
[02:18:44] Yeah.
[02:18:45] I'll go, I'll go, I'll go toe to toe.
[02:18:47] I'll go toe to toe.
[02:18:48] For sure.
[02:18:49] I'm not, I'm not trying to say we're better.
[02:18:51] Yeah.
[02:18:52] But I'll go toe to toe with Spartans.
[02:18:53] Yeah.
[02:18:54] I'll go toe to toe with them.
[02:18:55] And I'm just talking, you know, my warrior culture
[02:18:59] against your warrior culture and the way you live your life.
[02:19:01] You go meet some of these young soldiers and Marines out there.
[02:19:04] Yeah.
[02:19:05] You can come and talk me in and special operations, guys.
[02:19:08] You know what I mean?
[02:19:09] Obviously.
[02:19:10] Come and get some.
[02:19:12] Yeah, man.
[02:19:13] I do get.
[02:19:16] Come in, fire for effect.
[02:19:18] Sorry, Brad.
[02:19:19] I do it.
[02:19:20] It's, I just learned the word I'm trying to hit it in.
[02:19:22] Warrior culture doesn't get through all of America.
[02:19:25] You know.
[02:19:27] Nonetheless, we are down to support ourselves.
[02:19:32] I was going to make some wise crack about Hawaii, but you know, yeah, you might, you
[02:19:37] might get done with it.
[02:19:38] No, not going to do that because, but no, because, uh, massive, there's a, there's a, there's a great book that somebody sent me.
[02:19:46] And it's about Japanese Americans that formed up, you know, we sent American sent,
[02:19:53] just many Japanese to intern and camps in America in World War II.
[02:19:58] They also took a bunch of them and turned them into a fighting unit.
[02:20:01] Put the 440 seconds.
[02:20:02] Yes.
[02:20:03] And they were, they might be the most highly decorated unit of their, of that size, because they, but a lot of them came from Hawaii.
[02:20:15] Yeah.
[02:20:16] Yeah.
[02:20:17] So huge Japanese community in Hawaii.
[02:20:18] Yeah.
[02:20:19] Yeah.
[02:20:20] Yeah.
[02:20:21] And speaking of Hawaii, like Kay, you know, like the,
[02:20:24] And Warrior culture.
[02:20:25] Yeah.
[02:20:26] You for sure.
[02:20:27] Yeah.
[02:20:27] So you, and I love their just straight-up say BJP.
[02:20:29] And they're now, and my boy Max Holloway, by the way.
[02:20:32] By the way, you're in Champ.
[02:20:33] Yeah.
[02:20:34] My remember when Max came in train with us, I've told you, I'm a little bit man, what a, what a beast.
[02:20:39] Yeah.
[02:20:40] He, you know what, he was trained in hard.
[02:20:43] Yeah.
[02:20:44] He was trained hard.
[02:20:45] He wasn't even close to the UFC yet.
[02:20:46] This was the years ago.
[02:20:47] It wasn't close to UFC yet.
[02:20:48] It hits Warrior culture and him.
[02:20:50] Yeah.
[02:20:51] Get some super nice guy too.
[02:20:52] When you, when you can sit or, like, even, let's say the Spartans, and you consider all their
[02:20:57] things, stop, this is like hand to hand sword to neck battles, just like dang that's, that's savage.
[02:21:03] But back in those days, look at all kinds of cultures.
[02:21:07] So consider Hawaiian culture.
[02:21:09] If you look at the weapons, like you can look like in the museum, just go online, whatever.
[02:21:12] Look at the weapons that they used in battle and then consider, like, that's what you got to use.
[02:21:17] It's like savage man.
[02:21:18] Yeah.
[02:21:19] So yeah, there, there are a lot of legitimate Warrior cultures.
[02:21:24] But it's different.
[02:21:28] There's no doubt.
[02:21:30] And what I'm saying to encapsulate what I'm saying is America has won.
[02:21:32] Yeah.
[02:21:32] Yeah.
[02:21:33] We're told to tell with any.
[02:21:34] Yeah.
[02:21:34] Don't slip.
[02:21:35] And sleep on that.
[02:21:38] So, support.
[02:21:41] Support wise.
[02:21:42] I'm going to shift gears here.
[02:21:45] So, you know, I'm talking about kettlebells all the time.
[02:21:48] I feel like I'm talking about kettle.
[02:21:49] Not just now.
[02:21:50] I feel like I talk about kettlebells a lot.
[02:21:52] It's one of those things.
[02:21:54] You know how like you go from thing to thing and you're like, hey, I've been to go to one thing on me.
[02:21:59] Yeah, yeah.
[02:22:00] You go from thing to thing.
[02:22:01] Well, you know, try to acquire knowledge and what you call skills.
[02:22:06] Capabilities will say capabilities.
[02:22:08] That's important.
[02:22:09] Participation is required.
[02:22:11] kettlebells is kind of like a thing that I recently got into.
[02:22:15] And I'm going to be honest with you.
[02:22:17] You can kind of get out of them.
[02:22:19] Yeah.
[02:22:22] I'm going to go into numbers.
[02:22:23] Whatever.
[02:22:24] So, my metcon was.
[02:22:27] Is with was.
[02:22:28] I'll do 135.
[02:22:30] Clean and press.
[02:22:33] Okay.
[02:22:34] Okay.
[02:22:35] Press is like just pressing.
[02:22:36] Yeah.
[02:22:37] Jerk is kind of like you jerk your body kind of thing.
[02:22:39] Okay.
[02:22:40] So, it's clean jerk.
[02:22:41] With 135.
[02:22:43] Yeah.
[02:22:44] The wheels.
[02:22:45] Uh.
[02:22:46] Five.
[02:22:47] And then to burpees.
[02:22:48] And then to 10.
[02:22:49] And then to 40.
[02:22:50] And that's just a lot of weight.
[02:22:51] So,
[02:22:54] I don't know.
[02:22:56] It's about.
[02:22:57] Eight sets would be, like a solid one.
[02:23:00] Yeah.
[02:23:00] It's a wide one.
[02:23:01] You just widening the 30 second walk.
[02:23:02] By the way.
[02:23:03] It's like a recovery.
[02:23:04] It's like, it's like your breathing that's what.
[02:23:07] Okay.
[02:23:08] So it helps.
[02:23:09] Wait.
[02:23:09] Why shouldn't I do that?
[02:23:10] I know.
[02:23:11] You're going to 5.5.
[02:23:12] 5.5.
[02:23:13] 5.
[02:23:14] 5.
[02:23:15] 5.
[02:23:16] Okay.
[02:23:17] Well, I don't want to do that. Well, it might die.
[02:23:20] Contest wouldn't be to go longer.
[02:23:22] Well, whoever stops the rhythm.
[02:23:26] I'm saying that the rest is part of the, here's the goal that's why.
[02:23:31] Well, let me ask, yes, how long is it taking like 30 seconds to do?
[02:23:34] Does it take 30 seconds to do the five and five?
[02:23:36] Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no more than 30.
[02:23:39] So you do five cleaner press?
[02:23:40] Right.
[02:23:41] Boom five burpees.
[02:23:42] Yeah, it's more than 30 seconds.
[02:23:43] Okay, maybe 45 at the most.
[02:23:45] Yeah, maybe 45.
[02:23:47] I don't know.
[02:23:48] That's a good question.
[02:23:49] It's 130 though.
[02:23:50] Okay, well, I guess it might be alright.
[02:23:51] So you put that on a timer though.
[02:23:53] You should be saying like a minute 30, I'd rest for 30 to 30.
[02:23:56] You should be like, okay, I'm doing it.
[02:23:57] Oh, because you're saying like the tabot, like, yeah, what you should do, you should do a minute 30 seconds.
