Jocko Podcast 92 w/ Rob Jones: Ultra-Winning Mindset of a Marine Corps Combat Engineer

2017-09-13T20:26:18Z

Join the conversation on Twitter / Instagram: @jockowillink @robjonesjourney @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:11:32 - Who is Rob Jones? 0:18:36 - First Deployment. 0:47:21 - Rob Jones, hit with IED. 1:02:44 - Recovery and mind set. 1:20:04 - The importance of milestones. 1:22:08 - Rowing in the Olympics. 1:37:36 - Doing and impossible Triathlon. 1:39:58 - Adapt and overcome.  Why Riding a bike across America is a good idea. 1:58:13 - PUSH IT.  Overcome and Adapt.  31 Marathons in 31 days. www.RobJonesJourney.com 2:13:02 - Support: JockoStore stuff, Origin Brand Apparel, Onnit Workout Gear.  Also Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. 2:42:14 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

You know, you just piling all that other stuff onto, and it just like you said, you lost your legs, and you're like, oh, that's pretty much what a guy like me, I focus, oh, he lost his legs, obviously freaking horrible, and then you don't, a guy like me, I'm not thinking about all these other injuries that you're sustaining, and all the medical things that have to happen to get that stuff straightened out. And then I recall for the first couple of weeks, every now and then, I don't know, I had a discredit with something what happened, you felt explosions before, and there's kind of that when the shockwave goes through you, and you kind of feel your brain kind of jar a little bit, I would kind of fuel that, and then for a split second, I would kind of, it would be like I was getting hit by an explosion for a split second, like that. They're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like skinny jeans. You know, in there like, this hurts, you know, and I, you know, this is, this is through, you know, repair something, like I had a hernioporace, where I had a neck surgery. But like, how you said, like, if you don't think, like, if you think, oh, yeah, that kind of can't be done. I mean, like, hey, we were kind of talking about the call over here, just like sick humor that you end up with in the military because you have to take that thought, which is in your head, like it's got to be in your head. They were like, they were like, they were like, they woke up like so early in the morning. I remember they, you can only hit the, it'll only let you hit it every three, four or five minutes or something like that, and they would come in during the first little bit, and they would say, you know, you can only hit that thing like 12 times in a minute, right? You know, they're like, they're like, they're like, that's what the passion thing though. I'm like, well, I'd be, because I'd be kind of like falling asleep, and then I'd hit it, and doing, oh, make sure I make sure I got that hit, and so I'd just hit it again, and so yeah, and then, but eventually kind of get used to it, and then pain starts to go away. Because yeah, when I said it morphed into, I was thinking like back, you know, must have been sometime in World War II where they said, you know, okay, we're going to get over this river. They said, I'm never, I don't know what that is, but luckily it went away, and after maybe it had something to do with the drugs, I don't know, but, yeah, but you know, eventually you get used to that, and body kind of gets adapted to it, and you get your senses back, and it's hard to look at a computer screen for the first couple of weeks still, but eventually I would see ants crawling on me. You know, he's the kind where I'm like, okay, just need like the shots. So, but that, you know, that makes me kind of like, like mental after shockwave. And he rolled out like that like it was like it was the deal. A guy asked about Jiu Jitsu belts and said, you know, I understand that you shouldn't pursue because in Jiu Jitsu, it's like, hey, you shouldn't just like go to get a belt. So that, I mean, I can't, like, what you have is like a thousand times, a thousand times worse, and it's hard to even imagine, and then on top of this, I'm going back to the journal here to top it off. And so we did managed to get a month long school of, you know, just doing demolition, refreshment, more IED stuff, patrol practice, you know, just doing all sorts of training like that. But I would say, so you're like, now, every patrol that you guys are going out is like, hey, now, how often are you finding IEDs at this point? Whenever the physical therapist couldn't come in and do her stuff with me, I was like, oh, I want this going to do, I'm going to pull myself up on this thing. Like, you know, like a brush you find under your sink or whatever, put some water in. I was like, you know what might be fun is just like riding my bike across the country. Like when you roll out, you know how like if you have and not that it's even a big deal. And I was like, I was like, these, I don't know how I look cause they didn't have a mirror in the cabin. You know, martial arts geese or whatever, but he brings like this added like element to it. So the pants are like thereby like sizes, you know, you were 36. And he went in and literally bought a loom for like, I think that I think was like 3000. It's sure it's like, due to it, so you just got to, it doesn't matter if you're doing like a, in a fake, fake scenario, you have, it doesn't really have the same effect unless you're doing it in the real thing. But they had a better idea and they would say, look, you know, you're going to get over there and you're going to get your prosthetics and you're going to be able to walk again. I think like weight lifting and exercising in general, like, the perfect analogy for most things. So then you guys roll in and the, like the broad strategies you're going to start moving from patrol base, you're going to push out, take another compound, secure it, and then operate out of there for a while and then push it on. That's like one of those exercises that you if you learn that the form, it's like the added element because you got to learn the form. And they feel like kind of like normal pants. Yeah, I think I've often, like, trying to wonder why they say, you know, laughter is the best medicine and why it's so true. But that was when they were like, people were shooting at each other in the corn field, like five feet away. When you get back from Afghanistan, I was like, yeah, except you're going to be pulling me on a Rickshaw because I'm going to have both my legs blown off. It's like kind of taste like tea. I mean, most, I'll, many guys just, hey, you know, especially you're sitting in a turret, or yeah, like load me up. And there's gotta be like, you had to have known, or you know this is a possibility, right? So if you want to try and be like anybody, it's be like Dan. Well, you know, for everyone that's come on and sit here and have you, you know, that to have you and the people that have come on this podcast and have you sitting across the table from me and be able to spend time with you yesterday and hang out with you. I think it's on like the history channel or something like that.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocco podcast number 92 with echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink.
[00:00:07] Good evening, echo. Good evening.
[00:00:13] The concept of finding an IED is relatively simple.
[00:00:19] It is essentially identifying what doesn't belong in the natural area in front of you.
[00:00:25] Before one proceeds, however, one must ensure that all of the Marines with them are at a safe distance,
[00:00:33] such that if the searcher unintentionally detonates an IED during his investigation,
[00:00:39] the Marines he is with will not be harmed.
[00:00:44] The first step is to take a good look at where you are and where you plan to go.
[00:00:50] Identify anything that looks out of the ordinary with respect to nature.
[00:00:56] The world naturally doesn't often have patterns or perfect shapes.
[00:01:01] Essentially, you are looking for areas where you suspect man has been in contact with nature.
[00:01:08] When one patrols in the same area frequently, one can establish a baseline observation for what to look for,
[00:01:15] and what the area looks like normally.
[00:01:20] Thus, on subsequent visits, it is possible to identify elements that are out of place.
[00:01:29] The next step is to investigate the route that you have chosen through this danger area.
[00:01:35] The three main tools used for this investigation are the eyeballs, a metal detector,
[00:01:42] and a cutting edge digging device called the human hand.
[00:01:48] Proceeding slowly in a forward direction, one swings the metal detector in a fashion that covers every square inch of the chosen route.
[00:01:57] In order to do this, start with a metal detector to one side of the route,
[00:02:03] and move it straight across to the other side, keeping the search head and inch or two above,
[00:02:10] and parallel to the ground.
[00:02:14] Once it is across, move the detector forward, half the length of the search head,
[00:02:19] and swing it in the opposite direction to the original side of the route.
[00:02:25] This is a process that continues for the entirety of your time moving through the danger area.
[00:02:33] At some point during your movement along this route,
[00:02:37] you will want to investigate certain spots that you think may contain an IED.
[00:02:44] You can be alerted to these spots in multiple ways.
[00:02:48] From your early assessment, before proceeding through the area,
[00:02:53] newly acquired suspicions as you move through the area,
[00:02:56] and also from sounds that your metal detector makes.
[00:03:01] The process of swing the metal detector back and forth and inching forward is time consuming.
[00:03:08] The best of the best are the ones that can optimize safety and keep time spent to a minimum.
[00:03:15] It is always better, however, to err on the side of caution,
[00:03:19] except in the most extreme of emergencies.
[00:03:24] The investigation of a suspicious area must proceed with extreme caution.
[00:03:31] You start by kneeling down, being sure to be well balanced and stable.
[00:03:38] You must ensure that no gear is going to accidentally fall off or slip out and touch the ground.
[00:03:46] You reach out with your fingers,
[00:03:49] and with the gentleness of a butterfly landing on a daisy,
[00:03:54] move the dirt in front of the front edge of the metal hit.
[00:04:01] Proceed forward, a nanometer at a time in this fashion,
[00:04:06] uncovering more dirt over a wider space until you find the metal that's set off the detector,
[00:04:13] or you are satisfied that there is no danger from this particular metal hit.
[00:04:20] If metal is found, the area must be rechecked to ensure that the metal was found was not a decoy.
[00:04:28] One may think that the tension during this time is akin to being Tom Cruise dangling inches above a motion sensor floor,
[00:04:37] but the necessity of having a clear mind and the amount of practice that has gone into this exact process makes it seem second nature and ordinary.
[00:04:49] After you are satisfied that you have cleared this suspicious area, proceed forward.
[00:04:57] As you move forward, you are also proofing the lane.
[00:05:02] That thing, proofing the lane, or confirming that it is free from IEDs, is usually done with a special mechanical device,
[00:05:11] but it is now being done with your feet.
[00:05:16] And don't forget as you go forward to lay down markers for everyone else who comes behind you to follow.
[00:05:26] This is the way that I handled the situation I was now in.
[00:05:33] I inched forward with my metal detector.
[00:05:36] I didn't see anything special about the area.
[00:05:41] My metal detector was making noises, but nothing large enough that I thought it warranted an investigation.
[00:05:49] The Marines in our patrol watched and waited as I cleared and proved the lane.
[00:05:59] Then it all went black.
[00:06:10] Now, that description is about as good as I have read about the act of searching for IEDs.
[00:06:23] And I actually never searched for IEDs in that type of method.
[00:06:31] And of course in Ramadi, everyone was always searching for IEDs.
[00:06:36] You were always looking, you were inspecting.
[00:06:39] We were suspicious of every pile of rubble, every piece of junk on the road, every off-colored piece of dirt,
[00:06:48] or pavement, or concrete, or sand.
[00:06:53] But we were in this city.
[00:06:56] And there was pedestrian traffic.
[00:06:59] And most of the IEDs were targeting vehicles, not foot patrols.
[00:07:10] But whether in a vehicle or on foot, the IED for the most part has been the biggest threat and the biggest cause of casualties in our recent wars.
[00:07:28] And for the enemy, it's a low-risk, high-reward weapon.
[00:07:40] And for us, it's an evil weapon.
[00:07:46] It's a cowardly weapon, and it is an effective weapon.
[00:07:53] It's a weapon that plants itself in your mind.
[00:08:00] Always there.
[00:08:04] Waiting.
[00:08:07] Around that corner.
[00:08:10] Under that curb, on the other side of that sidewalk.
[00:08:18] It's waiting.
[00:08:23] Now, there are those who's job, it is, to actually interject that weapon, the IED.
[00:08:36] It is their job to face that fear up close and personal day in and day out.
[00:08:47] You've got EOD explosive ordinance, disposal is one group that does it complete professionals.
[00:08:57] And the EOD technicians that I deployed within the SEAL teams were just outstanding and everything that they did, which by the way, was not only find and disarm IEDs.
[00:09:08] They also did everything that we did.
[00:09:10] They cleared rooms and patrolled through the streets and maneuvered in fire flights just as the SEALs did.
[00:09:15] And in addition to EOD combat engineers in the Army and in the Marine Corps also do mind clearance.
[00:09:30] And of course, I talk about combat engineers a lot because of the incredible role that they played in the battle of the body and the combat engineers were outstanding in their standard job of building combat engineers.
[00:09:42] And they're standard job of building combat outposts and building and maintaining the infrastructure of the bases.
[00:09:51] And they were awesome in that performance, under fire.
[00:09:58] But at some point, the combat engineers job morphed into mind clearance.
[00:10:08] It's because I would suspect, you know, they work with demolitions.
[00:10:13] So, so combat engineers do breaches to doors and to walls.
[00:10:18] They build bridges and bridges and they also clear obstacles from roads and bridges.
[00:10:25] And so eventually, at some point, this morphed into combat engineers doing IED clearance both on roads and then out on foot patrols.
[00:10:37] Now, there's jobs in the world that I wouldn't want to do.
[00:10:50] And this is one of them.
[00:10:53] It takes a massive amount of patience.
[00:10:56] It takes an incredible amount of skill and it takes an incredible ability to overcome fear.
[00:11:02] If you're going to actually seek out and touch the thing, the very thing that is trying to kill you in order to stop it,
[00:11:16] that's a job that I didn't want then.
[00:11:20] And I don't want now.
[00:11:22] And I am thankful that there was others that stepped up and did that job.
[00:11:29] And I'm honored to have on the podcasts tonight.
[00:11:35] One of those brave men, a Marine Corps combat engineer who served in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
[00:11:45] And the guy, by the way, who wrote that opening description of what it was like to go out and hunt for IEDs.
[00:11:56] I'm glad by the name of Mr. Rob Jones. Rob, welcome to the show.
[00:12:03] This isn't, this is an honor for me to be. I just really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to come on the show.
[00:12:09] I'll man trust me that the honors all ours, a thousand percent. You can't even argue with that point.
[00:12:15] No, no, no, no, no, no, let it happen.
[00:12:17] Give us just before we jump into your Marine Corps career, just give us a little pre Marine Corps background on growing up and what that where that was and what it was like.
[00:12:29] Can I answer your question about how a combat engineer came to find IEDs?
[00:12:34] Yeah, please do.
[00:12:36] So when you go to combat engineer school, one of the things they teach you is mind-field,
[00:12:41] and defeat, and to do that, you use mind detectors and metal detectors. So I think that's the main reason that it, I wonder at what point you think that came from World War II?
[00:12:53] I don't know. That's a good question.
[00:12:55] Because yeah, when I said it morphed into, I was thinking like back, you know, must have been sometime in World War II where they said, you know, okay, we're going to get over this river.
[00:13:05] Okay, so a common engineer is going to get over the river. We're going to secure this compound. Okay, we're going to secure the compound.
[00:13:12] We're going to rebuild this compound. Okay, well at some point they said, you know what, what if there's mines there?
[00:13:16] Okay, well we got to get them cleared out. So at some point they realize that you can't build if you can't clear, right?
[00:13:22] And you can't move if you can't clear.
[00:13:24] So somebody's got to do it.
[00:13:26] Yeah, somebody's got to do it.
[00:13:27] And they weren't able to slough off that job on somebody else, which is what I would have been trying to do.
[00:13:33] Like, can we get somebody else to do that job?
[00:13:36] Yeah, so that's good. So how did you end up with the Marine Corps?
[00:13:40] Oh, yeah, my background grew up in a farm.
[00:13:43] Nothing really special about my upbringing.
[00:13:46] Kind of farm.
[00:13:47] That was a horse farm.
[00:13:52] I hated horses because I was a depicker.
[00:13:56] What is that?
[00:13:57] What do you do? What is the purpose of a horse farm?
[00:14:00] The farm that I grew up on, the purpose of it was my parents would take people on horseback riding trips.
[00:14:08] Okay.
[00:14:08] They would pay them money and they'd take them out for a couple hours in the forest.
[00:14:11] Got it. Got it.
[00:14:12] And so was my duty to clean up after the horses.
[00:14:16] Feed the horses.
[00:14:18] Stack their hay bales in the summertime. Get them their water.
[00:14:21] So I didn't really enjoy the horses as much as most people would.
[00:14:25] But, you know, I'm thankful that I had that experience because I think it did instill me a work ethic that doesn't.
[00:14:32] That a lot of people don't get.
[00:14:33] Yeah.
[00:14:34] So I think when you come from, because you know, a lot of guys when they come in the military,
[00:14:39] they've never worked hard before.
[00:14:41] But the guys I've met in the military that came from some kind of a farming background.
[00:14:47] They're like, hey, I'm so happy here.
[00:14:50] I'm about up at three o'clock in the morning.
[00:14:52] You know, milk and cows or whatever, or cleaning up a horseshit in your case.
[00:14:59] No man. The number of times I had to wield this wheelbarrow full of manure up a fence board onto this big pile.
[00:15:08] And the times I fell off that thing.
[00:15:10] Every time I just curse those horses I hate and I hate much.
[00:15:14] Now I like horses finds.
[00:15:16] You've got over your horse PTSD if you go out.
[00:15:20] So I think what you graduated from high school and then you went to college, right?
[00:15:25] Yeah, I went to Virginia Tech.
[00:15:27] I was actually a computer science major.
[00:15:30] I'm already suspect.
[00:15:33] I'm impressed.
[00:15:35] I'm impressed.
[00:15:36] I'm suspect.
[00:15:37] So at some point during that during my college career, my sophomore year, I decided that computer science was not for me.
[00:15:46] How do you feel now, Aga?
[00:15:48] That's right.
[00:15:50] Be trained.
[00:15:51] And I decided.
[00:15:53] I don't know.
[00:15:54] I felt like I had spent the first 20 years of my life kind of looking after myself.
[00:16:00] And now I needed to do something that was beyond my own self interest.
[00:16:05] And a buddy of mine had just joined the Marine Corps.
[00:16:08] So I read a couple books about the Marine Corps, Brotherhood of Heroes, about the Battle of Pale Aleu.
[00:16:15] And I said, yep, that's what I want to do.
[00:16:19] I want to join the Marine Corps.
[00:16:21] So before telling my parents before telling anybody, looked up where the recruiter was, went down there.
[00:16:27] He wasn't there.
[00:16:28] Marine Corps recruiter wasn't there.
[00:16:30] Air Force recruiter tells me to come in his office and tells me about the Air Force.
[00:16:34] And I said, yeah, just tell me when the Marine Corps recruiter's back there.
[00:16:37] Nothing against the Air Force, but I had already decided on Marine Corps.
[00:16:42] And so I joined up.
[00:16:45] I think it's, I, this may be right around.
[00:16:47] I'm pretty sure it's right.
[00:16:48] The Marine Corps has like the lowest recruiting budget.
[00:16:52] And they have the highest recruiting numbers because it's the Marine Corps.
[00:16:57] Yeah.
[00:16:58] It's just their, their approach, I guess.
[00:17:00] Yeah.
[00:17:01] Like, oh, you want to be one of us, right?
[00:17:02] Maybe.
[00:17:03] Yeah.
[00:17:04] To see if you can.
[00:17:05] Yeah.
[00:17:06] Yeah.
[00:17:07] So I joined up as a reserveist.
[00:17:09] My original plan, because I was after my junior year.
[00:17:12] So I wanted to finish college at least.
[00:17:14] So my original plan was I did the 92 day reserveist program where I went to boot camp after my junior year.
[00:17:21] Then I finished my last year of college.
[00:17:25] And then I went to job school and MCT.
[00:17:27] How did your academic performance change or did it between pre boot camp and post boot camp?
[00:17:35] It didn't a whole lot.
[00:17:37] Because I think I kind of checked out a college after my junior year.
[00:17:41] I was like, I just want to go to boy, but I just kind of want to get this degree done.
[00:17:45] Mm-hmm.
[00:17:46] I just so I have it.
[00:17:47] Um, now after I deployed a few a couple times and had a little bit more life experience.
[00:17:52] There probably be a lot different.
[00:17:53] Mm-hmm.
[00:17:54] But just those three months of boot camp didn't really change my.
[00:17:57] Your academic approach.
[00:18:00] I was plenty.
[00:18:01] Spire.
[00:18:02] I was smart enough.
[00:18:03] I just didn't care that much about it anymore.
[00:18:05] Yeah.
[00:18:06] So my original plan was to do that.
[00:18:09] And then have the a little bit of experience as an enlisting guy.
[00:18:12] Mm-hmm.
[00:18:13] And then he used my degree to become an officer.
[00:18:15] Mm-hmm.
[00:18:16] But when I was in engineer school after that second summer,
[00:18:20] my company, my reserve company, said,
[00:18:23] we're sending a volunteer platoon to Iraq.
[00:18:26] Mm-hmm.
[00:18:27] So I said, well, that's the whole reason I joined up was to go fight the war.
[00:18:32] So screw me at an officer.
[00:18:34] I'm going to deploy.
[00:18:36] And so then we go to my first deployment.
[00:18:38] So I thought it was pretty, you got a good note in here about the Marine Corps.
[00:18:45] And I'm just going to read this.
[00:18:47] I'm taking this stuff from your journal that you have online, which is awesome read.
[00:18:51] So here we go.
[00:18:53] Back to the journal.
[00:18:55] The Marine Corps began to shape me long before I ever arrived at Boot Camp in Paris,
[00:19:00] Island, South Carolina.
[00:19:02] It started when I read the book, Brotherhood of Heroes,
[00:19:06] the Tale of the Battle of Pelu, in World War II.
[00:19:10] It was through the stories of the Marines told in those pages that I was introduced to the courage,
[00:19:16] spirit, tenacity, altruism, and Brotherhood that the Marines possess qualities that I would soon be ingrained with as well.
[00:19:27] The basics of these qualities were taught to me and my fellow recruits in Boot Camp through rudimentary,
[00:19:33] but effective means the proverbial stick.
[00:19:38] It was through punishment that we were shown what it meant to possess the attributes of a Marine.
[00:19:44] Punishment would come in a variety of modes based on the same concept.
[00:19:49] Countless pushups, situps, sprinting, caring, and of course screaming.
[00:19:55] The drill instructors would use any excuse, not that they needed one, to inflict pain upon us.
[00:20:01] Not being loud enough, looking in the wrong place, in perfection in uniform, dirty squad bay,
[00:20:07] and not moving fast enough for their inspections to name a few.
[00:20:11] The reality of the situation was that we were never loud enough, always looking in the wrong place,
[00:20:17] never had perfect uniforms, the squad bay was always too dirty, and we were simply too slow.
[00:20:23] The idea wasn't simply to pointlessly inflict pain, but to teach lessons using the pain as the instructor.
[00:20:30] It was to force us to make ourselves better so the whole platoon as a whole would be better.
[00:20:37] The idea was to form a brotherhood through shared suffering and shared dependence.
[00:20:44] It was to teach us to keep fighting the pain so that the platoon as a whole could stop being punished.
[00:20:50] The point was that once we reached perfection, the requirements changed so that we were forced to constantly reach for it,
[00:20:57] thus forcing us to become better than we ever knew we could be.
[00:21:02] This is how the Marine Corps takes hungs of iron and turns them into jewel steel.
[00:21:09] That's why the Marine Corps doesn't need a lot of recruitment money.
[00:21:17] But so true, and I like what you pointed out, the shared dependence and how when you're going through bootcamp scenarios
[00:21:27] and training scenarios that are really hard, you realize you're not going to be able to do this alone.
[00:21:33] And you're going to have to rely on these other guys who you may not in the civilian world, you wouldn't have even been associated with.
[00:21:40] And now you're not only associated with them, you depend on them for your survival and to get through it.
[00:21:49] And that's what makes that military experience and certainly the Marine Corps doesn't outstanding job of formulating that bond that is unique to the military.
[00:22:05] Yeah, that's what, that's the thing that makes Marines what they are and brings out the best in people's when they're doing something not for their own self-interest, but for somebody else.
[00:22:19] And I would volunteer for the worst stuff so that I could prevent my buddies from having to do it like walking through the U.S. River, looking for whatever, trying to find weapons caches in Iraq.
[00:22:34] And then getting back at the end of the day just totally soaked and covered in trash water.
[00:22:40] And they come in and say we're doing it again, he wants to go and I'm like, yeah, I'll go again.
[00:22:45] And that's why I really, I kind of enjoyed the Combinage in your role too because I'm going out there protecting people, protecting my buddies, protecting other Marines and taking the risk on me.
[00:23:03] And I mean, that's what being a Marine is all about anybody else would have done it too.
[00:23:08] Yeah, so you go your first deployment to Iraq and what was that deployment like where'd you go?
[00:23:16] Uh, how about you? Over in poverty. And what, so this is 2008.
[00:23:20] So 2008? So things are pretty mellow at 2008.
[00:23:23] Yeah, Iraq kind of slowed down at that point wasn't much going on.
[00:23:29] We had one tiny little incident where we were on a convoey and some guy and those were fired maybe 3 AK rounds and then ran away.
[00:23:41] And it was so, you know, nothing. And that was the first couple weeks.
[00:23:46] Yeah, I did miss it. I didn't miss it.
[00:23:48] And what was your response to the three rounds from the AK 47?
[00:23:51] I continued sitting in the back of the seven times.
[00:23:54] You'd like an 18 year old Lance Corp. Reload with 700 rounds of 50 g.
[00:24:00] Or it was a long convoey. So it was way up there.
[00:24:04] And I was like, oh, I got to get out. I got to get up there.
[00:24:07] But it was over before it was done.
[00:24:09] Did anyone shoot the issue back? Did they return fire at him?
[00:24:12] No, I don't think so. I mean, he like, he did one of those things.
[00:24:15] He raised over to the other.
[00:24:17] And then left. By the time anybody, we'll see it.
[00:24:19] But to figure out where he was, he's gone.
[00:24:22] So that was, but that was in the first couple weeks. So it was kind of off to a good start.
[00:24:26] And then nothing else happened really.
[00:24:29] So what were you guys doing during that deployment?
[00:24:32] I guess it was kind of the, the build portion of the strategy at that point.
[00:24:39] You know, we were, we were helping the local population build up their cities.
[00:24:45] We were helping the build, uh, Iraqi police stations. And but what I spent most of my time doing was when we would go out and find buried weapons cash.
[00:24:57] So just these old stores of RPGs and stuff that the al Qaeda used to be using.
[00:25:05] Right.
[00:25:06] But they had just left there.
[00:25:08] And then so the local population would, or somebody would give us a tip.
[00:25:12] Right. And we would go out to this big field. And they'd say, yeah, supposedly somewhere in here, there's a weapons cash.
[00:25:20] So we take out our metal detectors and sweep every square inch of that field or hill or wherever we were tree tree line.
[00:25:29] And until we either, to start determining those nothing, or we would find it and we dig it up and stack it.
[00:25:35] And then the idea would come and blow it up.
[00:25:37] And we, you attach to a, like, an combat engineer, platoon for, or we attach to an infantry platoon.
[00:25:43] Yes. The way it works for the, what we call a division side engineers, like, common engineer battalion is one common engineer platoon is attached to an infantry battalion.
[00:25:55] And then you kind of break it down. So one squad of that platoon goes with each company.
[00:26:00] And then one team goes with the platoon. So you kind of help that platoon out. You're just pretty much attached to them the entire time.
[00:26:09] So when you guys are being doing these Clarences of, like, of, let's say a big field.
[00:26:13] It would be a, a, a Marine Corp platoon and you would be doing all all the sweeping.
[00:26:19] Yeah. So it would be a Marine Corp platoon or a squad.
[00:26:23] It would be a squad. Okay. So it's in a little long.
[00:26:25] But we'd go out on a squad patrol, patrol out there. They would set up security on the area and they would just wait.
[00:26:31] And then you'd be me and one other guy and we would sweep.
[00:26:35] And sometimes we would have one of the infantry guys have a, a, a, a tool.
[00:26:40] Mm-hmm. And we'd like to dig there. And you would dig and nothing else.
[00:26:43] And then when you, when you'd find casters, would you guys blow them in place or would you recover it?
[00:26:48] I guess it would depend. We would take pictures of what we found.
[00:26:52] So we could write the report when we got back. And if it was out in the middle of nowhere,
[00:26:56] a lot of the times they would, they would blow it in place. We have to wait for YOD.
[00:27:00] They would let us do it.
[00:27:02] Uh, that's, that's actually really jacked up.
[00:27:04] It's so soon.
[00:27:05] That is so jacked up.
[00:27:06] Because there's only one EOD unit for the, like, four EOD guys for the entire battalion.
[00:27:12] And not to mention that's the fun part.
[00:27:15] Exactly.
[00:27:16] Right.
[00:27:16] And I have, I, I know how to, they used, back in, like, 2005,
[00:27:20] coming engineers and years were doing all that all the time.
[00:27:23] Just lay it out.
[00:27:24] You just sympathetically detonated with the stick of C4.
[00:27:27] It's all it is.
[00:27:28] You know what this is? It's because the war had slowed down.
[00:27:30] Yeah.
[00:27:30] And then, it's all.
[00:27:31] The war slows down.
[00:27:32] All of a sudden people start putting the rules and regulations.
[00:27:34] And yeah, wait, no, we could have EOD that.
[00:27:36] One of that same thing, we had the heaviest.
[00:27:41] I'm sure when you guys were in the, in the,
[00:27:43] and the, the standard flag vest.
[00:27:45] Yeah.
[00:27:46] We had this ridiculous,
[00:27:49] turtle shell front sapies, backs,
[00:27:52] apiece side sapies, neck protector, groin protector,
[00:27:56] everything butt protector, like, it was just, the vest itself was 70 pounds.
[00:28:02] Let me tell you something interesting about that.
[00:28:04] When we were in the body, not everyone had that.
[00:28:07] And everyone wanted it.
[00:28:09] And they did their best.
[00:28:11] I remember actually, the kernel of the brigade coming down and bringing side
[00:28:15] sapy plates down to combat outposts to hand them out to guys,
[00:28:19] because everybody wanted them.
[00:28:21] They wanted the neck protectors, the shoulder protectors,
[00:28:23] the groin protectors, they wanted everything.
[00:28:25] Yeah.
[00:28:26] I mean, most, I'll, many guys just, hey, you know,
[00:28:29] especially you're sitting in a turret,
[00:28:31] or yeah, like load me up.
[00:28:33] I want all that, the neck, they wanted it all.
[00:28:36] Yeah.
[00:28:37] Because it was gnarly.
[00:28:39] Yeah. And then go, try and do a hit on a house with it.
[00:28:42] Yeah.
[00:28:43] That part's not fun.
[00:28:45] But so it's probably that same thing where they're just coming up with all the safety rules.
[00:28:50] And you have to have your helmet gloves, eye protection on it all times when you're outside the wire.
[00:28:55] So for whatever reason, they didn't let us blow it up.
[00:28:57] So we'd have to wait for EOD to come out.
[00:29:00] And then they would either blow it up there.
[00:29:03] If it was on the middle of nowhere,
[00:29:04] but if it was in the city, they would usually take it somewhere.
[00:29:07] And, and meanwhile, the rest of the combination of your battalion are out there.
[00:29:12] Are out, do you help them with the building?
[00:29:14] The structures, building schools, helping me infrastructure and stuff like that?
[00:29:17] It would depend.
[00:29:18] Yeah. So whatever that platoon that they were attached to is doing.
[00:29:23] They'd just be doing that.
[00:29:24] And then every now and then if they needed all of us back to build up in Iraqi police station,
[00:29:29] they would call everybody in or everybody but a couple of guys in.
[00:29:32] And then we'd all go out of the platoon to build that.
[00:29:34] Got it.
[00:29:35] But I spent most of my time just doing the cash sweeping and going on patrol.
[00:29:39] So within the platoon are certain people designated as like mine sweepers,
[00:29:44] or does everyone get trained in?
[00:29:46] No, everybody should be able to do it.
[00:29:48] Got it.
[00:29:49] How come you kept getting the, because you volunteered for that?
[00:29:51] You said, hey, I'll go find it.
[00:29:52] Yeah, I mean, and my,
[00:29:55] fire team was, where my squad was kind of,
[00:30:00] we didn't want to do the construction stuff because we thought it was boring.
[00:30:04] I wasn't great.
[00:30:06] I could swing a hammer, but you know, I wasn't like good at it.
[00:30:11] And so we kind of tried to put ourselves in positions where we wouldn't have to go do that stuff.
[00:30:16] We tried to always be out with the, with the squads, with the platoons,
[00:30:20] as often as we could so we could avoid the construction stuff.
[00:30:24] But then yeah, that's what I wanted it to be doing.
[00:30:26] Yeah, be out on patrol.
[00:30:28] Yeah, exactly.
[00:30:29] So that's, so then that deployment you come home,
[00:30:32] and you had already graduated from college at this point, right?
[00:30:34] Yeah.
[00:30:35] And so you come home, and then what happens when you get home?
[00:30:38] So what's your plan when you get home?
[00:30:40] When I get home.
[00:30:41] Well, so we were in Iraq and my buddy,
[00:30:44] Ronnie and Daniel, we were all drinking.
[00:30:49] We were like, that was not what we wanted.
[00:30:51] You know what, the good thing is when you're drinking,
[00:30:53] that's when you make your best military decisions about what to do with your career.
[00:30:57] But yeah.
[00:30:58] We were sitting there going that was not what we were hoping it would be.
[00:31:04] We wanted to do some fighting, do some killing.
[00:31:09] So we were like, we got to figure out a way to go to Afghanistan.
[00:31:13] And so we started trying to look up, because we were in the reserve.
[00:31:18] So sometimes there's, there's programs where you can be an augmentee,
[00:31:23] an individual augmentee.
[00:31:25] Did you have a civilian job at this point?
[00:31:27] I didn't, because I'd just graduated college.
[00:31:29] So you'd just graduated college, then you go on deployment,
[00:31:31] then you come home, and now you're saying,
[00:31:33] all right, what do I, how do I get back, how do I, how do I go fight?
[00:31:36] I had 25,000 bucks for deployment, so I bought a motorcycle, you know?
[00:31:39] Yep, another great decision in the middle.
[00:31:41] That's good investment, good long-term investment.
[00:31:43] Yeah, the graph teacher.
[00:31:44] But yeah, so I was looking for a job to tie me over.
[00:31:50] And trying everything I could to go to Afghanistan.
[00:31:55] But luckily, it's pretty shortly after we got back,
[00:31:59] we go to drill and company says, send volunteer between Afghanistan.
[00:32:04] And, boom, right here, because, at Afghanistan,
[00:32:08] was heating up at this time.
[00:32:09] Yeah.
[00:32:10] If you remember, but we had still had to wait about eight or nine months before,
[00:32:16] we went to the workup for that.
[00:32:18] So I just took a job, put an out traffic counters,
[00:32:21] like there's a little too, go across the road,
[00:32:23] and you attach the electronic box to it.
[00:32:25] So I just took a job doing that to,
[00:32:27] sort of, like, related to IED, isn't it?
[00:32:29] A little bit.
[00:32:30] A bit on the side of the road.
[00:32:31] You don't crush wire on the road.
[00:32:33] That and I just got in shape and partied.
[00:32:37] Now did you do more drill once you're getting ready to deploy?
[00:32:43] Oh, yeah.
[00:32:45] So when I say drill, I guess I should explain,
[00:32:47] that's the deal for reserveist to go in.
[00:32:51] That's like one week in the month.
[00:32:53] That's your drill.
[00:32:54] That's called the drill, yeah.
[00:32:55] I escalate that at all when you're going to deploy.
[00:32:58] Yeah.
[00:32:59] So they kind of cater the drills that you do based on what you're going to need upcoming.
[00:33:06] So I do recall we did a couple where we would do go do like an IED training section.
[00:33:18] And then we would, since I had experience now,
[00:33:22] we would just take whenever we were at a drill, we would just start training the other new guys that we're going to be going with us on machine guns,
[00:33:30] metal detectors and just try getting them trained up.
[00:33:34] But yeah, and so a lot of the training was kind of on our own,
[00:33:38] because you only get that one week in a month and they only have so much money and they have to train the whole company as opposed to just the platoon that's going.
[00:33:45] Right.
[00:33:46] So, so then did they activate you?
[00:33:49] How far before deployment do they activate? You see you can do some like legitimate real training.
[00:33:54] So we did we actually managed to get a month at Camp Lijoon at Courthouse Bay, which is the combat engineer school.
[00:34:03] And so we did managed to get a month long school of, you know, just doing demolition, refreshment, more IED stuff, patrol practice, you know, just doing all sorts of training like that.
[00:34:18] And then your work up is pretty much just how over long it takes to do Mahaveviper with your battalion.
[00:34:24] And then maybe a month before that.
[00:34:27] So, so maybe three months total before you're going on.
[00:34:31] Yeah, I'm going to if you stack it on the floor three four months.
[00:34:34] Got it.
[00:34:35] And were you, when the rest of the guys, so it's one platoon that's going?
[00:34:39] One platoon.
[00:34:40] One platoon.
[00:34:41] Wasn't even a full platoon, there's just three squats.
[00:34:43] Okay. So how many guys did that total?
[00:34:45] It was actually even short squats too. So it was let me think.
[00:34:49] It's, there was a fire to nine ten eleven per squad.
[00:34:53] Yeah, so it's a like 35.
[00:34:55] So then three for the, the brass of the platoon.
[00:34:59] So check.
[00:35:01] Then you go, you do your desert drill and everyone's unified and then you,
[00:35:06] leave before that and then you, and then you go on deployment.
[00:35:10] Yeah, so they give you a little bit of, yeah, they give you a little bit of leave before you go.
[00:35:14] Or you have to go over some, it's like four or five days.
[00:35:17] So everybody flies home and then.
[00:35:19] Got it.
[00:35:20] So now you show up in Afghanistan and what's, how's that different from Iraq when you get there?
[00:35:26] You know what, the first portion of it was not that different.
[00:35:31] The terrain was a lot different.
[00:35:35] So where do you, where do you first go?
[00:35:37] So in Afghanistan, we were, we started.
[00:35:42] I was, I deployed with three seven as an attachment,
[00:35:45] Therbatai and seven for any core regimen.
[00:35:48] And we were in Deloram, which I, I'm pretty sure it was in Helman province.
[00:35:53] It was kind of right on the border.
[00:35:54] So I don't recall exactly, but.
[00:35:57] And pretty much, Keylo company was the company that my squad was attached to.
[00:36:02] And they got sent out just in the middle of nowhere.
[00:36:06] To a fob.
[00:36:07] And then they had a patrol base that was even smaller.
[00:36:10] You didn't even further out that I got sent to.
[00:36:13] I was a team later.
[00:36:14] And so usually you would have one team in the one spot and one team in the other spot.
[00:36:19] But since we were kind of short on guys,
[00:36:22] it was pretty much I was the only engineer for that.
[00:36:25] Platoon.
[00:36:27] And yeah, so we were in Deloram.
[00:36:31] And so in Habe Nia was urban.
[00:36:34] Everything was really walking through a city.
[00:36:36] Everything was urban, but Afghanistan was just.
[00:36:39] There.
[00:36:40] And what when you got out to this forward base, what were you doing?
[00:36:44] What were you guys doing out there?
[00:36:45] What was the, what was the infantry thing that you were attached to doing out there?
[00:36:48] Uh, patrolling.
[00:36:49] So it was kind of similar.
[00:36:51] That's why I say it wasn't whole lot different from Iraq because we were.
[00:36:54] Basically just interacting with the local populace.
[00:36:57] Uh, find out what they needed providing security for that area.
[00:37:00] Like they had a bizarre that would come every weekend.
[00:37:03] So we could go out provide security for that.
[00:37:05] And so I was still using my metal detector to clear danger areas if we can't,
[00:37:11] there's a lot of bodies out there.
[00:37:13] So we'd have to funnel through the body.
[00:37:15] So I'd check that.
[00:37:17] How often were you, we find in IEDs.
[00:37:20] And that's the first one.
[00:37:21] I didn't find a one on there.
[00:37:23] Yeah, there was, it was a pretty pacified area.
[00:37:25] I think we had one firefight.
[00:37:27] One of the squads got into.
[00:37:29] Mm-hmm.
[00:37:30] And that's it.
[00:37:31] Um, so so your first part of the deployment and how long was that?
[00:37:34] How long was that part of the deployment?
[00:37:36] That was two and a half, three months I think.
[00:37:38] So that's kind of like a little tune up.
[00:37:40] Right.
[00:37:41] And then we passed that area off to the Georgian army.
[00:37:45] And that's when we moved to sang into, to take over from the Brits.
[00:37:50] And now sang in like, that's Helman Province central.
[00:37:56] Yeah, that's, that's, that's it.
[00:37:58] Yeah, that's Talban central down there.
[00:38:00] Uh, yeah.
[00:38:01] And, uh, as soon as you get on the ground there, did you feel it when you got on the ground?
[00:38:05] We knew, yeah.
[00:38:06] I mean, we kind of did a push into that area before we actually moved out there.
[00:38:12] And we knew shit was getting real when we, uh, they just, they're like pack up a pack.
[00:38:21] And we got on the helicopter.
[00:38:23] And they just flew us out and just dropped us off in the middle of,
[00:38:27] absolutely nowhere.
[00:38:28] And we just started walking.
[00:38:30] It was just leave your packs here and start walking that way.
[00:38:34] And just, just basically just taking territory from the Talban.
[00:38:38] Now did you do guys do a thorough turnover with the Brits?
[00:38:42] I wasn't a part of that, but, not, I mean, we pretty much came into Fahb increment.
[00:38:49] And we're there for a day, day and a half.
[00:38:53] And the Brits were gone.
[00:38:55] No, no, we came in and then you pushed out.
[00:38:58] So the Brits were there when you were there on the ground.
[00:39:01] Yeah, we were both there at the same time.
[00:39:02] Probably the headquarters elements were doing a turnover.
[00:39:05] Yeah.
[00:39:06] They were like, hey, we're getting our boys out.
[00:39:07] Yeah, we started pushing immediately.
[00:39:09] And we had a couple, whirl Marines with us and some British army.
[00:39:14] Whether, I think they had a small or maybe a toe that we didn't have.
[00:39:19] So like units that we, we needed from them.
[00:39:22] They would send out with us.
[00:39:23] And they were great.
[00:39:25] But from what I understood, they just didn't have the manpower to really do much.
[00:39:29] Were they the guys that were with you?
[00:39:31] Were they giving you any turnover items?
[00:39:33] Like, hey, you need to look out for this.
[00:39:35] Hey, this is what's going on here.
[00:39:36] No, I didn't receive any.
[00:39:38] Because I, I just don't think they really went out much.
[00:39:41] So I don't really sure how much they really could have told us about what was outside of the patrol bases.
[00:39:47] And I never, I don't even remember.
[00:39:51] I think we may have talked to their common engineers.
[00:39:53] We got some demo from them.
[00:39:55] Like, hey, can we have some deck hoarding that gave it to us?
[00:39:57] And that's about it.
[00:39:58] Yeah, and that's because they were just completely undermaned.
[00:40:01] Yeah, from what I understand, I mean, obviously I'm not a part of the upper echelon out there and stuff.
[00:40:05] But I think that's the reason they just, they set up patrol bases.
[00:40:08] They had the patrol bases.
[00:40:10] But they pretty much just sat there and got ambushed and got shot out every day.
[00:40:15] Didn't do a lot of patrol.
[00:40:17] So then you guys roll in and the, like the broad strategies you're going to start moving
[00:40:22] from patrol base, you're going to push out, take another compound, secure it,
[00:40:26] and then operate out of there for a while and then push it on.
[00:40:30] Yeah, pretty much just take the tail of the instairtory by going out, clearing a compound.
[00:40:39] And that's what a major part of what I was doing on this push was clearing compounds.
[00:40:44] This is in case there were a booby trapped.
[00:40:46] And then yeah, we take over that compound, sandbag it up, knock down some trees and some
[00:40:51] explosives, create those fields of fire.
[00:40:54] And then once I was set up, start doing some patrols, security patrols, and then
[00:40:59] repeat.
[00:41:01] And were you guys getting in contact with the towel band?
[00:41:04] Yeah, they were often.
[00:41:05] They were pretty much shooting at us most days, murdering us most days, not very accurate.