[02:24:03] And every minute and 30 seconds, you do the five and five.
[02:24:07] Okay.
[02:24:08] So that way you get, because by the six set, you'll be tired when you're starting it.
[02:24:12] But you don't want to rest more.
[02:24:13] Yeah, push yourself.
[02:24:14] This is kind of my thought, my thought process on it is I'm going to do a certain kind
[02:24:20] of work capacity, you know, like a five reps of this and five reps of this.
[02:24:24] And then I'm going to have a kind of an active recovery period walking.
[02:24:29] Yeah.
[02:24:30] And here's the thing.
[02:24:31] And here's kind of the goal.
[02:24:33] This is good.
[02:24:34] I actually, I actually am going back on what I said.
[02:24:35] I think this is actually not a bad idea because, but you need to put, it's like when
[02:24:39] I do something else, you stuff on the minute, what makes me nervous about what you're
[02:24:43] saying is like, I like rest for about 30 seconds.
[02:24:44] No, I don't know what that means.
[02:24:46] Okay.
[02:24:47] Because because that could be 40 seconds, that could also be, you got a clock on.
[02:24:52] Yes.
[02:24:53] Okay.
[02:24:54] That's 100%.
[02:24:55] Yeah.
[02:24:56] So here's the weird thing, but having a clock, every since I started lifting, rest
[02:24:59] between sets has been a critical part of my lifting routine from the beginning, rest
[02:25:05] between two, because it's just what I learned in stuff like that.
[02:25:08] So I don't think the clock in actual clock is not been a part of a workout ever.
[02:25:16] It's part of the way.
[02:25:17] It's like wait.
[02:25:18] There's a date.
[02:25:19] Just like you're lifting those weights.
[02:25:20] That's what the weights are for.
[02:25:21] Right.
[02:25:22] They are going to rest in between sets.
[02:25:23] That's what the clock is for.
[02:25:24] You can't just go wheeling, wheeling, wheeling, wheeling, wheeling, just to whatever.
[02:25:26] That's good.
[02:25:27] And that's just my philosophy.
[02:25:28] If I'm not on the clock of one hour workout for me, it would take like two hours.
[02:25:33] Yeah.
[02:25:34] Because I'll just, I'll just be thinking about something.
[02:25:36] Or I'll just take more rest than I should have taken or whatever.
[02:25:39] Yeah.
[02:25:40] And consider this.
[02:25:41] If you're doing, let's say you're doing five sets of squats.
[02:25:44] Five sets of, I don't know, eight will say.
[02:25:46] And when you're pushing on your second set, you can do more weight than or less weight
[02:25:51] than on your first set.
[02:25:53] If you rest for less time.
[02:25:55] You're right.
[02:25:56] So if you rest for five minutes, you can do way more.
[02:25:59] Yeah.
[02:26:00] So that's putting your body through something different than if you would have just rested
[02:26:02] less.
[02:26:03] So it just depends on what you're trying to put your body through, what you can recover
[02:26:06] from all kinds of results.
[02:26:07] We want to go through this one of the hardest workouts is, and this isn't, this is
[02:26:13] an dysmonicals freedom field, maybe.
[02:26:16] I used to do the 20 reps squat workout, which is you take a weight that you can do
[02:26:22] 10 times and you do it 20 times.
[02:26:24] Okay.
[02:26:25] I know.
[02:26:26] And it's devastatingly hard.
[02:26:29] And I would rest for 20 minutes.
[02:26:32] And then I would do it again.
[02:26:33] And then I would rest for 20 minutes and I would do it again.
[02:26:36] So you said to that.
[02:26:38] Yeah.
[02:26:39] That is.
[02:26:40] Okay.
[02:26:41] So, so technique and I believe you, I'm not saying it's easy.
[02:26:44] I'm not saying that.
[02:26:45] But that being said, technically that's impossible.
[02:26:49] Technically.
[02:26:50] Yes, you're right.
[02:26:51] It is impossible to do something and you're going to do 10 times, it's 20 times.
[02:26:54] 20 times.
[02:26:55] 20 times.
[02:26:56] If you can do the weight that you've done for him for 20 times, that's the way you
[02:26:58] can do for 20 times.
[02:26:59] Yeah, you're straight.
[02:27:00] That's not 10.
[02:27:01] So I get it.
[02:27:02] Yeah, yeah.
[02:27:03] But I'm not going to, I'm not going to, you're right.
[02:27:06] But you also understand what I'm talking about.
[02:27:08] And I exactly were talking about you're like a normal, like you're not maxing out
[02:27:11] at 10 reps with this weight.
[02:27:13] It's like, this is my normal, maybe if I'm going to do a set of 10 or so.
[02:27:17] It will be surprised that the weight you can get, like, let's say, you know, you picked
[02:27:23] the right weight that you can, like I do this 10 times.
[02:27:26] Yeah.
[02:27:27] Legitimate.
[02:27:28] And then you're like, you know what?
[02:27:29] I'm going to do it 20 times.
[02:27:31] I know what.
[02:27:32] I didn't say.
[02:27:33] I did it.
[02:27:34] You're right.
[02:27:35] It's a knowledge kind of situation.
[02:27:37] Like when you say, I'm going to do a weight 20 times, what I can, you know, say for
[02:27:42] lack of a better turn.
[02:27:43] You're normally detained.
[02:27:44] But it's not normal also.
[02:27:45] You're like, you're basically, you're resting as much as a human being can rest with
[02:27:49] a bunch of weight on their back in between reps.
[02:27:52] When you get to rep 12, you're taken like time.
[02:27:55] But it's, it's, it's a really, it's a losing proposition.
[02:27:58] Because while you're waiting there, resting, you're actually suffering.
[02:28:01] Yeah.
[02:28:02] You're back start to get old.
[02:28:03] Yeah.
[02:28:04] Yeah.
[02:28:04] That's what overhead squats are brutal because you're not resting in an overhead
[02:28:08] squat position.
[02:28:09] And it's like awkward.
[02:28:11] And yeah, that's hard.
[02:28:13] The overhead squat situation.
[02:28:15] But and not to be to dead horse here.
[02:28:17] So like consider if you said, hey, someone who's pretty new, more or less to working out,
[02:28:21] say, hey, get a weight you can do for 10 and do it 20.
[02:28:24] They're going to mess up in one way.
[02:28:26] Tip probably.
[02:28:27] They're going to be like, okay, I can do this 10 times.
[02:28:29] I know that.
[02:28:30] And I'm going to try to do 20.
[02:28:31] They can't even get to get 20 because you said the way that they could do for 10.
[02:28:34] They try for 20.
[02:28:35] They feel it 10.
[02:28:36] That's how much they can do for 10.
[02:28:38] Or they'll go the other way.
[02:28:39] They'll be like, you will go get a, and they'll be like, wait, I got to do this 20 times.
[02:28:43] Yeah.
[02:28:44] Yeah.
[02:28:45] I can do this.
[02:28:46] I can do the bar 10 times.
[02:28:47] So I'll just use the bar.
[02:28:48] Kind of thing.
[02:28:49] So you have that knowledge where you, you're like, hey, I know the weight that I can do for 10.
[02:28:53] And it'll be hard.
[02:28:54] But you know what, I'm going to get nuts.
[02:28:56] And if I really push myself, I can get 20.
[02:28:58] Guess what?
[02:28:59] I'm using that weight.
[02:29:00] So you kind of have that because you've been training time.
[02:29:01] It's like getting it.
[02:29:02] Yeah, you're right.
[02:29:03] And I don't think I'll ever do that, even though I kind of considered it last time you
[02:29:08] mentioned it, but then when I got in the workout room, I was like, yeah, I don't, I don't
[02:29:13] think I'll ever do that.