[00:41:12] But yeah, they were shooting at us at least.
[00:41:15] And we, when we would go out on patrols, they'd shoot at us.
[00:41:19] But they were always shooting from way far away.
[00:41:22] And, you know, we'd shoot back, but it wasn't like further on in the deployment.
[00:41:27] When the corn grew a lot taller, I wasn't there for it because I got hurt by them.
[00:41:33] But that was when they were like, people were shooting at each other in the corn field, like five feet away.
[00:41:39] So, but while you were there, it was more distant, really far distant contact.
[00:41:45] Yeah. Yeah. Were you guys taking any casualties?
[00:41:50] I think not, not times. I mean, obviously everyone is a major, major sacrifice.
[00:41:56] But there was one sniper that got killed on the initial push on Musica Law before we even got to singing.
[00:42:06] And besides that, I don't remember, oh, my buddy Ronnie got hit in the face of the piece of RPG.
[00:42:14] He didn't go home, he just had to go get it taken care of.
[00:42:18] So, mine or stuff like that.
[00:42:19] But yeah, that mine or stuff only happens when stuff is going on.
[00:42:23] Yeah. So, and by the way, that little piece of shot, I'll blow you know, that thing can kill you just as easily as, you know, a full piece of shot.
[00:42:30] You're wet in his eye? Yeah, exactly.
[00:42:35] But I would say, so you're like, now, every patrol that you guys are going out is like, hey,
[00:42:41] now, how often are you finding IEDs at this point?
[00:42:45] Not tons.
[00:42:50] Trying to think.
[00:42:52] And every now and then, not very often.
[00:42:54] Yeah.
[00:42:54] I mean, because the, I think the area that we were initially was still pretty close to the main fob.
[00:43:01] Mm.
[00:43:02] And then as you went out, there would be just fields of them.
[00:43:07] And the way that we were getting out to the patrol bases were we were using mixlicks.
[00:43:14] And so that was mitigating a lot of the searching that we would have had to do.
[00:43:22] So, in that initial area, weren't finding tons.
[00:43:25] Just every, every now and then.
[00:43:26] And I don't know if this is right or not, but, you know, with the closer you get to a fob,
[00:43:30] you have security on the fob, you have guys that are looking out.
[00:43:33] So, it's hard for someone to come in and dig out and put in the ground.
[00:43:36] So, you got some level of security around the fobs.
[00:43:40] Most of the time.
[00:43:41] Obviously, there could be something there preexisting.
[00:43:43] And day to day life.
[00:43:47] Are you guys, are you guys on MREs or are you guys getting chow or what's going on day to day life?
[00:43:54] Oh, man.
[00:43:55] I wish we had MRE.
[00:43:57] So, at some point during the deployment, we started on MREs.
[00:44:01] You know, I like MREs.
[00:44:03] I think they were good.
[00:44:04] You're sick.
[00:44:06] I used to like MREs when I was like 22 and then I OD don't.
[00:44:14] Yeah, I didn't mind them too much.
[00:44:16] But then, when we started doing these pushes, we got these things called first strike rations.
[00:44:23] Like the new MRE.
[00:44:25] But here's the problem with these first strike.
[00:44:27] They were awesome.
[00:44:28] When we first got on the first week, they were awesome.
[00:44:30] But the MREs core only decided it would be good to buy three different meals.
[00:44:37] And kind of at the same time, we had outrun our water supply.
[00:44:44] So we were just stopping off at Wells.
[00:44:47] And guess what?
[00:44:49] Nobody had any kind of pure fine stuff.
[00:44:52] So we were just drinking well water.
[00:44:54] And obviously, what you would expect to happen happened.
[00:44:58] Everybody was getting sick.
[00:45:00] Just, you know, diarrhea, vomiting.
[00:45:03] That's crazy.
[00:45:04] No purification tabs, right?
[00:45:06] I don't know.
[00:45:07] I guess they didn't expect us to need to use wells.
[00:45:10] But the first day, everybody ran out of water by the time we ended and we were like,
[00:45:15] well, we just got to go get well water.
[00:45:17] Isn't that crazy?
[00:45:18] A purification pill is like, I'm talking at you.
[00:45:21] Echo like it's a little tiny thing.
[00:45:23] But you can carry them so easily.
[00:45:24] And they completely changed the game.
[00:45:26] Because you can take that water out of a well or stream.
[00:45:29] That's got whatever bacteria on it.
[00:45:31] Put that thing in there, shake it up.
[00:45:33] You're good to go.
[00:45:34] Does it taste different?
[00:45:36] No, not really.
[00:45:37] Not really.
[00:45:38] People use them camping.
[00:45:39] This is iodine tablets.
[00:45:40] Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:41] And you can also bring a filter.
[00:45:43] Yeah.
[00:45:44] Like when I hike, I bring a filter, which is like a little pump.
[00:45:46] Like a perita.
[00:45:47] No, it's not a perita.
[00:45:48] You know, this is a pity.
[00:45:49] No, it's not that.
[00:45:50] A little pump.
[00:45:51] A little pump.
[00:45:52] Yeah, yeah.
[00:45:53] And how long are you guys going out in the field for?
[00:45:57] Let's see.
[00:45:58] The first push in the busclaw was about two weeks.
[00:46:01] And so we just, yeah, walk for two weeks.
[00:46:04] We walk to a compound.
[00:46:06] Stop for the day.
[00:46:08] Set security.
[00:46:10] Spend the night.
[00:46:11] Walk to the next one.
[00:46:12] If they shoot at us.
[00:46:14] Fiber.
[00:46:15] Kill him.
[00:46:16] Whatever do whatever we got to do.
[00:46:17] And then we just kept pushing out and pushing out.
[00:46:20] And then eventually we got to a point in that first musclaw push where.
[00:46:25] For whatever reason, they just say, all right, now you're going to walk back.
[00:46:30] So I think I think maybe our, I think maybe our battalion commander had actually.
[00:46:38] He had been a little bit too aggressive and had gone beyond his limits that his boss wanted him to do.
[00:46:46] Yeah.
[00:46:47] We ended up having to give up territory we had just taken.
[00:46:51] Yeah.
[00:46:52] And yeah, so that was two weeks.
[00:46:54] But then once we got to sang and it was pretty much.
[00:46:58] Spended day doing the push.
[00:47:00] Take the compounds.
[00:47:02] And then you kind of in the compound you just got a patrol and you come back.
[00:47:05] So we weren't really out in the field for all that long.
[00:47:10] But you know, being in a compound still not exactly luxury.
[00:47:13] Yeah.
[00:47:14] We still have showers.
[00:47:15] It's not the Kona Kira's or definitely not.
[00:47:19] All right, man.
[00:47:21] I'm going to talk about I'm going to go to your journal here.
[00:47:30] Because obviously on one of these patrols.
[00:47:34] You got hit.
[00:47:36] And here's what you wrote about it.
[00:47:41] Two things happened simultaneously when whatever explosive device that hit me exploded.
[00:47:48] First, the shockwave cut through my toes, severing them.
[00:47:53] It didn't slow as it cut through my shins, severing them next.
[00:47:59] It sent dirt, grit, and shrapnel upward into my legs, buttocks, and any other part of my body that was exposed.
[00:48:09] Next it launched me a few feet into the air and deposited me onto the ground unconscious.
[00:48:17] Blood was pouring out of the newly opened arteries and into the dirt.
[00:48:22] Muscle and bone dangled from the remnants of my legs.
[00:48:28] Vicious bacteria latched on and invaded through the note new openings.
[00:48:34] The dust rose and settled and I woke up.
[00:48:41] The first 10 seconds after waking up, all I could hear were my own screams.
[00:48:48] All I could see was a blurry tunnel looking up to the sky.
[00:48:53] The weird thing about the screams was that my brain wasn't telling my body to produce them.
[00:48:59] It was almost as if my mind was no longer present and my body was just reacting or more like panicking.
[00:49:07] They were the kind of screams that are emitted from a person regardless of the consideration of the personal pride that the person has.
[00:49:16] No matter how much their pride makes them resist crying out, they don't have a choice in the matter.
[00:49:24] They inhale too long fools of air open their mouth as wide as it will go and expel that air with full force producing a scream that pierces the air and changes pitch with no control.
[00:49:40] As seconds clicked away, my mind started to come back online and my body calmed down.
[00:49:47] I stopped screaming and my other senses returned.
[00:49:51] I smelled dust and the unique chemical smell of the recent explosion.
[00:49:58] I tasted it on my tongue and in my throat.
[00:50:03] After that my feeling came back.
[00:50:05] It wasn't so much pain as one would imagine it, but more like my lower legs had fallen asleep for so long that it hurt.
[00:50:14] Except magnified by 50 times.
[00:50:18] I knew that they were gone, but how much?
[00:50:22] I had decided before I left on this deployment that I could live with below the knee amputations, but anything higher than that, no thanks.
[00:50:30] I'd rather bleed out.
[00:50:34] I could hear Keith Johnson telling me that they were coming for me and soon he and Shane Otoil were over me applying turnic hits to the bleeding stumps that used to be legs.
[00:50:45] I mustered up the courage to look at my hands.
[00:50:49] Intact.
[00:50:51] I moved them downward to check on something vastly more important.
[00:50:57] The numbness I felt down there left me unsure of its status.
[00:51:03] Just kill me.
[00:51:04] I croaked out.
[00:51:06] They ignored me of course and kept telling me how everything was going to be okay.
[00:51:11] We're holding my hands as the corpsman knelt over me and delivered the sweet, sweet morophone that made it all better.
[00:51:18] Kill me man.
[00:51:20] I said again, I don't want to live like this.
[00:51:22] I think my dick is gone.
[00:51:25] Your dick is still there, man.
[00:51:27] Do you want me to touch it?
[00:51:29] Johnson asked?
[00:51:31] I chuckled with relief as I replied, no.
[00:51:36] I asked whether the legs were gone above or below the knee.
[00:51:41] I was reassured to hear that both were a few inches below.
[00:51:45] By this time I was high from the morphine and was saying everything that crossed my mind.
[00:51:51] As the corpsman continued to work and we waited for the ten-line calves of act to be called in, I thought about all the things I wouldn't be doing anymore.
[00:51:59] I thought about playing Racketball.
[00:52:01] I thought about working out in the gym. I thought about being in a wheelchair for the next 50 years.
[00:52:07] I never thought about how I was breeding, bleeding profusely from two major arteries and could die.
[00:52:14] I never once thought I would die, which may seem unusual for a person in my position.
[00:52:21] Naturally optimistic I suppose.
[00:52:25] Although it is hard to claim that I was being optimistic considering I wanted to cash out permanently.
[00:52:33] In my defense I had no idea what life was like as an amputee and if I had back then I wouldn't have made that request.
[00:52:41] Either way, I'm glad I stuck around.
[00:52:46] Around this time I decided to sit up and take a look at the damage.
[00:52:51] I took a deep breath and gulped.
[00:52:55] I slowly started sitting up but when I got to the point where going further would reveal my shredded legs, I had a change of heart.
[00:53:05] I didn't see the blood soaked dirt.
[00:53:08] I didn't see the disjointed lower parts of my calves and chins along with my feet.
[00:53:13] Or the jagged edge of my remaining limbs, the skin roughly burned and shorn the bone sticking out, then the rip muscle dangling along the ground.
[00:53:25] I didn't want that image to be inside of my head because I knew it would be one that I would never be able to forget.
[00:53:33] I deeply regret the fact that there are those that I consider friends that were forced to have that image in their mind.
[00:53:39] And we'll have to live with it for their entire lives.
[00:53:45] Secondly, I was afraid of seeing the wound would make it hurt even more, much like a scraped knee as a child.
[00:53:55] I laid back down and let the morphine keep doing its job.
[00:54:01] I started getting sleepy.
[00:54:04] I just wanted to close my eyes.
[00:54:07] I thought maybe if I closed my eyes, I would pass away easily.
[00:54:13] Slap!
[00:54:15] I'll slap my cheek as he yelled at me to stay awake.
[00:54:19] Just let me sleep, just let me sleep by mumbled, closing my eyes again.
[00:54:23] Another slap.
[00:54:25] That was the last time I did that.
[00:54:28] Finally, the stretcher that was going to carry me out arrived.
[00:54:33] Four strong men lifted me onto it, grabbed each one of the handles and started carrying me to an assault breach of vehicle.
[00:54:41] They were carrying me away from the war I volunteered to participate in and the Marines that I was supposed to be leading and protecting.
[00:54:49] They would have to go on without me all because I had failed in my job.
[00:54:54] Failed to find the IED that I knew was somewhere around us.
[00:54:59] That failure was a hard pill to swallow then and it remained so to this day.
[00:55:05] I didn't feel good about leaving them behind, but I knew they would understand.
[00:55:11] I knew they would be okay without me.
[00:55:16] We got to the assault breach of vehicle and I asked Jimmy Goodwin one last time to put me out of my misery.
[00:55:24] After his refusal, that was the last time I ever contemplated accepting that avenue.
[00:55:31] They slid me into the back of the vehicle and with some Marines I had never met whose faces I can remember seeing but don't remember any of their features.
[00:55:42] The corpsman said he was going to give me something to put me to sleep and I finally got to close my eyes as everything went black.
[00:55:57] You pretty clear about what happened.
[00:56:09] I remember pretty loosely.
[00:56:13] I don't know.
[00:56:15] I think I was unconscious for maybe 20 seconds.
[00:56:18] I would estimate because they hadn't even gotten to me by the time I woke up.
[00:56:23] I don't think they would have spent a whole lot of time.
[00:56:27] I think one of my guys might have cleared over to me but I don't know.
[00:56:34] I kind of wish I had thought of something better to say.
[00:56:40] It got me boys.
[00:56:42] I'm like pre-lessing learned.
[00:56:44] I really cool cinematic moment and script to go with.
[00:56:50] Just in case.
[00:56:52] I wish I would have thought of something better than.
[00:56:56] I think it's a piece of the story that I'd really like to see.
[00:57:05] The interesting thing about they said I was below the knee.
[00:57:12] A lot of the times what happens, you might be below the knee at side of injury.
[00:57:18] But I said infection that dirt over there is nasty.
[00:57:22] We're not used to their bacteria.
[00:57:24] It'll get in there, it'll infect and they have to end up chopping you off higher to save your life
[00:57:29] because the infection is just uncontrollable.
[00:57:32] And also, if they don't have viable tissue bones and muscles that they can sculpt in such
[00:57:42] a way that you can put a prosthetic on there, they'll just cut you off at the next viable
[00:57:50] spot.
[00:57:51] Right.
[00:57:53] And there's gotta be like, you had to have known, or you know this is a possibility, right?
[00:58:02] When you're over there, how much did you think about that possibility?
[00:58:07] It's probably the same thing when you were going to the body.
[00:58:10] I mean, you know, everybody knows you could die.
[00:58:15] You could get killed.
[00:58:16] But it's not going to be me.
[00:58:17] It's fine.
[00:58:18] I'm not going to happen.
[00:58:20] But you kind of have to do that, don't you?
[00:58:22] I mean, if I'm sitting there sweeping and I'm thinking, okay, here we go.
[00:58:28] This could be it.
[00:58:29] Every step, I'm not going to be effective.
[00:58:31] Yeah, there's got to be whether people refer to it the way I refer to it, like the idea
[00:58:35] of detachment and you're just like not going to think about that.
[00:58:38] What he must be doing that, because otherwise you'd go freaking crazy.
[00:58:41] Like if you were just thinking this next step could be the one, I don't know, you never
[00:58:45] be able to take a step.
[00:58:46] You could handle it.
[00:58:47] And you go out there on patrol and you see Marines and soldiers and the seals that
[00:58:50] they know everyone's doing, they're job.
[00:58:52] Just completely setting that fear aside and saying, okay, that's a possibility.
[00:58:57] Cool.
[00:58:58] I don't have time to worry about that right now.
[00:58:59] I'm going to get it done.
[00:59:01] But I have, I made a dark joke before I went to Afghanistan.
[00:59:07] I went to this 5k with a buddy.
[00:59:09] He said, oh, we're going to do it again when we get back from Afghanistan.
[00:59:13] When you get back from Afghanistan, I was like, yeah, except you're going to be pulling
[00:59:17] me on a Rickshaw because I'm going to have both my legs blown off.
[00:59:23] He has yet to pull me on the Rickshaw.
[00:59:24] That's not funny.
[00:59:28] I mean, talk about, you know, fate or whatever.
[00:59:34] I don't know what, what, I don't know that's fate.
[00:59:38] That's just bad humor.
[00:59:39] I think that's what we call that.
[00:59:44] But you know what, that is a way you deal with these things, right?
[00:59:46] I mean, like, hey, we were kind of talking about the call over here, just like sick humor
[00:59:51] that you end up with in the military because you have to take that thought, which is in your
[00:59:55] head, like it's got to be in your head.
[00:59:57] So what are you going to do with it?
[00:59:59] Are you going to let it like burden you down and make you inoperable and make you not
[01:00:03] be able to do your job?
[01:00:04] Are you, you know what?
[01:00:06] We're going to make a joke about it.
[01:00:07] And that's how we're going to get through this.
[01:00:09] So more than anything else, it's actually great.
[01:00:11] I shouldn't have said bad humor.
[01:00:12] I shouldn't have said great humor because that's the kind of humor that I'm free to hear
[01:00:15] that all the time.
[01:00:16] Yeah.
[01:00:17] You know, all the time from guys from my seals were ridiculous.
[01:00:20] My guys are just, I mean, the sickest sense of humor you could imagine.
[01:00:25] But yeah, the same thing with the soldiers and there wasn't even, there's no barrier.
[01:00:29] Like there's no barrier for that sick sense of humor when you're in the military.
[01:00:32] It's just like there and you're allowed pretty much to say it across services.
[01:00:39] You can make a joke to Marina or our new soldier about something and they're not going to
[01:00:43] beat.
[01:00:44] They're not going to be offended by it.
[01:00:45] Everyone's got that same twisted sense of humor that really, if you think about it,
[01:00:50] we're all probably using to cope with the fact that these bad things might happen.
[01:00:55] Yeah, I think I've often, like, trying to wonder why they say,
[01:01:02] you know, laughter is the best medicine and why it's so true.
[01:01:06] And it's, I think it, it acts to normalize your situation.
[01:01:12] So, you know, how if you're about to try and deadlift like a thousand pounds.
[01:01:17] I'm going to be like, you're trying to deadlift 8,000 pounds.
[01:01:23] And you're sitting there going, there's no way I'm going to deadlift this 8,000 pounds.
[01:01:27] You're going to go up to it and it's going to stick to the ground.
[01:01:29] That predeterminate self predetermination.
[01:01:31] Right.
[01:01:32] And so if you're sitting there, let's say after I got hurt and I'm sitting there going,
[01:01:37] this is the worst thing to ever happen.
[01:01:41] This sucks.
[01:01:43] I hate this.
[01:01:44] It's so serious.
[01:01:46] It's such a big deal.
[01:01:48] Then yeah, it becomes the worst thing that ever happened.
[01:01:52] And I just kind of get into that groove.
[01:01:56] But if you can make a joke about it, it kind of makes fun of it.
[01:02:00] So it's not as serious.
[01:02:02] And so when something's not as serious or not as big a deal, you make fun of something,
[01:02:08] it kind of becomes normal to you.
[01:02:10] And a little bit easier to accept.
[01:02:13] If you saw, if I saw my drone structure crack a smile at any point, if you even did
[01:02:20] this or anything like that, then they automatically lose their persona.
[01:02:27] So if, and you can tell, sometimes they were getting ready to crack a smile and they'd be
[01:02:31] like, they just walk on.
[01:02:33] They'd have to just walk away.
[01:02:35] So I think that that's probably why you have to maintain your humor in order to survive.
[01:02:42] You really do.
[01:02:43] Yeah, I know doubt about that.
[01:02:46] That's awesome.
[01:02:49] Going back to your journal here, it took me five days to make it from Dusty Uncomfortable
[01:02:53] Blast Crater in Afghanistan to a sterile, uncomfortable hospital bed in the ICU at the
[01:02:59] National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
[01:03:03] Luckily for me, I was much too high on what's that deal of do it?
[01:03:08] Delauded, delauded.
[01:03:09] Delauded.
[01:03:10] Yeah.
[01:03:11] To notice the bed or the trip.
[01:03:14] My amputations had started out below the knee, but somewhere during the three hospital
[01:03:17] stops along the way, the need rose for the remaining portions below my knees to be taken
[01:03:22] off.
[01:03:23] A lot of the time this is due to infections that are picked up from the dirt in Afghanistan.
[01:03:29] Or maybe there wasn't much that existed below the knees to make keeping them viable.
[01:03:37] On the bright side, however, the stumps that were remaining were of a significant length
[01:03:42] for an above knee amputation.
[01:03:45] I was left with the entire femur on my left leg and only a few inches shy on my right
[01:03:50] leg.
[01:03:52] I found it funny that throughout my entire hospital stay, the remainder of my legs
[01:03:56] were always referred to as stumps by the medical staff.
[01:04:01] I had expected a more elegant term, considering the fact that this was a hospital.
[01:04:06] At the same time, however, I enjoyed the casual nature of the word stump and even considered
[01:04:11] naming them at one point.
[01:04:14] Later, when perusing my medical records, I found the elegant term I had been looking
[01:04:17] for residual limb.
[01:04:24] Along with the major injuries I sustained, I also had a few minor injuries.
[01:04:29] I used the term minor loosely here, seeing as how these minor injuries would be considered
[01:04:34] major if they weren't sustained in tandem with the severing of one's lower legs.
[01:04:40] Starting from the lower person's first, I lost a portion of the muscles making up the
[01:04:45] inner part of my right thigh.
[01:04:47] In order to close that wound, I would require a skin graft taken from the skin of my left
[01:04:51] thigh.
[01:04:52] My buttocks are sustained several large wounds from shrapnel, some close to the sphincter,
[01:04:58] but mostly in the more meaty parts.