[02:29:14] Maybe I will.
[02:29:15] I don't know.
[02:29:16] Actually, I'll tell you what I will do is someone online, maybe it was you.
[02:29:19] Someone was saying 100 burpees in 10 minutes.
[02:29:22] 10 minutes.
[02:29:23] Was that you saying?
[02:29:24] Yeah.
[02:29:25] And Brandon just texted me yesterday.
[02:29:26] Brandon.
[02:29:27] Brandon.
[02:29:28] Yeah.
[02:29:29] He said he's going to do it.
[02:29:30] I was considering I'm going to do it in the first time.
[02:29:32] Not that hard.
[02:29:33] I'm surprised that Brandon is a good shape.
[02:29:35] You've ever seen he posts like pictures himself doing these crazy push-up workouts.
[02:29:39] Yeah.
[02:29:40] I can't believe he can't do it.
[02:29:41] That's why I'm so surprised.
[02:29:42] This is what all you do.
[02:29:43] He does weird.
[02:29:44] He does good creative push-up drills.
[02:29:47] Does weird creative push-up drills.
[02:29:49] Like, well, I don't know.
[02:29:50] He doing weird stuff.
[02:29:51] He puts his hands up here over there.
[02:29:52] Yeah, that's awkward.
[02:29:53] Yeah, I totally good.
[02:29:54] Yeah, because you ever trade like, I got good at push-ups on.
[02:29:57] I was like, yeah, I'm still pretty solid at push-ups.
[02:30:00] But you trade to a push-up with, you know, like, I just didn't.
[02:30:03] He's like, oh, this is way off.
[02:30:04] It's kind of like, good to be back to what we were saying.
[02:30:06] It's like, what you used to.
[02:30:07] What you're doing in your own muscular.
[02:30:08] Speaking of what we were saying.
[02:30:10] We're saying there's something about gallblows.
[02:30:12] Yeah.
[02:30:13] I mean, very quickly.
[02:30:14] I usually kind of wrap up right now.
[02:30:16] Yeah.
[02:30:17] Then you started talking to another crazy squad.
[02:30:19] That's what I'm not.
[02:30:20] That's what you know what is my fault.
[02:30:24] Next time I won't tell you anything.
[02:30:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I see.
[02:30:26] I see what you did there.
[02:30:27] Look, you took blame.
[02:30:30] And you told me what you're going to do to fix it.
[02:30:32] Dang, extreme ownership.
[02:30:34] In effect.
[02:30:35] Also, okay, wait.
[02:30:36] What were we talking about?
[02:30:37] Oh, yeah, I'm in Ticketabels now.
[02:30:38] Yeah.
[02:30:39] And you want to say where you should get your kettlebells.
[02:30:41] I'm not saying that's the way where you should.
[02:30:43] I'm saying where I got them.
[02:30:44] And if you want, you can kettlebells anywhere.
[02:30:47] Where?
[02:30:48] Really?
[02:30:49] What about cool kettlebells?
[02:30:50] Whoa, that's a different story, my friend.
[02:30:52] Anyway, I got mine from on it.
[02:30:55] I'm not even saying get the cool kettlebells.
[02:30:57] I'm saying go to onit.com slashjockel.
[02:31:02] Look at the kettlebells.
[02:31:03] You like those kettlebells?
[02:31:04] If you're going to get into kettlebells,
[02:31:05] or if you're already currently into kettlebells,
[02:31:09] get some of those if you like them.
[02:31:10] I like them.
[02:31:11] I got one, the small one.
[02:31:14] It's called howler.
[02:31:15] A little howler monkey.
[02:31:18] I think it's a monkey.
[02:31:19] Anyway, howler monkey.
[02:31:21] kettlebell, it's like, I want to say 18 pounds.
[02:31:23] What's 0.5?
[02:31:25] Eight pounds.
[02:31:27] I'm pretty 16 pounds.
[02:31:29] Yeah, no, no, no, 16 kilos, I think.
[02:31:31] I'm sorry, 16 kilos, yeah.
[02:31:32] Yeah.
[02:31:33] So, yeah, so eight kilos, 16 pounds.
[02:31:36] You ever take 17, 18 pounds?
[02:31:38] Anyway, I got one of those from my daughter.
[02:31:40] So my nephew comes visit, he's 11.
[02:31:43] Not into working out.
[02:31:44] We'll just say that.
[02:31:45] Yeah.
[02:31:46] It is now.
[02:31:47] Is now, yeah.
[02:31:48] So I'm like, you know, he's one of these kids.
[02:31:49] He's like, you know, he's into math and whatnot.
[02:31:53] So I'm working out all the time.
[02:31:54] I never really thought until someone made me kind of suggested it to say,
[02:31:58] hey, we've come work out with me, you know?
[02:32:01] The tell him come work out and he kind of caught him at the end where it was met
[02:32:04] content.
[02:32:05] And he was, and I was like, hey, come work out because I saw him, you know?
[02:32:09] And he's like, yeah, he's like cool.
[02:32:11] He immediately do by the way, be surprised.
[02:32:14] I'm not surprised.
[02:32:15] Yeah, man.
[02:32:16] I'm not surprised.
[02:32:17] It's easy.
[02:32:18] Working out.
[02:32:19] They're like, man, I want to be like that.
[02:32:19] Yeah.
[02:32:20] You know, in their hands, when you were a kid, remember you saw somebody
[02:32:22] I was all yoked.
[02:32:23] Like, he did.
[02:32:24] How do I do that?
[02:32:25] It's the whole reason I work out to be honest with you.
[02:32:27] Like, remember the show of American gladiators.
[02:32:29] Remember the show?
[02:32:30] It was not from when I was a kid.
[02:32:32] Yeah, no, no.
[02:32:33] I didn't watch the way you were a parent.
[02:32:35] Yeah, I was watching that.
[02:32:36] I was like, bro, I want to be American gladiators.
[02:32:38] Because they were, it was like, because there were the mix between these big, kind
[02:32:42] of almost like, bullies, not bullies, like, ugly people.
[02:32:44] But they were like, you know, when you play video game, you come against the boss who
[02:32:48] you look at him, you're like, I can't beat this guy.
[02:32:50] I can't beat him.
[02:32:51] But you're a normal character, whatever.
[02:32:52] And then they end up winning.
[02:32:53] That's what American gladiators was in real life.
[02:32:55] And I was like, dang, that's American gladiators.
[02:32:57] They're money, because they're athletic too.
[02:33:00] I was like, man, I'd watch it.
[02:33:02] I'd do a bunch of push-ups.
[02:33:03] I was in like six creators.
[02:33:04] I was like, yeah, it's a whole reason.
[02:33:06] Anyway, I think a lot of kids have that in their mind, especially the boys.
[02:33:09] For sure.
[02:33:10] In one way or another.
[02:33:11] So I was like, hey, come workout with me.
[02:33:13] And he was like, you're like, okay.
[02:33:14] Put the time this phone.
[02:33:15] Yeah, he was on the phone.
[02:33:16] Night and more.
[02:33:17] Oh, little uncle Jake's scenario.
[02:33:19] Uncle Jake 100%.
[02:33:20] I was uncle Jake at that time.
[02:33:22] But, yeah, nephew is there.
[02:33:24] This is actually used to be to me.
[02:33:25] I was in prison.
[02:33:26] In the last, he comes.
[02:33:27] I teach him the form.
[02:33:29] And kids kind of have good form.
[02:33:30] Or he did.
[02:33:31] Because they're flexible.
[02:33:32] Yeah, they're flexible.