[01:05:01] That was okay, though.
[01:05:02] I have always had an extra butt muscle to go around.
[01:05:07] The close proximity of these wounds to the working parts of the digestive system resulted
[01:05:11] in the doctors diverting my intestines to a colostomy bag that came through my abdominal
[01:05:18] area.
[01:05:19] The reason for doing this wasn't because of any damage to the intestines, but because the
[01:05:22] doctors wanted to make sure that the large wounds on my butt didn't get infected.
[01:05:27] As for upper body injuries, I had some minor burns to my hands and two totally perforated
[01:05:32] ear drums.
[01:05:33] The hands would heal and my ear drums would be replaced with cartilage.
[01:05:37] I consider myself extremely lucky that I still have all 10 fingers in perfect work
[01:05:41] in condition.
[01:05:42] My eyes and most significantly, a brain that made it through the blast with only a grade
[01:05:46] 3 concussion and no residual traumatic brain injuries.
[01:05:51] While I may face hardships and have some sort of discomfort constantly throughout the
[01:05:55] day as a result of wearing prosthetics, at least it doesn't hurt.
[01:06:00] I don't have constant pain.
[01:06:02] Constant pain is much more harrowing, is a much more harrowing, platenine, and I can't imagine
[01:06:07] how hard it is to withstand.
[01:06:10] I spent my first week at Bethesda in the intensive care unit.
[01:06:14] I had a tube down my throat, one tube going into my arm, a breathing tube in my nose,
[01:06:19] a catheter, pads monitoring my heart rate, an epidural in my lower spine, and a wire
[01:06:24] from my pain button.
[01:06:26] Both my hands were wrapped in gauze from my burns.
[01:06:29] My legs were also wrapped in gauze, along with having wound-back machines attached to
[01:06:35] suck-out excess fluids leaking from my wounds.
[01:06:39] My rear end had a pad of gauze for the wounds there.
[01:06:43] The incision down the center of my abs used from my clostomy, had been stapled back
[01:06:47] together, and the bottom part parts of my stumps were where the skin was reconnected
[01:06:53] were stitched together.
[01:07:02] You know, you just piling all that other stuff onto, and it just like you said, you lost
[01:07:13] your legs, and you're like, oh, that's pretty much what a guy like me, I focus, oh,
[01:07:18] he lost his legs, obviously freaking horrible, and then you don't, a guy like me, I'm
[01:07:24] not thinking about all these other injuries that you're sustaining, and all the medical
[01:07:29] things that have to happen to get that stuff straightened out.
[01:07:32] Yeah, I mean, any one of those, just like if it happened to one of us right now, any
[01:07:38] one of those would be major, but they're just pretty much nothing compared to the actual
[01:07:45] major thing that happened.
[01:07:48] And you're just, so are you just drugged up at this point?
[01:07:52] Yeah.
[01:07:53] That first week, I mean, yeah, just delotted Hayes hallucinations, and that kind of thing,
[01:08:01] and surgeries, I would hallucinate nasty things like being hit by a mortar and see
[01:08:10] my legs splattered for whatever his my mom was there.
[01:08:16] And then I recall for the first couple of weeks, every now and then, I don't know, I
[01:08:23] had a discredit with something what happened, you felt explosions before, and there's
[01:08:27] kind of that when the shockwave goes through you, and you kind of feel your brain kind of
[01:08:33] jar a little bit, I would kind of fuel that, and then for a split second, I would kind
[01:08:41] of, it would be like I was getting hit by an explosion for a split second, like that.
[01:08:45] And I'd be like, did I just pass out or something?
[01:08:49] Yeah, I'd be like, no, that's like, what is that?
[01:08:53] So, but that, you know, that makes me kind of like, like mental after shockwave.
[01:08:56] Yeah, yeah, I don't know what it was.
[01:08:58] It's, I asked the doctors about it.
[01:09:00] They said, I'm never, I don't know what that is, but luckily it went away, and after maybe
[01:09:06] it had something to do with the drugs, I don't know, but, yeah, but you know, eventually
[01:09:12] you get used to that, and body kind of gets adapted to it, and you get your senses
[01:09:17] back, and it's hard to look at a computer screen for the first couple of weeks still, but
[01:09:23] eventually I would see ants crawling on me.
[01:09:27] But yeah, you know, so eventually all that kind of goes away, and you just stuck with
[01:09:33] your little button for pain.
[01:09:36] I remember they, you can only hit the, it'll only let you hit it every three, four or
[01:09:40] five minutes or something like that, and they would come in during the first little
[01:09:44] bit, and they would say, you know, you can only
[01:09:47] hit that thing like 12 times in a minute, right?
[01:09:51] Is that, yeah, they say, well, you hit it about 110 times in the last hour.
[01:09:57] I'm like, well, I'd be, because I'd be kind of like falling asleep, and then I'd hit it,
[01:10:02] and doing, oh, make sure I make sure I got that hit, and so I'd just hit it again, and
[01:10:09] so yeah, and then, but eventually kind of get used to it, and then pain starts to go away.
[01:10:16] I'm sitting here thinking about like, I've been hospitalized a couple times for a couple
[01:10:20] different surgeries, and what a complete pussy I was.
[01:10:25] You know, in there like, this hurts, you know, and I, you know, this is, this is through,
[01:10:30] you know, repair something, like I had a hernioporace, where I had a neck surgery.
[01:10:34] Like, these are planned operations.
[01:10:38] The openings in my body were made by a highly skilled surgeon, you know, and I'm in there
[01:10:43] like, oh, this sucks.
[01:10:44] So that, I mean, I can't, like, what you have is like a thousand times, a thousand times worse,
[01:10:51] and it's hard to even imagine, and then on top of this, I'm going back to the journal
[01:10:56] here to top it off.
[01:10:57] I had my pirate hat on my head.
[01:11:00] I was practically being held together by duct tape like an old dilapidated chair.
[01:11:05] You're trying to get one or one more good year out of what's up with the pirate hat.
[01:11:09] Well, so you're not supposed to wake up when you go through Germany.
[01:11:14] So, basically, you go from sight of injury to Camp Leatherneck to Boggremar for his base,
[01:11:21] to launch dual Germany to Bethesda, Maryland, for Marines, and then just go straight
[01:11:25] to Walter Reed for anybody else.
[01:11:27] Marines and sailors go to Bethesda.
[01:11:30] And so, for whatever reason I wake up in Germany for, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes,
[01:11:38] and my squad leader was there.
[01:11:42] He was there for something else.
[01:11:44] I don't remember what he was there for.
[01:11:45] So he was there.
[01:11:46] And he kind of told me what happened and that kind of thing.
[01:11:53] And I couldn't help but think, even though it was super drugged up, my mom is going
[01:11:58] to not, she's going to be sad.
[01:12:02] And so, all I could think of, I'm always trying to crack a joke or whatever.
[01:12:07] So I was like, see if you can find a funny hat.
[01:12:11] So where would I go?
[01:12:14] And he could find one.
[01:12:16] Right?
[01:12:17] They're not going to have funny hats in the hospital.
[01:12:19] It's a serious place.
[01:12:20] He went and looked, I guess.
[01:12:22] Maybe he just went outside the room.
[01:12:23] I couldn't find one.
[01:12:24] He didn't go to the funny hat.
[01:12:26] Yeah.
[01:12:27] Boggrem has a lot of things.
[01:12:28] Germany has a lot of things, but maybe not a funny hat store.
[01:12:32] So, couldn't find one.
[01:12:34] I get to Bethesda.
[01:12:36] And when you get to the hospital, they pick you up from wherever they fly you into.
[01:12:41] And these big, basically semi-tracked or trailer, host of ambulances.
[01:12:49] And they have, they alert the hospital where we're coming.
[01:12:53] We're going to be there at 2 p.m.
[01:12:55] And all the doctors come down and they rush you in and do what you need to do.
[01:13:01] And so a lot of the times that's where families will see their servicemen when they first
[01:13:08] get back when they're unloading them.
[01:13:09] And they give them kind of, you know, 15, 20 seconds to, hey, good to see you.
[01:13:14] And then they take you off.
[01:13:18] And I don't know how it happened.
[01:13:21] But I'm rolling down the thing.
[01:13:24] And there's my mom, she has this pirate hat in her hand.
[01:13:29] Well, I don't know if somehow they got bored back to her.
[01:13:32] You still don't know?
[01:13:33] No, no.
[01:13:34] No, I think somebody else brought it.
[01:13:39] I don't know why they would have brought me a pirate hat.
[01:13:44] And somebody had found out that I had asked for a stupid hat or something.
[01:13:48] I've never been known to wear pirate hats or stupid hats before.
[01:13:54] So there's my mom with a stupid hat.
[01:13:57] And then so it kind of became a theme.
[01:13:59] Like, people would bring me a stupid hat.
[01:14:01] Wouldn't they come and visit me?
[01:14:02] So I had a big bag of adventure.
[01:14:05] So I guess what happened, you know, I hope it kind of helped my ease the pain a little
[01:14:11] bit for my mom and that initial, that initial meeting, maybe a little bit.
[01:14:18] But I don't know.
[01:14:20] So then you spend how long you and are you in, like I see you forward,
[01:14:24] trying to get you more stabilized?
[01:14:26] I was probably there for about a week.
[01:14:27] And then you move up to the fifth floor of the hospital, which is kind of where they put
[01:14:32] all the amputees and they're actually three Joneses there at the time.
[01:14:38] So the nurses had to be very careful.
[01:14:40] And on top of that, my, I'm Jones RR.
[01:14:44] First two initials.
[01:14:45] My buddy who got hit maybe an hour before me, his name is Jones D.D.
[01:14:50] And then the third Jones was Jones J.J.
[01:14:53] So they had to be on it with, you know, with check and what medications are going to
[01:15:00] who, but yeah, so that's then you go up to the fifth floor and that's kind of where
[01:15:06] you start to become lucid and that's where the physical therapist start to come in.
[01:15:15] And that's where once you're kind of ready, like you start just lifting a leg one ten times
[01:15:20] and just lift your stomach.
[01:15:21] And you described that in your journal, it was like exhausting for you to get that.
[01:15:25] And it hurt.
[01:15:26] And what's making it is it because you've been laying there for so long is because it's
[01:15:30] a movement that you haven't been able to do in a while.
[01:15:32] I don't just all the above.
[01:15:34] I would imagine a lot of that stuff down there is a swollen and painful.
[01:15:40] You know, I think that's probably what it would be.
[01:15:42] And so yeah, it hurts so bad to even move it at all.
[01:15:48] And so they start with that and then eventually you get in your wheelchair and it takes
[01:15:52] about 10 minutes for you to get into your wheelchair and take about four people to get you
[01:15:57] into your wheelchair.
[01:15:58] You're just sliding off and you're just so sore.
[01:16:01] But eventually you get better and I could, you know, I made a big deal about the first
[01:16:06] day that I got my wheelchair by myself.
[01:16:09] And then I would go for little rolls around the floor and some might have to like, we
[01:16:16] all my, my little IV pole and I have to hang my catheter bag on the, that was so scared.
[01:16:25] I was like, watch that tube.
[01:16:28] Do not let that tube get caught into anything.
[01:16:33] And so yeah, I would just do a few laps around the ward, get out.
[01:16:39] And then when I was done, I go visit my buddy Daniel because he couldn't get out of
[01:16:42] bed yet because he had, I don't know why he can get out of bed, but he couldn't get
[01:16:48] out of bed.
[01:16:49] So I go in his room and hang out for a little while.
[01:16:51] So then and then how long is it before you're thinking yourself, okay, or what makes
[01:16:57] you start thinking, this is my game plan.
[01:17:00] This is where I'm going.
[01:17:01] Like you see guys that are further along the process and you say, okay, I see what
[01:17:06] that guy's doing.
[01:17:07] You know, I, I, I'm going to do that too.
[01:17:09] Well, I sent a little, uh, iPhone message to Daniel, who is do down the, still down
[01:17:16] the fifth floor.
[01:17:17] My buddy took a little, he says, I want to say something to Daniel.
[01:17:20] And so I said, listen, first step, make a workout program to get back to where we were
[01:17:27] before, to get on our feet again.
[01:17:29] So it was a media.
[01:17:30] I was like, we are going to just work out and we're going to get better.
[01:17:35] And you know, so they don't do a lot of prosthetics at Bethesda.
[01:17:39] Well, they do now, but they didn't back then.
[01:17:44] And so the nurses would kind of have a general idea of how the prosthetics stuff went
[01:17:50] and the physical therapist would know.
[01:17:52] But the major thing was the visits from Walter Reed, so the wounded warrior battalion,
[01:17:58] people would bring people that were further along in their recovery over to visit the
[01:18:04] guys that had just been freshly wounded.
[01:18:07] And so I got to one of those visits.
[01:18:09] I don't remember, they're being a double above the knee amputee that came to see me that
[01:18:16] was in legs yet.
[01:18:19] But they had a better idea and they would say, look, you know, you're going to get over
[01:18:22] there and you're going to get your prosthetics and you're going to be able to walk again.
[01:18:26] You're going to be able to run.
[01:18:27] You're going to be able to do this and that.
[01:18:29] And so, at that point, like, oh, so I'm not going to, I don't have to do that.
[01:18:34] It'd be in a wheelchair forever.
[01:18:35] Oh, okay.
[01:18:36] You know, so it was about at that point.
[01:18:40] And then what did, how did you develop your workout program?
[01:18:44] Well, once I became lucid, I was doing pull ups on my little triangle.
[01:18:52] You know how they had little triangle thing dangling down?
[01:18:54] I started getting after it.
[01:18:55] I wasn't doing, well, I was doing pull ups.
[01:18:57] I was probably doing like horizontal rows or something.
[01:19:01] I was just like lifting myself up.
[01:19:03] Whenever the physical therapist couldn't come in and do her stuff with me, I was like, oh,
[01:19:07] I want this going to do, I'm going to pull myself up on this thing.
[01:19:11] And so that was, and I kind of, I went off the therapist experience for most of it in
[01:19:22] the beginning until I kind of got on my own because I don't, you know, they've been doing
[01:19:27] this for nine years at that point.
[01:19:30] So they had a lot of drills and strength and exercises that I can do and that kind of
[01:19:35] things.
[01:19:36] So I just kind of let them take the reins and just do whatever they said and then did it again.
[01:19:43] But then once I got to a point where I was, we're kind of where you see me now, I'm walking
[01:19:48] around no problem.
[01:19:50] That's when I started venturing into trying to do regular gym stuff.
[01:19:55] And I invented my own way of doing straight leg deadlift.
[01:19:58] So it's, I strap myself to a pole and I sit it down.
[01:20:02] Do you think that's lean down and I do a straight leg deadlift as a put because I can't
[01:20:07] squat.
[01:20:08] Right, right.
[01:20:10] Yeah.
[01:20:11] I thought this was a really cool part of your journal that you wrote and you're talking
[01:20:16] about getting through that kind of stuff.
[01:20:19] So here we go back to the journal.
[01:20:22] It's easy to be motivated to succeed in the beginning of an endeavor and when you are close
[01:20:28] to the end.
[01:20:29] The most difficult part and the part where people quit is when they are in the thick of
[01:20:35] it and it is unclear whether they have the strength and stamina to make it the rest of the
[01:20:40] way.
[01:20:42] While I never actually doubted my ability to walk again during my recovery, I am certainly
[01:20:47] subject to the inner monologue rationalizing why it is okay to quit or to not push myself
[01:20:54] to the goal that I have written down on paper.
[01:20:57] One way I have recognized to aid in shutting that monologue the fuck up is celebrating
[01:21:05] milestones.
[01:21:07] The hardest part of working toward a goal is when we are either making slow progress or negative
[01:21:14] progress and having the patience and confidence to know that the improvements we make over
[01:21:19] the long periods as opposed to the short periods are what matter.
[01:21:25] Milestones are what remind us that we are making progress even if it isn't apparent every
[01:21:30] day.
[01:21:32] In rowing, I've heard of people that count strokes until the finish line using sets of
[01:21:36] 10.
[01:21:46] Personally, I like to count 250's for making up a race.
[01:21:44] When I ran the nation's triathlon, I picked points ahead of me to make it to and when I got
[01:21:49] there, I'd pick a new point.
[01:21:52] Anything we can use to keep our minds from succumbing to the monologue will work.
[01:21:59] Not only in short term goals, but also in long term goals like graduating from college
[01:22:05] or learning to use prosthetics.
[01:22:09] Great advice for anybody to pay attention to.
[01:22:13] Now you mentioned rowing there.
[01:22:17] This was no weekend row that you decided to do.
[01:22:20] You got after it.
[01:22:22] How did that come about?
[01:22:26] I was looking for that workout program.
[01:22:30] I knew at this point, I'm alive.
[01:22:32] I'm still trying to have the best life possible.
[01:22:40] I'm trying to get back what I lost.
[01:22:44] I used to work it out and go into the gym, getting after it.
[01:22:52] I'm sitting there going well.
[01:22:54] What's another way that I can work out now?
[01:23:00] I started looking up, I forget what I looked up and disabled sports or disabled work.
[01:23:04] I googled something.
[01:23:06] Google getting after it.
[01:23:09] I didn't have it.
[01:23:14] The Paralympics comes up.
[01:23:16] I don't know what the Paralympics is.
[01:23:20] Like the special Olympics.
[01:23:22] The answer to that question is no.
[01:23:25] The Paralympics is the Olympics for disabled people, with disabilities.
[01:23:30] I said, all right, well, I fit into that category.
[01:23:33] Let's see what sports they got.
[01:23:35] I saw they had rowing.
[01:23:37] You know what?
[01:23:40] I used to hit the row on machine when I was working out.
[01:23:44] Getting on the concept too.
[01:23:46] The concept too, doing some sprints on that thing.
[01:23:49] That was pretty tough.
[01:23:50] I want something that's tough.
[01:23:54] I was like, you know what?
[01:23:55] I'm going to see, I'm going to look into this rowing thing.
[01:23:59] Maybe I'll make the Paralympics one day.
[01:24:02] This is when I was just got to the hospital for a second week in the hospital.
[01:24:08] Not real, strong point in the patients area.
[01:24:12] You've got to set yourself a goal right away.
[01:24:17] You don't have to put something to your work indoors, then you just tread the water.
[01:24:24] So yeah.
[01:24:25] And the lot of things fell into place.
[01:24:29] I probably didn't go out and try and learn to row on the water until the next year.
[01:24:34] So my main focus at that point was still learning the prosthetics and getting my strength
[01:24:39] back.
[01:24:40] But once I got my strength back, and I felt like I was ready to move on outside of the therapy
[01:24:49] angle on it.
[01:24:51] I looked up places where I could learn to row and just so happened there was one in DC.
[01:24:57] So I went down there and I learned.
[01:25:01] I mean, I don't want to brag, but the guy said I was a natural.
[01:25:04] So I said, well, maybe I can do this.
[01:25:09] And so I convinced the they didn't have a raw machine in the physical therapy clinic at
[01:25:12] the time.
[01:25:13] They had an elliptical.
[01:25:15] They had all sorts of equipment.
[01:25:17] They didn't have a raw machine.
[01:25:19] So I convinced the clinic, whoever was running the clinic, to get a raw machine for me.
[01:25:28] So I could row.
[01:25:29] And then when I was trained for the nascent triathlon, I convinced them to let me bring my
[01:25:33] bike in and ride my bike in the clinic.
[01:25:35] So I had my own, I started to build my own gym inside the gym.
[01:25:39] And I convinced them to get a kettlebell for me and stuff.
[01:25:45] And so I convinced them to let me have that raw machine.
[01:25:50] And so a couple of times a week, I would go down to the water and train on the water.
[01:25:54] The other times I would just do some sprints on the raw machine.
[01:26:00] And then it just kind of kept getting better and better.
[01:26:03] And this was 2011.
[01:26:06] So then the parallel booster 2012.
[01:26:10] And there was like a specific coach that runs the the raw machine.
[01:26:15] Knowing team.
[01:26:16] There isn't.
[01:26:20] In some sports there are.
[01:26:22] There's like there's a head coach that's in charge of everybody and I'll train everybody.
[01:26:26] But for my category in parallel and big rowing, it's pretty much a finder on coach.
[01:26:32] And you show up at this race.
[01:26:35] And if you win that race, then you represent America and all their races for that year.
[01:26:39] How far is the row?
[01:26:41] It's a thousand meters.
[01:26:42] So what does that like? It takes you a couple minutes, three minutes.
[01:26:49] So rowing trunk and arms only.
[01:26:51] It's my category.
[01:26:53] So it would take me my best every time on the Urg was probably like 3.38 I think.
[01:27:02] And that's like puke level put now.
[01:27:04] Yeah for me.
[01:27:05] Yeah.
[01:27:06] And then on the water the best in a double.
[01:27:12] So two people.
[01:27:14] My category you have to have two people in the boat was just right around four minutes.
[01:27:19] If you could do four minutes, then you had a shot at winning.
[01:27:23] And that's a thousand meters too.
[01:27:24] It's a thousand meters.
[01:27:26] So you're always going to be a little bit slower on the water.
[01:27:27] And you say it's four minutes, you said?
[01:27:29] Yeah about four minutes.
[01:27:31] So it's like a complete gut check.
[01:27:33] It's equivalent of sprinting like the mile.
[01:27:37] Yeah.
[01:27:38] Because you're going four minutes, right?
[01:27:39] Four minutes mile.
[01:27:40] I mean it's no joke.
[01:27:42] It's a tough, tough race.
[01:27:44] And where was the parallel and picks that year?
[01:27:46] The parallel and picks were in London in 2012.
[01:27:50] And so I was just getting ready for that.
[01:27:55] I was getting ready to retire.
[01:27:56] I need something to do too.
[01:27:58] Just so happened that my coach at the time knew somebody else knew this, this other
[01:28:05] coach that had a female that was looking for a partner.
[01:28:09] Also a double above the knee and PT.
[01:28:12] And so my boat class is one guy, one girl.
[01:28:16] And so we met up, rode together.
[01:28:19] Looks like we were a pretty good pair.
[01:28:21] And once I retired, moved down to Florida.
[01:28:24] Start training for the parallel and picks.
[01:28:27] How long did you have to train?
[01:28:29] So I got out in the late December.
[01:28:33] So let's say called January 1st.
[01:28:36] And I, we had the parallel and the final September 2nd or September 3rd.
[01:28:45] Okay, so you had a decent chunk of time.
[01:28:47] About a good nine months of crushing yourself.
[01:28:50] Of.
[01:28:51] Yeah, training twice a day, every day.
[01:28:55] Or twice a day, six days a week, take off Sunday and just sprints, you know, technique,
[01:29:02] a lot of technique.
[01:29:04] Yeah.
[01:29:05] Do you have to do the technique in the water?
[01:29:07] Yeah.
[01:29:08] I mean, you can do it outside of the water a little bit, but it's really, you got to practice
[01:29:12] your technique in the water.
[01:29:14] It's sure it's like, due to it, so you just got to, it doesn't matter if you're doing
[01:29:19] like a, in a fake, fake scenario, you have, it doesn't really have the same effect unless
[01:29:25] you're doing it in the real thing.
[01:29:26] Yeah.
[01:29:27] So you get to England and boom.
[01:29:30] Yeah.
[01:29:31] How many races is there in England?
[01:29:32] Is it just one race?
[01:29:34] No, luckily.
[01:29:35] There's a couple of races.
[01:29:36] So we had to do in the trials race.
[01:29:38] Okay.
[01:29:39] Which was to find out who represented America.
[01:29:41] We won that.
[01:29:43] Then we had to go qualify our boat for the parallel picks.
[01:29:47] So we had to go to Serbia about maybe a month after winning the trials to qualify the
[01:29:54] boats.
[01:29:55] We won that race, qualify our boat.
[01:29:57] And then parallel picks, you show up and you do your heat.
[01:30:03] And then if you win that, he's, how many boats are in heat?
[01:30:05] Oh, six.
[01:30:06] Bang.
[01:30:07] Okay.
[01:30:08] There were 12 boats total.
[01:30:09] Six in each heat to eight.
[01:30:11] So if you win that heat, you automatically go to the final.
[01:30:14] If you don't win that heat, you gotta go what's called the repashage.
[01:30:18] Stand for second chance in French.
[01:30:22] And you have to come first or second in that.
[01:30:26] So we won our repashage.
[01:30:27] We lost our heat to the Chinese, which still makes me so mad.
[01:30:33] And we won our repashage.
[01:30:35] So we were in the final.
[01:30:38] And we started the final and did last.
[01:30:43] And just slowly over the course of the race.
[01:30:46] This was our race plan.
[01:30:47] We kind of wanted to start slow and build slowly.
[01:30:50] We just rode in one boat and the next boat and the next boat.
[01:30:54] Until we got to the end.
[01:30:56] And we're about six inches between us and the great British boat, the home team.
[01:31:05] Everybody's cheering for the home team.
[01:31:08] And so third place gets a mental fourth place.
[01:31:11] You don't get anything.
[01:31:13] You get nothing.
[01:31:14] Yeah.
[01:31:15] So we're doing our final sprint and then we crossed the line.
[01:31:20] And I don't know.
[01:31:21] I wasn't looking over there.
[01:31:23] My forums were numb.
[01:31:25] I was just trying to hold onto the oars.
[01:31:27] And then it comes up on this little board, you know, first place, China, second place
[01:31:33] for France.
[01:31:34] And then there's this is long.
[01:31:36] And then it goes third place, USA and my mind.
[01:31:45] And you look at the video.
[01:31:46] It's literally like the length of one of these knives.
[01:31:49] No kidding.
[01:31:50] Yeah.
[01:31:51] That close.
[01:31:52] Point two, point two seconds between them and us.
[01:31:56] That's crazy.
[01:31:57] So, did you meet anyone while you're on that event?
[01:32:02] I'm sorry.
[01:32:03] Yes, I did.
[01:32:04] You're telling the events of whatever.
[01:32:05] You're about to go.
[01:32:06] Oh, well.
[01:32:08] So I'll tell you when we were first got there and we were training.
[01:32:16] We were doing, we would go out.
[01:32:17] We would probably there a good week beforehand.
[01:32:19] So we'd go out and train on the lake and continue our training and get used to the
[01:32:23] area.
[01:32:24] My partner, my rowing partner and I were watching the other teams.
[01:32:29] And then there's another boat class called the four.
[01:32:31] So it's four people.
[01:32:34] And I saw this great British four row by.
[01:32:39] And there was this gorgeous blonde in the bow of the four.
[01:32:45] And I said, I just bit my lip.
[01:32:48] That's a good looking check.
[01:32:54] And I never expected to meet her anything because we're not racing against each other.
[01:32:59] She's from another team.
[01:33:00] And you kind of, until the race is over, you've got to be.
[01:33:04] Keep in it professional.
[01:33:05] Sure.
[01:33:06] She even though she was super high and she was very high.
[01:33:10] But you know, and she, she, she'll tell me back when she told me, well, she saw me
[01:33:19] around.
[01:33:20] I was like, because I was in the out was this in serious Marine Corps mode.
[01:33:23] Just don't talk to anybody.
[01:33:24] Yeah, I was the take.
[01:33:25] Yeah.
[01:33:26] Oh, yeah.
[01:33:27] And so racing's over.
[01:33:32] We're back in the athletes village.
[01:33:33] It's time to get after it.
[01:33:36] The other kind of getting after it.
[01:33:38] There's a casino outside the athletes village.
[01:33:41] So the American contingent goes out to this casino.
[01:33:45] Starts.
[01:33:46] We're part, I'm still at this point.
[01:33:48] I'm still kind of in like serious mode takes a couple days to get out of it.
[01:33:53] You know, serious, serious mode.
[01:33:56] Still a little bit pissed that we lost.
[01:33:58] You know, to China and France.
[01:34:00] The two people, the two countries that my buddies like don't lose the China or
[01:34:06] France.
[01:34:08] They were taking shots like every two fit.
[01:34:10] They were following on at home and they could be doing it.
[01:34:12] They were like, they were like, they were like, they woke up like so early in the morning.
[01:34:19] So we're out there.
[01:34:20] Then the British team comes in for the just one goal, right?
[01:34:24] And they're all, they're all happy.
[01:34:26] So we're the only two groups that speak English.
[01:34:29] Right.
[01:34:30] So, yeah.
[01:34:31] So our two groups kind of end up together.
[01:34:36] It took a while to get me to out of my shell.
[01:34:41] Yeah.
[01:34:42] Because I was like, you know, still kind of on my guard.
[01:34:45] This is the first, maybe the second time I'd ever traveled outside of America for anything
[01:34:50] besides deployments.
[01:34:51] Yeah.
[01:34:52] I'd never traveled outside of America.
[01:34:53] Serbia was the first time England was the second time.
[01:34:56] It was kind of still on my guard a little bit.
[01:35:00] But they started feeding me fosters, lightened up and then just so happened the gorgeous
[01:35:08] blonde I saw was there.
[01:35:09] So, hey, you guys know how charming I am.
[01:35:13] Charmider?
[01:35:14] Well, you at least will die.
[01:35:16] So I'm sure the alcohol helped.
[01:35:19] You know, but Charmider and now we're married.
[01:35:22] So that's all.
[01:35:24] After four years of long distance relationship, because she kept rowing.
[01:35:28] She actually defended her gold medal in Rio.
[01:35:31] And did it again?
[01:35:32] Yeah.
[01:35:33] Got gold again.
[01:35:34] So we did about, we didn't get together right away.
[01:35:36] We did long distance for about three years.
[01:35:40] She lived in England.
[01:35:41] I was living in America.
[01:35:43] But finally got her over here.
[01:35:44] Married.
[01:35:45] My name's Pam.
[01:35:46] Nice.
[01:35:47] Okay.
[01:35:48] Well, obviously I have a certain affinity for British ladies as well.
[01:35:52] Pretty well known.
[01:35:54] Now, you mentioned real quickly you were training for triathlon and there somewhere
[01:35:59] too.
[01:36:00] Yeah.
[01:36:01] So the people at the clinic, it was a team effort.
[01:36:08] Everybody.
[01:36:09] So they were other amputees in there.
[01:36:13] I mean, we talked about this little yesterday, Dan Kinnosen, Navy SEAL.
[01:36:17] That was there for a year.
[01:36:18] Awesome guy.
[01:36:19] But for me.
[01:36:20] And and Perlampine as well.
[01:36:22] Yeah.
[01:36:23] Perlampine in the by-ath one.
[01:36:25] He was my idol, I guess, for when I first got there.
[01:36:33] Because he was pretty much done with therapy.
[01:36:35] He was about to get out.
[01:36:36] He was walking everywhere on his legs, carrying backpack around.
[01:36:39] And he was almost, I mean, these axioms injuries you.
[01:36:43] I mean, just above the knee.
[01:36:44] I'm a little bit of an angel.
[01:36:46] Yeah.
[01:36:47] So I could see him from when I was just sitting in a wheelchair.
[01:36:51] Right.
[01:36:52] And that is possible.
[01:36:53] Because I'm seeing it with my own device.
[01:36:55] It is possible.
[01:36:57] And so.
[01:36:58] And he's a stud.
[01:36:59] Yeah.
[01:37:00] So if you want to try and be like anybody, it's be like Dan.
[01:37:04] Yeah.
[01:37:04] Because.
[01:37:06] And so that's kind of the the environment that they had there at Walter Reed was.
[01:37:11] You could ask somebody that had been there before tips, tricks, anything like that.
[01:37:17] And so I saw Dan and I was asking him stuff and watching how he did stuff.
[01:37:23] And then eventually he left.
[01:37:25] And I kind of noticed, you know, I am now.
[01:37:27] There's new guys coming in.
[01:37:28] Yeah.
[01:37:29] I'm now that person that has been there.
[01:37:32] And so I need to step into that role and offer advice and work harder than anybody else
[01:37:37] in the clinic and show people what's going on and show people what's possible.
[01:37:42] And so the therapist would always be, who wants to run the army 10 mile or who wants to
[01:37:50] do this triathlon.
[01:37:51] They'd always be getting offered.
[01:37:52] They'd be getting slots and races because people love having wind of warriors out there.
[01:37:57] So they make a big deal.
[01:37:58] And they get let them go off first and everything.
[01:38:01] So yeah.
[01:38:03] And every time they ask me if I could, if I wasn't doing anything else at day, be like, yeah,
[01:38:07] I'll do it.
[01:38:09] And so they're like, you want to do the nation triathlon.
[01:38:13] It's a Olympic distance triathlon.
[01:38:16] And there's like two people doing it.
[01:38:18] And no other, it's like a single blow the knee and P.D.
[01:38:21] Do it.
[01:38:22] And that's it.
[01:38:23] And you're a double above knee after you want to do it.
[01:38:24] Yeah.
[01:38:25] I do.
[01:38:26] And it's just because it just so happened at the time I was learning how to ride a bicycle
[01:38:31] again, normal bicycle.
[01:38:32] So you're learning how to ride a bike.
[01:38:34] Might as well do a triathlon.
[01:38:35] Exactly.
[01:38:36] Hey, you got to give.
[01:38:38] One of the things that's going to drive you to push yourself is having skin in the
[01:38:44] game, having something to lose, having something to risk.
[01:38:47] So if you say to everybody in the clinic, I'm going to do the nation triathlon.
[01:38:53] And you don't do it.
[01:38:54] You're an idiot.
[01:38:55] You're a loser.
[01:38:57] How long is a Olympic triathlon?
[01:39:00] Well, Olympic distance.
[01:39:02] The swim is 1500 meters.
[01:39:09] The bike is 40 kilometers.
[01:39:10] And the run is 10 kilometers.
[01:39:13] Exactly.
[01:39:14] Luckily for me, because I wasn't that good at swimming, luckily for me the swim got canceled
[01:39:18] that year because there was a huge storm as a ton of debris in the Potomac.
[01:39:23] So we didn't do the swim, but we did the bike and the run.
[01:39:27] And yeah, so I was, I was, I was relearned and how to ride a bicycle.
[01:39:31] Nobody had ever done that before in the history of Walter Reed, double the brother knee
[01:39:34] and BT trying to ride a bicycle.
[01:39:37] And I had figured it out.
[01:39:38] And I kind of wanted to put it to use.
[01:39:40] You know, like, I've finally figured this thing out.
[01:39:44] And so, oh, what better way to do it than do the nation triathlon?
[01:39:49] And so it was like, you know, a bat tip is a bit of a fire in a way.
[01:39:55] And so it took me like four hours to do the whole thing.
[01:39:59] Did you enjoy it?
[01:40:01] I enjoyed having done it.
[01:40:03] Okay.
[01:40:04] Because I'm just wondering at what point you made the brilliant decision that you were
[01:40:08] going to ride a freaking bicycle across the United States of America?
[01:40:12] Well, which was your next, whatever, freaking psychotic idea you got.
[01:40:17] Again, where did that come from?
[01:40:21] I had just learned how to ride the bike.
[01:40:22] And I'm going, I got to do something with it.
[01:40:25] I can't make it just this pointless that I learned how OK I did it now.
[01:40:29] Never going to do it again.
[01:40:31] I was like, you know what might be fun is just like riding my bike across the country.
[01:40:34] It's on point in my life.
[01:40:36] And this is when I have, I'm not even, I'm still in the hospital.
[01:40:39] I just learned how to ride the bike.
[01:40:41] I should do something like ride my bike across countries.
[01:40:44] I might not be.
[01:40:45] You know, something cool like that.
[01:40:48] And I was wrong.
[01:40:51] I didn't do it right because I had made the commitment to do the rowing.
[01:40:53] Right.
[01:40:54] But eventually I will do this cross country bike ride.
[01:40:59] And so I did another year of rowing after that.
[01:41:01] I took the time to kind of plan it out how I wanted to do it.
[01:41:06] And so I took another year of rowing and then finished world championships that year and
[01:41:11] fourth.
[01:41:15] And about a month later, drove up to Maine started riding.
[01:41:20] This is an October.
[01:41:22] And so what was that?
[01:41:23] What was that all?
[01:41:24] What was the, what did that day to day look like?
[01:41:28] So I had a box truck, a U-haul box truck I bought.
[01:41:34] Like I used 200,000 miles U-haul box truck.
[01:41:37] Check.
[01:41:38] I laid down some carpets in the back.
[01:41:42] Check.
[01:41:43] Um, had a couple of cuts, couple sleeping bags, some lines.
[01:41:48] And my little brother who was about to turn 18.
[01:41:51] Check.
[01:41:52] Uh, Rogered up to drive.
[01:41:54] Good to go.
[01:41:55] That's all you need right there.
[01:41:56] Box truck, water, two cuts, carpet, and a little brother.
[01:42:01] And so, you know, I didn't really train much.
[01:42:05] What I did was I made sure that my prosthetics fit correctly.
[01:42:09] And I was able to ride the bike.
[01:42:10] That's all I really did.
[01:42:11] I didn't, you know, go out and ride 100 miles or anything.
[01:42:14] And you kind of formal training for it.
[01:42:16] Yeah.
[01:42:17] Because I figured what is the point?
[01:42:19] Yeah.
[01:42:20] Exactly.
[01:42:21] And that beginning is the training for the finish.
[01:42:24] Yeah.
[01:42:25] So the day the day would be wake up, probably six, seven o'clock.
[01:42:34] You know, drive out to wherever I was starting for the day.
[01:42:36] Because you couldn't, you can't just like stop and then pull over.
[01:42:39] So we'd have to like drive the truck somewhere, park it in a church parking lot or a fire
[01:42:44] department parking lot.
[01:42:46] And then uh, sorry.
[01:42:48] Don't get apprehended by the cops.
[01:42:50] So the first time, so I had, I was, I'd be riding my bike and then my brother would be
[01:42:56] kind of half on half off the road.
[01:42:58] And I picked a route that we didn't have, you know, not super busy roads.
[01:43:04] So I wouldn't get in too many people's way until I got the Pacific Coast highway and
[01:43:07] then people were super pissed.
[01:43:09] And uh, at one point this cop, the first cop I encountered pulls over in front of us and
[01:43:16] like, all right, here we go. He's going to tell me to stop the rides over and then he
[01:43:21] gets out and he's like, I just want to shake your hand, man.
[01:43:24] It's like, fhew.
[01:43:25] Okay.
[01:43:26] This is how it's going to go.
[01:43:27] This is something so I'm going to get the cops love me.
[01:43:30] Um, and so I wake up, start riding, probably around 738.
[01:43:35] I might eat breakfast beforehand.
[01:43:37] Um, probably ride.
[01:43:39] Yeah, I would do 30 miles a day.
[01:43:43] So I just break that up however I felt for the day, take breaks, hop in the back of the
[01:43:47] trucks, sit around for a while and run, I'd ride 30 miles and then wherever I finished
[01:43:53] 30 miles, I might go a little bit further for a better pulling off point, stop getting
[01:43:58] the truck, drive off to wherever we might be able to park the truck and then spend the
[01:44:05] night in the truck and then, uh, drive back out to that spot the next day, do it again.
[01:44:13] Luckily for me, a lot of hotels started to offer us nights to sleep.
[01:44:20] So we really on this sleep in the truck for the first month, then after that we were mostly
[01:44:23] in hotels.
[01:44:24] And this was like a six month journey.
[01:44:27] Six month, October to April.
[01:44:29] So I was, you did it through the winter time.
[01:44:31] Yeah.
[01:44:32] You ever heard of the polar vortex?
[01:44:33] Uh, yeah.
[01:44:34] Yeah.
[01:44:35] No, no, what is this?
[01:44:36] There's polar vortex here.
[01:44:37] Freezing temperatures that came down and like attacked the nation with cold.
[01:44:45] They called the polar vortex.
[01:44:46] Yeah.
[01:44:47] It sounded very fresh.
[01:44:48] It's one step higher than the shark NATO.
[01:44:51] Uh, 5,180 miles in the winter time every day for 180 days.
[01:45:03] Talk about fortitude in your journal and I'm going to read it.
[01:45:09] It was through, it was through the true purpose of the Marine Corps that I became what
[01:45:13] I am today.
[01:45:15] And it is that, it is that.
[01:45:18] And that is the act of fighting the battles of the United States.
[01:45:24] It is through the preparation for and the fighting of America's wars that Marines gain
[01:45:30] their fine edge and an idea of the true meaning of courage, spirit, tenacity, altruism,
[01:45:38] and brotherhood.
[01:45:40] After having been imbued with the essential qualities described to Marines in boot camp,
[01:45:44] it is up to the individual Marine and his leadership all the way from the fire team leader
[01:45:49] to the common don to make him the ideal tool for the core.
[01:45:55] And there's no better place than a war to do this.
[01:45:59] It was during my two deployments that I learned what it means to be courageous.
[01:46:03] Almost on a daily basis, my fellow Marines and I would be subjected to situations with high
[01:46:09] potential for danger and situations with infinite, unknowable, possible outcomes.
[01:46:16] The dangerous and unpredictable nature of these conditions lists its fear, nervousness,
[01:46:21] and uncertainty in all people.
[01:46:24] However, without fail, when the time came to strap on our gear and proceed forth into these
[01:46:32] conditions, we did it with no hesitation because it was what we needed to do.
[01:46:40] To me, that is courage.
[01:46:44] I learned it from the example set by my leaders and my compatriots and when it was my turn,
[01:46:50] I endeavored to teach others by my own example.
[01:46:55] My favorite among the many mantras of the Marine Corps is adapt and overcome.
[01:47:02] It is my favorite because it embodies the spirit and tenacity that Marines must possess
[01:47:07] in order to be the world's greatest war fighting force.
[01:47:11] To Marines, accomplishment of their mission is of the utmost importance.
[01:47:16] Above that of their own lives and the ability to adapt and overcome is key.
[01:47:24] The idea is straightforward.
[01:47:27] Change whatever you need to in order to become what is required to transcend an obstacle.
[01:47:36] If there is no bridge over a river, a Marine will swim.
[01:47:40] If there is a wall in front of us, we will blow it apart.
[01:47:44] If there is an enemy on a hill that we want, we will remove him.
[01:47:50] Marines do not stop until they have accomplished their mission.
[01:47:53] Regardless of any monkey wrench that gets thrown into their plan, they will change their
[01:47:59] plan a thousand times if it need be until what needs to be done is done.
[01:48:07] And then they will move on to the next mission.
[01:48:11] It was these two qualities that kept me that allowed me to keep fighting after I was wounded.
[01:48:17] My plan of accomplishing something with my life and making my life as good as possible
[01:48:22] was met with obstacles and monkey wrenches.
[01:48:26] But since I had already learned these lessons, bypassing these obstacles and moving on
[01:48:32] was easy and natural.
[01:48:37] The brotherhood that the Marines share is the defining feature that initially attracted
[01:48:42] me to the Marine Corps.
[01:48:43] And over the course of two deployments, I experienced it to its fullness.
[01:48:49] The reason that I was able to be courageous and adapt and overcome was because the men
[01:48:53] that stood beside me doing the same thing.
[01:48:57] And it is because we were experiencing war and hardship together that we grew close enough
[01:49:03] that I cared for them more than I cared for myself.
[01:49:09] And which sacrificed my safety for their well-being even if it meant being extinguished.
[01:49:17] And although it never needed to be said, I knew this was reciprocated.
[01:49:26] To me, this is the definition of brotherhood and selflessness.
[01:49:31] But from my having been part of such a relationship is why I am loyal and put others before
[01:49:38] myself as if it were a default setting.
[01:49:47] Without the Marine Corps, I have no idea where I would be or what I would be like.