[02:33:33] They haven't fallen into improper patterns.
[02:33:36] Maybe like a Deltaver or something, maybe.
[02:33:39] I don't know.
[02:33:40] That's just a guess.
[02:33:41] But anyway, so I'm like, you know, just the basic kettlebell swing.
[02:33:43] I say, I say, this is what you're going to do.
[02:33:46] Do it.
[02:33:47] I'll do it.
[02:33:48] I'll show you how give little tips or whatever.
[02:33:49] It wasn't perfect for me.
[02:33:50] First, you adjust and you could do it.
[02:33:54] Not that kind of all the way up or nothing, just a basic.
[02:33:56] All right.
[02:33:57] And my daughter happened to be there.
[02:33:58] And so she knows about burpees.
[02:34:00] So I was like, okay, what we're going to do is you're going to do kettlebell swings
[02:34:03] five.
[02:34:04] And then you're going to do burpees.
[02:34:05] And they're going to walk for 30 seconds, basically.
[02:34:07] Yeah.
[02:34:08] But he's doing the kettlebell swings rather than the cleaner press.
[02:34:10] So then you're going to do burpees.
[02:34:12] Burpees is just jump down, do a pushup, and then jump up in there.
[02:34:16] That's a burpee.
[02:34:17] So he does it.
[02:34:18] I was like, well, you don't want you transition from standing to push up.
[02:34:21] There's some wiggle room there for air.
[02:34:23] So I tell my daughter, hey, demonstrate.
[02:34:25] She does she's four.
[02:34:26] She can do it pretty good.
[02:34:27] Too bad.
[02:34:28] So she does it.
[02:34:29] And of course, he can do it.
[02:34:31] She's a little girl, so he does it.
[02:34:32] Makes adjustment boom.
[02:34:33] He's good to go.
[02:34:34] He's ready.
[02:34:35] So I'm going to fire it out because mine's about to be super hard like it normally is.
[02:34:39] And he's like, you could tell he's getting fired up too.
[02:34:41] You know, so I set the clock and we go.
[02:34:43] And his was kind of easy to be honest with you because the kettlebell swings are too
[02:34:46] the way to the.
[02:34:47] Yeah.
[02:34:48] And boom, they did the whole thing.
[02:34:50] And he's also adding afterwards, you know.
[02:34:52] And he's the kind where he doesn't do that kind of stuff.
[02:34:55] But you could tell he was super fired up.
[02:34:57] And you know what he said next.
[02:34:59] What he said afterwards, he's like, hey, next time you work out, can you let me know?
[02:35:03] There you go.
[02:35:04] Straight up.
[02:35:05] That was a good thing.
[02:35:06] Uncle Echo's in the house.
[02:35:07] In the house, man.
[02:35:08] In the house.
[02:35:09] Yeah.
[02:35:10] She went to book about that.
[02:35:12] Yeah.
[02:35:13] Maybe I will.
[02:35:14] You're going to be the best book ever.
[02:35:15] All right.
[02:35:16] For kids.
[02:35:17] Next.
[02:35:18] Anyway.
[02:35:19] Kind of a little.
[02:35:20] It's good on it.
[02:35:21] They have a lot of good stuff.
[02:35:22] You've done battle ropes before.
[02:35:23] Yes.
[02:35:24] You have.
[02:35:25] They were in some random GMI was at the time.
[02:35:27] I was like, I've seen people doing this.
[02:35:28] I want to do some of them.
[02:35:29] Yeah.
[02:35:30] They're like big ropes in the, I guess that's a good exercise.
[02:35:33] I had never done them before, but I was considering that.
[02:35:35] That's awesome on there.
[02:35:36] You know what?
[02:35:37] A lot of good stuff on it.
[02:35:38] com slash jockel, check out all the stuff.
[02:35:41] Really good stuff.
[02:35:42] Stuff for everything.
[02:35:43] Basically, everything getting after it.
[02:35:46] Also, good way to support is when you get your copy of about face.
[02:35:52] Of course, that's already on our website.
[02:35:54] Go podcast.com.
[02:35:55] Here's the website.
[02:35:56] If you didn't know.
[02:35:58] The clay pigeons of St. Lowe.
[02:36:02] That's the current book, which is went over.
[02:36:04] That one is on the website as well.
[02:36:06] It's in the little section.
[02:36:07] Menu.
[02:36:08] Adam on the top of the website.
[02:36:09] Jockel.kast.com.
[02:36:10] Click.
[02:36:11] Books from episodes.
[02:36:12] Boom.
[02:36:13] The list of books.
[02:36:14] Buy up a suit.
[02:36:15] Click through there.
[02:36:16] Yeah.
[02:36:17] And before you tweet me and tell me a good book that I should do on the podcast.
[02:36:22] Check and see if I've already done it.
[02:36:23] Yeah.
[02:36:24] It's like what, like 60 books.
[02:36:26] Yeah.
[02:36:27] And a lot of really good books that everyone knows.
[02:36:29] But if you haven't listened to the podcast and then you're telling me to cover with
[02:36:33] the old breed by Eugene Sledge or whatever.
[02:36:37] Just so a lot of times people tell me to cover books that have already been on there.
[02:36:41] Yeah.
[02:36:42] So then I got to go and figure out which podcast I was so I can tell you to go and listen
[02:36:45] to podcasts, you know, 10, which is with the old breed by Eugene Sledge.
[02:36:49] There you go.
[02:36:50] I think.
[02:36:51] Yeah, something like that.
[02:36:52] Yeah, hey, you want to check that out.
[02:36:53] Like I said, it's all there by episode.
[02:36:55] Yeah.
[02:36:56] And if you want a book, a reading list for me.
[02:36:58] That's my reading list.
[02:36:59] That's it.
[02:37:00] Yeah.
[02:37:01] There's no other books.
[02:37:02] If a book is good and I read it, it's been on the podcast.
[02:37:04] And I'll do you one better.
[02:37:06] Because I have a small reading list that I added to that list.
[02:37:09] Oh, that's only one book.
[02:37:11] But I'm just saying.
[02:37:12] Where's it mine game?
[02:37:13] Mine game.
[02:37:14] Yes.
[02:37:15] Power, Michael Powell.
[02:37:16] You know, that's the easy read.
[02:37:17] It's kind of like the field manual, a small little version, different subject book.
[02:37:21] None the last.
[02:37:22] It's not like the field manual, dude.
[02:37:24] I read it, but I know not.
[02:37:27] No, no, no, no.
[02:37:28] Probably not.
[02:37:29] Anyway, it's far supporting.
[02:37:32] Get your books through there.
[02:37:33] Click through it goes to Amazon.
[02:37:35] You shop Amazon.
[02:37:36] Like we all do anyway.
[02:37:37] Right?
[02:37:38] So when you get these books, like I said, listed by episode, click through there.
[02:37:42] And if you're doing another shopping, hey, feel free.
[02:37:45] You know, when you click through there, that's a small little action.
[02:37:51] Be agree action.
[02:37:52] You can start supporting those, you know, kind of like, you know, when you throw sodium
[02:37:55] metal in water, you know?
[02:37:57] Oh, I know.
[02:37:58] Yeah, you know for, I haven't said it for a long time.
[02:38:00] So I'm going to say it now, just to remind everybody, when you throw sodium metal in
[02:38:04] water, it explodes big, huge.
[02:38:06] I learned that in chemistry class.
[02:38:08] My chemistry teacher's name is Mr. Bigelow, by the way.
[02:38:12] Koi High School.
[02:38:13] Barker in the day.
[02:38:14] Anyway, also good way to support, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google
[02:38:19] Play and other places that they do podcast and leave a review.
[02:38:24] Leave a review.