[01:49:52] All I can say for sure is that I am what I am now doing large part to what I was
[01:50:01] taught and what I experienced during my five years in the Marine Corps.
[01:50:15] Yeah, awesome.
[01:50:17] If there's anything that the Marine Corps teaches you, it is brotherhood, it is endurance,
[01:50:29] how to endure situations you don't want to have to be in.
[01:50:37] Whether it is a humping around with a pack or fighting in Afghanistan or if it is sitting
[01:50:45] in the back of a seven-ton get and drenched in rain and then having to set up a 10-blog
[01:50:48] blah blah blah.
[01:50:50] It teaches you those things.
[01:50:52] And so I already knew all this stuff.
[01:50:56] I was good at it by the time I became an amputee and then I got even better at it.
[01:51:04] Once I was an amputee, even more experience and then so that led into being able to endure
[01:51:10] whatever I had to for the bike ride.
[01:51:13] And I think the slogan for the wounded warrior regiment in the Marine Corps is, I don't
[01:51:20] know if this is it's lad and I don't know if it's pronounced in a right.
[01:51:23] I'm in Pugna which is still in the fight.
[01:51:28] And you know, I'm not still in the main fight that's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan.
[01:51:38] I've been taken out of that fight, but the overall fight, I'm still in that.
[01:51:46] I'm still a representative of America.
[01:51:49] I'm still representative of Marines.
[01:51:52] I'm still dedicating myself to help my brothers that are struggling or come back wounded.
[01:51:59] I'm still in that portion of the fight.
[01:52:03] And I mean, just remember, you just have to remember that that slogan to stay stay in the fight.
[01:52:10] Just keep fighting.
[01:52:13] Where obviously you're staying in the fight and I, you know, I get again, reading through your journal stuff is awesome.
[01:52:23] And there's a bunch of different things that I wanted to pull out.
[01:52:27] And obviously I can't read the whole damn thing.
[01:52:29] Maybe I could, but I'll read that for you.
[01:52:32] But one of the things, you know, I'm always thinking that what, you know, what can I pull out?
[01:52:38] That I think will be really helpful to other people.
[01:52:41] I thought that this thing that you wrote right here was just something that can be used by anybody,
[01:52:48] especially people that are facing tough situations, which as you just mentioned,
[01:52:55] you are pretty dang good at dealing with tough situations.
[01:52:59] And I think this gives a little insight into that.
[01:53:01] So here we go, back to your journal.
[01:53:04] The Kubler Ross model explains the stages by which an individual grieves for a lost intimate.
[01:53:10] The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
[01:53:15] In this case, it could be said I was grieving for myself.
[01:53:20] The former me that had died in Sangin.
[01:53:24] Since I had a natural understanding of conservation of energy and an awareness of the time required to reach my goal,
[01:53:33] I instinctively skipped the first four steps and proceeded the acceptance portion of the process.
[01:53:39] I had decided that to spend my limited energy resources on denial, anger, bargaining, and depression would be a pointless waste,
[01:53:50] and would be better left off of my itinerary.
[01:53:54] I wanted to be able to expend as much energy as I could toward my goal,
[01:53:59] which would not only allow me to reach it faster, but would improve the quality of my success.
[01:54:05] The sooner I had accepted my situation, the sooner I could get to where I wanted to be.
[01:54:12] Having one's legs amputated above the knee is categorically a negative experience.
[01:54:20] If I hadn't had the right mindset afterward, the rest of my life could have also become a negative experience.
[01:54:29] Fortunately, I was able to react to the loss by accepting the negative energy from that occurrence and using it to open doors for myself in order to be sure that my life would remain a positive experience.
[01:54:44] No matter who you are, whether you are healthy or ill, injured or able bodied,
[01:54:52] everyone's main purpose in life is to make it as good as possible.
[01:54:57] This is an unchanging objective for all people no matter what happens.
[01:55:03] Thus, now that I was a double above the knee amp-UT, I needed to figure out a way to keep my life enjoyable.
[01:55:12] With this in mind, I researched the Paralympics to see if I could participate, which led to a bronze medal at the 2012 Games.
[01:55:19] Not only that, I accepted people into my life who have enriched it beyond what I could have imagined.
[01:55:26] From the experiences associated with sports, I have learned lessons that have and will continue to make me a better person.
[01:55:33] Lessons that I can pass on to others in the future.
[01:55:38] It was in this way that I was able to transform the negative experience of having lost the lower part of my legs into the positive experience and energy of participating in a sport and all that has accompanied it.
[01:55:53] If you are ill or injured, use it as a way to discover a new hobby or career.
[01:56:01] If someone is rude to you and makes you angry, use the anger to fuel a workout.
[01:56:08] If someone you know has a terminal illness, use it as an opportunity to make a difference in their life and in the world.
[01:56:18] The most important part of transforming energy from negative to positive is being aware of opportunities as they are presented and having the courage to seize them.
[01:56:31] Energy is all around us, constantly fueling and transforming.
[01:56:37] It will affect us in ways we cannot predict.
[01:56:42] Be a person that uses energy intelligently instead of wasting it.
[01:56:52] I like to say, use the weight and I kind of analogize it.
[01:56:58] I like lift weights.
[01:57:00] I like to analogize it with maybe a strict press.
[01:57:07] The weight on the bar is whatever.
[01:57:12] Grow from broke up with you, whatever.
[01:57:15] Possibly issue you're having.
[01:57:17] You can hold that bar on your shoulders.
[01:57:20] You can just leave it there and eventually start to hurt.
[01:57:25] If you leave it there long enough, you'll just be on the ground with that weight on your chest.
[01:57:32] You can't move anymore.
[01:57:37] When you have that weight on the bar and it's on your shoulders, you shoulder press it.
[01:57:41] Then you do it again.
[01:57:43] Then you do it again and again.
[01:57:46] Then you let your body adapt.
[01:57:48] Next time you try and lift that weight, it's nothing.
[01:57:52] You can do that weight easily.
[01:57:53] I can handle that.
[01:57:54] No problem.
[01:57:55] Then you can handle even more weight.
[01:57:58] Then when you get good at that, you seek out the weight.
[01:58:04] You purposefully try and make things harder for yourself.
[01:58:08] So that you can just become even stronger and even stronger.
[01:58:12] And you embrace that and you start to enjoy it a little bit.
[01:58:16] And so I think that's what I was trying to say there.
[01:58:21] I think you said it.
[01:58:22] Not only did you say it, but you actually are living that.
[01:58:27] Currently at this time seeking out more.
[01:58:34] I guess maybe I would even go so far to say stupid things to do.
[01:58:40] So the next challenge that you put in front of yourself is the thing that you're about to do right now.
[01:58:46] And I've never heard of a challenge like this before, but you're going to do a month of marathons.
[01:58:52] Yeah.
[01:58:55] So these things are only stupid or crazy if I fail.
[01:58:59] If I tried not crazy because I did it.
[01:59:02] If I failed, then people could say it's crazy.
[01:59:05] So I failed this one then it's stupid.
[01:59:07] No man, I'll tell you what.
[01:59:09] You going out there and making these things happen.
[01:59:12] You know, it's awesome.
[01:59:14] Whether you finish or not, no matter what you do, the fact that you're putting these hard core challenges in front of yourself is it's unbelievable.
[01:59:23] So yeah, all this stuff that I've written down and what we've talked about, all the wisdom I've been able to gain through my injury and through being in the Marine Corps.
[01:59:33] I think this, the month of marathons I'm about to do this.
[01:59:37] And everything else that I that I try and do, I'm trying to be an example.
[01:59:42] Because there's so many people that when I was trying to learn the right how to bike again,
[01:59:48] I didn't know anybody that had ever done it before until I saw somebody that had done it.
[01:59:54] And it just made everything once you realize it's possible, it makes it so much easier.
[02:00:01] Because you know it can be done.
[02:00:04] And so I want to be an example for people to look at and they see me and they say, well, they might not be trying to run 31 marathons and 31 days and 31 different cities.
[02:00:17] Or rather bike across the country.
[02:00:20] But they can say, there's a double above any amputee that ran 31 marathons in 31 days.
[02:00:30] I can probably go walk on the treadmill.
[02:00:35] So if I just want to be an example of that and I want to be an example of all of these lessons that I've learned,
[02:00:42] a person that uses the weight instead of lets it destroy their life.
[02:00:47] Somebody that stays in the fight keeps fighting no matter what.
[02:00:50] That's what I'm trying to do.
[02:00:52] I want to serve to show people what they can do.
[02:00:57] And especially wounded veterans and people that might be struggling with what they saw.
[02:01:03] And you know, I'm lucky enough that my mind is clear.
[02:01:09] I had a great three concussion. That's it. No traumatic brain injury.
[02:01:13] No push dramatic stress. Nothing like that.
[02:01:16] And so I want to show civilians and veterans alike that it is possible to have a traumatic experience and come through and be fine.
[02:01:27] And not have not have to suffer from post-traumatic stress that just overwhelms you.
[02:01:36] Because I think in society these days it's almost becoming expected that you're going to go to war and you're going to come back.
[02:01:44] And so a lot of people might end up being well.
[02:01:48] I'm supposed to have post-traumatic stress.
[02:01:50] So I'm going to just manifest it in myself where they let it get worse or they don't fight it.
[02:01:58] They just let it happen.
[02:02:00] And so I want to be an example of somebody that uses their experience and it just goes and has this terrible experience and you know, don't make a big deal about it.
[02:02:15] And part of you doing that is running 31 freaking marifots in 31 days.
[02:02:21] Yeah.
[02:02:22] So when do you start?
[02:02:24] So I'm going to start in 31 different cities.
[02:02:27] In 31 different cities. My first city London.
[02:02:31] London on October 12th.
[02:02:34] And then I'm going to fly to Philadelphia.
[02:02:36] So basically the way it's going to work.
[02:02:38] I'll run in a city.
[02:02:41] Probably take about.
[02:02:43] The whole thing I'll take breaks during the run.
[02:02:46] So probably the whole thing will probably take five and a half, six hours to do.
[02:02:52] I'll do the run on my own just like in a park or on a trail out and backs loops.
[02:02:59] I'll do it on a 400 meter track if I have to.
[02:03:04] Do that.
[02:03:06] Getting my RV drive to the next place.
[02:03:09] Spend the night there.
[02:03:10] We upgraded from a box truck with the blocks in the back.
[02:03:14] Well, the wife's going to be coming along.
[02:03:16] So she won't be in a lot.
[02:03:18] I have a crew for this one. I got my wife pan.
[02:03:22] I'm going to be my team leader.
[02:03:24] She's just doing so much stuff.
[02:03:26] She's a team leader and everything.
[02:03:28] Every job that you could possibly think of.
[02:03:30] She's doing it.
[02:03:32] And my mom is coming because she's massage therapist.
[02:03:34] So she's going to give me massage and I'm going to have a driver.
[02:03:37] Not my brother this time.
[02:03:38] I think I blew him out.
[02:03:40] I'm going to have a driver.
[02:03:43] And so we're going to all hop in the RV drive to.
[02:03:47] So from Philadelphia to New York.
[02:03:50] Running New York.
[02:03:52] Repeat until I go all the way around.
[02:03:55] I'm going to end November 11th Veterans Day.
[02:03:58] DC on the National Mall.
[02:04:00] And and your goal obviously is to show people and lead people and set an amazing example.
[02:04:07] And on top of that, you're going to earn money for some real specific charities that you
[02:04:15] have been and stand behind.
[02:04:17] And what are those charities?
[02:04:19] Yeah.
[02:04:20] So my goal.
[02:04:21] My main goal is obviously the.
[02:04:23] To be the example and all these kind of.
[02:04:25] Grand.
[02:04:26] Objectives.
[02:04:28] But you know.
[02:04:30] How do you really.
[02:04:31] You can't quantify that really.
[02:04:33] So the way that I'm quantifying it is I'm going to be raising money.
[02:04:36] For three veterans charities that I've had personal contact with that have helped me.
[02:04:41] My recovery and they are the Semper Fife fund, the Ton of the Towers Foundation and the Coalition
[02:04:49] to Salud America's Heroes.
[02:04:51] And so that's how I'm going to be.
[02:04:53] That's also I'm going to be showing veterans that.
[02:04:58] America loves them because that is something that's been made abundantly clear to me.
[02:05:05] Everywhere I go.
[02:05:06] All the time.
[02:05:07] I think I did three breakfast in a row where somebody paid for it anonymously.
[02:05:11] And I get thanked all the time.
[02:05:13] And so if they're saying that stuff to me, it's obvious that they love all veterans.
[02:05:18] And I'm trying to help connect that.
[02:05:22] Just reduce that gap between.
[02:05:25] The military and the civilian worlds and get them to to talk and and show that show veterans that.
[02:05:32] They're coming back to a country that appreciates them.
[02:05:35] And loves them more than pretty much any other thing.
[02:05:40] And so I think by the donations and by having people come out and run with me and show me support.
[02:05:48] Then that kind of helps us to prove that to people.
[02:05:52] So where can we go donate?
[02:05:55] What's the link?
[02:05:57] Rob Jones journey.com.
[02:05:59] Rob Jones journey.com.
[02:06:01] There's a donate link there.
[02:06:03] And you can also see my schedule there and I'll have details of where I'm going to be.
[02:06:09] And it's the whole country.
[02:06:10] It's East Coast West Coast.
[02:06:11] Yeah.
[02:06:12] Middle East Country.
[02:06:13] The way around.
[02:06:14] Far as you can drive in a day to get to an exporter on 26.2 miles.
[02:06:17] Like my longest drive is 12, 14 hours.
[02:06:19] And that happens.
[02:06:20] Maybe once or twice.
[02:06:21] So it's they're all pretty close to each other in major cities.
[02:06:24] And yeah, you can go to my website.
[02:06:26] For objones journey.com.
[02:06:28] Donate there.
[02:06:29] See my schedule.
[02:06:31] RSVP that you're going to show up.
[02:06:33] You don't have to.
[02:06:34] But if you want to, that's cool.
[02:06:36] I'll have all the details there.
[02:06:38] And then social medias.
[02:06:40] All at Rob Jones journey.
[02:06:42] Awesome.
[02:06:44] I.
[02:06:46] It's awesome, man.
[02:06:48] It's just awesome.
[02:06:49] And you're freaking awesome.
[02:06:51] And I grabbed a couple.
[02:06:52] There's a little short piece from your journal.
[02:06:56] Again, this is something that I just thought.
[02:06:59] Is is just going to be helpful to me when I read it.
[02:07:02] And we'll be helpful to anybody that that listens here or reads this.
[02:07:08] And here we go back to your journal.
[02:07:12] The conscious is in control of forming habits.
[02:07:18] Every time we are faced with the decision of whether to quit, slow down,
[02:07:22] and rationalize a reason why that's okay.
[02:07:25] Or keep pressing forward.
[02:07:29] One of those habits is strengthened.
[02:07:33] The more times we choose to push on the stronger that habit will become.
[02:07:43] It takes time and purposeful effort for these habits to become ingrained.
[02:07:48] But once a person develops them in the gym doing something as simple as choosing to keep
[02:07:54] rowing hard for another minute, they can apply what they have learned to the rest of their lives.
[02:08:03] They will learn to take the harder path so that they are challenged more.
[02:08:09] They will learn to put extra effort into daily tasks.
[02:08:16] Who you are?
[02:08:19] Depends entirely on your influences and the level of effort that is put into forging yourself into what you desire to be.
[02:08:39] And that's awesome.
[02:08:41] Every decision you make either gets you closer to your goal or move you further away.
[02:08:49] And I am not saying I never make the decisions that move you to the left,
[02:08:54] move you further away.
[02:08:56] I am human just like everybody else.
[02:08:59] Yeah, definitely.
[02:09:02] You know, we were hanging out yesterday and I was busy.
[02:09:05] So in that busyness, you know what I had for dinner last night?
[02:09:09] No, I did not have memories.
[02:09:11] That's not happening.
[02:09:12] No, my entire dinner was a leftover piece of a Caesar salad and a giant mint chocolate chip milkshake.
[02:09:24] Actually my wife was like, make me because I was working and you can't stop and eat when you are trying to work.
[02:09:30] And so I just said, can you make me just a giant mint chocolate chip milkshake?
[02:09:35] Now I didn't get closer to my, you know, physical goals.
[02:09:40] But I got a lot of work done.
[02:09:41] I got an extra whatever 28 minutes worth of work done because I didn't stop to eat dinner.
[02:09:46] Yeah, you got to take the wins with the losses.
[02:09:48] I dig it.
[02:09:49] And it's all just about, you know, making that, it's like, you plot your progress on a graph.
[02:09:56] And you're going to have, it's long, it's going to go up and it's going to go down a little bit.
[02:10:02] Then it's going to go up and it's going to go down. So as long as that trend is upward, then you know, you really have nothing to worry about.
[02:10:09] But if that things are to level off and then to go the other way, then you need to ask for salesman questions and you give yourself some honest answers.
[02:10:16] Yeah, you know, we had a conversation not too long ago.
[02:10:19] A guy asked about Jiu Jitsu belts and said, you know, I understand that you shouldn't pursue because in Jiu Jitsu, it's like, hey, you shouldn't just like go to get a belt.
[02:10:29] You go because you want to get better and you want to learn and and he said, you know, I understand that you shouldn't just do it to get the belts.
[02:10:36] But it's good to mark your progress and figure your progress out.
[02:10:41] And I was, and that's true. And that's what you're saying. Like, yeah, and I've talked about that too.
[02:10:48] You know, I related to shooting where when you, when you focus on the target, your vision gets blurry.
[02:10:56] And so you lose track of the long term, the long term goal or the long range target.
[02:11:01] So that's why we focus on our front site because we can keep that little thing that's right in front of us on our rifle.
[02:11:07] You can keep that in focus. So that's what you focus on. And every once in a while, if you start that maybe that gets a little blurry.
[02:11:14] Well, then you look at your long term targeting because that daily grind will beat you down too.
[02:11:17] Yeah. And if you just lift the daily grind, the daily grind, the daily grind beating you down.
[02:11:22] And then you, you forget what your goal was in the first place. But so everyone's well. Yeah, you got to look up your long term goal and say,
[02:11:29] I want to be doing this or achieve that or whatever. I want to do 31 marathon.
[02:11:34] See, some people would have picked like February, right? Well, there's 28 marathon.
[02:11:40] So you're going to the full 31.
[02:11:44] That's the difference right there.
[02:11:46] Hey, yeah, if I want to make it, if I want to make these points, that's why I rode my bike from Maine to Southern California.
[02:11:54] I was sitting there going, yeah, I could, I could ride Florida to San Diego. It would be technically be all the way across.
[02:12:03] Yeah, but technically. But there would be that, but I don't want any butts associated with anything that I do.
[02:12:10] I don't want anybody to have any reason to say, oh, yeah, Rob Jones, see, ran 31 marathon 31 days.
[02:12:17] I've got to done 32.
[02:12:19] Did you got to do a good job on on your social media when you're going to go out on this thing? You got to document this thing and post it.
[02:12:25] So I'm hoping, I'm hoping. So I'm working with Sports Illustrated. I think they're going to do a video.
[02:12:33] Nice. I heard of them.
[02:12:35] Yeah. Good.
[02:12:36] Do they do good videos? Probably.
[02:12:41] That's that discriminating judge of videos right there.
[02:12:45] So yeah, I plan. Like, you know, I documented the bike ride. That's that documentary is on my website too.
[02:12:51] Yeah. So yeah, I do try and document these things and just in case people don't happen to catch it while I'm doing it, they can go back and use that as their example for what I've done.
[02:13:02] They can find out that way. Yeah. Well, I know you get stuff done and you hammer out your daily tasks.
[02:13:11] We're going to let Echo hammer out his daily task right now.
[02:13:15] Technically we've reached out.
[02:13:17] We've reached out.
[02:13:18] We've reached out.
[02:13:19] I do. I'd extra respect on the weight lifting analogy.
[02:13:23] I think like weight lifting and exercising in general, like,
[02:13:26] the perfect analogy for most things. You know, because it's like, yeah, I mean, I could go into it.
[02:13:31] But yeah.
[02:13:32] That is an app that I'll stand in analogy.
[02:13:36] Yeah.
[02:13:37] Like, hey, that weights on you.
[02:13:39] Yeah.
[02:13:39] You're either going to use it to get better or you're going to let it bear you in the ground.
[02:13:42] Yeah.
[02:13:43] The choice is yours.
[02:13:44] What are you going to do?
[02:13:45] Yeah.
[02:13:45] And like, and it goes to show we talk about this sometimes where you can take a let's say a random person, right?
[02:13:52] And be like, hey, let's go to the gym and there can be literally opposite reactions if you get to different people.
[02:13:58] So one guy can be like, yeah, let's go to the gym and work out and he's trying to get in shape. Good.
[02:14:03] You know, it's this thing.
[02:14:05] Or you can get someone to be like, that's the worst thing in the world.
[02:14:07] I don't want to go to the gym.
[02:14:09] I don't.
[02:14:09] Yeah.
[02:14:10] That's hard.
[02:14:11] And it hurts even the next day it hurts.
[02:14:13] You know, so me and while it's the same exact activity, by the way.
[02:14:16] Yeah.
[02:14:17] So you can look at in those two different ways.
[02:14:19] You know what else is messed up is there's activities that are also good for you.
[02:14:27] And move you in a direction that you want to be moving, but maybe like, let's say the got you can let we can give you a really good example.
[02:14:36] You take a meat head, right?
[02:14:38] And you go, okay.
[02:14:40] You want to go to the gym?
[02:14:42] What does the meat head say?
[02:14:43] Hills.
[02:14:44] Yes.
[02:14:45] Let's go get it.
[02:14:46] But then you say to that same guy who seems all motivated and fired up to improve himself.
[02:14:50] Yeah.
[02:14:51] And you say, hey, let's go read a book and try and, you know, understand better this concept of whatever.
[02:15:01] Yeah.