[02:38:25] Here's a, if you feel like, yeah, that's really good.
[02:38:28] I like reading the reviews, but yeah, if you feel like leaving one, apparently it's like
[02:38:34] it helps.
[02:38:35] Oh, yeah.
[02:38:36] If you have stuff, I don't know.
[02:38:37] Yeah, good.
[02:38:38] Yeah, good.
[02:38:39] And that's great.
[02:38:40] For sure, that's great.
[02:38:41] Yeah, no, helpful.
[02:38:42] Spreads it.
[02:38:43] Yeah.
[02:38:44] What does it do?
[02:38:44] Spread the word.
[02:38:45] I think ultimately, that's the benefit.
[02:38:46] You know, when I see our jockel podcast on, you know, number, whatever, where it appears
[02:38:54] like between one and 10 in the business section, that is good.
[02:38:57] That's cool.
[02:38:59] But really, the tangible benefit for the message is spreading the word.
[02:39:04] People, if they get turned onto it, it improves everybody's life really.
[02:39:08] Because if you improve your life in all these ways, it improves like your improvement
[02:39:12] is a direct effect on my improvement.
[02:39:14] Because I hang around with you.
[02:39:15] So that's kind of how it's.
[02:39:17] So that's really the benefit.
[02:39:19] So if you want to help spread the word, you can write a review.
[02:39:23] And if you want to give feedback about the podcast, that's a good place to do.
[02:39:27] Yeah, I think that's, and let's face it.
[02:39:29] When you leave a review, especially the ones that everyone leaves.
[02:39:31] Because people are kind of fun.
[02:39:32] That's pretty fun.
[02:39:33] And people aren't people people like take time in the reviews.
[02:39:37] You know, a good podcast.
[02:39:38] Yeah.
[02:39:39] Well, actually, sometimes they do say that.
[02:39:40] That's good.
[02:39:41] Yeah.
[02:39:42] And position.
[02:39:43] Yeah.
[02:39:46] Yeah.
[02:39:47] That's how it's.
[02:39:48] Layers.
[02:39:49] Layers in the review.
[02:39:50] Right there.
[02:39:51] There.
[02:39:52] I'm telling you.
[02:39:53] But anyway, if you're in the mood, leave a review.
[02:39:56] As long as you're honest, that's the main thing.
[02:39:58] And get colorful with it.
[02:40:00] If you want, those are actually the fun ones.
[02:40:02] Like I said, leave a review.
[02:40:04] Yeah, sure.
[02:40:05] If you feel like it.
[02:40:06] Subscribe to the YouTube.
[02:40:07] We have YouTube.
[02:40:08] If you didn't know, everyone knows I think.
[02:40:10] Yeah.
[02:40:11] Yeah, because we see it all the time.
[02:40:12] But in the event of this being the first time.
[02:40:14] Subscribe to it then.
[02:40:15] Why wouldn't someone subscribe to it?
[02:40:19] If I were a person who, oh, wait.
[02:40:22] If you're listening to the podcast, it makes sense.
[02:40:24] Yeah.
[02:40:25] I don't know how many reasons there would ever be to not subscribe to you.
[02:40:28] If you hear it, this is like what's the reason.
[02:40:30] I listen to podcasts.
[02:40:31] It's audio.
[02:40:32] I look.
[02:40:33] I go to YouTube and I only watch people playing first person shooter video games.
[02:40:38] You know how that's.
[02:40:39] I don't know if you know this, but that's a thing.
[02:40:41] People will watch other people on YouTube videos playing shooter games.
[02:40:47] Okay.
[02:40:48] Let's say I'm only into that.
[02:40:52] I'm probably not going to subscribe.
[02:40:54] Or actually this one's actually legitimate.
[02:40:56] One that I can kind of dig and relate to is if my YouTube
[02:41:01] Subscribing situation is only to kid stuff.
[02:41:05] Only to kid stuff because everyone's in a while.
[02:41:10] I give my phone to make it.
[02:41:12] And they watch like, you know, they watch like,
[02:41:14] Pippa pig or I don't know something.
[02:41:17] Well, and then he'll make a comment.
[02:41:19] I could make a comment.
[02:41:20] I'll say this because a lot of times the podcast is just what the podcast is on YouTube.
[02:41:25] But like the other day, you released a deleted scene.
[02:41:28] It wasn't even deleted.
[02:41:29] It was pre recording.
[02:41:30] We were just talking.
[02:41:31] Yeah, before.
[02:41:32] And people seem to think it was pretty funny.
[02:41:33] Yeah, even I thought it was quite funny.
[02:41:35] I thought it was funny.
[02:41:36] But when you detached it is really funny.
[02:41:38] But the thing is if someone wasn't listening, if someone is not on
[02:41:41] Subscribe to YouTube, they would never know that that existed.
[02:41:45] And then you miss it.
[02:41:47] And it's pretty funny.
[02:41:48] Yeah, I thought it was funny too.
[02:41:50] Yeah.
[02:41:51] Even though it was kind of harsh.
[02:41:53] You know, would you call me get away sticks?
[02:41:55] Something like that.
[02:41:56] You know, yeah, see, now you're, you just went into the
[02:42:00] reasons to subscribe.
[02:42:01] Oh, there's a whole really good because, you know,
[02:42:03] the excerpts that we make,
[02:42:06] put out, just cut,
[02:42:08] tiny segments, three minutes, no, it is.
[02:42:11] Even though the, even though the deleted scene was 16.
[02:42:13] Yeah, you know, it's different, but.
[02:42:15] No, it's pretty funny.
[02:42:16] Yeah.
[02:42:17] But the excerpts, you know, they're just like individual ideas that you
[02:42:20] talk about, boom, shareable.
[02:42:21] Oh, good.
[02:42:22] That's a good reason to subscribe to YouTube.
[02:42:24] One of the many, my opinion.
[02:42:25] Also,
[02:42:27] Chocolate is a store.
[02:42:28] It's called,
[02:42:29] ChocolateStore.
[02:42:30] ChocolateStore.com.
[02:42:31] That's a URL.
[02:42:32] On there, what do we have shirts?
[02:42:34] Rashguards.
[02:42:36] Rashguards.
[02:42:37] We started for jujitsu,
[02:42:39] but here's the thing.
[02:42:40] Rashguards are for surfing and bodyboarding.
[02:42:43] And Jacking Steel.
[02:42:45] Jacking Steel.
[02:42:46] Yes, cycling.
[02:42:47] These are all, that's what really,
[02:42:49] like a, it's a Spendex shirt.
[02:42:51] There's little things.
[02:42:53] Yeah, it's the term,
[02:42:55] Rashguards only applies to surfing.
[02:42:57] Because it does.
[02:42:58] You, you're not worried about getting a rash when you're
[02:43:01] lifting weights.
[02:43:02] You're not worried about getting a rash.
[02:43:03] I guess,
[02:43:04] Yeah, I guess,
[02:43:05] and jujitsu.
[02:43:06] Yeah, I guess so.
[02:43:07] Yeah.
[02:43:08] Guard you against rash or ringworm or whatever.
[02:43:11] Yeah, it does.
[02:43:12] Yeah, it does.
[02:43:13] Yeah.
[02:43:14] So,
[02:43:14] Nonetheless, I mean, the point there is that it's for everything,
[02:43:16] just because you hear chocolate talking about jujitsu.
[02:43:18] Hold on, you know,
[02:43:19] it's not for everything.
[02:43:20] Because I don't want to see you at a club in a,
[02:43:23] in a,
[02:43:24] in a,
[02:43:24] get after a rashguard.
[02:43:25] Well,
[02:43:26] that's,
[02:43:26] you can speak for yourself.