[02:15:02] And what do they say then?
[02:15:03] Yeah.
[02:15:04] I'm going to the gym.
[02:15:05] Yeah.
[02:15:06] So it's interesting.
[02:15:07] Yeah.
[02:15:07] The weight is necessarily just a physical weight.
[02:15:12] Right.
[02:15:13] And you're going to up against whatever it is that's going to improve you.
[02:15:16] Yeah.
[02:15:17] You can either use it to beat you down or you can use it to make yourself better.
[02:15:21] Yeah.
[02:15:22] And again, just as a concept, right?
[02:15:25] I think the exercise and weight lifting and your body just kind of,
[02:15:29] figuratively condemnestrate just so much, you know, better place so much.
[02:15:33] And you especially feel that way about curls.
[02:15:35] Is that what I'm hearing?
[02:15:36] Yeah.
[02:15:37] It depends on the thing like, yeah.
[02:15:39] Generally.
[02:15:40] Anyway.
[02:15:42] Speaking of curls.
[02:15:45] Wait, should I go into this now?
[02:15:48] Your daily tasks?
[02:15:50] Yeah.
[02:15:50] Your weekly tasks?
[02:15:51] I think you should.
[02:15:52] Yeah.
[02:15:52] Yeah.
[02:15:52] My little bit.
[02:15:53] Well, I got a Rob Jones here to listen.
[02:15:55] Yeah.
[02:15:56] So what up?
[02:15:57] I can't wait to hear this.
[02:15:58] The support.
[02:15:59] Yeah.
[02:16:00] Live.
[02:16:01] You get to witness the support you live.
[02:16:03] The honor.
[02:16:04] So watch, watch echo do his work.
[02:16:06] His life's work.
[02:16:07] Right here.
[02:16:08] Support you.
[02:16:09] I don't know how to see if you want to be edited video.
[02:16:12] So, so dope.
[02:16:13] You know.
[02:16:14] Anyway.
[02:16:15] Made in America.
[02:16:19] Origin.
[02:16:20] That's the company.
[02:16:22] OriginMain.com.
[02:16:23] You started in Maine.
[02:16:24] Yeah.
[02:16:25] By credit, trust me.
[02:16:26] Yeah.
[02:16:26] That's where this place is.
[02:16:27] We just got back what last week.
[02:16:29] Yeah.
[02:16:29] Yeah.
[02:16:30] We can have whatever.
[02:16:31] Yeah.
[02:16:32] That's a cool spot.
[02:16:33] You know, he has a.
[02:16:34] Side note.
[02:16:35] He has like this.
[02:16:36] I think it's on like the history channel or something like that.
[02:16:38] Where it was kind of like a show.
[02:16:39] And you know, the story you told about getting he got this.
[02:16:42] The loom right where he got it.
[02:16:43] Did not actually make.
[02:16:44] Right.
[02:16:45] They like came and filmed some stuff.
[02:16:46] Yeah.
[02:16:47] Produced.
[02:16:48] Yeah.
[02:16:48] He showed it to me.
[02:16:49] But it was great.
[02:16:50] Because when he's telling the story, I'm like, man,
[02:16:51] that took you took like to eight hours or something or more than that.
[02:16:55] Yeah.
[02:16:56] Yeah.
[02:16:57] Like to get it.
[02:16:58] And it's this big thing.
[02:16:59] And it kind of showed it.
[02:16:59] They were there for that.
[02:17:00] Yeah.
[02:17:01] Moving the looms.
[02:17:02] Yeah.
[02:17:03] You know what the loom is?
[02:17:04] No.
[02:17:05] Okay.
[02:17:06] And me neither.
[02:17:07] You know what?
[02:17:08] Loom is.
[02:17:09] I was like, loom.
[02:17:10] I've heard that like one of the fruits of the loom.
[02:17:12] Right.
[02:17:13] Yeah.
[02:17:14] And when you think about it, it makes sense because fruit of the loom is like
[02:17:17] Right.
[02:17:18] It's the fabric.
[02:17:19] You know, it has all the strings.
[02:17:20] Yeah.
[02:17:21] Yeah.
[02:17:22] Makes fabric.
[02:17:23] Anyway.
[02:17:24] So when they say made in America, in this case, it's for real made in America.
[02:17:27] They get to cotton from America.
[02:17:28] They make it with a loom.
[02:17:30] Yeah.
[02:17:31] With looms that this guy Pete Roberts up at origin, which we're in league now with
[02:17:35] origin.
[02:17:36] Yeah.
[02:17:37] But we went up into old mills because all the mills up there a lot of them shut down.
[02:17:42] Yeah.
[02:17:43] And actually, I think all of them shut down.
[02:17:44] And these were these were factories that were like half a million square feet.
[02:17:51] And they were filled with looms and filled with production and filled with American workers.
[02:17:56] And it all went overseas.
[02:17:59] And he went in and literally bought a loom for like, I think that I think was like
[02:18:07] 3000.
[02:18:08] The cost of the scrap metal that it was worth.
[02:18:11] Anyways, took it, hired some old timers that knew, still knew how to work, it brought
[02:18:15] them back to work and then started making clothes.
[02:18:19] And well, making jizzy pieces of what he started with.
[02:18:21] But we're, you know, got everything being lined up to get made.
[02:18:24] And that loom, they only had that one because they were going to put in a museum.
[02:18:28] Yeah, they were literally going to take that one loom that they had left and they were
[02:18:33] going to put making a museum.
[02:18:34] Yes, it's still over.
[02:18:35] Right.
[02:18:36] You know, that's, that's so awesome because there's so many people out there now that are like,
[02:18:40] oh, our country has to make problems or country has to make problems.
[02:18:43] We need to do this.
[02:18:44] We need to do that.
[02:18:46] And they say somebody used to do this.
[02:18:49] Somebody needs to.
[02:18:50] Yeah.
[02:18:51] And it's like, hey, you don't want you.
[02:18:53] And here's the guy that's doing that.
[02:18:54] Yeah, that's people.
[02:18:55] So that's what boom.
[02:18:56] Yeah.
[02:18:57] Yeah.
[02:18:58] He's interesting to when we went, they can tell he's into it.
[02:19:01] He's like he, we're driving up there.
[02:19:03] He's talking about how yarn is all made and stuff.
[02:19:05] And he's like, hey, I got to come down.
[02:19:07] Yeah.
[02:19:08] I'm getting to it.
[02:19:09] But you know, you don't even need to say he's into it.
[02:19:12] Because he went out and bought a broken rusty loom and we furnished it and moved it
[02:19:16] into a factory that he built on his own property.
[02:19:18] It's ridiculous.
[02:19:19] Yeah.
[02:19:20] And it shows, too.
[02:19:21] Like the geese, like you might do geodes here today.
[02:19:25] Yeah.
[02:19:26] They're like, they're cool. You know, martial arts geese or whatever, but he brings
[02:19:29] like this added like element to it.
[02:19:31] Well, because he specifically designs him for, yeah, for you.
[02:19:34] Yeah.
[02:19:35] It's not the kind of words like, hey, let me get a ge, blank from overseas or whatever.
[02:19:39] Yeah.
[02:19:40] And like, embroidered or my logo on it.
[02:19:41] So it's kind of like the same thing.
[02:19:43] You don't, you don't have much innovation freedom with a physical product.
[02:19:46] He does.
[02:19:47] So it's like, I took out his wrong knee other day.
[02:19:50] Ge.
[02:19:51] Whatever.
[02:19:52] I take off the top and you'd left with just the pants.
[02:19:55] So the pants are like thereby like sizes, you know, you were 36.
[02:19:59] In regular stuff, it's just the like numbers.
[02:20:02] A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6.
[02:20:05] This is like fitted to you, right?
[02:20:06] So I'm wearing the pants.
[02:20:07] And they feel like kind of like normal pants.
[02:20:09] Yeah.
[02:20:10] And I was Greg in one.
[02:20:11] They were like, they were noticing.
[02:20:13] Yeah.
[02:20:15] You almost don't mind getting choked out by a guitar.
[02:20:18] He's all skis.
[02:20:19] He's all skis.
[02:20:20] So sweet.
[02:20:21] There's a thing.
[02:20:22] My streak every day.
[02:20:23] And I wear it every day.
[02:20:24] I have two tops.
[02:20:25] Every day in the streak is still alive.
[02:20:26] Every single time someone asks, like, what up with that key?
[02:20:30] Oh, let me see that.
[02:20:31] There you go.
[02:20:32] There are way that fabric is woven as legit.
[02:20:34] Yeah.
[02:20:35] This legit.
[02:20:36] Yeah.
[02:20:36] And see these shorts I have on right now?
[02:20:38] I should.
[02:20:38] I kind of in a way shouldn't mention these because be
[02:20:41] second out we're not making those shorts because they don't make
[02:20:43] these shorts.
[02:20:43] We will make.
[02:20:44] Okay.
[02:20:44] I've worn these three days and wrote by the way.
[02:20:46] Oh, nice.
[02:20:46] That's what that smell was.
[02:20:47] What did I wear?
[02:20:49] I washed the ones.
[02:20:51] But yeah, they're my favorite shorts.
[02:20:52] They're made out of the same material as one of the
[02:20:54] these.
[02:20:55] Yeah, it looks nice.
[02:20:56] Yeah.
[02:20:57] I spilled some eggs on it.
[02:20:58] And you know, it leaves them.
[02:20:59] These shorts are black by the way.
[02:21:01] So you know how you when you spill eggs or out of nozzles, feed
[02:21:03] my son yogurt and stuff.
[02:21:04] And it's spilt on it.
[02:21:06] So you just take a brush.
[02:21:08] Like, you know, like a brush you find under your sink or whatever, put
[02:21:10] some water in.
[02:21:11] I scrubbed it.
[02:21:12] You can't do that on like your shorts.
[02:21:13] It'll start to wear it out, you know?
[02:21:15] But it gives tough.
[02:21:16] It's supposed to be tough.
[02:21:17] Yeah.
[02:21:18] We won't did it.
[02:21:19] You don't have to wash it.
[02:21:20] You know what I'm sorry.
[02:21:21] You can't get the shorts.
[02:21:22] I don't get you.
[02:21:23] You can't get it.
[02:21:24] We'll make them.
[02:21:25] Yeah.
[02:21:26] So stand by for that.
[02:21:27] Nonetheless, do you do the keys, all kinds of rash guards, and even like regular clothes, shirts,
[02:21:35] hoodies and whatnot, the joggers, like you putting on the joggers and walking around
[02:21:38] in front of my wife.
[02:21:39] She likes it.
[02:21:40] That was a weird thing.
[02:21:41] Cause I didn't actually know what.
[02:21:42] Do you know what joggers are?
[02:21:43] Or are new joggers?
[02:21:44] You know, they're like, they're like, they're like, that's what the passion
[02:21:47] thing though.
[02:21:48] They're like sweatpants, but they're somehow more high end.
[02:21:52] Yeah.
[02:21:53] They're like, they're like, they're like, they're like, they're like skinny jeans.
[02:21:57] They're like skinny jeans.
[02:21:58] What's that pants?
[02:21:59] Yeah.
[02:22:00] I'm gonna go ahead and say, I don't endorse that.
[02:22:02] I didn't.
[02:22:03] Neither did I.
[02:22:04] Neither did I, but I put them on.
[02:22:06] And I was like, I was like, these, I don't know how I look cause they didn't have
[02:22:09] a mirror in the cabin.
[02:22:12] Except in the bathroom, but nonetheless.
[02:22:16] So I couldn't see how they look.
[02:22:17] They look kind of strange from up here, but I don't know.
[02:22:19] So I was like, grab one of them.
[02:22:21] They're gorgeous.
[02:22:22] And he wore the origin jogger pants and the matching origin.
[02:22:26] He sweatshirt or hoodie.
[02:22:28] And he rolled out like that like it was like it was the deal.
[02:22:31] And then he looked, he was straight up leisure suit.
[02:22:34] Is what he was rolling.
[02:22:35] He was not playing around.
[02:22:37] And then when I came in, I thought people would be like, oh, you know, you
[02:22:41] don't match in that cause I'm not used to wearing.
[02:22:43] But Pete said that I looked good in it.
[02:22:46] And then my wife said I looked good in it.
[02:22:48] Oh, that one I think credit for.
[02:22:49] But what I did for.
[02:22:50] So you grab Pete made it.
[02:22:52] Of course, yeah.
[02:22:52] Oh, yeah.
[02:22:53] I don't know.
[02:22:54] But it was a moment of honesty because he mentioned either you.
[02:22:57] I don't, I think it was you or someone he was like, I don't think just
[02:23:01] Jockel could pull it off.
[02:23:02] Yes.
[02:23:03] He's right.
[02:23:04] No, might have been someone else.
[02:23:05] I don't think it's talking about you.
[02:23:06] He's right.
[02:23:07] Either way.
[02:23:08] John, there's a one to pull off.
[02:23:09] But whatever.
[02:23:10] Close design for robots.
[02:23:11] No.
[02:23:12] No, not happening.
[02:23:13] No, I'm maybe I'm not securing my manhead.
[02:23:18] No, I just got for it.
[02:23:19] That girl's close.
[02:23:20] I'm not really not.
[02:23:23] Nonetheless, functionally that is what I noticed right when I put them on though.
[02:23:26] Like when you roll out, you know how like if you have and not that it's even a big deal.
[02:23:30] Even me talking about it.
[02:23:31] Because you have a lot of things.
[02:23:32] Ecosys, things like you know how it is when something happens.
[02:23:36] But actually, I have no idea what you were in skinny jeans.
[02:23:39] Like I actually have a lot of that no idea what you're talking about.
[02:23:42] But I roll with it because we're trying to condense the timeline of the support speed
[02:23:47] speaking, which is hard.
[02:23:48] In the spirit of accuracy, I'm going to go down this whole, you know when you wear heavy
[02:23:53] everyone sweatpants every in your life.
[02:23:55] Not really.
[02:23:56] Really kind of sweatpants.
[02:23:57] Okay Rob Jones.
[02:23:58] I have orange, pre-endria.
[02:23:59] Yeah.
[02:24:00] So consider this when you let's say like, I don't know you're running or walking
[02:24:03] or whatever.
[02:24:04] Like the sweatpants are you lose they flow.
[02:24:06] It's not a big deal.
[02:24:07] I dig it.
[02:24:08] I understand.
[02:24:09] But skinny jeans sweatpants.
[02:24:12] Jawers.
[02:24:13] I wish I could say skinny jeans.
[02:24:14] You need to get this off my podcast.
[02:24:16] Now.
[02:24:17] You're a jet.
[02:24:18] They function because they don't flap around.
[02:24:21] They're like, if you're running with them, they work.
[02:24:24] I'm just running shorts.
[02:24:26] Right.
[02:24:27] For that very risk.
[02:24:28] I don't care if it's three feet as snow.
[02:24:29] I just running shorts.
[02:24:30] You're pretty good to go.
[02:24:32] You're pretty good to go.
[02:24:34] Don't knock it till you try it.
[02:24:35] Also, Jocquest and Supplements.
[02:24:38] I don't know if you knew this drop Jones.
[02:24:40] But super-crile.
[02:24:41] Available now.
[02:24:43] Available.
[02:24:44] Boom.
[02:24:45] Orgene.com.
[02:24:46] Orgene.
[02:24:47] Labs.
[02:24:48] It says labs on the top of the menu.
[02:24:52] What do you call it?
[02:24:53] The top menu on the website.
[02:24:54] Labs.
[02:24:55] Super-crile.
[02:24:56] Joint warfare.
[02:24:57] Yes.
[02:24:59] That's a big one.
[02:25:00] I mean, we know Crile is like the base.
[02:25:01] Yeah.
[02:25:02] The joint warfare?
[02:25:03] Yeah.
[02:25:04] So good.
[02:25:05] And the significance well, layers.
[02:25:06] If you will, I think, you know, maybe that's a stretch with layers.
[02:25:09] But this is the stuff that you've been taking from.
[02:25:12] Yes.
[02:25:13] Jump.
[02:25:14] Yes.
[02:25:15] Bonus.
[02:25:17] Bonus stuff.
[02:25:18] Bonus stuff that I now can take in one shot.
[02:25:21] So like when you're even before this podcast and stuff, you're like taking glucose.
[02:25:25] I mean, and Crile oil and all this stuff, you're like, you know, it would be make this
[02:25:28] even better.
[02:25:29] It's like, you know, this is those little elements for whatever.
[02:25:33] And one day, you know, I'm going to make my own boom.
[02:25:36] It happened.
[02:25:37] It happened.
[02:25:38] Yeah.
[02:25:39] So we're in it.
[02:25:40] Joint warfare.
[02:25:41] That's a good one.
[02:25:42] Super-crile.
[02:25:43] It has a added thing, right?
[02:25:44] And the Crile.
[02:25:45] It's oil and it's super-crile.
[02:25:47] Yeah.
[02:25:48] Oh, that's it.
[02:25:49] Super-crile.
[02:25:50] Okay.
[02:25:51] What else are you going to add?
[02:25:52] It's already super.
[02:25:54] Duper?
[02:25:55] We could add Duper.
[02:25:57] Yeah.
[02:25:58] That'll be super-duper-crile.
[02:25:59] So now he's going to take the market from us.
[02:26:02] Rob Jones, super-duper-crile oil.
[02:26:04] Just patting it.
[02:26:05] Well, he does make things have a good website.
[02:26:09] That's what our handle.
[02:26:10] You have a domain.
[02:26:11] True.
[02:26:12] But yeah, so basically everything you need for the joint situation, your covered.
[02:26:17] And then what about that pre-work?
[02:26:19] Pre-mission.
[02:26:20] Pre-mission.
[02:26:21] Pre-mission.
[02:26:22] It's coming.
[02:26:23] Pre-work out.
[02:26:24] It's coming.
[02:26:25] Not available yet.
[02:26:26] Pre-mission.
[02:26:27] Well, we'll be coming.
[02:26:28] Yeah.
[02:26:29] It's going to talk about that one.
[02:26:30] We're talking about it.
[02:26:31] We are.
[02:26:32] It is in the testing phase and has been being tested and legit.
[02:26:38] All right.
[02:26:39] So far so good.
[02:26:40] Boom.
[02:26:41] Okay.
[02:26:42] Okay.
[02:26:43] Also on it.
[02:26:45] Dot com slash juggle.
[02:26:47] Okay.
[02:26:48] So I get all my kettlebells from on it.
[02:26:50] I got into kettlebells after this podcast kind of started and you know, on it has
[02:26:55] awesome stuff.
[02:26:58] Specifically the kettlebells because they're the designer ones.
[02:27:00] You've seen that kind of thing.
[02:27:01] Yeah.
[02:27:02] Yeah.
[02:27:03] So I get the whole set.
[02:27:04] Well, I don't have the whole set technically.
[02:27:06] I have the weight that I think I'm going to be able to use.
[02:27:08] What's your heaviest one?
[02:27:09] I don't know 40 kilograms.
[02:27:11] What was that?
[02:27:13] 80.
[02:27:14] 80.
[02:27:15] 80 pounds.
[02:27:16] That's cool, man.
[02:27:18] Cool story.
[02:27:19] I got the 90 pound one.
[02:27:20] So whatever.
[02:27:21] So basically all 88 pounds that you have.
[02:27:23] I have that plus more.
[02:27:24] Two more.
[02:27:25] So no big deal.
[02:27:26] Stand by.
[02:27:27] One more.
[02:27:28] There you go.
[02:27:29] Good.
[02:27:30] And what you are skinny jeans.
[02:27:32] Joggers.
[02:27:34] Contemporary joggers from time to time.
[02:27:36] That's exactly four pounds.
[02:27:37] You're actually kettlebell.
[02:27:40] It's functional.
[02:27:41] It adds it by the way.
[02:27:43] Got the grill ones a few weeks ago.
[02:27:46] The 90 pound one is the big foot.
[02:27:49] Just for informational purpose.
[02:27:52] They're ever going to make a hundred pound jokko head.
[02:27:54] They said that, right?
[02:27:56] People have been saying that.
[02:27:57] There's been some requests.
[02:27:58] I don't know if anyone would actually want that.
[02:28:01] Yeah.
[02:28:02] I saw, I saw, I saw, I saw, I sent me a tool.
[02:28:04] It was a 250, 200 something pound kettlebell.
[02:28:08] Dang.
[02:28:09] I don't even know what I mean.
[02:28:11] Yeah, I guess.
[02:28:13] Right?
[02:28:14] Goals.
[02:28:15] There's like, you know, some people are just mutants strong.
[02:28:17] Yeah.
[02:28:18] One of my team guy buddies just mutants strong.
[02:28:20] I ain't trying to get through great dude.
[02:28:22] But he got the beast.
[02:28:25] I don't know who makes it.
[02:28:26] But there's a kettlebell called the beast.
[02:28:28] I think it's like 102 pounds or something.
[02:28:31] Yeah.
[02:28:35] But there was like this little test taming the beast.
[02:28:38] And he got the kettlebell out of the box.
[02:28:41] Did the test pass it.
[02:28:43] I was like, I mean, things that I couldn't do at all.
[02:28:45] Yeah.
[02:28:46] I was like, okay.
[02:28:47] Yeah.
[02:28:48] Actually, it's cool.
[02:28:49] That's like one of those exercises that you if you learn that the form,
[02:28:53] it's like the added element because you got to learn the form.
[02:28:56] Yeah.
[02:28:57] Then the strength.
[02:28:58] And the learning the form is good for you because you're developing.
[02:29:00] You're developing a neuro.
[02:29:04] Right.
[02:29:05] Muscular connections.
[02:29:06] Yes.
[02:29:07] Boom.
[02:29:08] Thank you.
[02:29:09] It was lost for words and you've had me cover and move.
[02:29:12] Oh, my God.
[02:29:13] But yeah.
[02:29:14] So you know, it's basically you have to learn to balance something that's not balance.
[02:29:17] Yeah.
[02:29:18] It's good.