[02:43:28] Because if I saw someone at the club with a get after it,
[02:43:31] I would,
[02:43:33] I would say good evening to that person.
[02:43:35] That's a good point.
[02:43:36] And I guess I'm going to say that.
[02:43:37] Can't be mad at it.
[02:43:39] No,
[02:43:39] I can't be.
[02:43:40] No, no rash guards.
[02:43:41] When you're out.
[02:43:42] Not doing activities.
[02:43:43] I'm not a supporter of that.
[02:43:45] Yeah,
[02:43:46] you know what,
[02:43:47] to be,
[02:43:47] to be completely honest.
[02:43:48] I don't know that.
[02:43:49] I would support it.
[02:43:50] Just rolling.
[02:43:51] I mean,
[02:43:52] just like,
[02:43:52] hey,
[02:43:53] I'm going out.
[02:43:54] I'm going to the supermarket.
[02:43:55] Put on my get after a rash.
[02:43:56] I guess if you do this like,
[02:43:59] you never know what's going to happen.
[02:44:00] Yeah.
[02:44:01] You might want to be ready.
[02:44:02] Right.
[02:44:03] It's true.
[02:44:04] I know you get some good workouts in the grocery store yourself.
[02:44:06] You know,
[02:44:07] I can't even train the six back.
[02:44:08] I know.
[02:44:09] For,
[02:44:09] you know,
[02:44:10] long line.
[02:44:11] Yeah.
[02:44:12] You're in the rash guard.
[02:44:12] You're compression.
[02:44:13] You're ready.
[02:44:14] It's absolutely true.
[02:44:15] And,
[02:44:15] you know,
[02:44:16] you want to look into that.
[02:44:17] Go to jockelstore.com.
[02:44:18] So,
[02:44:19] the shirts on there.
[02:44:21] I can,
[02:44:21] I try to add like a new one.
[02:44:23] Every,
[02:44:24] what,
[02:44:24] like month.
[02:44:25] I don't know what your goal is.
[02:44:27] Yeah.
[02:44:28] I don't know.
[02:44:29] I've been wearing bronze in children.
[02:44:31] T-shirt.
[02:44:32] Me too.
[02:44:33] Yeah.
[02:44:33] That's the one.
[02:44:34] Because that's,
[02:44:35] Yeah.
[02:44:36] They'll,
[02:44:37] Yeah.
[02:44:37] That's the shirt that you made.
[02:44:38] It's a knurder.
[02:44:39] That's it.
[02:44:40] The one that you made with my face on it,
[02:44:43] whatever thing.
[02:44:44] So,
[02:44:45] I'd always get caught up on the front.
[02:44:47] Like,
[02:44:47] How high that's funny,
[02:44:48] the front and all the layers on the front.
[02:44:50] But on the back,
[02:44:51] it says,
[02:44:52] Good evening.
[02:44:53] So,
[02:44:53] when you wear that one,
[02:44:54] that's when people are going to talk to you the most.
[02:44:56] You know,
[02:44:57] you're not like,
[02:44:58] you don't worry the one with your face on it,
[02:45:00] every day.
[02:45:01] No.
[02:45:01] There's no reason for you to.
[02:45:02] No,
[02:45:02] Okay.
[02:45:03] Yeah.
[02:45:03] It would be weird.
[02:45:04] I'd have my face.
[02:45:05] Yeah.
[02:45:06] You need to.
[02:45:07] You wearing my face right now.
[02:45:08] Yeah.
[02:45:09] Exactly.
[02:45:10] You know,
[02:45:10] look at that.
[02:45:11] Um,
[02:45:12] but if you wear that one,
[02:45:14] it says,
[02:45:14] Good evening on the back.
[02:45:15] So,
[02:45:16] I never really thought of this.
[02:45:17] I haven't worn it.
[02:45:18] I don't even have one.
[02:45:19] But that's the,
[02:45:21] when I'd wear this one,
[02:45:22] one,
[02:45:23] good.
[02:45:24] People will say something.
[02:45:25] It would be like,
[02:45:26] you're good.
[02:45:27] It's back.
[02:45:28] Richard,
[02:45:28] You're sure it's backwards.
[02:45:29] I don't know.
[02:45:30] Who's that guy in your shirt?
[02:45:31] Whatever.
[02:45:31] People will say something to you.
[02:45:32] The good evening one.
[02:45:33] They'll talk to you even more.
[02:45:34] But they'll do it from behind.
[02:45:35] They'll tell you good evening.
[02:45:36] Every single time.
[02:45:37] Interesting.
[02:45:38] You haven't worn it.
[02:45:39] Yeah.
[02:45:39] How do you know this?
[02:45:40] No.
[02:45:40] Because I know.
[02:45:41] I know the compulsion,
[02:45:42] like I know the feeling.
[02:45:43] That's my hypothesis.
[02:45:44] Anyway.
[02:45:45] And from what I hear from the field.
[02:45:46] Anyway.
[02:45:47] Go on.
[02:45:48] There.
[02:45:49] If you like something,
[02:45:50] get something that's a good way to support.
[02:45:52] There's some hats.
[02:45:54] Oh,
[02:45:55] really.
[02:45:56] Release coming out.
[02:45:57] So.
[02:45:58] Within one week.
[02:46:00] How about that?
[02:46:01] Cool.
[02:46:02] Okay.
[02:46:03] All right.
[02:46:03] There it is.
[02:46:04] I better have like nine of them lined up at my doorstep.
[02:46:06] I could.
[02:46:07] Because I need some of them hats.
[02:46:08] You got it, Brian.
[02:46:09] Promise.
[02:46:10] So yeah.
[02:46:11] Some patches on there as well.
[02:46:12] Anyway.
[02:46:13] Check it out.
[02:46:13] If you like something, get something.
[02:46:14] Also.
[02:46:15] Psychological warfare.
[02:46:16] If you don't know what that is.
[02:46:17] It's an album with tracks.
[02:46:20] Jocco tracks.
[02:46:21] This is Jocco talking.
[02:46:23] I think you through various points of weakness in your.
[02:46:27] I've been really trying to think of a word to say other than journey.
[02:46:32] I haven't yet.
[02:46:33] So we're in stick with journey.
[02:46:34] So when you're on your journey.
[02:46:35] You're trying to wake up.
[02:46:36] You're trying to wake up early.
[02:46:38] Maybe I will do it.
[02:46:40] You're trying to work out.
[02:46:41] You're trying to work out.
[02:46:42] Every day.
[02:46:43] Every day.
[02:46:44] No.
[02:46:44] Even on rest days.
[02:46:45] You're doing a mobility.
[02:46:46] What for sure.
[02:46:47] Like this.
[02:46:47] Yeah.
[02:46:48] Man.
[02:46:49] Something like that.
[02:46:50] You want to turn those.
[02:46:53] Those work out days in.
[02:46:54] So don't do that.
[02:46:56] And if you need a little spot with that.
[02:46:58] You listen to psychological warfare.
[02:46:59] There's a track for that.
[02:47:00] For any point of weakness.
[02:47:02] Like I said.
[02:47:03] Get after it.
[02:47:05] Psychological warfare.
[02:47:06] Amazon music.
[02:47:08] iTunes.
[02:47:09] Various other MP3 outlets.
[02:47:11] Jocco willing.
[02:47:12] Now.
[02:47:14] First.
[02:47:15] If you haven't heard yet.
[02:47:17] We are now in league.
[02:47:20] With origin USA.
[02:47:23] Little company.
[02:47:25] We are now a part of.
[02:47:27] It's been months in the making.
[02:47:29] We've been going back and forth with my boy Pete Roberts.
[02:47:35] And who actually this is.
[02:47:37] You went up a layer.
[02:47:38] The reason that we are linked up in the beginning was because of Sarah Armstrong.
[02:47:43] Sure.
[02:47:44] Who's going to be a part of the world.
[02:47:46] Sure.
[02:47:47] Who heard me talking about how cool origin was.
[02:47:51] Yeah.
[02:47:52] That they make everything into America.
[02:47:53] She sent Pete and email and said, hey, I know you run this company in this guy.
[02:47:57] What's talking about you?
[02:47:58] You guys should talk to each other.
[02:47:59] Guess what?
[02:48:00] We talked.
[02:48:01] And now we're getting after it.
[02:48:03] And we joined forces.
[02:48:04] So we're planning all kinds of things.
[02:48:08] And gear.
[02:48:10] Geese.
[02:48:11] Rash guards.
[02:48:12] Planning some supplements.
[02:48:14] Believe it or not.
[02:48:15] Is the rash guard back in stock?
[02:48:17] Not yet.
[02:48:18] We're doing a little.
[02:48:19] We're doing a lot of building right now.
[02:48:22] Yeah.
[02:48:23] But we got all kinds of things coming.
[02:48:25] Basically, you know, basically I want to make everything that I used to get after it.
[02:48:30] Yeah.
[02:48:31] I want to make.
[02:48:32] So everything.
[02:48:34] And when I say everything is not a long list.
[02:48:36] I don't use that much stuff to get after it.
[02:48:38] Yeah.
[02:48:39] I use it pretty small list.
[02:48:40] Yeah.
[02:48:41] But I want to make it.
[02:48:43] And I want to make it.
[02:48:44] And America.
[02:48:45] So if you want to check it out check out originmain.com because it's a new England.
[02:48:50] Which we're on from.
[02:48:51] There.
[02:48:52] No big dealers.
[02:48:54] Layers indeed.
[02:48:55] And also if you want to get into it, like now, you want to find out really what's going on.
[02:49:01] There's an origin immersion to get to camp in Maine.
[02:49:04] I didn't realize I hadn't even explain what this is.
[02:49:07] You've received.
[02:49:08] See, I'm from New England.
[02:49:09] So I know what this is.
[02:49:10] I know what a camp is.
[02:49:11] You may or may not know.
[02:49:13] People in other parts of the country, many or many, I know.
[02:49:16] A camp in this form is in this situation.
[02:49:19] It's big lake.
[02:49:20] And on the lake, there's a property.
[02:49:22] And on the property, they have a bunch of little cabins.
[02:49:25] A bunch of them.
[02:49:26] Like multiple cabins.
[02:49:28] And when you go to a camp, you stay in the cabins.
[02:49:31] And then they have a kind of a central area.
[02:49:34] Well, we are renting out the entire camp.
[02:49:37] I don't know how many cabins.
[02:49:38] It's like dozens and dozens of cabins.
[02:49:41] Right?
[02:49:42] All these things on the lake.
[02:49:45] And then there's a main kind of gathering area.
[02:49:47] Well, guess what we're putting in the main gathering area.
[02:49:50] Let us.
[02:49:51] Matt.
[02:49:52] So we're going to go.
[02:49:55] You know, if you want to come, you come up.
[02:49:57] You come to Maine.
[02:49:58] It's three hours from Boston.
[02:49:59] It's an half an hour from a gust of Maine.
[02:50:02] We're going to be there.
[02:50:03] Echoing are going to be there.
[02:50:05] Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
[02:50:07] There's two sessions that are going on.
[02:50:09] The first one's the 20.
[02:50:11] The 20th through the 23rd, I think.
[02:50:14] Yeah, the 20th through the 23rd.
[02:50:16] So Echoing are going to be there.
[02:50:17] Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
[02:50:18] So we're going to be the part of both sessions.
[02:50:22] And so come to that.
[02:50:24] And what we're going to do is we're going to train two jets.
[02:50:26] But you're going to train two jets to so many hours a day.
[02:50:29] So what else are we going to do?
[02:50:30] We're going to hang out with a cruise.
[02:50:32] We're going to do some kind of.
[02:50:33] There's a big lake there.
[02:50:35] So you can't surf from the lake.
[02:50:37] But we'll figure something water activity out.
[02:50:39] Right?
[02:50:40] And we're going to make a lobster and I don't like lobster, but I'm going to have steak.
[02:50:44] And you can have lobster.
[02:50:45] And yeah, so we're going to be hanging out.
[02:50:48] Wait, this is the lake.
[02:50:49] Is the lake cold?
[02:50:51] Can we swim in the lake?
[02:50:52] You can swim in the lake.
[02:50:53] Really cold.
[02:50:54] I don't know about.
[02:50:55] I don't know the temperature of lake.
[02:50:56] But main summertime.
[02:50:58] It'll be, it's not going to be freezing.
[02:51:00] Okay.
[02:51:01] I don't think.
[02:51:01] And if it is good to get rid of musculos.
[02:51:03] Right, right, recovery.
[02:51:05] And also during this.
[02:51:06] So during this thing, too.
[02:51:07] If you come up or if you can't make that,
[02:51:09] and you want to come up for this anyways,
[02:51:10] we're having the grand opening of our new origin factory in farming can main.
[02:51:15] So big factory.
[02:51:18] 20,000 square feet.
[02:51:19] I think it's bigger than 20,000 square feet.
[02:51:22] Everyone's invited to that.
[02:51:24] Come hang out.
[02:51:25] You know what I'm thinking?
[02:51:26] We do like a Q&A or something.
[02:51:27] Well, hang out.
[02:51:28] Well, I'm going to bring books.
[02:51:30] We'll just kick it.
[02:51:32] So come up to that.
[02:51:34] That is the 23rd of August in main coming hang out.
[02:51:37] Like I said.
[02:51:38] What is the jiu-jitsu part of it?
[02:51:40] What, how does that work?
[02:51:42] Like, you know, there's two weeks.
[02:51:44] You can go for the whole thing.
[02:51:45] But no, it's not two weeks.
[02:51:46] It's one week long.
[02:51:47] It's from the 20th to 20th.
[02:51:48] Okay.
[02:51:48] What is bringing in two sessions.
[02:51:50] So when you mean sessions, like what?
[02:51:52] We all just roll.
[02:51:53] You have different teachers.
[02:51:54] Yeah, there's different teachers.
[02:51:55] Yeah, there's different teachers.
[02:51:56] All right, so I'm going to.
[02:51:57] Yeah, but you know, I think we're doing,
[02:51:58] I think it's three sessions a day of jiu-jitsu.
[02:52:01] Yeah.
[02:52:01] I mean, how many sessions can you roll hard at?
[02:52:03] So some of them, okay.
[02:52:04] You know, I'll drill some technique with you.
[02:52:06] Maybe you could go over some front lock stuff with me.
[02:52:08] Or what, you know what I mean?
[02:52:09] Yeah.
[02:52:10] I think there's going to be some of that.
[02:52:11] And but then there's also a bunch of different black belts going to be there.
[02:52:13] Yeah.
[02:52:14] To hang out like show moves.
[02:52:15] Yeah.
[02:52:16] So we're in immersion.
[02:52:17] Yeah.
[02:52:18] That's how you learn.
[02:52:19] Gotcha.
[02:52:20] So I know not go Nolan's coming to that from the west coast.
[02:52:23] Yeah.
[02:52:24] He's coming out and he just hit me up.
[02:52:26] So yeah, come on up to that.
[02:52:28] We have a good time.
[02:52:29] Also when we're there, we're going to have some chocolate.
[02:52:32] So if there's anyone that wants to instantly deadlift 8,000 pounds,
[02:52:38] you can get the juggle.