[02:29:19] Like that bad I lifted in main.
[02:29:20] This guy said, he's good.
[02:29:22] 200 pounds by the way.
[02:29:24] No worries.
[02:29:25] You know, it's super hard to feel the first time.
[02:29:27] Also, they got what jump ropes.
[02:29:29] But jump ropes, maces.
[02:29:31] You know, if your workout gets boring,
[02:29:33] and jogger doesn't have that problem, we know.
[02:29:35] We know because you just want to carry it away and all this stuff.
[02:29:37] But some people, they get bored, you know, with a workout,
[02:29:39] you get all this cool stuff.
[02:29:41] Anyway, on it dot com slash chocolate, so good on also.
[02:29:46] When you buy these, actually, I'm going to put a link to your journal.
[02:29:49] If you don't mind.
[02:29:50] Yeah.
[02:29:51] On the other side.
[02:29:52] Yeah.
[02:29:53] It's nothing to buy.
[02:29:53] It's free.
[02:29:54] Yeah.
[02:29:55] But if you, you go in there, I'll put in the book section.
[02:29:57] And that'd be awesome.
[02:29:58] If you're having this good.
[02:30:00] And if you, if people want to get some of the other books that
[02:30:04] juggle talks about, you go to our website,
[02:30:07] jocabodcast.com.
[02:30:09] Books from podcasts.
[02:30:10] That's on the top menu.
[02:30:11] And then you click through there to get your books.
[02:30:13] Takes it Amazon.
[02:30:14] Boom, click through there.
[02:30:15] Or if you do any other shopping.
[02:30:17] Boom, click through.
[02:30:18] That's good way to support.
[02:30:19] Smart action.
[02:30:19] Big reaction.
[02:30:21] It is a legit way to support.
[02:30:24] For sure.
[02:30:25] It is.
[02:30:26] I've got to ask that two times now.
[02:30:27] Yeah.
[02:30:28] Once in Maine.
[02:30:29] And I think I was at an event the other day.
[02:30:33] And someone asked me.
[02:30:35] Does it really help?
[02:30:36] There was like, yes it is.
[02:30:38] It's, it's exactly what Echo says it is.
[02:30:41] Yeah.
[02:30:42] Small action.
[02:30:43] It takes what?
[02:30:44] Like three extra seconds.
[02:30:46] Yeah.
[02:30:47] Small action.
[02:30:48] Boom.
[02:30:49] One, two clicks.
[02:30:50] Whatever.
[02:30:51] And you know, big support.
[02:30:52] Big reaction.
[02:30:53] Also, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already.
[02:30:54] And it'll seem just kind of obvious.
[02:30:56] Right.
[02:30:57] I do not subscribe.
[02:30:58] But if you haven't subscribed.
[02:30:59] Or a teacher or Google play.
[02:31:00] Yeah.
[02:31:01] Anything that provides platforms to subscribe.
[02:31:03] Good way to support.
[02:31:04] Easy.
[02:31:05] You know, boom.
[02:31:06] Also, YouTube channel.
[02:31:07] We have YouTube channel.
[02:31:08] I put it.
[02:31:09] What's the last video I put on there?
[02:31:11] The book video.
[02:31:13] Oh yeah.
[02:31:14] This is a little freedom.
[02:31:16] Feel manual.
[02:31:17] Video.
[02:31:18] Awesome job on that by the way.
[02:31:19] Well, thank you.
[02:31:20] Pretty good video.
[02:31:21] I don't know.
[02:31:22] I thought it was pretty good too.
[02:31:23] Yeah.
[02:31:24] I felt jock with it all the work.
[02:31:25] Really lifting.
[02:31:26] That was a hard night too.
[02:31:27] I mean, you're lifting after like a whole day.
[02:31:30] I was like, bro.
[02:31:31] Yeah.
[02:31:32] That was like a long day.
[02:31:33] You're a long day.
[02:31:34] You know, he's the kind where I'm like, okay, just need like the shots.
[02:31:38] You know, because we're doing it for like other stuff.
[02:31:39] And I'm going to grab the stills and whatever.
[02:31:42] And I was like, I just need the shots.
[02:31:43] What I'll do is I'll make it here.
[02:31:45] So you don't have to put on all that weight.
[02:31:46] And he's like, no, I'll feel like I'm put the weight.
[02:31:49] I was like, right, you're the man.
[02:31:50] I just say he's like, I think I was just shooting a video.
[02:31:53] Doing lifting weights.
[02:31:54] And they're like, yeah, we're just going to do it with no way.
[02:31:56] I'm like, no, but the video that I want the weight that I want to be on there is 135 pounds.
[02:32:02] I want that to be on video.
[02:32:03] I don't want no weight to be on video.
[02:32:05] Yeah.
[02:32:06] He even went one further is that there was a few shots that I was getting that didn't show how much weight.
[02:32:11] It just showed that front of the, you know, it was like an angle.
[02:32:13] You could kind of see part of the way.
[02:32:15] Kind of he's like, no.
[02:32:16] He's like he wouldn't allow him.
[02:32:17] Well, I actually said, you know, I took the Rob Jones approach.
[02:32:21] I was like, okay, I got to move some weight around.
[02:32:23] I'm going to use the opportunity to make myself better.
[02:32:26] I got to work out.
[02:32:27] I was getting after it.
[02:32:28] He's a method after that.
[02:32:29] Yeah.
[02:32:30] He's actually right.
[02:32:31] Yeah.
[02:32:32] Hey, worked out for him.
[02:32:33] And I dig it.
[02:32:34] But yeah, the last back to YouTube boom.
[02:32:36] We put some videos on there.
[02:32:38] Including not limited to the video version of this podcast.
[02:32:42] Also additional videos, excerpts.
[02:32:45] You know, in various other videos, deleted scenes, if you will.
[02:32:48] A lot of times we talk rubbish before we actually.
[02:32:51] We include, you know, or we don't include in the podcast.
[02:32:56] So sometimes we'll cut that up and put it on there.
[02:32:59] To add it entertainment, you know, hear Jockel swear a lot.
[02:33:01] You know, he doesn't swear that much on on on the record.
[02:33:05] But, you know, he gets after it from time to time.
[02:33:09] Also, I'm hanging out with like one of my brothers.
[02:33:13] Yeah, he's you know.
[02:33:15] Well, yeah.
[02:33:16] Yeah.
[02:33:17] You don't f in just f in getting nuts.
[02:33:18] We f in squats in your f in thing.
[02:33:20] He was like, yeah, he like overdid it.
[02:33:23] None the last.
[02:33:25] Yeah, YouTube.
[02:33:26] That's a good one.
[02:33:27] Also, Jockel has a store.
[02:33:29] If you didn't already know, guess what is called?
[02:33:32] I want to go on a limb.
[02:33:33] Say Jockel store.
[02:33:34] Jockel store.
[02:33:35] That Jockel store dot com.
[02:33:36] We got some t-shirts on there.
[02:33:38] They're cool.
[02:33:39] They're cool.
[02:33:39] Little, you know, some layers on those t-shirts.
[02:33:41] Layers meaning not physical layers.
[02:33:43] We call poetic layers.
[02:33:46] poetic.
[02:33:47] On poetic.
[02:33:48] On poetic.
[02:33:49] Yeah, it's reaching a lot.
[02:33:51] Thanks.
[02:33:52] Good.
[02:33:53] It's pretty poetic.
[02:33:54] Get it right into that.
[02:33:55] That's a son of the.
[02:33:57] Little memory.
[02:33:58] I love that one myself.
[02:33:59] You know what the layers are with that though, right?
[02:34:01] If you look at the good shirt, it has Jockel's head.
[02:34:03] Yeah.
[02:34:04] That's good, right?
[02:34:05] But the good is backwards.
[02:34:06] And here's the thing.
[02:34:07] That's why when people try to counterfeit that one,
[02:34:09] they don't get the layers.
[02:34:10] They just see Jockel's head.
[02:34:11] Oh, literal.
[02:34:12] That's a marketing thing or whatever.
[02:34:14] Yeah.
[02:34:15] And let's sell that, but they don't get it.
[02:34:16] They don't know the layers.
[02:34:17] So the good is backwards and backwards for a reason.
[02:34:18] They can rate it in the mirror.
[02:34:20] Because who are you saying that when you hear that,
[02:34:22] who are you saying that to?
[02:34:23] You're not saying, you know, to your poor daughter who's crying,
[02:34:26] because she's skimmed her knee, you know,
[02:34:28] to a good.
[02:34:29] She's like, oh, she cries more.
[02:34:30] That's not her man.
[02:34:31] Yeah.
[02:34:32] It's not your message to give somebody else.
[02:34:33] Your message to give to you.
[02:34:34] Well, I'm letting your daughter cry in the first place.
[02:34:36] Well, she's, you know, sensitive.
[02:34:38] I'm cultivating her sensitive side.
[02:34:40] That's all.
[02:34:41] You're not wearing any t-shirt for your self to look down like that.
[02:34:45] We're in it. So other people can rate it.
[02:34:48] You can rate it in a typical case, but not these t-shirts.
[02:34:51] That t-shirt is for you.
[02:34:53] Oh, great.
[02:34:54] For you with the message with Jocquist face.
[02:34:56] Apparently that's for you too.
[02:34:58] Not for everybody, but this is for you.
[02:35:00] Nonetheless, that's just an example of the layers.
[02:35:03] On the shirt.
[02:35:04] Jocquistork.com.
[02:35:05] There's also some hoodies on there.
[02:35:06] Some travel modes.
[02:35:07] Bumper stickers.
[02:35:09] The Jocquist 2016 took it off.
[02:35:12] Yeah, we lost that election.
[02:35:15] Yeah, you did.
[02:35:16] I probably got like 27 votes.
[02:35:17] Yeah.
[02:35:18] I got some legit votes.
[02:35:19] People posted them on Twitter.
[02:35:20] So people broke me in straight up.
[02:35:22] They wrote me in.
[02:35:23] I did.
[02:35:24] You know what?
[02:35:25] I don't want Hillary Clinton.
[02:35:27] I don't want Donald Trump.
[02:35:29] Oh, John Juan.
[02:35:30] Yeah.
[02:35:31] I think it might have been a good choice, actually.
[02:35:33] I think I think it might have been a good choice.
[02:35:35] Yeah, someone actually told me that I should run for vice president.
[02:35:38] That wouldn't have been a good choice.
[02:35:40] Yeah.
[02:35:41] I don't know if you would have got my vote.
[02:35:43] No, no, no.
[02:35:44] I wouldn't have got my vote.
[02:35:47] Nonetheless, there's some cool stuff on Jocquistork.
[02:35:50] That's the point.
[02:35:52] You know, I'm not saying go buy some stuff.
[02:35:54] I'm saying go on there.
[02:35:55] See what's on there.
[02:35:57] And if you like something, get something.
[02:36:00] Good way to support.
[02:36:01] Also, there's a little thing called psychological warfare.
[02:36:04] You ever do it?
[02:36:05] Yeah, I have.
[02:36:06] It's pretty dope.
[02:36:07] I'll tell you what.
[02:36:08] Today, okay, so I don't have to let you know that it's an album with tracks.
[02:36:13] Jocquist tracks.
[02:36:14] So basically, if you don't already know Rob Jones, no, it's Jocquist.
[02:36:18] I know obviously.
[02:36:20] Let's say you're on your campaign against weakness.
[02:36:26] That's the official going turn campaign against weakness.
[02:36:29] Right.
[02:36:30] And I'm going to be disciplined in all these areas on my life.
[02:36:33] Waking up early, diet.
[02:36:34] I'm going to work out, you know, however many times a day.
[02:36:37] Study, study, get smarter, work harder.
[02:36:40] Yeah, just normal stuff.
[02:36:41] Yeah, normal getting after you can't be campaign.
[02:36:45] Yeah.
[02:36:46] And you have a moment of weakness like Jocquist with the mint chocolate chip.
[02:36:51] Thanks, cream.
[02:36:53] Avoid that.
[02:36:54] Jocquist didn't listen to his own album with tracks.
[02:36:57] Jocquist tracks.
[02:36:58] I was like a logic warfare.
[02:36:59] What you do is, in time you come across these moments of weakness.
[02:37:03] Listen, put a track, put a track in.
[02:37:05] Like if you're having hard time waking up, you want to hit this news, whatever boom.
[02:37:08] Wake up, get up, wake up, wake up.
[02:37:10] Wake up and get after it.
[02:37:11] That's the track name.
[02:37:12] Help you right through that weakness.
[02:37:14] Smash the weakness, actually.
[02:37:16] Yeah, psychological warfare, Jocquist, Lillink.
[02:37:19] MP3, iTunes.
[02:37:21] Wherever, MP3s are being distributed.
[02:37:23] That's where you can get them.
[02:37:25] Uh, you can also on Amazon.
[02:37:28] You can get something called Jocquist.
[02:37:31] Rob Jones had his first Jocquist.
[02:37:33] The list is not only the list, but I've noticed you've been very attentive.
[02:37:38] Your words are crisp and clear.
[02:37:41] I mean, you feel the power, right?
[02:37:43] Yeah.
[02:37:44] Look at him.
[02:37:45] It totally encroached.
[02:37:46] Get him.
[02:37:47] He's ready to rock and roll.
[02:37:49] To nasty.
[02:37:50] Yep.
[02:37:51] My, uh, mental capacity increased at least tenfold.
[02:37:54] Yeah.
[02:37:55] If not more.
[02:37:56] So there you go.
[02:37:57] Jocquist, you can get that on Amazon.
[02:37:59] It takes legit though.
[02:38:01] How good is it taste?
[02:38:02] Oh, it's really good.
[02:38:03] Yeah, it's, it's, and it doesn't, it doesn't really taste like tea.
[02:38:06] Right?
[02:38:07] It's like kind of taste like tea.
[02:38:09] Does he have any sugar in it?
[02:38:11] No.
[02:38:12] You tell me, Jocquist, he doesn't have any sugar and taste like good.
[02:38:15] And it tastes that good.
[02:38:16] What is it taste like?
[02:38:17] It tastes like victory.
[02:38:20] Uh, then we got some books on Amazon and wherever you want to buy books.
[02:38:24] Extreme ownership, combat lesson, combat leadership lessons learned.
[02:38:28] And how you can apply those to business and life.
[02:38:31] Way of the warrior kid.
[02:38:35] Yeah.
[02:38:36] Way of the warrior kid.
[02:38:37] That's what you need to get for every kid, you know.
[02:38:40] It is so helpful for kids.
[02:38:42] I wish I had that book when I was nine years old.
[02:38:46] Ten years old, eleven years old.
[02:38:48] It.
[02:38:49] So helpful.
[02:38:50] And I'm getting such great feedback.
[02:38:52] So buy that for the kids, you know.
[02:38:55] For sure.
[02:38:57] Coming up soon.
[02:38:59] The discipline equals freedom field manual.
[02:39:05] That's right.
[02:39:06] It is a field manual.
[02:39:08] How to implement and execute operation discipline into your life.
[02:39:14] Follow the field manual.
[02:39:16] You can get it from your local bookstore.
[02:39:19] You can get it from Barnes and Noble.
[02:39:21] You can get it from Amazon.
[02:39:22] Let them all know what's up.
[02:39:25] Also, echelon front leadership consulting for your business or team.
[02:39:33] That's what we do.
[02:39:35] You can email us at info at echelonfront.com.
[02:39:40] And in the meantime, if you need us or you just want to check in, we are rolling kind of deep on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram.
[02:39:54] And a face sheep.
[02:39:57] Hockey.
[02:40:00] Rob Jones is at Rob Jones journey.
[02:40:05] At Rob Jones journey.
[02:40:07] He's going to be documenting all this.
[02:40:10] Awesome.
[02:40:11] Slash could be stupid, but could be mostly awesome stuff that he's doing.
[02:40:16] And we like to watch people be crazy stuff.
[02:40:18] So we're going to watch you do that.
[02:40:21] And I'll post a picture and usually I like to put a little snippet of wisdom in there.
[02:40:25] There's a little paragraph.
[02:40:26] People to read.
[02:40:27] Nice.
[02:40:28] So the New York Times.
[02:40:29] Yeah, don't do that.
[02:40:31] Just go straight to the Rob Jones snippet of wisdom.
[02:40:34] I like the example.
[02:40:36] You see, you want to be the example.
[02:40:38] Because some people, they say, I just want to be the example.
[02:40:40] They don't explain it.
[02:40:41] You just explained it actually in a way that was kind of revealing to me where it makes sense.
[02:40:45] You're like, hey, I'm going to, and this goes for everything, by the way.
[02:40:48] I want to do a special effects sometimes.
[02:40:51] Yeah.
[02:40:52] I want to do this, but man, that's like some high enough.
[02:40:54] I can't do it on this.
[02:40:55] And then, but then, let's say, look it up on YouTube.
[02:40:58] And be like, oh, wait, look, he did it right here.
[02:41:00] And then, you know, sometimes it's a showhouse sometimes.
[02:41:02] They don't.
[02:41:03] But like, how you said, like, if you don't think, like, if you think, oh, yeah, that kind of can't be done.
[02:41:09] Yeah.
[02:41:10] Like, for so many of my position or whatever, you know.
[02:41:12] But then you see some of the way he's doing it.
[02:41:14] And then you're doing it where it's like, you're doing even more.
[02:41:16] So it's like, oh, you're kind of reaching more people in that way.
[02:41:19] Because still, if you're doing these crazy things, maybe one, maybe two other people.
[02:41:23] Like, yeah, I can do that too.
[02:41:25] But most people will be like, all right, I can do that.
[02:41:27] Easy stuff.
[02:41:28] But I can do all this other stuff.
[02:41:29] You know what I mean?
[02:41:30] Other stuff that they didn't think they could do before.
[02:41:32] That's the word.
[02:41:33] That's the word.
[02:41:34] Crazy.
[02:41:35] That's stupid.
[02:41:36] The stuff you're doing is awesome.
[02:41:37] Yeah.
[02:41:37] It's crazy.
[02:41:38] You've got to be crazy to do it.
[02:41:40] So yeah, Rob Jones journey.
[02:41:43] And that includes Rob Jones journey.com as well, which in that from there, you can get to the donation
[02:41:50] page for when you're starting all this all this 31 marifons in 31 days.
[02:41:58] Most people run a marathon and I think I've read it takes like six months to actually recover from
[02:42:04] a marathon.
[02:42:05] Yeah, I guess it depends on your level of preparedness.
[02:42:08] Yeah.
[02:42:09] Trying to do it in about six hours.
[02:42:11] That is awesome.
[02:42:15] Echo is at Echo Charles in I am at Jocca willing.
[02:42:19] Echo, you got anything else for today.
[02:42:21] Thank you for coming on Rob Jones.
[02:42:25] Rob, any closing thoughts from you?
[02:42:28] I just want to start by pointing out that I think every guest you've ever had on this podcast
[02:42:35] is somebody that I consider to be a hero.
[02:42:39] And I don't throw that around their patriots and they are heroes.
[02:42:44] And it is humbling for me to be included for you to have me on the podcast is vastly humbling
[02:42:52] for me to be included among the people that you deem worthy of being on the podcast.
[02:42:58] So I just want to thank both of you for having me and giving me this opportunity.
[02:43:04] I just hope that some of the stuff that I said can resonate with with some of the listeners.
[02:43:10] And beyond that, I've been a lot of stuff.
[02:43:15] But nobody does that by themselves.
[02:43:20] I have had so many people that have helped me.
[02:43:23] Therapist, prosthesis, coaches, mentors, and family, friends.
[02:43:31] And then especially Pam.
[02:43:34] I mean, I told you before she's doing everything.
[02:43:39] She was instrumental in getting this podcast done getting me on as a guest here.
[02:43:44] Took it upon herself to tweet you.
[02:43:49] She's calling press.
[02:43:50] She's helping me get venue.
[02:43:52] She's been incredible.
[02:43:54] And she's my number one supporter.
[02:43:57] And you know, too good for me.
[02:44:01] Hopefully she doesn't listen to that.
[02:44:03] Hopefully she'll still continue to be diluted.
[02:44:07] But yeah, I mean, I'm at the top of the pyramid.
[02:44:13] Like I get all the kind of the notoriety and the congratulations for doing the stuff that I've done.
[02:44:19] But without the base of the pyramid, the pyramid is shit.
[02:44:22] I'm just blocking that ground. So without all these people, I mean, I wouldn't have accomplished it.
[02:44:29] I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have tried, but I wouldn't be where I am.
[02:44:33] I wouldn't be on the podcast.
[02:44:34] I wouldn't have actually done anything.
[02:44:37] Well, you know, for everyone that's come on and sit here and have you, you know, that to have you and the people that have come on this podcast and have you sitting across the table from me and be able to spend time with you yesterday and hang out with you.
[02:44:51] I am rewarded a thousand fold a thousand fold from you to me.
[02:45:00] That's where the reward comes.
[02:45:02] And it's an honor a thousand fold for you to be here and be sitting here talking to me.
[02:45:08] And I thank you for coming on.
[02:45:12] I thank you for your service.
[02:45:15] I thank you for your sacrifice.
[02:45:20] I thank you for the example that you're setting, which is awesome.
[02:45:25] And showing everyone what it really means to, to persevere.
[02:45:35] And to not only, not only overcome challenges, but you are embracing those challenges and turning the harshest of challenges in
[02:45:50] to something positive and something good.
[02:45:57] And that is what I'm thanking you for for explaining what it really means to adapt and overcome no matter what we face.
[02:46:06] And to everyone out there, that's listening.
[02:46:12] And you're going through hard times or you're facing a rough patch or a challenge or an obstacle in your life.
[02:46:21] Adapt to it.
[02:46:23] Grow from it.
[02:46:25] Overcommit.
[02:46:28] Transcend it.
[02:46:31] And use the weight of that challenge to make you stronger.
[02:46:41] And until next time, this is Rob Jones and Echo and Jocco out.