[02:52:40] White tea.
[02:52:41] If you need to crush an academic test.
[02:52:44] Get juggle away.
[02:52:45] Hey, if you need some right now, you can get some on Amazon.
[02:52:47] Books.
[02:52:48] We got some books.
[02:52:50] For your kid or whatever kids you know, we got the way of the warrior kid.
[02:52:56] There's lessons in there for everybody.
[02:52:58] Check it out.
[02:52:59] If you want the first edition of discipline equals freedom, field manual,
[02:53:03] order it soon or go to your bookstore and tell them you want to get it.
[02:53:08] Preorder it whenever you got to do Amazon Barnes and Noble's your local bookstore.
[02:53:13] Get it.
[02:53:14] Now I'm going to tell you don't get this book for your wine-sipping book club.
[02:53:20] Not a book for them.
[02:53:22] They won't like it.
[02:53:23] You're part of that club.
[02:53:25] Don't get it for them.
[02:53:26] You can still get it, but don't bring it to the book club.
[02:53:28] They're they're they're sipping wine. They're not in a game.
[02:53:32] But if you want to get stronger, tougher, smarter, healthier, and more prepared all around better person.
[02:53:40] Get the book.
[02:53:42] Discipline equals freedom, field manual.
[02:53:44] Comes out October 17th, which means they're printing it almost now.
[02:53:50] So that means if you don't order it, isn't there going to be backed up?
[02:53:54] You're not going to have it.
[02:53:55] If it's going to have it, you're going to have an edge on you.
[02:53:58] Maybe you never recover.
[02:54:00] Like that battle I was talking about earlier.
[02:54:02] Someone else gets the edge on you.
[02:54:04] You just get a mega.
[02:54:05] Also extreme ownership on it, refer to it.
[02:54:08] Highlight it, implement it, spread the word, get it for your team, your company, your organization.
[02:54:13] Relate that with my brother, Lave Babin.
[02:54:16] So if you don't have that, then you have copies for every single person that you ever known.
[02:54:20] Get it for him.
[02:54:22] Also, actually, on front leadership consulting assessments, instruction me,
[02:54:28] Wave Babin, J.P. to know Dave Burke, get the team organized and coordinated for action and for victory.
[02:54:37] That's my recommendation.
[02:54:38] If you want to get that process going, email info at echelonfront.com.
[02:54:46] Finally, the master is September 14th and 15th in San Diego.
[02:54:51] All the other masters have sold out.
[02:54:54] More than half the tickets for San Diego have already sold out.
[02:54:58] So this is going to sell out.
[02:55:01] Don't get left out in the cold.
[02:55:02] You can register it extreme ownership.com.
[02:55:06] And if you need to talk to us before you see us at the immersion camp in Maine.
[02:55:12] And before you go to the master in San Diego, you can find us on the inner webs.
[02:55:18] The Twitter, the Instagram, that Facebookie Boat, and also, the Snapchat.
[02:55:30] You're on Snapchat?
[02:55:31] I'm on it.
[02:55:32] I'm learning from my children.
[02:55:35] Okay.
[02:55:36] Good.
[02:55:37] That's the way people communicate now.
[02:55:38] The Snapchat.
[02:55:39] And I look on the pages.
[02:55:41] Guess what?
[02:55:42] Wall Street journals on there.
[02:55:44] The economist is on there.
[02:55:45] It's not this thing for your teenage 14 year old kid anymore.
[02:55:49] Well, it is, but yeah, it may kind of got out of the basement.
[02:55:53] It's also made of glue.
[02:55:54] I don't know.
[02:55:55] That's something to it.
[02:55:56] I don't know.
[02:55:57] I'm talking rubbish, but I have a Snapchat.
[02:55:59] I don't use it.
[02:56:00] And I think you got to confirm your account.
[02:56:03] I was doing it because my daughter likes to make the faces.
[02:56:06] Yeah, crazy faces.
[02:56:07] My younger star likes to do that too.
[02:56:09] Yeah, so she did it on my wife's phone all the time and then she hit me up for it.
[02:56:12] Like, hey, let me do she call it Snapchat.
[02:56:15] So she's like, let me Snapchat.
[02:56:16] She doesn't know what it is.
[02:56:17] She thinks it's just a face thing.
[02:56:18] So I'm like, all right.
[02:56:19] So I tried to do it.
[02:56:20] And sometimes I got to confirm I was like, nah, so I didn't.
[02:56:23] But I'm, yeah, I guess I'm like one foot in one foot out kind of thing.
[02:56:27] Well, I'm not, I haven't posted anything yet.
[02:56:30] Yeah.
[02:56:31] But I'm going to go.
[02:56:32] I almost did.
[02:56:33] I was like trying to figure it out.
[02:56:34] Yeah, yeah.
[02:56:35] Dang.
[02:56:36] That's good.
[02:56:36] But Jade told me, well, this is what Jade told me, which was smart.
[02:56:39] Yeah.
[02:56:40] This is what Jade told me.
[02:56:41] Brother Jade.
[02:56:42] I said, you know what's just, I don't really understand it.
[02:56:45] And he goes, that's why you need to do it.
[02:56:47] I know.
[02:56:48] Oh, he's like, wow.
[02:56:49] Wow.
[02:56:50] I said to myself, okay, you're right.
[02:56:51] Don't, like, oh, I'm afraid of something.
[02:56:53] Why am I afraid of it?
[02:56:54] Don't understand it.
[02:56:55] How do you overcome that?
[02:56:56] Yeah.
[02:56:57] Because apparently it's a good method of communication.
[02:57:00] Yeah.
[02:57:01] And men, and not to say Jade said so.
[02:57:03] So it's right.
[02:57:04] I'm not saying that.
[02:57:05] But he's real smart with that kind of stuff.
[02:57:06] Like he knows he knows the trends.
[02:57:08] So he can like predict shit.
[02:57:11] You know, like how it'll work and who's going to, he is.
[02:57:14] In fact, what he does now is AI artificial intelligence with applications and stuff like that.
[02:57:19] So he knows that stuff.
[02:57:21] So it's like, when he kind of says he can't help but be like, ah, you're right.
[02:57:24] You know, even if you don't know, you're like, well, consider the source kind of thing.
[02:57:28] In fact, he got me into cryptocurrency investment.
[02:57:32] So investment.
[02:57:33] And I'm up 30%.
[02:57:34] That's all I'm going to say about it.
[02:57:36] So like, all right, yeah, hate to give him the credit for that.
[02:57:39] But you can't help it.
[02:57:40] Yeah.
[02:57:41] Yeah.
[02:57:42] Good.
[02:57:42] Well, you can find us on the interwebs.
[02:57:45] Deco is at Echo Charles.
[02:57:47] And I am at Juggle Willink and finally thanks to everyone that makes this podcast possible.
[02:57:55] First our military.
[02:57:58] Whose strength and true warrior culture allows us the freedom to do what we want to do.
[02:58:05] And thanks to the police law enforcement firefighters, paramedics first responders who are
[02:58:16] ever vigilant and always ready.
[02:58:19] I was just driving back from Yosemite and their big force fires up there.
[02:58:24] And all kinds of people had signs out saying thanks to the firefighters.
[02:58:30] So thanks for you guys up there in the mountains fighting the fires.
[02:58:34] And to the rest of you that are out there working, building, making and squeezing every ounce of life that you can.
[02:58:49] Crushing every minute of every day out there leading in the face of adversity and doing everything you can to be everything you can.
[02:59:02] To all you, thanks for being in the game with us.
[02:59:07] And thanks for getting after.
[02:59:10] So until next time, this is Echo and Juggle.
[02:59:16] Out.